As encryption debate rages, inventors of public key encryption win prestigious Turing Award

The inventors of public key cryptography have won the 2015 Turing Award, just as a contentious debate kicks off in Washington over how much protection encryption should really provide.

The Association for Computing Machinery announced Tuesday that Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman received the ACM Turing Award for their contributions to cryptography.

The two are credited with the invention of public key cryptography, which is widely used to scramble data so it can be sent securely between users and websites, and to protect information on devices like smartphones and computer hard drives.

“The ability for two parties to communicate privately over a secure channel is fundamental for billions of people around the world,” ACM said in a statement.

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