Ran Canetti

Timeline

1. 1989–1995

   Technion and a Weizmann PhD

   Born in Tel Aviv in 1962, he earns a BA in computer science in 1989, a BA in physics in 1990 and an MSc in computer science in 1991, all at the Technion. In 1995, he completes a PhD at the Weizmann Institute, advised by Oded Goldreich.

2. 1995–2008

   HMAC at IBM Research

   After a postdoc at MIT with Shafi Goldwasser from 1995 to 1996, he joins IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center and stays as a research staff member until 2008. In 1996, he introduces the HMAC message authentication algorithm with Mihir Bellare and Hugo Krawczyk; it is now built into modern operating systems.

3. 2001

   Universally composable security

   In 2001, he publishes "Universally Composable Security: A New Paradigm for Cryptographic Protocols" at the 42nd FOCS. The framework allows analyzing the security of cryptographic protocols in a modular and robust way.

4. 2008–2011

   Check Point Institute in Tel Aviv

   In 2008, he moves from IBM Research to the School of Computer Science at Tel Aviv University. There he is associate professor of computer science and directs the Check Point Institute for Information Security, a research institute that Tel Aviv University and Check Point Software Technologies announce in May 2008.

5. 2011

   Professor at Boston University

   He joins Boston University as a professor of computer science in July 2011. In September 2011, he becomes director for research at the university's Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security (RISCS).

6. 2014–2018

   IACR Fellow and RSA Award

   The International Association for Cryptologic Research names him a Fellow in 2014 for numerous contributions to the foundations of cryptography, most importantly his introduction and development of the Universal Composability Framework. In 2018, he shares the RSA Conference Award for Excellence in the Field of Mathematics with Rafail Ostrovsky for work on novel models and protocol notions for secure computation tasks.

7. 2022

   A Wang Professorship

   Boston University awards him the Wang Professorship in 2022, a university-level endowed professorship for a distinguished scholar and teacher in the natural sciences, mathematics, computer science or engineering.

8. As of October 2026

   Proving ownership of ML models

   He is Wang Professor of Computer Science at Boston University, and his recent work concentrates on the co-design of law, policy and algorithms, with focus on accountability and transparency of algorithms. In June 2026, he posts "Proofs of Ownership for Machine Learning Models" with Shafi Goldwasser and Or Zamir, a paper that asks under what conditions one can prove that a stolen model originated from a particular creator.