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Elonka Dunin
Elonka Dunin, 2006
BornDecember, 1958
Santa Monica, California
Occupation(s)Game developer, writer
Websiteelonka.com

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 internationally 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. 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.

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. 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 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. In 1989, while working as a temporary legal secretary in Los Angeles, this interest 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.

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.

Bloodwrath hoax

About a week after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dunin and the DragonRealms staff received e-mails from someone claiming to be the wife of a player, David Dunn, first saying that Dunn had been killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, and later asking for control of his character, Bloodwrath, a high level warrior, potentially worth thousands of real world US dollars. The story gathered an outpouring of sympathy from DragonRealms players, but Dunin couldn't find Dunn's name on a list of World Trade Center victims. She investigated, contacting reporter Damian Guevara at the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, who tracked down David Dunn in real life, and published a story in The Plain Dealer with Dunn claiming an imposter tried to steal the super warrior’s identity. Dunin, however, investigated further, and got Dunn to admit that he faked the impersonation, as well as his own death, to gain attention.

Amateur cryptographer

File:Elonka.jpg
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. In 2002, she was invited to speak at CIA headquarters regarding steganography and Al-Qaeda codes. 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.

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.

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. Currently four moderators are needed to manage the daily activities of over 1100 members.

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.

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, 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

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


Notes

  1. play.net
  2. Kevin Hoffman (January 9 - January 15, 2002). ""The Bloodwrath Hoax"". Cleveland Free Times. Archived from the original on 2004-03-11. Retrieved 2007-02-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. Damian Guevara (October 11, 2001). ""His death a fantasy, says game player Cleveland man victim of Net prank"". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved 2007-02-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. Jeannette Batz (June 19, 2002). ""When Dragons Escape"". Riverfront Times. Retrieved 2007-02-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  5. Damian Guevara (November 16, 2001). ""Online fantasy player fabricated WTC death hoax to get attention"". The Plain Dealer. Retrieved 2007-02-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. Mark Hinge (14 March 2006). ""Interview: Elonka Dunin"". Whitedust. Retrieved 2007-02-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. Melanie Cambron (2002). ""A Chat With Elonka Dunin"". GIGnews. Retrieved 2007-02-08. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Kim Zetter (January 21, 2005). ""Solving the Enigma of Kryptos"". Wired. Retrieved 2007-02-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  9. Charles Seife (7 October 2003). ""Cryptic Sculpture Cracked"". ScienceNOW. Science. Archived from the original on 2004-03-11. Retrieved 2007-02-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  10. Eli Kintisch (08 October 2003). ""Woman sets sights on code on CIA sculpture"". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Archived from the original on 2004-03-11. Retrieved 2007-02-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  11. Justine Redman (June 20, 2005). ""Cracking the code"". CNN. Retrieved 2007-02-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  12. Books by Dunin

References

External links

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