Roger Needham

Roger M. Needham (1935 - March 1, 2003) was a British computer scientist.

Needham joined University of Cambridge in 1956. His PhD thesis was on applications of digital computers to problems of classification. He became a highly respected scholar and worked on a variety of key computing projects in security, operating systems and local area networks.

Among his theoretical contributions is the development of the Burrows-Abadi-Needham logic for authentication, generally known as the BAN logic. His Needham-Schroeder security protocol forms the basis of the Kerberos authentication and key exchange system.

He joined Cambridge's Computer Laboratory in 1962, became head of the lab in 1980 and remained there until his retirement in 1995. Dr. Needham set up Microsoft's UK-based Research Labs in 1996.

In 2001 he received a CBE for his contribution to computing. He was married to Karen Sparck Jones.

He died of cancer in March 2003.

See also: Maurice Wilkes, his contemporary and colleague

External links

• http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/29535.html
• http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/view_article.asp?article_id=7433
• http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/publicity/degree_days/degree_2001/needham.html