Dieter has been working on security related issues since graduating in Engineering Mathematics from the University of Linz, Austria, in 1979. His research interests have moved from cryptography (PhD thesis on clock controlled shift registers) to security in general.
His academic career has moved him from Austria to the UK, Germany (University of Karlsruhe) and back to the UK (Royal Holloway, University of London), with short spells in Australia (QUT, Brisbane) and Austria (TU Graz). At Royal Holloway, he was involved in setting up a very successful Masters programme on Information Security (his book on Computer Security grew from lecture notes for this MSc).
He joined Microsoft Research in 1998 and his current interests are best described as foundations of security. He is also a co-editor-in-chief of Springer Verlag's International Journal of Information Security.