Elonka Dunin facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Elonka Dunin
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Dunin in 2006
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| Born | December 29, 1958 Santa Monica, California, U.S.
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| Occupation | Video game developer |
Elonka Dunin (/ɪˈlɒŋkə ˈdʌn[unsupported input]/; born December 29, 1958) is an American video game developer and cryptologist. A cryptologist is someone who studies and solves secret codes.
Dunin worked at a company called Simutronics for many years, from 1990 to 2014. Later, she became a Senior Producer at Black Gate Games. She helped start the International Game Developers Association's Online Games group. This group focuses on games played over the internet. She also helped lead the Global Game Jam, a big event where people create games quickly. As of 2020, she works as a consultant at Accenture.
Elonka Dunin has written a book about classical cryptography, which means old ways of making and breaking codes. She also runs websites about famous unsolved codes. One of her main interests is Kryptos, a sculpture at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that has a secret message hidden in it. The TV show NOVA scienceNOW calls her "the leading Kryptos expert in the world." In 2010, the famous author Dan Brown named a character in his book The Lost Symbol after her. The character's name, Nola Kaye, is an anagram of Elonka. An anagram is when you rearrange the letters of a word or name to make a new one.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Elonka Dunin was born in Santa Monica, California. Her father was a mathematician (a person who studies math). Her mother, Elsie Ivancich, studied dance and culture.
After high school, Dunin joined the United States Air Force. She worked as an avionics technician. This means she fixed electronic systems on aircraft. She worked in the United Kingdom and California. Later, she studied digital electronics.
Career in Games
In the 1980s, Elonka Dunin became interested in early online communities. These were called BBSs. In 1989, she started playing early multiplayer games. These were games where many people could play together online.
In 1990, Dunin began working for Simutronics, an online game company. She helped manage their online community. She was a product manager for games like GemStone III. She also worked on many other games, including CyberStrike and DragonRealms. She helped create the International Game Developers Association's Online Games group. She also edited several "white papers" for them. These papers shared important information about the online game industry.
Games She Worked On
During her time at Simutronics, Elonka Dunin helped create many games. Here are some of them:
- GemStone III
- GemStone IV
- DragonRealms
- CyberStrike
- CyberStrike 2
- Alliance of Heroes (based on Hercules and Xena)
- Modus Operandi
- Orb Wars
- Fantasy University
- Tiny Heroes
Cracking Codes
Elonka Dunin has written books and articles about cryptography, the study of secret codes. She has also been interviewed about famous codes like Kryptos. In 2000, she solved a puzzle called the PhreakNIC v3.0 Code. This made her more interested in famous unsolved codes.
The Kryptos sculpture is at the CIA headquarters. It's hard for people to see it in person. In 2002, Dunin visited the CIA and saw Kryptos. She even made rubbings of the text on the sculpture. A rubbing is when you place paper over a textured surface and rub a crayon or pencil to pick up the texture. After her visit, she started a website about Kryptos. She also helps lead an online group trying to solve the sculpture's secret messages.
In 2003, Dunin led a team that solved the codes on Cyrillic Projector. This is another sculpture similar to Kryptos.
When the Kryptos sculptor, Jim Sanborn, found a mistake on the sculpture in 2006, he asked Dunin to announce it. In 2007, Dunin appeared on the PBS show NOVA scienceNOW as a Kryptos expert. She also wrote articles about the sculpture for a book about Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol. Dunin helped Dan Brown with his research for the book. That's why he named a character, Nola Kaye, after her.
In 2006, Dunin put together a book of hundreds of code puzzles. It was called The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms. The book also shared details about some unsolved codes, like Kryptos.
In 2013, the NSA (National Security Agency) released documents because Dunin asked for them. These documents showed that the NSA tried to solve the Kryptos puzzle in 1992. By 1993, a small group of NSA code-breakers had solved the first three parts of the sculpture.
Public Speaking
Elonka Dunin has given many talks about Kryptos and the Cyrillic Projector. She has spoken at big events like DEF CON, Shmoocon, and the Game Developers Conference. In 2021, she gave a TEDx talk about cryptography called "2000 years of ordinary secrets."
Personal Life
Elonka Dunin is an editor on Wikipedia. She has made tens of thousands of changes to articles.
Images for kids
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Dunin in 2006
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Elonka Dunin in St. Louis, 2006
See also
In Spanish: Elonka Dunin para niños
