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Exeter Summers New Course, Powered by

Hacking?
By: Sam Jensen

Ten unfamiliar digits pop up on your phone screen. You grow skeptical. Either
you lost a friends number, or a company representative is calling to tell you
that your credit card was used in west Texas to buy $500 worth of line
dancing clothes. This either could be a bad dream or become a reality,
because hackers rule the world.

But what if hacking was the motive behind a new Exeter Summer class?

How it All Began

At its core, hacking focuses on understanding the mathematics and logic


behind codes and systems. By itself, it is neither good nor bad: The user
determines the intent of this knowledge. The world is saturated with savvy
codebreakers. Malicious data breaches or identity theft serve as constant
motivation to lock or encrypt data, using more complex codes for the sake
of security. But code breakers and hackers also use their powers for good by
finding and fixing flaws in systems or strengthening codes. Cryptography, a
new class offered at Exeter Summer 2016, uses mathematics to study how to
write and solve these types of codes.

Mathematics instructor Karen Lassey was inspired to create the course after
Diana Davis 03, a former PEA teaching intern and now a postdoctoral
lecturer in geometry at Northwestern University, gave a talk at the annual
Anja Greer Conference on Mathematics and Technology about the math
behind cryptography: It was really fascinating, Lassey says, [and] I got
to thinking about how accessible it could be to students.

Cryptography, Lassey explains, is comprehensible to students of all


mathematical backgrounds. A student who has just finished algebra can
understand the concepts just as easily as a classmate who has taken
calculus.

The Lessons: Versatile and Fun

In the class, students spend time learning different codes. The math is high-
school level, but it can be tricky. Cryptography uses math techniques in a
way that a lot of students may never have experienced at their respective
schools. Lassey believes exposure to such techniques is invaluable.

Often a schools curriculum can have a narrow trajectory: algebra,


geometry, and eventually calculus, she says. Any opportunity to go outside
those confines captures their interest in mathematics. That can make classes
like calculus more fun.

Students in Cryptology also learn about the history behind ciphers. Lassey
had her class watch The Imitation Game, a movie about Alan Turing, who
saved millions of lives by decoding messages generated by Germanys
Enigma machine during World War II.

In order to decrypt a cypher, you need a key, Lassey says. Once you have
the key, you can decrypt the code. In this case, the Enigma machine was the
key, but Turings computer cracked it.

The End Goal: Hiding in Plain Sight

The mathematics students study in Cryptography leads to a better


understanding of public key encryption, which is the final, most complex, but
most relevant topic covered in the class, according to Lassey.

Consumers encounter public key encryption when they shop online. In order
to protect the data that customers enter when they make a purchase,
cryptographers for major commerce sites generate their own decryption keys
to keep the shoppers personal information and credit card numbers private
and secure.

Public key encryption relies on number theory and the study of integers and
prime numbers and factorization, as cryptography does, but uses the product
of two extremely large prime numbers to serve as a public key.

Public key encryption is difficult, she says, but the mathematics makes it
possible.

The Results

As she builds on the curriculum for next year, Lassey hopes to attract more
students to the course, and notes that the students in her first section were
always engaged and enthusiastic about their learning.

Coming here, I didnt really like math that much, says Casey Ocasal, but
this course has really changed my view on it. Its cool to see the different
applications.

Other students, like Adi Dust, believe this course will help them in the
future. Ive wanted to do something like this as a career, she says. So I
thought this course would be a stepping stone for that path that I couldnt
get from other schools.
Encouraged that the course may have ignited a newly discovered passion for
math in some of her students, Lassey says: Beyond offering a fun challenge,
my hope is to transport students beyond the margins of a textbook to
discover the real-life applications of the problems and theories learned in a
typical math class.

Lassey listens intently as a student responds to her question. The students


have varying degrees of mathematical experience, and learn from each other
through discourse.

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