Roger Needham

Roger Michael Needham CBE FRS FREng (9 February 1935 – 1 March 2003)[3] was a British computer scientist.[4][5][6]

Roger Needham

CBE FRS FREng
Roger Needham in 1999
Born(1935-02-09)9 February 1935
Sheffield, England, UK
Died1 March 2003(2003-03-01) (aged 68)
Willingham, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
NationalityBritish
EducationDoncaster Grammar School for Boys
Alma materUniversity of Cambridge (BA, PhD)
Known forNeedham–Schroeder protocol
BAN logic
Tiny Encryption Algorithm
XTEA
Spouse
​
(m. 1958)​
AwardsFaraday Medal (1998)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
Microsoft
ThesisThe application of digital computers to problems of classification and grouping (1962)
Doctoral advisorDavid Wheeler[1]
Doctoral students
Websitewww.cl.cam.ac.uk/archive/ksj21/RogerNeedham.html

Early life and education

Needham was born in Birmingham, England, the only child of Phyllis Mary, née Baker (c.1904–1976) and Leonard William Needham (c.1905–1973), a university chemistry lecturer.[7] He attended Doncaster Grammar School for Boys in Doncaster (then in the West Riding) going on to St John's College, Cambridge in 1953, and graduating with a BA in 1956 in mathematics and philosophy.[7] His PhD thesis was on applications of digital computers to the automatic classification and retrieval of documents. He worked on a variety of key computing projects in security, operating systems, computer architecture (capability systems) and local area networks.[1][8]

Career and research

Among his theoretical contributions is the development of the Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic for authentication, generally known as the BAN logic. His Needham–Schroeder (co-invented with Michael Schroeder) security protocol forms the basis of the Kerberos authentication and key exchange system. He also co-designed the TEA and XTEA encryption algorithms. He pioneered the technique of protecting passwords using a one-way hash function.[9][10]

In 1962 he joined the University of Cambridge's Computer Laboratory, then called the Mathematical Laboratory, becoming Head of Laboratory in 1980. He was made a professor in 1981 and remained with the laboratory until his retirement in 1995. In 1997 he set up Microsoft's UK-based Research Laboratory. He was a founding Fellow of University College, Cambridge, which became Wolfson College.

Needham was a longtime and respected member of the International Association for Cryptologic Research, the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Security and Privacy and the University Grants Committee. He was made a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 1994.[11]

Awards and honours

Needham was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1985, and a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 1993. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his contributions to computing in 2001. Needham held honorary doctorate degrees from University of Twente, Loughborough University,[12] and University of Kent.

Named in Needhams honour

Needham has several awards named after him in his honour. The British Computer Society established an annual Roger Needham Award in 2004.[13]

The European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys)[14] established the annual Roger Needham PhD award.[15] It awards €2,000 to a PhD student from a European university whose thesis is regarded to be an exceptional, innovative contribution to knowledge in the computer systems area. Past winners have been:

  • 2021 Victor van de Veen, (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
  • 2020 Michael Schwarz, Graz University of Technology for his PhD thesis Software-based Side-Channel Attacks and Defenses in Restricted Environments
  • 2019 Manolis Karpathiotakis, EPFL
  • 2018 Dennis Andriesse (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for his PhD thesis Analyzing and Securing Binaries Through Static Disassembly[16]
  • 2015 Cristiano Giuffrida (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for his PhD thesis Safe and Automatic Live Update[17]
  • 2014 Torvald Riegel (Technische Universitaet Dresden), for his thesis Software Transactional Memory Building Blocks[18]
  • 2013 Asia Slowinska (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for her PhD thesis Using Information Flow Tracking to Protect Legacy Binaries[19]
  • 2012 Derek Murray, for his thesis A Distributed Execution Engine Supporting Data-Dependent Control Flow[20]
  • 2011 Jorrit Herder for Building a Dependable Operating System: Fault Tolerance in MINIX 3[21]
  • 2010 Willem de Bruijn (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) for Adaptive Operating System Design for High Throughput I/O[22]
  • 2009 Jacob Gorm Hansen (DIKU) for Virtual Machine Mobility with Self-Migration[23]
  • 2008 Adam Dunkels (SICS) for Programming Memory-Constrained Networked Embedded Systems[24]
  • 2007 Nick Cook (Newcastle University) for Middleware Support for Non-repudiable Business-to-Business Interactions[25]
  • 2006 Oliver Heckmann (TU Darmstadt) for A System-oriented Approach to Efficiency and Quality of Service for Internet Service Providers[26]

