[Cryptography] Talk on encryption to non-crypto audience ?

[ianG]

On 11/12/2015 17:03 pm, Henry Baker wrote:
> I'm going to be giving a technical talk on
> crypto to non-crypto people.  These are
> scientists & engineers, but not computer
> scientists or mathematicians.  They recently
> heard about quantum computers, mobile
> malware, optical fibers, and a future talk
> is on 3D printing, so you get the idea.
>
> Any advice and/or reference links for
> such a talk ?
>
> I was thinking of a couple of scenarios --
> email/SMS and buying something online.  I
> thought I'd talk a little about 1x pads &
> Diffie Hellman exchange.  Possibly mention
> Bitcoin blockchains.


Where I would start is the humble message digest or hash.  You can use 
it for so many things, that if they walk out understanding this exists 
they'll be better for it.  You can also drop in there that the secret of 
Bitcoin is nothing more than elegant use of hashes, and they'll be all 
gooey and happy that they've got an insight.


> I'm probably going to ignore Rogaway's
> advice re no cute pix.


Perhaps we need a new picture for a persona called Rogaway, a character 
that always does what he knows is wrong to do ;-)


iang