Yan Zhu

Yan Zhu
朱颜
Zhu in 2014
Born	(1991-05-04) 4 May 1991 (age 33)[1] Beijing, China[2]
Nationality	American
Other names	@bcrypt
Alma mater	MIT[3]
Occupation	Computer security engineer
Employer	Brave
Website	azuki.vip

Yan Zhu (simplified Chinese: 朱颜; traditional Chinese: 朱顏; pinyin: Zhū Yán) is a security engineer, open web standards author, technology speaker, and open source contributor.[4][5] In 2015 she was recognized as one of Forbes 30 Under 30.[6]

Education

Yan Zhu is a high school dropout who earned a B.S. in physics at MIT.[3] She enrolled as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow at Stanford University in experimental cosmology but dropped out after four months.[4]

Employment

Zhu worked for Yahoo as a security engineer in 2014 and 2015, is a fellow at the Electronic Frontier Foundation,[7] and is currently the chief security officer at Brave Software.[2]

W3C participation

Zhu is the editor of two W3C documents: the Secure Contexts web standard and End-to-End Encryption and the Web, a W3C TAG finding that supports the use of end-to-end encryption for web communications.[8][9] Zhu served on the W3C Technical Architecture Group in 2015.[10][11]

Other work

Zhu served on the board of directors of the Zcash Foundation from July 2017[12] to June 2018[13] and Noisebridge in 2013.[14]

Zhu has contributed to open source works including:[4]

• Brave
• HTTPS Everywhere
• SecureDrop
• Privacy Badger for Firefox
• Tor Browser

References

1. Zhu, Yan (2016-05-04). "25". Github. Retrieved 2018-04-05.
2. "Triangulation 411 Yan Zhu, AKA bcrypt". TWiT.tv. Retrieved 2019-09-09.
3. Williams, Tate (5 February 2013). "Boston Programmers Hold Hackathon in Memory of #AaronSwartz". Open Media Boston.
4. Finley, Klint. "The Ad-Blocking Hacker Making Your Browser More Paranoid". Wired. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
5. "Speaking history for Yan Zhu | Lanyrd". lanyrd.com. Archived from the original on 2017-08-04. Retrieved 2017-09-28.
6. "2015 30 Under 30: Enterprise Technology". Forbes. 2015-01-05. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
7. "EFF People - Staff - Technologist Fellow". Electronic Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
8. West, Mike; Zhu, Yan (18 September 2021). "Secure Contexts". W3C.
9. Zhu, Yan (16 July 2015). "End-to-End Encryption and the Web". W3C.
10. "W3C Advisory Committee Elects Technical Architecture Group". W3C. 9 January 2015.
11. "W3C Advisory Committee Elects Technical Architecture Group". W3C. 11 January 2016.
12. "Foundation Update for July 2017". Zcash Foundation.
13. "Zcash Foundation Board Meeting Minutes". GitHub. Zcash Foundation. 28 June 2018.
14. "Noisebridge Form 990-EZ for period ending December 2013". ProPublica.

External links

• Yahoo nomination statement for W3C TAG
• "Mapping the Journey" interview
• Yan Zhu personal web site
• Yan Zhu on Twitter
• Yan Zhu on Quora