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Elonka Dunin

Elonka Dunin is an American game developer, writer, and amateur cryptographer who is an expert on the Kryptos sculpture/cipher at the CIA's headquarters.

Biography

Dunin was born in Santa Monica, California on December 29, 1958, the oldest of two children to Stanley Dunin, a Polish-American mathematician and Elsie Ivancich, a Croatian-American dancer and cultural ethnologist at UCLA.

Dunin's interest in computers started 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. She learned her first programming language, 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 C-135 cargo planes, and SR-71 and U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. After the USAF, she traveled the world working at a variety of jobs, ranging from a computer programmer in Colorado to an English teacher in Rio de Janeiro.

In the 1980s, Dunin became involved with the growing BBS culture, and in 1989, while working as a temporary legal secretary in Los Angeles, this overlapped into the early multiplayer games such as British Legends on CompuServe and Simutronics' GemStone II on GEnie. In 1990, she moved to St. Louis and began working for Simutronics.

Dunin speaks several languages, and has traveled to every continent including Antarctica, which she visited in 1999 with an expedition organized by Dr. Louis Friedman of the Planetary Society. [1]

Game developer

Since 1990, Dunin has worked at Simutronics in St. Louis, Missouri, in game development. In 1993, their game CyberStrike won the first ever "Online Game of the Year" award from Computer Gaming World magazine, and contracts soon followed with America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe. In 1997, Simutronics launched its own website, play.net.

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.

Cryptographer

Dunin began achieving public recognition for her cryptography hobby in 2000, when she was awarded a prize for cracking the PhreakNIC v3.0 Code, designed by se2600. In 2001, she assisted with the war on terrorism by teaching government agents about steganography and what types of codes that Al Qaeda might be using. In 2002, she was invited to speak at CIA headquarters. 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. 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 Frank Corr of North Carolina. [2]

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 growing website, which became the most-used source for information about the CIA sculpture, even more popular than the CIA's own website.

In late 2003, Dunin published a webpage entitled "Elonka's list of Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers", which ranked the most famous ciphers in the world such as the Beale Ciphers, the Voynich Manuscript, the Dorabella Cipher, Kryptos, and others.

In January 2005, a high-profile article appeared in Wired about Kryptos, and more major media attention followed, including segments by CNN, NPR, UK's The Guardian, France's Libération, and many others. As of February 2006, Dunin's websites have had hundreds of thousands of visitors, and over 1.5 million page views.

In mid-2005, Dunin was approached by the British publisher Constable & Robinson about compiling The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles, which is due for release in both the United States (with publisher Carroll & Graf) and United Kingdom in April 2006.

Public speaker

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, and the International Game Developers Conference, and has twice been invited to be a co-host on the Binary Revolution webcast.

Bibliography

Dunin's book, The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms, US ISBN 0786717262, is scheduled for release in April 2006. [3]
- The anticipated UK title of the book is: The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles, UK ISBN 1845293258
(editor) IGDA Online Games White Paper, 2002 PDF
(editor) IGDA Online Games White Paper, 2003. PDF
(senior editor) IGDA Web & Downloadable Games White Paper, Web & Downloadable Games, 2004 PDF
(senior editor) IGDA Persistent Worlds White Paper, 2004 PDF

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 0201874849
Lee Sheldon's Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series), 2004, Course Technology PTR. ISBN 1592003532

Major websites

Selected websites which Dunin created and maintains:

Trivia

Dunin has several notable relatives, including:

19th century
- Saint Raphael Kalinowski (great-great-granduncle)
- Eduard Strasburger (great-great-granduncle), Polish-German botanist
- Agnieszka Baranowska (great-great-great-grandmother), Polish playwright, contemporary of Adam Mickiewicz
early 20th century
- Edward Werner (great-grandfather), Polish vice-Minister of Finance
- Rodryg Dunin (great-grandfather), Polish agriculturalist
- Alfred Niezychowski (great-uncle), WWI author and politician
modern
- Stanley Dunin (father), aerospace engineer who helped launch the world's first geosynchronous communications satellite
- Elsie Ivancich (mother), full professor at UCLA, researcher, author and ethnologist
- Peter Zika (cousin), botanist
- Jared Diamond (cousin), Pulitzer-winning author of Guns, Germs, and Steel

