A two-parts lecture on Introduction to Cryptography and the Bitcoin Protocol will be given at CERN , in Geneva (Switzerland), on December 2 (Part 1 ) and December 3 (Part 2 ), from 11am to noon on both days. CERN, one of the most prestigious research laboratories in the world, is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web and the modern Internet, which gives this event a special symbolic significance.
The lectures are part of the CERN Academic Training Lectures program, open to all members of CERN personnel (in particular staff members and fellows, associates, students, users, project associates and apprentices) free of charge. The lectures are not officially open to the public, but many people in Geneva have friends or acquaintances at CERN, so getting an invitation to enter the CERN campus shouldn’t be too much of a problem for those who really want to attend the lectures.
Cryptography is a key element of many Internet protocols – used for ensuring privacy, integrity, and security. Topics to be covered will include symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption (public/private keys), digital signing and cryptographic hashing. These topics will serve as background information for the lecture on an Introduction to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin protocol not only supports an electronic currency, but also has the possibility for being (mis)used in other ways. Topics will include the basic operation of how Bitcoin operates including motivations and also such things as block chaining, bitcoin mining, and how financial transactions operate. A knowledge of the topics covered in the Basic Cryptography lecture will be assumed.
The lecturer is Bob Cowles, a Cyber Security Expert at BrightLite Information Security. Cowles was Chief Information Security Officer at SLAC, another prestigious research laboratory, for fifteen years until 2012.
What do you think of this high-profile Bitcoin event at the birthplace of the Web? Comment below!
Images from CERN and Wikimedia Commons.