Nigel Smart (cryptographer)

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Nigel Smart

| image =

| image_size = 200px

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| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1967|10|22}}

| birth_place = United Kingdom

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| field = Cryptography

| work_institution = Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

| alma_mater = {{Plainlist|

University of Reading (BSc)
University of Kent (PhD)}}

| doctoral_advisor = John Merriman

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| known_for = ECC
Work on the ECDLP problem
Pairing-based cryptography
Efficient Secure multi-party computation
Fully homomorphic encryption

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| website = {{URL|https://nigelsmart.github.io/}}

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Nigel Smart is a professor at COSIC at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Chief Academic Officer at Zama.{{cite web|url=https://www.zama.ai/post/nigel-smart-is-joining-zama-as-chief-academic-officer|title=Nigel Smart is joining Zama}} He is a cryptographer with interests in the theory of cryptography and its application in practice.{{DBLP |name=Nigel P. Smart}}{{Google Scholar id |name=Nigel Smart}}

Education

Smart received a BSc degree in mathematics from the University of Reading in 1989.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} He then obtained his PhD degree{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} from the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1992; his thesis was titled The Computer Solutions of Diophantine Equations.

Career

Smart proceeded to work as a research fellow at the University of Kent, the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Cardiff University until 1995.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}} From 1995 to 1997, he was a lecturer in mathematics at the University of Kent, and then spent three years in industry at Hewlett-Packard from 1997 to 2000. From 2000 to 2017 he was at the University of Bristol, where he founded the cryptology research group. From 2018 he has been based in the COSIC group at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

Smart held a Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award (2008–2013), and two ERC Advanced Grant (2011–2016 and 2016-2021). He was a director of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (2012–2014), and was elected vice president for the period 2014-2016.{{cite web|url=https://www.iacr.org/elections/2013/ |title=IACR Election 2013 - List of Candidates and Propositions |publisher=Iacr.org |date= |accessdate=2015-08-14}} In 2016 he was named as a Fellow of the IACR.{{cite web|url=https://www.iacr.org/fellows/2016/ |title=IACR Fellows 2016}}

Research

Prof. Smart is best known for his work in elliptic curve cryptography, especially work on the ECDLP.S. D. Galbraith and N. P. Smart, A cryptographic application of the Weil descent, Cryptography and Coding, 1999.P. Gaudry, F. Hess, and N. P. Smart, [http://www.hpl.hp.com/techreports/2000/HPL-2000-10.pdf Constructive and destructive facets of Weil descent on elliptic curves] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061206133559/http://hpl.hp.com/techreports/2000/HPL-2000-10.pdf |date=6 December 2006 }}, Hewlett Packard Laboratories Technical Report, 2000.N. Smart, The discrete logarithm problem on elliptic curves of trace one, Journal of Cryptology, Volume 12, 1999. He has also worked on pairing-based cryptography contributing a number of algorithms such as the SK-KEMBarbosa et al., [http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/IBC/submissions/Barbosa-SK-KEM-2006-06.pdf SK-KEM: An Identity-Based KEM] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303220301/http://grouper.ieee.org/groups/1363/IBC/submissions/Barbosa-SK-KEM-2006-06.pdf |date=3 March 2016 }} and the Ate-pairingF. Hess, N. Smart, F. Vercauteren. The Eta-pairing revisited. In IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, Vol. 52(10), p. 4595-4602, 2006.

Smart carries out research on a wide variety of topics in cryptography. He has been instrumental in the effort to make secure multiparty computation practical. A few of his works in this direction include.B. Pinkas, T. Schneider, N. P. Smart and S. C. Williams. Secure two-party computation is practical, ASIACRYPT 2009I. Damgard, V. Pastro, N. P. Smart, and S. Zakarias. Multiparty computation from somewhat homomorphic encryption, CRYPTO 2012.I. Damgard, M. Keller, E. Larraia, C. Miles and N. P. Smart. Implementing AES via an Actively/Covertly Secure Dishonest-Majority MPC Protocol, SCN 2012.

His work with Gentry and Halevi on performing the first large calculation using Fully Homomorphic EncryptionC. Gentry, S. Halevi and N. P. Smart. Homomorphic Evaluation of the AES Circuit CRYPTO 2012. won the IBM Pat Goldberg Best Paper Award for 2012.{{cite web|url=http://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=5434 |title=Pat Goldberg Memorial 2012 Best Papers in CS, EE and Math - IBM |publisher=Researcher.watson.ibm.com |date=2015-03-23 |accessdate=2015-08-14}}

In addition to his three years at HP Laboratories, Smart was a founder of the startup Identum specialising in pairing based cryptography and identity based encryption. This was bought by Trend Micro in 2008.{{cite web |url=http://www.geek.com/news/trend-micro-buys-into-encryption-with-identum-purchase-573095/ |title=Trend Micro buys into encryption with Identum purchase | News |publisher=Geek.com |date=2008-02-27 |accessdate=2015-08-14 |archive-date=31 October 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131031101619/http://www.geek.com/news/trend-micro-buys-into-encryption-with-identum-purchase-573095/ |url-status=dead }} In 2013 he formed, with Yehuda Lindell, Unbound Security (formally called Dyadic Security), a company focusing on deploying distributed cryptographic solutions based on multi-party computations. Unbound Security was bought by Coinbase in 2021.{{cite web |url=https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3923738,00.html |title=Crypto giant Coinbase acquiring Israel's Unbound Security | date=2012-11-30| accessdate=2021-12-01}} He is also the co-founder, along with Kenny Paterson, of the Real World Crypto conference series.{{cite web|url=https://rwc.iacr.org/ |title=Real World Crypto Symposium |date=2018-01-01 |accessdate=2018-01-18}}