Richard C. Ankney, Jr

Richard C. Ankney, Jr, Computer Security Expert (1954 - 2000)

Richard C. Ankney, Jr. Obituary (Washington Post)

Our well-liked late friend Rich Ankney also needs his own webpage, so this is a stub I'll be expanding over time. If anyone who knew him wants to contribute an essay, photos, or other materials, or even take over the project, let me know.

Publications (partial list)

RFC-6960, X. 509 Internet PKI online certificate status protocol - OCSP (2013)
RFC-2560, X. 509 Internet PKI online certificate status protocol - OCSP (1999)
ANSI X9.45, Enhanced Management Controls with Attribute Certificates (1999)
X.509 Internet PKI Online Certificate Status Protocol - OCSP (1998 Draft)
Sudia & Ankney, Commercialization of Digital Signatures (1993)

US Patents

US 8,032,743 Reliance server for electronic transaction system, 2011-10-04
US 7,177,839 Reliance manager for electronic transaction system, 2007-02-13
US 5,995,625 Electronic cryptographic packing, 1999-11-30
US 5,903,882 Reliance server for electronic transaction system, 1999-05-11
US 5,113,499 Telecommunication access management system for a packet switching network 1992-05-12

Brief Bio

Rich had a Math degree from Notre Dame, so while he was not a senior cryptographer, he understood the crypto algorithms and the security claims being made about them. At one point he was working on financial message engineering for SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. Then Addison Fischer hired him at Fischer International Systems, headquartered in Naples, Florida. Rich was a personal friend of Addison, who was miffed at CertCo for (among other things) stealing him. I met Rich at some standards meeting and convinced him to join CertCo. As with our other senior experts, his job description was to keep going to standards meetings and promoting the secure messaging and key management standards that we (and Fischer) were interested in. Therefore, he was a participant, often secretary, on a number of major info-sec standards, including the famous X.509 Version 3 (which codified my variable extension idea), the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP), and ANSI X9.45 which codified Addison's and my ideas on Authorization Certs. Plus attending some American Bar Association, Information Security Committee, Digital Signature Guideline meetings. In addition to our work together in the X9.F1 Cryptography work group, Rich also worked on standards over in X9.F3 Financial Messaging, which I was never involved in.

Our time together mainly consisted of going to meetings (in cities across the US and Canada), staying at hotels, hitting bars, and eating out at nice restaurants. At one point he offered me a very short OID (object identifier) that I could have used to codify my many message protocol ideas, but I declined, as I had run out of gas.

[If you knew Rich and this webpage brings back memories, consider opening a text or document file on your computer and typing some notes into it. Or if you already wrote a relevant essay, we can link to it or include it as a chapter. All inputs will be credited, unless you prefer anonymity.]

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