Interview With Cryptographer Elonka Dunin

An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust is running a very interesting article with the DEF CON speaker and cryptographer Elonka Dunin. The article covers her career and specifically her involvement with the CIA and other US Military agencies."

Elonka

[HackHackBoom]

I had the pleasure of working with Elonka through her primary employer, Simutronics for a few months... She's brilliant and I think her work in cryptography as it relates to the subject matter of this article is top notch.

Background info

[yppiz]

There's also a pretty good Wikipedia entry for her [wikipedia.org].

--Pat

Re:Background info

[MrNougat]

And here's her Wikipedia user page [wikipedia.org], and her own website [elonka.com].

Re:So

[slabbe]

Looking for a job?
Dunno about the military and quantum cryptography, but the NSA are looking for people doing quantum-computing related research, maybe chryptography fit in?
http://aip.jobcontrolcenter.com/jobdetail.cfm?job= 2296154 [jobcontrolcenter.com]

Re:Elonka Dunin?

[szobatudos]

for Elonka in US not, but for Ilonka in Poland, yes. That is Helen if you are a native English speaker... E is just for correct pronunciation.

you "ph33r" Elonka

[StankDawg]

A lot of people are saying some pretty borderline rude things about someone they don't know (not unusual for /.) so let me state that she is, in fact, one of the nicest and most "normal" people I have ever met. I have known Elonka for quite some time. We meet up a couple of times each year at miscellaneous conferences and I consider her a good friend. The fact that she doesn't answer some of these comments probably makes her more "normal" than most of you now doesn't it?

To make my post more self-promoting, I will point readers to 2 episodes of Binary Revolution Radio [binrev.com] that she was on Here [binrev.com] and Here [binrev.com].

As far as the personal questions, how about you STFU and GTFO because it is NOYGDB? kthxbye!

Re:The Corporation

[Anonymous Coward]

It was the "Office of Strategic Services", not special...

Re:In our midst

[Elonka]

Ten to one says that the "anonymous reader" who submitted the article is none other than Elonka herself.

I'll take that bet. ;) Wasn't me, and I didn't even know that the Whitedust interview had been posted, until the Simutronics CEO (David Whatley [slashdot.org], another slashdotter) IMed me and said, "You are about to be slashdotted" (and no, it wasn't him either). A couple minutes after that, a bunch of other IMs flew in with similar warnings to batten down the web-server, and I've been dealing with the related deluge for the rest of the day. As slashdottings go though, it's been relatively light (only about 5000 visitors), probably because the Whitedust folks didn't actually put any links to my website in their interview. The traffic has been coming in from the secondary links in the /. thread, from my Wikipedia bio [wikipedia.org], and from Google.

If I would have started the thread, you can be sure I would have linked it better, to my site [elonka.com], my company [play.net], and my upcoming book [elonka.com]. ;) My guess is it was posted by someone from Whitedust.

Elonka :)

Re:Elonka Dunin?

[Elonka]

for Elonka in US not, but for Ilonka in Poland, yes. That is Helen if you are a native English speaker... E is just for correct pronunciation.

Yup, you get the prize for coming closest, though I got a kick out of the various anagrams, too. :)

For the record (and those not interested in genealogy or name origins can stop reading now), it's my real birth name, and is Hungarian. I was named after my maternal grandmother, Ilona Pazman. The "ka" is a diminutive suffix (like in Spanish, "Juan" will become Juanito or Juanita when used with a child), and the "E" was substituted as an Americanized spelling so that it would be pronounced correctly. And yes, it means "Helen" which is Greek for "light" or "shining", as in "Hellenic culture".

Elonka :)

Re:Any one know her AFSC?

[Elonka]

Anyone know her AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code)?

325x1

Elonka :)