Erik L. Arneson — Writer and Software Developer

Driftwood Public Library Follow-Up

2017-05-01T17:27:58+00:00

Driftwood Public Library is great! I had a wonderful time in Lincoln City speaking about secret societies and cryptography. Links to my slides are below.

Secret Societies in Fiction How Computers Changed Cryptography

For a bibliography for “How Computers Changed Cryptography”, check my notes for my OMSI Science on Screen talk.

Also, I would like to thank the ‘D’ Sands Condominium Motel for sponsoring the talks and providing me with a really lovely room.

[caption id=”attachment_708” align=”aligncenter” width=”1024”] This is the view from my motel room balcony at the ‘D’ Sands.[/caption]

Upcoming Lectures at Driftwood Public Library

2017-04-13T17:04:39+00:00

Driftwood Public Library in Lincoln City has selected Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore for their 2017 Everybody Reads event. They’ve invited me to give two lectures. This is going to be fun!

Secret Societies in Fiction

Tuesday, April 25, 6:30pm

This is going to be a lecture about secret societies. I’m going to talk about what a secret society is, and then we’ll look at how they’re portrayed in fiction. We will also talk about how fictional secret societies have sometimes become real secret societies, and the relationship between secrecy and fiction in the real world.

How Computers Changed Cryptography

Wednesday, April 26, 2:00pm

If you saw my OMSI talk, then you already know that this is a subject I’m passionate about! I will be discussing the history of computers and how it’s intertwined with the cryptography arms race. Maybe I will even introduce some hand ciphers to the crowd! I am going to have fun with this one.

I am sure that more information on both of these will be available soon, including Facebook events and other such things. In the meantime, visit the Driftwood Public Library website for more information.

A Look Back on the History of Cryptography

2015-06-01T15:30:02+00:00

In May, I taught a class on the History of Cryptography at Portland Underground Grad School. I’m extremely grateful to PUGS for asking me to teach, because I’d never done it before. It was a great experience. My students were intelligent and the discussion was good. I learned quite a few things in the process.

Teaching Isn't the Same as Lecturing

I have a lot of experience with public speaking. I spent time in Toastmasters International and have given many lectures. In fact, here’s a video of me giving a lecture on the art of memory back in 2013. (( I embedded this video just to exploit a neat WordPress feature. ))

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WpxbPHkq4A

I knew that teaching would be different, but I didn’t know what to expect. Luckily, Douglas Tsoi, the mastermind behind PUGS, helped me design my four-week curriculum and gave me a lot of advice. The two main differences that I noticed are that, first, teaching is a lot more like a conversation, and second, you continue following up week after week. Conversation and continuity!

Douglas’s help was invaluable. He’s the reason that PUGS is able to bring in experts without teaching experience while providing a rich educational environment.

It's Hard to Boil Down Experience

"There is so much to learn! I enjoyed being able to ask questions at will and go deeper into the subject with a knowledgeable instructor." -- An anonymous student

A PUGS class lasts four weeks, and there’s only one class per week. That’s not a lot of time to cover a complicated subject. Going into the class, I just didn’t realize how difficult it is to cram decades of experience into just a few weeks. In our third class, while discussing Phil Zimmerman and the creation of PGP, I realized that I’d been learning about cryptography for over 20 years.

The learning curve in cryptography is staggering. I didn’t realize that going into it, but it’s really difficult to introduce things like the Diffie-Hellman key exchange protocol to people who had just learned to do an alphabetic substitution cipher for the first time. All of my students were very intelligent people, but none of them were computer scientists or mathematicians. My curriculum is going to take some adjustment.

Teaching is Fun

Through this class I met many interesting people. While preparing for the class, I had to brush up on a lot of dusty knowledge. In the process I learned a lot. The entire thing was mentally engaging, socially stimulating, and a blast. I hope that PUGS will have me again, because this class is only going to get better.

If you enjoy learning, you owe it to yourself to take a class at the Portland Underground Grad School. Go check them out!