Matt is one of the world's leading cryptographers. His research focuses on security technology and he is especially interested in cryptography policy, wiretapping and surveillance.

He was also a veteran of the first cryptowars in the 1990s. He discovered a serious flaw in the US government's "Clipper" encryption system in 1994, which had been proposed as a mechanism for the public to encrypt their data in a way that would still allow access by law enforcement. He edited several influential reports on encryption policy, including the 1998 study of "key escrow" systems that demonstrated that such systems are inherently less secure and more expensive than systems without such a feature.

His work contributed to the recent shift in US encryption policy and he is a leader in the current debate. He has testified before various committees of the US Congress and European Parliament on this issue several times.

Stewart Baker is a partner in the law firm of Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. From 2005 to 2009, he was the first Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security. His law practice covers homeland security, international trade, cybersecurity, data protection, and travel and foreign investment regulation.

As an intelligence lawyer, Mr. Baker has been General Counsel of the National Security Agency and of the commission that investigated WMD intelligence failures prior to the Iraq war. He is the author of Skating on Stilts, a book on terrorism, cybersecurity, and other technology issues, and he blogs about such topics on www.skatingonstilts.com.

His weekly podcast, the Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast, covers security, privacy, and government. http://www.steptoe.com/resources-area-107-145.html