[Novalug] DC ACM Lecture Reminder, Monday April 21 2008

[Winter]

The DC Chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, in
collaboration with the the George Washington University Student ACM
chapter, is proud to present the April 2008 Lecture.

Donald Costello, "Cryptography - From Enigma to Elliptical Curve"


Speaker Bio:
Don Costello has had a mixed career splitting his time between 
Universities and Business. He helped start three Computer Science 
Departments and three University Information Technology facilities 
(University of Nebraska, University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh and Madison 
and Colorado State University). He has taught undergraduate and graduate 
courses and has done work in research areas of Statistical Computing, 
Performance Modeling, Standards for Learning Objects and Managing 
Intellectual Property. He is a 40-year member of ACM and is a fellow of 
the British Computing Society. He has lectured all over the United 
States as well as in England, Ireland, Austria, Germany, India and Sri 
Lanka. He also held a four-year Carnegie Foundation grant to investigate 
how IP is managed in Universities around the World.

In business career he has managed IT facilities, founded and sold two 
firms and consulted with over 100 firms throughout the world. His recent 
consulting includes five years consulting on ERP systems, SAP, as well 
as being a Technical Consultant on .com and e-Learning projects.

Don currently holds a position as a Senior Lecturer and NCITE scholar at 
the University of Nebraska and is working on the importance of standards 
in modeling the large systems needed to support e-learning environments.


Topic:
The history of cryptography can be likened to a reawaking history of 
mathematics and computer science. The story of cryptography goes back 
4000 years and some of the mathematics employed goes back as long.

This talk will address the history of cryptography beginning with the 
Enigma used by the Germans in WWII and broken by world famous 
Mathematician/ Computer Scientist Alan Turing. It will continue down to 
today’s advanced crypto systems such as RSA, PGP and Elliptic Curve 
cryptography.


When:
Monday April 21, 2008
7:30pm to 9:30pm


Where:
George Washington University Campus
Marvin Center
3rd Floor Ballroom (Near Elevators)
800 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20052

The building has entrances both on H Street between 21st and 22nd 
Streets, and on 21st Street between H and I Streets. Near Foggy Bottom 
Metro Station. See the Marvin Center website for further details on 
directions and parking.

This lecture is free and open to the public. ACM membership is not 
required to attend.

All who are interested are welcome to join us for an after-lecture drink 
at Kinkead's. It's an upscale ($$) bar on I street between 19th and 20th 
NW, facing Pennsylvania Avenue.

Regards,

William Fielder
Chair, DC ACM