Timeline for Davies' work on "data security"

Timeline for Davies' work on 'data security' The Data Security group formed under Davies' leadership Davies and Clayden publish 'A message authenticator suitable for a mainframe computer' Davies retires, and continues to work as a data consultant Davies and Clayden publish 'The Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) and its implementation'

Davies was aware of the need of data security while he was proposing a new method of data communication in the mid 60's. But it was only in the late 70's when he started to work on it. In 1979, a Data Security group was formed under the leadership of Davies at NPL. After being familiar with the computer cryptography developments of that time, the group started to build their own computer security techniques. One of the major contributions of the group, especially by D W Davies and D O Clayden was the development of "Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA)". The algorithm became the part of "ISO standard 8731-2: Approved Algorithms for Message Algorithm". It was able to attract many organizations including many banks and government agencies. The MAA has been described in detail in this website. Davies led the group until his retirement in 1984, but he continued to work as a data security consultant.