Whitfield Diffie

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

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

“Cloud computing means you are doing your computing on somebody else's computer. Looking ahead a little, I firmly believe cloud - previously called grid computing - will become very widespread. It's much cheaper than buying your own computing infrastructure, or maybe you don't have the power to do what you want on your own computer.”

“People are leaving trails everywhere they go; automated web crawlers tell you an awful lot about their social activities. The flow of information in fundamentally unobtrusive ways into social control organisations has risen dramatically.”

“I thought cryptography was a technique that did not require your trusting other people-that if you encrypted your files, you would have the control to make the choice as to whether you would surrender your files.”

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

“The decisions we make about communication security today will determine the kind of society we live in tomorrow.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I guess, in a very real sense, I'm a Gnostic. I had been looking all my life for some great mystery... I think somewhere deep in my mind is the notion that if I could learn just the right thing, I would be saved.”

“People meet in bars after work all over the world and talk about the great problems of life and death and the world and politics and they don't take themselves seriously. They can do nothing else except chat about these things in bars after work.”

“I call up Amazon. It seems to me they do a major thing wrong, right. I mean, they protect me against the loss of a $50 liability I have of something on my credit card, but they do nothing to protect me against somebody who is watching to see what books I'm interested in, what new perversions I've developed.”

“No right of private conversation was enumerated in the Constitution. I suppose it never occurred to anyone at the time that it could be prevented.”

“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.”

“I think, and I've thought this for a long time, that we live, roughly speaking, in the last generation of human beings.”

“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.”

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

“The most important impact of technology on communications security is that it draws better and better traffic into vulnerable channels.”

“Intellectual work is essentially a lonely process, and if you can find a way of doing something so that you're in company without being disturbed, that, for me, is the critical thing. I often get to feel isolated so often if I'm sitting either where there aren't people or isn't a view.”

“I liked Berkeley tremendously, Berkeley was a very leftist campus. I came to love that city as much as I love Paris or the south of France or New York.”