TITLE: Catnip for Programmers
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: April 21, 2013 10:25 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
This morning,
<A HREF="http://blog.pinboard.in/2013/04/the_matasano_crypto_challenges/">
   Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard</A>
introduced me to
<A HREF="http://www.matasano.com/articles/crypto-challenges/">
   the Matasano crypto challenges</A>,
a set of exercises created by Thomas Ptacek and his team as a
tool for teaching programmers a little about cryptography, some
of its challenges, and the need for more awareness of how easy
it is to do it wrong.  With the coming break from the grind of
the academic year, I plan on giving them a try.

After having completed the exercises himself, Ceglowski observes:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Crypto is like catnip for programmers.  It is hard to keep us
away from it, because it's challenging and fun to play with.
And programmers respond very badly to the insinuation that
they're not clever enough to do something.  We see the F-16
just sitting there, keys in the ignition, no one watching,
lights blinking, ladder extended.  And some infosec nerd is
telling us we can't climb in there, even though we just want
to taxi around a little and we've totally read the manual.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've noticed this with a number of topics in computing.  In
addition to cryptography, data compression and sorting/searching
are sirens to the best programmers among our students.  "What
do you mean we can't do better?"

For many undergrads, the idea of writing a compiler seems a
mystery.  Heck, I admit to my students that even after years
of teaching the course I remain in awe of my language tools
and the people who build them.  This challenge keeps a steady
if relatively small stream of programmers flowing into our
"Translation of Programming Languages" project course.

One of the great things about all these challenges is that
after we tackle them, we have not only the finished product
in hand but also what we learn about the topic -- and ourselves
-- along the way.  Then we are ready for a bigger challenge,
and another program to write.

For CS faculty, catnip topics are invaluable ways to draw
more students into the spell of computing, and more deeply.
We are always on the lookout.
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