Peter Gutmann is a computer scientist based in Auckland, New Zealand; he received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Auckland. He is particularly interested in computer security issues, including security architecture, security usability (or more precisely the lack thereof), and hardware security, and has written widely in those fields. He has discovered assorted flaws in publicly released cryptosystems and protocols. He is the developer of the cryptlib open source software security library and contributed to PGP version 2. He is also known for his analysis of data deletion on electronic memory media, magnetic and otherwise, and devised the Gutmann method for erasing data from a hard drive more or less securely. Computer science, or computing science, is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their implementation and application in computer systems. ... The Auckland Metropolitan Area, or Greater Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest urban area in New Zealand. ... The University of Auckland (Māori: Te Whare Wānanga o Tāmaki Makaurau) is New Zealands largest research-based university. ... Computer security is the current computer science collaboration of the week! Please help improve it to featured article standard. ... Computer security model refer to the underlying computer architectures, protection mechanisms, distributed computing environment security issues, and formal models that provide the framework for information systems security policy. ... Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. ... The term Hardware Security Module (abbreviated to HSM) is usually used to refer to a plug-in card or external device for a general purpose computer. ... A cryptosystem (or cryptographic system) is the package of all procedures, protocols, cryptographic algorithms and instructions used for encoding and decoding messages using cryptography. ... A cryptographic protocol is an abstract or concrete protocol that performs a security-related function and applies cryptographic methods. ... Open source refers to projects that are open to the public and which draw on other projects that are freely available to the general public. ... PGP Encryption (Pretty Good Privacy) is a computer program which provides cryptographic privacy and authentication. ... In physics, magnetism is a phenomenon by which materials exert an attractive or repulsive force on other materials. ... The Gutmann method is an algorithm that is used to totally erase the contents of a given section, such as a file on a computer drive, for security. ... Typical hard drives of the mid-1990s. ...

Having lived in New Zealand (NZ) for some time, various NZ issues have come to his attention. These include the great blackout of 1998 in Auckland, during which electrical power failed for some months in the city. He has written extensively on both subjects, among many others. See, for instance, Auckland: Your Y2K beta test site on Gutmann's Homepage. He has also written on his career as an "arms courier" for New Zealand, detailing the difficulty faced in complying with (former) customs regulations with respect to cryptographic products (once classed as "munitions"). The 1998 Auckland power crisis was an event that occurred in the Auckland, New Zealand Central Business District. ...

External links

• Gutmann's Homepage