References

St. Charles Journal, January 9, 1994, "Games People Play"
GIGNews interview, May 2002
Cleveland Free Times, January 9, 2002, archived copy
Riverfront Times, June 19, 2002 http://www.riverfronttimes.com/issues/2002-06-19/news.html
Wired News, January 26, 2005.online copy
Unfiction interview, January 2003
St. Louis Post Dispatch, October 8, 2003, archived copy.
Science magazine, October 10, 2003, archived copy
Woman's World magazine, March 16, 2004, archived copy
Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2005, online copy
CNN, June 19, 2005, online copy
UK's The Guardian, June 11, 2005 online copy
(French) Libération, June 28, 2005 online copy
Binary Revolution radio archive

External links

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
 Dunin was born in [[Santa Monica, California]] on [[December 29]], [[1958]], the oldest of two children to [[Stanley Dunin]], a [[Poland|Polish]]-American [[mathematician]] and [[Elsie Ivancich]], a [[Croatia|Croatian]]-American [[dancer]] and cultural [[ethnologist]] at [[UCLA]].
-Dunin's interest in computers started as a child when her father took her to his office at the Space Systems Division of [[Hughes Aircraft]] in the early 1960s. There Dunin played with large mainframe computers such as the [[IBM 360]] and [[IBM 370]]. She learned her first programming language, [[Fortran]], while still in elementary school. Dunin graduated in 1976 from [[University High School (Los Angeles)|University High School]] and went on to study Astronomy at [[University of California, Los Angeles | 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 [[C-135]] cargo planes, and [[Lockheed SR-71|SR-71]] and [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] reconnaissance aircraft.  After the USAF, she traveled the world working at a variety of jobs, ranging from a [[computer programmer]] in [[Denver, Colorado|Colorado]] to an [[teacher|English teacher]] in [[Rio de Janeiro, Brazil|Rio de Janeiro]].
+Dunin's interest in computers started 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]]. She learned her first programming language, [[Fortran]], while still in elementary school. Dunin graduated in 1976 from [[University High School (Los Angeles)|University High School]] and went on to study Astronomy at [[University of California, Los Angeles | 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 [[C-135]] cargo planes, and [[Lockheed SR-71|SR-71]] and [[Lockheed U-2|U-2]] reconnaissance aircraft.  After the USAF, she traveled the world working at a variety of jobs, ranging from a [[computer programmer]] in [[Denver, Colorado|Colorado]] to an [[teacher|English teacher]] in [[Rio de Janeiro, Brazil|Rio de Janeiro]].
-In 1989, while working as a temporary legal secretary in [[Los Angeles]], Dunin got involved with the growing [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] culture, and this overlapped into the early [[multiplayer]] games such as [[British Legends]] on [[CompuServe]] and [[Simutronics]]' [[GemStone II]] on [[GEnie]].  In 1990, she moved to [[St. Louis]] and began working for Simutronics.
+In the 1980s, Dunin became involved with the growing [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] culture, and in 1989, while working as a temporary legal secretary in [[Los Angeles]], this overlapped into the early [[multiplayer]] games such as [[British Legends]] on [[CompuServe]] and [[Simutronics]]' [[GemStone II]] on [[GEnie]].  In 1990, she moved to [[St. Louis]] and began working for Simutronics.
 Dunin speaks several languages, and has traveled to every continent including [[Antarctica]], which she visited in 1999 with an expedition organized by Dr. [[Louis Friedman]] of the [[Planetary Society]]. [http://members.aol.com/elonka/travel/south.htm]
@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 In 1993, their game ''CyberStrike'' won the first ever "Online Game of the Year" award from ''[[Computer Gaming World]]'' magazine, and contracts soon followed with [[America Online]], [[Prodigy]] and [[CompuServe]].  In 1997, Simutronics launched its own website,  [http://www.play.net play.net].
-She was the product manager for ''[[GemStone III]]'', executive producer for the [[Hercules (TV show)|Hercules]] and [[Xena]]-based multiplayer game ''Alliance of Heroes'', and worked on the development of most of Simutronics' other products, including ''[[CyberStrike 2 |CyberStrike]]'', ''[[Modus Operandi RPG|Modus Operandi]]'', ''[[DragonRealms]]'', and the upcoming ''[[Hero's Journey]]''.  Her current title is "General Manager of Online Community."
+Dunin was the product manager for ''[[GemStone III]]'', executive producer for the [[Hercules (TV show)|Hercules]] and [[Xena]]-based multiplayer game ''Alliance of Heroes'', and worked on the development of most of Simutronics' other products, including ''[[CyberStrike 2 |CyberStrike]]'', ''[[Modus Operandi RPG|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 game| Online Games]] [[Special Interest Group|SIG]], and senior editor of some of their annual White Papers on various aspects of the online game industry.
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 == Cryptographer ==
