Presented at
PhreakNIC 21 (2017),
Nov. 5, 2017, 10 a.m.
(60 minutes)
The mysterious Order of the Knights Templar is often referred to in modern books, films, and games. How much is known about this organization? Were they really associated with the Holy Grail? The Priory of Sion? Freemasonry? Come hear Elonka Dunin, namesake for the "Nola Kaye" character in one of Dan Brown's novels, sift the facts from the rumors about this mysterious organization from the Crusades.
Presenters:
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Elonka Dunin
Elonka Dunin is a professional game developer, writer, and cryptographer. She serves as chair on the board of the Nashville2600. She is webmistress of two popular crypto-related websites which contain
information about the world's most famous unsolved codes. As of 2015, her elonka.com website has had over five
million page views. In 2000 she was awarded a prize for being the first person to crack the 1999 PhreakNIC v3.0 Code. In 2003 she led the team that
cracked the famous Cyrillic Projector cipher, which turned out to contain extracts of classified KGB documents. In 2006 she authored "The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and
Cryptograms", which has been published internationally with multiple re-printings. Bestselling author Dan Brown honored Elonka by naming one of
the characters in his Da Vinci Code sequel The Lost Symbol after her: "Nola Kaye" is an anagrammed form of "Elonka".
She has also been featured by the popular webcomic Penny Arcade, where she created a
cipher that dovetailed with the daily comic. In other hobbies, Dunin is an avid Wikipedia editor, was elected as an administrator in 2007, and
has been a significant contributor to over 500 articles, especially in topics related to the Crusades and medieval history.
When not in front a computer, she's probably out geocaching.
Links: