Cryptanalysis Competition at Arizona State University (interview)
Can you crack the code?
It is this question that more than 120 students have recently tried to answer. They gathered to compete in the annual “Cryptoralli” at Arizona State University (ASU).
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Cryptoralli is a decoding competition with quest elements, conducted by the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. Students at a university or high school can participate in the competition alone or with a partner. They crack a cipher and get a hint that leads them to a secret place on campus (campus) where they find a new cipher. Teams move around the Tempe campus at Arizona State University, starting at Wexler Hall, then visiting Noble Library, Memorial Union, Virginia G. Piper Writers House, and even going to an exhibition at the ASU Art Museum.
The team that first solved all the problems and crossed the finish line was the team of Jordan Miller and Blake Willoughby, both of whom are ASU undergraduates. In second place is the junior high school team at Tucson University High School: Walker Krubalkian and Tenner. The third was a single member, John Conger, an ASU undergraduate specializing in mathematics.
For Miller, it was another victory. He, along with another player, won first place last year.
Students are immersed in the decision of the first cipher during the seventh annual Cryptoralli 18.11.17
“It’s a great feeling to know that the first victory was not an accident, just a lucky coincidence, and I really understand what I’m doing,” Miller says. “The first victory (in 2016) was a complete surprise for me, because a year before it I showed myself terribly, so this time I had to prove that that victory was not an accident.”
Miller inspires other students to compete.
“My Cryptoralli experience was very interesting every time, even the very first one, when I didn’t figure out even the initial cipher.”
“It's also a great experience in organizing teamwork and a great way to get comfortable with different types of ciphers,” says Willowby. “But most importantly, it's damn fun! Who wouldn’t like to run around campus in search of secret messages and unscramble them? ”
This year Kryptoralli was sponsored by Dash, a digital currency project, one of whose offices is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Executive Director of the Dash Core team Ryan Taylor argues that Cryptoralli is an important way to draw attention to the cryptocurrency industry and develop interest in this area, as well as a signal to participants about what skills are important and valued in the market.
“The atmosphere at the competition helps to ensure that cryptography is not perceived as something boring, but, on the contrary, amusing, socializing, interesting and challenging abilities,” says Taylor. “I am glad to see that events are being organized conducive to the development of interest in cryptography.”
Cryptoralli is invented by associate professor Nancy Childress, who teaches cryptography.
“Cryptography helps protect personal, financial, patented and military information. Among many other things, it is used in online commerce and communications, both mobile and wired, ”says Childress. “Modern cryptology is based on ideas from number theory, abstract algebra and discrete mathematics.”
This year the junior division of high school students again participated in the competition, they studied cryptography and practiced the decryption skill. There were 8 different secondary schools that formed 19 teams. Mathematics associate professor Suzanne Fisher, graduate Lauren Krider and ASU graduate Andre Rouhani conducted classes after the main lessons at three different high schools in order to interest children in cryptography.
After Cryptoralli, students and faculty members listened to a lecture by Ben Livingstone, a mathematician from the National Security Agency. His speech “Alice and Eve: A Brief History of Cryptology” captured listeners and carried through the maelstrom of history, from Julius Caesar to Whitfield Diffie, with a mathematical pit stop in Bletchley Park.
The Cryptoralli program also included the preparation of posters by students with information on ongoing research; this program was evaluated by Andrew Bremner, a professor of mathematics, and also by Evan Dammit, an employee who defended his doctoral dissertation. Kevin Lof, an undergraduate specializing in mathematics and computer science, was the author of the winning poster; he presented information on how to improve the diffusion-replaced gray image encryption scheme.
Judges evaluating the posters were impressed with the quality of the applicants' work and decided to highlight two places of honor for the following works: “Rubik's Cube vs. Trifed” by Blake Willoughby and Digital Currency by William Dong.
The winners of Cryptoralli 2017, Jordan Miller and Blake Willoughby, answered a few questions about the past event.
2017 Cryptoralli Champions Jordan Miller (left) and Blake Willoughby (right) finished first.
Question: What were your feelings when it became clear that you were the first?
Miller: At first, I was worried that we didn’t have enough time, because the solution of some ciphers was delayed longer than we expected, and we made serious mistakes in about four of our problems. At the penultimate control point, we were relieved to hear that we were the first to go. It was a wonderful feeling to go first. This time twice as many teams participated, and I did not expect to come even the third.
Question: How did you achieve success in this competition?
Willoughby: I think that mainly due to teamwork. We worked very smoothly. I also want to mention the programs on the Jordan calculator, without them we would not have been able to go through everything so quickly.
Miller: I would say that success was ensured by the fact that we quickly determined where we went along the wrong way to solve the cipher, it saved us a lot of time. This was especially evident, perhaps, in Hill’s “cipher”. We made a lot of mistakes in the competition, but could have done so much more.
Question: Did you conduct any preliminary training?
Miller: Classes in a cryptographic class helped me more effectively program some ciphers into my calculator. I programmed the calculator as soon as I understood any new cipher, so that he could cope with everything that could be found at the rally, with the exception of the Playfair, CT and Trifid ciphers, which are much easier to decipher by hand.
Willoughby: As a preparation, I just trained in encryption and decryption in as many ways as I knew and could master. It also helped that I was in Cryptography 1 (MAT 447)
Question: How did it happen that you joined the team at Kryptoralli?
Willoughby: Jordan and I have been attending a math class together since I entered ASU. During this time we have become good friends. In this semester, we jointly attend classes in cryptography, so our association for this competition was quite natural.
Question: What type of cipher do you like to solve the most and why?
Miller: I think my favorite is Trifid. It can be a tough nut to crack, but it attracts 3-D properties of the key and interesting places where it is located, it is always fascinating to solve it. Sometimes solving a cipher with paper and a pencil makes the process a lot more personal than when you just run the cipher through the program, even if you wrote the program yourself. However, when it comes to ciphers that can be programmed, I prefer RSA, because there are many different interesting ways to hack it, and most of them are available on a calculator.
Willoughby: My favorite cipher is Playfair. I like it, because its solution is very systematized. As soon as you enter the rhythm, the decoded text starts to flow out of it.
Question: Why is it important for students to participate in events like Kryptoralli?
Miller: Because only in them a person will be able to understand what is capable of, moreover, this is a unique time that you can spend fun, in a community, in an atmosphere of competition and critical thinking.
Question: What do you think ordinary people misunderstand about mathematics?
Miller: People think that mathematics is just a game with numbers and solving problems, without any practical use. But math is much deeper than that. For example, even children can use cryptography to send each other secret messages. No complex and interesting encryption systems could exist without mathematics. Mathematics should be regarded as a set of puzzles, and not as a set of problems.
Willoughby: I think most people think that those who are good at math are members of some secret club. It seems to them that you either understand it or not. Far from it. Its development is akin to learning a new language, and if you regularly devote your time to it, the skill improves and the understanding of the language increases. And the advantage here is that the study of the language of mathematics is essentially a study of the universal language of the universe.
It is this question that more than 120 students have recently tried to answer. They gathered to compete in the annual “Cryptoralli” at Arizona State University (ASU).
')
Cryptoralli is a decoding competition with quest elements, conducted by the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences. Students at a university or high school can participate in the competition alone or with a partner. They crack a cipher and get a hint that leads them to a secret place on campus (campus) where they find a new cipher. Teams move around the Tempe campus at Arizona State University, starting at Wexler Hall, then visiting Noble Library, Memorial Union, Virginia G. Piper Writers House, and even going to an exhibition at the ASU Art Museum.
The team that first solved all the problems and crossed the finish line was the team of Jordan Miller and Blake Willoughby, both of whom are ASU undergraduates. In second place is the junior high school team at Tucson University High School: Walker Krubalkian and Tenner. The third was a single member, John Conger, an ASU undergraduate specializing in mathematics.
For Miller, it was another victory. He, along with another player, won first place last year.
Students are immersed in the decision of the first cipher during the seventh annual Cryptoralli 18.11.17
“It’s a great feeling to know that the first victory was not an accident, just a lucky coincidence, and I really understand what I’m doing,” Miller says. “The first victory (in 2016) was a complete surprise for me, because a year before it I showed myself terribly, so this time I had to prove that that victory was not an accident.”
Miller inspires other students to compete.
“My Cryptoralli experience was very interesting every time, even the very first one, when I didn’t figure out even the initial cipher.”
“It's also a great experience in organizing teamwork and a great way to get comfortable with different types of ciphers,” says Willowby. “But most importantly, it's damn fun! Who wouldn’t like to run around campus in search of secret messages and unscramble them? ”
This year Kryptoralli was sponsored by Dash, a digital currency project, one of whose offices is based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Executive Director of the Dash Core team Ryan Taylor argues that Cryptoralli is an important way to draw attention to the cryptocurrency industry and develop interest in this area, as well as a signal to participants about what skills are important and valued in the market.
“The atmosphere at the competition helps to ensure that cryptography is not perceived as something boring, but, on the contrary, amusing, socializing, interesting and challenging abilities,” says Taylor. “I am glad to see that events are being organized conducive to the development of interest in cryptography.”
Cryptoralli is invented by associate professor Nancy Childress, who teaches cryptography.
