Mr. Luther Martin

Identity Based Encryption vs. PKI
Sp-231, 1500-1550, 27 May 2004

Identity Based Encryption (IBE) is a technology that allows an arbitrary value to be used as a public key. For example, when using IBE an e-mail address can be used as a public key. IBE technology provides easy solutions to three difficult problems that make implementing PKI difficult for most organizations: certificate distribution, certificate management and key escrow.

About Mr. Martin
Mr. Martin is a program manager at Voltage Security, a company formed to create the first commercial implementation of IBE technology.

As a partner of 3SG Security, he advised multinational corporations on strategic information security technologies. At Cylink, he led the implementation of PKI used by the U.S. Post office for the PC Postage program. He is a graduate of the Cryptologic Mathematician Program of the National Security Agency, where he was technical director of the engineering and physical sciences division.