Ivan Bjerre Damgård is professor of theoretical computer science at Aarhus University, Denmark, and one of the world’s leading researchers in the foundations of cryptography. Among other things, Ivan is known for the Merkle–Damgård construction, which underlies many modern digital signatures. We talk to Ivan about the mathematical basics of modern cryptography, internet security, authentication, secret sharing, and privacy. This includes the emerging field of secure multiparty computation: how can individuals collaborate to compute a solution without revealing too much of their private information?

Ivan’s recent book on these matters is Ronald Cramer, Ivan Bjerre Damgård, and Jesper Buus Nielsen, “Secure Multiparty Computation and Secret Sharing,” Cambridge University Press, 2015.