Thursday, April 24th 2014 in Caldwell Labs 120, C. Matthew Curtin will present “Cracking the Data Encryption Standard.”
Matt was one of the leaders of the DESCHALL project that cracked a message encrypted with the then-US-Government-Standard 56-bit DES using idle cycles of computers connected over the Internet. His book, Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard, is the memoir of that project, and the presentation will give an inside look into one of the largest computations ever performed, forcing a change in US policy, and looking back and seeing how what happened then relates to the present policy issues regarding the relationship between the government and its citizenry online.
This will be our last official meeting of the 2013-2014 academic year, so we will do a goodbye to seniors.
As always, there will be pizza. Expect it to be a little nicer than usual.