Pelcgbtencul 101
Presented by
Thomas Sprinkmeier
Tuesday
1:20 p.m.–1:50 p.m.
Target audience:
Community
Abstract
Did you know that symmetric ciphers don't produce palindromic ciphertext?
Did you know that "Message Digest" isn't what happens when you eat a secret note?
Did you know that Rainbow Tables can be used on sunny days?
Did you know that "elliptic curves" cannot be straightened by brute force?
Did you know that the birthday paradox has nothing to do with cake?
Did you know that hash collisions don't raise your insurance premiums?
Did you know that a "zero knowledge proof" isn't an entry requirement for the Church of Scientology?
If you answered "Yes" to all of the above then you'll probably want to go to a different talk.
If you answered "wow, really?" at least once then come along and get a brief introduction to cryptography and, time permitting, a quick tutorial that'll teach you just enough to be dangerous and maybe even a flame-war on the politics of cryptography.
Presented by
Thomas Sprinkmeier
Thomas graduated from UniSA in 1992 as an Electronic Engineer where he was seduced by computers early in first year (mostly due to the realisation that holding a mouse the wrong way is much less painful than holding a soldering iron the wrong way).
He was intrigued by "free as in beer" and subverted by "free as in speech" soon after.
When he's not indoctrinating Geeklings he works as a Software Engineer (or at least he seems to play one in a long-running reality TV show). Projects he has worked on include everything from submarines to solar panels, cars to cows and trains to telemetry.
An interest in puzzles, as well as a slight case of paranoia, has led Thomas down the dark path of cryptography. He hopes that one day Schneier's law will be repealed so that he can finally finish his perfect cipher.
Thomas is a recovering Sysadmin.