Ah so he was responsible for FEE on NeXT which disappeared into a black void...
With FEE you mean the encryption announced and bit discussed in the attached Usenet post in 1992?
QuoteFrom: ***@***.com (S***t T***r)
Subject: FEE article from EET
Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1992 03:26:01 GMT
Message-ID: <1992Feb4.032601.21935@***.com>
Extracted from Feb 3, 1992 edition of Electronic Engineering Times,
Copyright 1991 by CMP Publications, Inc. All rights reserved.
DATA SECURITY MAY BE BUNDLED WITH NEXT'S OPERATING SYSTEM
Next step is encryption
By Robert H. Blissmer
Redwood City. Calif. - A highly secure data-encryption system
developed at Next Inc. (Redwood City. Calif.) soon may be bundled
with the company's recently announced NextStep Release 3.0 operating
system, pending approval from the commerce branch of the National
Security Agency. The new cryptography software uses a highly secure
technique called Fast Elliptic Encryption. which was developed at
Next by one of its chief scientists, Richard Crandall.
The system is based on a technology called public key encryption.
Public key systems use a matched pair of mathematically related
encryption-decryption keys: a public key and a secret key. Each key
performs a oneway transformation of data. Public keys are listed in a
directory, but secret keys are khown only to their owners. For
example. to send a private message. user A encrypts a message with
user B's public key. User B decodes the message with his secret key.
Public key systems also can be used for message authentication. To
digitally sign a message. A encrypts the message with his or her
secret key. B (or any other user) can then use A's public key to
decrypt the message. Since only user A can use his secret key. the
encrypted message becomes a kind of electronic signature.
...