I have been so busy and haven’t posted here in so long that all my family and some friends (who expressed interest in keeping up with what I’m doing and inspired me to start this blog in the first place) have probably assumed that the real me died in a car accident, and that the only reason I’m still active on facebook from time to time is because it is being controlled by a cheap replacement with a slightly longer face than mine. Fortunately, that is not the case— if only the same could be said for Paul McCartney!
Yes, Jeremy, my Dad and Lee, and a select few other people know that I am obsessed with conspiracy theories in every shape and form— from secret societies to aliens on earth to the indisputable fact that Nikola Tesla is still alive, living underneath the city of New York, and Brookhaven National Laboratory is IN ON IT. Usually I keep this hobby under wraps because everyone already thinks I’m weird enough as it is. But yesterday I saw something that filled me to the brim with excitement and I just had to share it with the world.
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I am so tired. Last night I put finishing touches on my programming project and submitted at 3am, and woke up this morning at 6am to attend the Cryptologic History Symposium at APL. Naturally when I saw that Whitfield Diffie would be speaking at lunch I was immediately starstruck. I remembered that when we covered Diffie-Hellman key exchange in CMSC 443, Stephens handed out an article about this unusual, unconventional guy who had this great idea in public key cryptography.
I remembered that he had long hair and a beard but the only picture I had really seen of him as a part of the course was one from the 1970s alongside Hellman. But when this guy with long straight hair and a beard walked into the first concurrent session, hopped up on a table in the front, spun around and climbed down into a chair, I immediately turned to Jeremy and said “I think that’s Whitfield Diffie….”
His talk on key was great, he is of course knowledgeable, funny, a captivating speaker, and as I came to find out, very friendly. I managed to rattle up the courage to go up, shake his hand, and ask for a picture even though I didn’t really have any other reason to talk to him other than that I wanted to meet him. Of course being at a lower level in my education I understood all that was covered in his talk but didn’t have any “big questions” to ask him. When I told him this he replied that this was good, because now he didn’t have to think of any big answers.
At one point I wanted to make sure we would have a picture where we were both smiling and so I elegantly posed the question to him “Could you smile?” Yes, I accidentally was incredibly rude to Whitfield Diffie and it was all I could do not to start kicking myself after those words escaped my mouth. Fortunately, Diffie laughed and started making fun of his smile, giving me official license to photoshop it so long as he looks good, saying that he might “look like a monkey” and that I should take a picture of Jeremy instead because he has a really nice smile. I am glad that my relationship finally has his blessing… without it I would have some major hesitations about moving forward. ; )
“ WOAH, did you see that hay roll across the road? Er, I mean, you know, the desert ball?
Jeremy, trying to express the concept of a tumbleweed to me