“Cryptography helps protect personal, financial, patented and military information. Among many other things, it is used in online commerce and communications, both mobile and wired, ”says Childress. “Modern cryptology is based on ideas from number theory, abstract algebra and discrete mathematics.”
This year the junior division of high school students again participated in the competition, they studied cryptography and practiced the decryption skill. There were 8 different secondary schools that formed 19 teams. Mathematics associate professor Suzanne Fisher, graduate Lauren Krider and ASU graduate Andre Rouhani conducted classes after the main lessons at three different high schools in order to interest children in cryptography.
After Cryptoralli, students and faculty members listened to a lecture by Ben Livingstone, a mathematician from the National Security Agency. His speech “Alice and Eve: A Brief History of Cryptology” captured listeners and carried through the maelstrom of history, from Julius Caesar to Whitfield Diffie, with a mathematical pit stop in Bletchley Park.
The Cryptoralli program also included the preparation of posters by students with information on ongoing research; this program was evaluated by Andrew Bremner, a professor of mathematics, and also by Evan Dammit, an employee who defended his doctoral dissertation. Kevin Lof, an undergraduate specializing in mathematics and computer science, was the author of the winning poster; he presented information on how to improve the diffusion-replaced gray image encryption scheme.
Judges evaluating the posters were impressed with the quality of the applicants' work and decided to highlight two places of honor for the following works: “Rubik's Cube vs. Trifed” by Blake Willoughby and Digital Currency by William Dong.
The winners of Cryptoralli 2017, Jordan Miller and Blake Willoughby, answered a few questions about the past event.
2017 Cryptoralli Champions Jordan Miller (left) and Blake Willoughby (right) finished first.
Question: What were your feelings when it became clear that you were the first?
Miller: At first, I was worried that we didn’t have enough time, because the solution of some ciphers was delayed longer than we expected, and we made serious mistakes in about four of our problems. At the penultimate control point, we were relieved to hear that we were the first to go. It was a wonderful feeling to go first. This time twice as many teams participated, and I did not expect to come even the third.
Question: How did you achieve success in this competition?
Willoughby: I think that mainly due to teamwork. We worked very smoothly. I also want to mention the programs on the Jordan calculator, without them we would not have been able to go through everything so quickly.
Miller: I would say that success was ensured by the fact that we quickly determined where we went along the wrong way to solve the cipher, it saved us a lot of time. This was especially evident, perhaps, in Hill’s “cipher”. We made a lot of mistakes in the competition, but could have done so much more.
Question: Did you conduct any preliminary training?
Miller: Classes in a cryptographic class helped me more effectively program some ciphers into my calculator. I programmed the calculator as soon as I understood any new cipher, so that he could cope with everything that could be found at the rally, with the exception of the Playfair, CT and Trifid ciphers, which are much easier to decipher by hand.
Willoughby: As a preparation, I just trained in encryption and decryption in as many ways as I knew and could master. It also helped that I was in Cryptography 1 (MAT 447)
Question: How did it happen that you joined the team at Kryptoralli?
Willoughby: Jordan and I have been attending a math class together since I entered ASU. During this time we have become good friends. In this semester, we jointly attend classes in cryptography, so our association for this competition was quite natural.
Question: What type of cipher do you like to solve the most and why?
Miller: I think my favorite is Trifid. It can be a tough nut to crack, but it attracts 3-D properties of the key and interesting places where it is located, it is always fascinating to solve it. Sometimes solving a cipher with paper and a pencil makes the process a lot more personal than when you just run the cipher through the program, even if you wrote the program yourself. However, when it comes to ciphers that can be programmed, I prefer RSA, because there are many different interesting ways to hack it, and most of them are available on a calculator.
Willoughby: My favorite cipher is Playfair. I like it, because its solution is very systematized. As soon as you enter the rhythm, the decoded text starts to flow out of it.
Question: Why is it important for students to participate in events like Kryptoralli?
Miller: Because only in them a person will be able to understand what is capable of, moreover, this is a unique time that you can spend fun, in a community, in an atmosphere of competition and critical thinking.
Question: What do you think ordinary people misunderstand about mathematics?
Miller: People think that mathematics is just a game with numbers and solving problems, without any practical use. But math is much deeper than that. For example, even children can use cryptography to send each other secret messages. No complex and interesting encryption systems could exist without mathematics. Mathematics should be regarded as a set of puzzles, and not as a set of problems.
Willoughby: I think most people think that those who are good at math are members of some secret club. It seems to them that you either understand it or not. Far from it. Its development is akin to learning a new language, and if you regularly devote your time to it, the skill improves and the understanding of the language increases. And the advantage here is that the study of the language of mathematics is essentially a study of the universal language of the universe.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/345118/
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