ELONKA DUNIN

'Elonka Dunin' (born December 29, 1958) is an American game developer, writer, public speaker, and cryptographer. In 2003, she led the team that cracked the Cyrillic Projector cipher, and her book ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms'' was published in 2006. She maintains websites with a list of the world's most famous unsolved ciphers, and on ''Kryptos,'' a sculpture/cipher located at CIA headquarters. Dunin is a game developer at Simutronics Corp. in St. Louis, Missouri, and was a producer on the team that created ''CyberStrike'', the multiplayer game which won the first award for Online Game of the Year from ''Computer Gaming World'' magazine in 1993.^[1] She is also co-founder and chairperson of the International Game Developers Association's Online Games group, and senior editor on peer-reviewed IGDA State of the Industry white papers.

Contents

Biography

Online games

Cryptography

Public speaking

Works

Games

Contributor/consultant

References

External links

Biography

Dunin was born in Santa Monica, California, the older of two children to Stanley Dunin, a Polish-American mathematician, and Elsie Ivancich, a Croatian-American dancer and dance ethnologist at UCLA.
Dunin's interest in computers started as a child when her father, who worked at companies such as the Space Systems Division of Hughes Aircraft, took her to his office in the 1960s. There Dunin played with large mainframe computers such as the IBM 360 and IBM 370 where she learned to program in FORTRAN while still in elementary school. Dunin graduated in 1976 from University High School and went on to study Astronomy at UCLA. Then she joined the United States Air Force, where she worked as an avionics technician at RAF Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, and Beale Air Force Base in California, maintaining aircraft. After the USAF, she traveled the world working at a variety of jobs, ranging from a computer programmer in Denver, Colorado to an English teacher in Rio de Janeiro.
In the 1980s, Dunin became involved with the growing BBS culture and in one year spent $15,000 on computer time. In 1989, while working as a temporary legal secretary in Los Angeles, "When Dragons Escape" this interest overlapped into the early multiplayer games such as British Legends on CompuServe and Simutronics' GemStone II on GEnie.

Online games

In 1990, Dunin moved to St. Louis and began working for online game company Simutronics. With the 1993 ''Computer Gaming World'' "Online Game of the Year" award for Simutronics' ''CyberStrike'' game and business with America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe, Simutronics launched its own website, play.net, in 1997 with Dunin as Supervisor of Online Games.^[2][3] In 1999, Dunin held the position of general manager of Simutronics' on-line community and utilized the screen name GameMaster Nova to watch over the fragile evolution of each game's social structure.^[4] Dunin was the product manager for ''GemStone III'', executive producer for the Hercules and Xena-based multiplayer game ''Alliance of Heroes'', and worked on the development of most of Simutronics' other products, including ''CyberStrike'', ''Modus Operandi'', ''DragonRealms'' and the upcoming ''Hero's Journey''. Her current title is "General Manager of Online Community." She is also a founding member of the International Game Developers Association's Online Games SIG and senior editor of some of their annual White Papers on various aspects of the online game industry.

