Quotes from Whitfield Diffie

I was, from early on, interested in science. And my parents were very obliging about that. My father used to take me to the museum of natural history, and I knew much more scientific stuff early on. From the time I was 11 or 12, I wanted to be a mathematician.

People constantly face problems they've never seen before, and they have to solve them somehow. So a million people come up with a million solutions that are just a little bit different. If computing is being done by fewer resources, there will be enormous security gains by pushing things into standard practices.

In a sense, communications networks can be defined entirely by who has cryptographic keys, and I think a lot of networks will work that way in the future.

It's simply unrealistic to depend on secrecy for security in computer software. You may be able to keep the exact workings of the program out of general circulation, but can you prevent the code from being reverse-engineered by serious opponents? Probably not. The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets.

Some people make sharp distinctions sort of between their recreational musings and their professional work. I don't make that distinction very much

One of the things that characterizes good intellectual work is a certain self-importance

Two people can work on a problem better than one

Cloud computing is a challenge to security, but one that can be overcome.

We have experienced an utter explosion in investigative techniques. Walk the streets, look at the cameras! They are now recognising people automatically from photos; we have DNA fingerprinting, infrascan photos that can identify you from the veins in your face.

If you have ambition, you might not achieve anything, but without ambition, you are almost certain not to achieve anything.

I certainly enjoy going on stage and lecturing and talking to Congress. That's a personality explanation. And given government proposals, I thought I had a clear view that they were antagonistic to human freedom.

Without strong encryption, you will be spied on systematically by lots of people.

I really believe in the radical viewpoint. And I have always believed that one's politics and the character of his particular work are inseparable.