Personal life

Needham married fellow computer scientist Karen Spärck Jones in 1958. He died of cancer in March 2003 at his home in Willingham, Cambridgeshire.[27]

References
  1. Roger Needham at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. Anderson, Ross John (2014). Robust Computer Security. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 556718921. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.338198. Archived from the original on 24 February 2022. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  3. Hoare, T.; Wilkes, M. V. (2004). "Roger Michael Needham CBE FREng. 9 February 1935 – 1 March 2003: Elected F.R.S. 1985". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 50: 183–199. doi:10.1098/rsbm.2004.0014. S2CID 58340004.
  4. "Obituary: Roger Needham". The Register. 2003. Archived from the original on 17 May 2008. Retrieved 11 September 2017.
  5. Lohr, Steve (2003). "Roger Needham, Computer Security Expert, Dies at 68". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 6 November 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  6. Roger Needham at DBLP Bibliography Server
  7. Herbert, Andrew James, "Needham, Roger Michael (1935–2003)" Archived 27 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, March 2009; online edition, January 2007. Retrieved 27 August 2018 (subscription required)
  8. Needham, Roger Michael (1962). The application of digital computers to problems of classification and grouping. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. OCLC 78234905. Archived from the original on 24 February 2022. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  9. Wilkes, M. V. Time-Sharing Computer Systems. American Elsevier, New York, (1968).
  10. Schofield, Jack (10 March 2003). "Roger Needham: He set up Microsoft's first overseas research body". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 16 December 2016.
  11. "ACM Fellow Roger Needham Dies at 62". Pressroom. ACM. 7 March 2003. Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  12. Speech presenting Needham with an honorary degree Archived 7 March 2003 at the Wayback Machine, Loughborough University, 13 July 2001
  13. Roger Needham Lecture Archived 5 July 2010 at the Wayback Machine at the British Computer Society website
  14. "European Chapter of ACM SIGOPS". eurosys.org. Archived from the original on 8 April 2011. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  15. "phd-award – European Chapter of ACM SIGOPS". eurosys.org. Archived from the original on 19 November 2014. Retrieved 7 December 2019.
  16. Andriesse, Dennis. Analyzing and Securing Binaries Through Static Disassembly (PDF) (PhD). Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Archived (PDF) from the original on 26 April 2018. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  17. "Safe and automatic live update – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam". Dare.ubvu.vu.nl. 10 April 2014. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  18. Technische Universität Dresden – Qucosa. "Qucosa – Technische Universität Dresden: Software Transactional Memory Building Blocks" (in German). Nbn-resolving.de. Archived from the original on 24 February 2022. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  19. "Using information flow tracking to protect legacy binaries – Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam". Dare.ubvu.vu.nl. 30 May 2012. Archived from the original on 13 May 2013. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  20. Murray, Derek Gordon (2012). A distributed execution engine supporting data-dependent control flow (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.610417.
  21. Herder, Jorrit (2011). Building a Dependable Operating System: Fault Tolerance in MINIX 3 (PhD thesis). Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. hdl:1871/16055. OCLC 664802571.
  23. Jacob Gorm Hansen (7 April 2009) [29 June 2007]. "Virtual machine mobility with self-migration" (PDF) (PhD). University of Copenhagen. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 June 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2010.
  24. "Svensk forskning för hållbar tillväxt| RISE" (PDF) (in Swedish). Sics.se. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 August 2010. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  25. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 13 June 2011. Retrieved 24 September 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  26. "master.dvi" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 July 2011. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
  27. Peterson, Kim (6 March 2003). "Microsoft's Needham dies from cancer". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2012.
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