Cryptography

Elonka Dunin, illuminated by part of the Cyrillic Projector code, 2006

Dunin began achieving public recognition for her cryptography hobby in 2000, when she was awarded a prize for cracking the PhreakNIC v3.0 Code. "Interview: Elonka Dunin" Mark Hinge "A Chat With Elonka Dunin" Melanie Cambron In 2002, she was invited to speak at CIA headquarters regarding steganography and Al-Qaeda codes. "Solving the Enigma of ''Kryptos''" Kim Zetter During this visit she began a closer study of the Agency's ''Kryptos'' sculpture. She started a small personal website with her notes, and early in 2003 published a new type of solution technique for part 3 that supplied a possible "pencil and paper" method for solving it -- all previous published solutions had involved complicated mathematical formulae run on computers. Dunin then began to build a website compiling all of the works of the ''Kryptos'' sculptor, James Sanborn. Also in 2003, Dunin organized an effort to solve the code on a ''Kryptos'' sister sculpture, the ''Cyrillic Projector'', which succeeded in September 2003 after the cryptographic portion was cracked by Mike Bales of Dunin's team, and Frank Corr of North Carolina. "Cryptic Sculpture Cracked" Charles Seife "Woman sets sights on code on CIA sculpture" Eli Kintisch
According to Dunin, these events, plus hints referring to ''Kryptos'' on the bookjacket of Dan Brown's 2003 bestseller ''The Da Vinci Code'', steadily increased the visibility of Dunin's website. "Cracking the code" Justine Redman In May, 2003, Dunin, along with the late Gary Warzin, co-founded the Yahoo Group Kryptos which is a focal point for online Kryptos activity. In January 2005, an article appeared in ''Wired'' about ''Kryptos'', and more media attention followed, including segments by CNN, NPR, UK's ''The Guardian'', France's ''Libération'', and others. In mid-2005, Dunin was approached by the British publisher Constable & Robinson about compiling ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles'', which was released in both the United States (with publisher Carroll & Graf) and United Kingdom in March 2006. In July, 2007 she appeared on the PBS program NOVA scienceNOW, as an expert on Kryptos.

Public speaking

Dunin is a member of the IGDA and the Planetary Society. Along with speaking to government agencies such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA, Dunin is a frequent speaker on cryptography and online games at conferences such as Dragon
★ Con, PhreakNIC, Def Con, Shmoocon, Notacon, and the International Game Developers Conference and has thrice been invited to be a co-host on the Binary Revolution webcast.

Works

★ ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms'', US ISBN 0-7867-1726-2, was released April 2006.
:: The UK title of the book is: ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles'', UK ISBN 1-84529-325-8

★ (editor) IGDA Online Games White Paper, 2002. PDF

★ (editor) IGDA Online Games White Paper, 2003. PDF

★ (senior editor) IGDA Web & Downloadable Games White Paper, 2004. PDF

★ (senior editor) IGDA Persistent Worlds White Paper, 2004. PDF

Games

★ Orb Wars - Product Manager

★ CyberStrike (Classic) - Developer, and voice talent

★ GemStone III - Product Manager

★ DragonRealms

★ Modus Operandi

★ Hercules & Xena: Alliance of Heroes - Executive producer

★ CyberStrike 2 - Developer, and voice talent

★ Hero's Journey (upcoming)

Contributor/consultant

Dunin is quoted or thanked for contributions in the following books:

★ Amy Jo Kim's ''Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities'', 2000, Peachpit Press. ISBN 0-201-87484-9

★ Lee Sheldon's ''Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series)'', 2004, Course Technology PTR. ISBN 1-59200-353-2

References

1. Neil Harris/CyberStrike note
2. play.net >> Where adventure finds you
3. Pendleton, Jennifer. (August 18, 1997) Los Angeles Times. ''Trends:Nice Work If You Can Master It.'' Section: Business; Page 6.
4. Austin, Nancy K. Inc. (October 19, 1999) ''Pure Internet play. Simutronics' online games.'' Volume 21; Issue 15; Page 76.

External links

★ Dunin's personal website

★ ''St. Charles Journal'', January 9 1994, "Games People Play"

★ ''GIGNews'' interview, May 2002

★ ''Cleveland Free Times'', January 9 2002, The Bloodwrath Hoax (archive copy)

★ ''Riverfront Times'', June 19 2002 When Dragons Escape

★ ''Wired News'', January 26 2005 Solving the Enigma of Kryptos

★ Unfiction interview, January 2003

★ ''St. Louis Post Dispatch'', October 8 2003, Woman sets sights on code on CIA sculpture (archive copy)

★ ''Science magazine'', October 10 2003, Cryptic Sculpture Cracked (archive copy)

★ ''Woman's World'' magazine, March 16 2004, Code Breaker (archive copy)

★ ''Wall Street Journal'', May 27 2005, CIA sculpture 'kryptos' draws mystery lovers

★ CNN, June 19 2005, Cracking the code

★ UK's ''The Guardian'', June 11 2005 Interest grows in solving cryptic CIA puzzle after link to Da Vinci Code

★ Binary Revolution 7 July 2006 radio interview by StankDawg

★ Interview at whitedust.net