ACM A.M. Turing Award - Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman

Whitfield Diffe and Martin Hellman received the 2015 ACM A.M. Turing Award for critical contributions to modern cryptography. The ability for two parties to use encryption to communicate privately over an otherwise insecure channel is fundamental for billions of people around the world. On a daily basis, individuals establish secure online connections with banks, e-commerce sites, email servers and the cloud. Diffie and Hellman's groundbreaking 1976 paper, "New Directions in Cryptography," introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are the foundation for most regularly-used security protocols on the Internet today. The Diffie-Hellman Protocol protects daily Internet communications and trillions of dollars in financial transactions.