About this online talk:

Between 1850 and 1855, the London-based newspaper The Times published over 50

encrypted advertisements apparently intended for the same recipient. As we know today,

the ads in that series were meant for the sea captain Richard Collinson, who at the time

was on a mission in the Canadian Arctic trying to solve the mystery of the lost John

Franklin expedition. Before Collinson’s departure, his family was taught how to encrypt

brief reports about what was going on at home and to publish these messages as

encrypted ads in The Times once a month. The cipher used was based on a signal-book

of the Royal Navy. As the circulation of The Times stretched far beyond the UK, Collinson

would have the chance to get his hands on a copy even at the remotest of ports.

The Collinson ads were finally broken in the 1990s. The lecturers of this talk are members

of a project aiming to decrypt all of Collinson’s ads and to place them in their geographic

and cultural context.

About the speakers:

Elonka Dunin is a cryptologist and video game developer. She has published a book of

exercises on classical cryptography, and maintains cryptography-related websites about

topics such as Kryptos. She has given several lectures on the subject of cryptography,

and is considered to be the leading expert on Kryptos. Elonka is a former member of the

United States National Cryptologic Museum Foundation's Board and has co-authored the

book "Codebreaking: A Practical Guide" with Klaus Schmeh.

Taylor Leach is a native of Marin County, California. He attended Vancouver Film School,

then worked at Lucasfilm Animation as a 3D artist and Software Engineer. He went on to

a contract with Google as a QA Software Engineer working on YouTube, and then

became developer and security architect at an IT company. In his spare time, Taylor

enjoys classical cryptography, and is a member of the American Cryptogram Association.

He has participated in many Capture the Flag (CTF) competitions. Other hobbies include

Speedcubing, magic, art, games and vulnerability research.

Klaus Schmeh is one of the world’s leading experts on the history of encryption. He has

published thirteen books about encryption technology, as well as over 200 articles,

twenty-five scientific publications and 1,200 blog posts, which makes him the most

published cryptology author in the world. He is a member of the editorial board of the

scientific magazine, Cryptologia, and a frequent speaker at cryptology conferences in

Europe and the USA. He has co-authored the book "Codebreaking: A Practical Guide"

with Elonka Dunin.