Coursera Flash Sale
40% Off Coursera Plus for 3 Months!
Grab it
Explore the fascinating intersection of biology and cryptography in this 45-minute conference talk from YOW! Australia 2024, where Senior Software Engineer Suz Hinton investigates whether ant colonies can serve as a viable source for seeding OpenSSL's random number generator. Discover why randomness is crucial for encryption, the limitations of computer-generated randomness, and various strategies—from clever to outright silly—used to generate true randomness. Follow along as Hinton details her research project's process, challenges, and findings, covering Pseudo Random Number Generators (PRNGs), chaos systems as sources of randomness, and the biological, hardware, and software considerations involved in harnessing ant behavior for cryptographic purposes. The presentation includes comprehensive explanations of the experimental setup, implementation details, results, and potential next steps, offering valuable insights for anyone interested in cryptography, biology-inspired computing, or innovative approaches to security challenges.
