Cipher Issue 170, November 20, 2022, Editor's Letter

Dear Readers,

We arrive at the holiday season with hope that all research papers are ready before conference deadlines, all grant proposals are submitted in time, and everyone can enjoy festivities through the end of the year.

The TCSP's website home page has a new look from a new webmaster, Ivan Liang. He has retained the TCSP "brand" with the Trojan Horse images. These have a long history with TCSP, going back to a photo that Carl Landwehr took at an amusement park about 25 years ago.

Recent news articles indicate that online security has become increasingly complicated, yet we continue moving onward with new applications and new computing paradigms. Cryptocurrencies are an interesting example of the struggle between daring to be new and risking falling to attacks that are old. When the idea of sharing computer information over a communication network first surfaced, no one foresaw that money itself might become a computer science challenge, but here we are.

No cyber hack can stay

Cyber's first coin is Bit,
With chain of blocks well-fit.
The early values tower,
But only so an hour.
Then Bit subsides to junk,
The wallet's value sunk.
So bits must all decay,
No cyber hack can stay.

    (with apologies to Robert Frost and the color gold)

      Hilarie Orman