This week, we will look at a concept in cryptography you may well have heard of: end-to-end encryption (E2EE). It has become a talking point because it is now employed by messaging apps, such as Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.

Oxbridge Inspire in Oxbridge Inspire

Jul 27, 2018

One Time Pad

This week, we will look at the one time pad. In short, this is an encryption technique that cannot be broken. We saw in the tutorial about hard problems, that we often have to prove security relative to a hard problem we assume is not feasible to break; using a one time pad means we do not need to rely…

Oxbridge Inspire in Oxbridge Inspire

Jul 26, 2018

STEM Education and the Internet of Things

Joe Collins, Seconded Assistant Headteacher and Head of Computer Science at The Thomas Aveling School in Rochester, tells us about the role of small single-board computers in STEM education.

Oxbridge Inspire in Oxbridge Inspire

Jul 19, 2018

Hash functions

This week, we will look at cryptographic hash functions. These are another widely used tool in modern cryptography that allow for secure communication. In brief, they take an input and scramble or ‘hash’ it to form an output — they are a way to hide information. In this tutorial, we will look at what…

Oxbridge Inspire in Oxbridge Inspire

Jul 12, 2018

PKI: Public Key Infrastructure

We have previously seen how public key cryptography works and that it is widely used in modern day…

Oxbridge Inspire in Oxbridge Inspire

Jul 10, 2018

STEM careers: what questions do you want to ask?

Oxbridge Inspire’s ‘Exhibition of Ideas’ workshop was at Coopers’ Company and Coborn School last week for their STEM Festival, where we encouraged sixth form students to explore STEM topics, skills and career options with an open mind.

Oxbridge Inspire in Oxbridge Inspire

Jul 5, 2018

Inside the Game: ‘Cambridge Codebreakers: The Last Secret’

‘The Last Secret’ game has just concluded a second sell-out run, so we decided to discuss codebreaking with its presenters: the University of Cambridge Museums, in partnership with Fire Hazard Games, and their external consultant…