computers without hardware; programming without coding

Presented at Notacon 1 (2004), Unknown date/time (Unknown duration).

Computers are getting faster, programs more complex. People are programming in much higher level languages, using methods to protect the entire project from a sloppy coder. We even have clippy, who will now let you know when you only need to #include <iostream> instead of #include <iostream.h>. This makes it easy to lose sight of where it all started, the foundation that computing today is built on. In this talk, we will forget about all the modern advancements of programming languages dot Net and silicon, APIs and transistors, and look at the bigger picture. Rather than covering the work of the latest and greatest "computer security professionals" of our time, we will look at the work of people such as Alan Turing, Alonzo Church, Kurt Gödel, and Stephen Kleene. We will program without touching a computer, and play with languages that aren't used with compilers, linkers, or interpreters. No previous knowledge of the subject is required, as everything will be presented from the ground up with mathematical rigor. But don't let that scare you off.

Presenters:

  • Seth Hardy
    Seth is a cryptologist, a mathematician, a computer scientist. He'd spend the rest of his life in academia if he could afford it. When he's not being schooled by crypto "experts" on irc, he spends most of his time working on various crypto-related projects and transitioning from academia to the "real world" (otherwise known as "seeking employment" or "trying to get a job"). He's also very open to questions, so if you're curious about the technical details of what he does, you should ask. No really, he means that.

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