-Dunin began achieving public recognition for her cryptography hobby in 2000, when she was awarded a prize for cracking the [[PhreakNIC]] v3.0 Code, designed by [[se2600]].  In 2001, she assisted with the [[war on terrorism]] by teaching government agents about [[steganography]] and what types of codes that [[Al Qaeda]] might be using. In 2002, she was invited to speak at [[CIA]] headquarters. 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.  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 October 2003 after the cryptographic portion was cracked by Frank Corr of North Carolina.
+Dunin began achieving public recognition for her cryptography hobby in 2000, when she was awarded a prize for cracking the [[PhreakNIC]] v3.0 Code, designed by [[se2600]].  In 2001, she assisted with the [[war on terrorism]] by teaching government agents about [[steganography]] and what types of codes that [[Al Qaeda]] might be using. In 2002, she was invited to speak at [[CIA]] headquarters. 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.  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 Frank Corr of North Carolina. [http://elonka.com/kryptos/KryptosTimeline.html]
 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 growing website, which became the most-used source for information about the CIA sculpture, even more popular than the CIA's own website.
@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 In late 2003, Dunin published a webpage entitled "Elonka's list of Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers", which ranked the most famous ciphers in the world such as the [[Beale Ciphers]], the [[Voynich Manuscript]], the [[Dorabella Cipher]], [[Kryptos]], and others.
-In January 2005, a high-profile article appeared in [[Wired]] about [[Kryptos]], and more major media attention followed, including segments by [[CNN]], [[NPR]], UK's [[The Guardian]], France's [[Liberation]], and many others.  As of February 2006, Dunin's websites have had hundreds of thousands of visitors, and nearly 1.5 million page views.
+In January 2005, a high-profile article appeared in [[Wired]] about [[Kryptos]], and more major media attention followed, including segments by [[CNN]], [[NPR]], UK's [[The Guardian]], France's [[Libération]], and many others.  As of February 2006, Dunin's websites have had hundreds of thousands of visitors, and over 1.5 million page views.
-In mid-2005, Dunin was approached by the British publisher [[Constable & Robinson]] about compiling ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles'', which is due for release in both the United States (with publisher [[Carroll & Graf]]) and United Kingdom April 2006.
+In mid-2005, Dunin was approached by the British publisher [[Constable & Robinson]] about compiling ''The Mammoth Book of Secret Code Puzzles'', which is due for release in both the United States (with publisher [[Carroll & Graf]]) and United Kingdom in April 2006.
 == Public speaker ==
-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]], and the [[GDC|International Game Developers Conference]], and has twice been a co-host on the [[Binary Revolution]] webcast.
+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]], and the [[GDC|International Game Developers Conference]], and has twice been invited to be a co-host on the [[Binary Revolution]] webcast.
 == Bibliography ==
@@ Line 43: / Line 43: @@
 === Contributor/Consultant ===
-Dunin is quoted or thanked for contributions in:
+Dunin is quoted or thanked for contributions in the following books:
-* [[Amy Jo Kim]], ''Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities'', 2000, Peachpit Press. ISBN 0201874849
+* [[Amy Jo Kim]]'s ''Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities'', 2000, Peachpit Press. ISBN 0201874849
-* [[Lee Sheldon]], ''Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series)'', 2004, Course Technology PTR. ISBN 1592003532
+* [[Lee Sheldon]]'s ''Character Development and Storytelling for Games (Game Development Series)'', 2004, Course Technology PTR. ISBN 1592003532
 === Major websites ===
@@ Line 62: / Line 62: @@
 ** Saint [[Raphael Kalinowski]] (great-great-granduncle)
 ** [[Eduard Strasburger]] (great-great-granduncle), Polish-German botanist
-** [[Agnieszka Baranowska]] (great-great-grandmother), Polish playwright, contemporary of [[Adam Mickiewicz]]
+** [[Agnieszka Baranowska]] (great-great-great-grandmother), Polish playwright, contemporary of [[Adam Mickiewicz]]
 * early 20th century
 ** [[Edward Werner]] (great-grandfather), Polish vice-Minister of Finance
@@ Line 83: / Line 83: @@
 * ''[[Science magazine]]'', October 10, 2003, [http://elonka.com/kryptos/mirrors/ScienceMagazine.html archived copy]
 * ''Woman's World'' magazine, March 16, 2004, [http://www.elonka.com/elonkapics/images/2004WomansWorld.jpg archived copy]
+* ''[[Wall Street Journal]]'', May 27, 2005, [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05147/511693.stm online copy]
 * [[CNN]], June 19, 2005, [http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/19/cracking.the.code/index.html online copy]
 * UK's ''[[The Guardian]]'', June 11, 2005 [http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1504223,00.html online copy]