Brian LaMacchia


Brian A. LaMacchia is a computer security specialist.
LaMacchia is best known for his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology establishing the MIT PGP Key Server, the first key centric PKI implementation to see wide-scale use. LaMacchia wrote the first Web interface for a PGP Key Server.
LaMacchia currently works for Microsoft where he is Director of Security and Cryptography in Microsoft Research; previously he was the Director of Security and Cryptography in the Microsoft Extreme Computing Group. He played a leading role in the design of XKMS, the security architecture for.NET and Palladium. He designed and led the development team for the.NET security architecture. He was a security architect on Palladium. His most-referenced work is the.Net Framework.
He has played a leading role in the design of W3C XMLDsig and XKMS standards. In particular he is an author of versions 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 XMLDsig. He is a contributor to XKMS. He is coauthor on OASIS standard WS-SECURITY.
LaMacchia earned S.B., S.M., and Ph.D. degrees from MIT in 1990, 1991, and 1996, respectively.
LaMacchia is currently serving his second three-year term as Treasurer of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. He first joined the IACR Board of Directors in 2015 as General Chair of CRYPTO 2016. LaMacchia also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Seattle Opera. He previously served for ten years as member of the Board of Directors of the Seattle International Film Festival, including the 2015-2016 term as President of SIFF.