Whitfield Diffie, a leader in public key cryptography, encryption and network security, has joined the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) as Vice President for Information Security and Cryptography.

ICANN is the non-profit corporation responsible for managing the Internet's domain name system, including Internet Protocol (IP) address space assignments. Public key cryptography is a system for sending secure messages over insecure channels by scrambling information sent between computers. It is used continuously around the world today to secure Internet commerce.

At ICANN, Diffie will provide advice on general security matters related to the corporation's mandate, and on the design, development and implementation of security methods for ICANN's managed networks, said CEO and President Rod Beckstrom.

Diffie brings extensive experience in developing security methods for computer networks. With Stanford Electrical Engineering Professor Emeritus Martin Hellman, Diffie published the 1976 paper "New Directions in Cryptography" that laid the groundwork for solving one of the fundamental problems of cryptography-key distribution, a process to increase security through use of a secret key that is exchanged between parties prior to encryption.

Diffie joined CISAC as a Visiting Scholar in 2009. Previously, he served as Vice President, Fellow, and Chief Security Officer at Sun Microsystems, where he worked from 1991 to 2009. At Sun, Diffie focused on security problems facing modern communications and computing with an emphasis on public policy as well as technology.

Diffie earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1965 and a doctorate in technical sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1992.

Diffie, Hellman and Ralph Merkle, Hellman's former doctoral student, recently were named the 2010 Richard W. Hamming Medalists by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. In 1998, Diffie coauthored the book Privacy on the Line: the Politics of Wiretapping and Encryption.