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posted by on Monday May 22 2017, @08:30PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-the-ginchiest dept.

A shameless self-promotion for a first submitted story.

As a part of my MSc studies in computing, during writing an assignment for the Computer and Network Security module, one of the tasks was to explain how public key infrastructure (PKI) works in layman terms. Given the fact my work revolves around information security (and especially cryptography) since 1999 and I am a musician, my advisor joked I could write a song about it. I told him he's nuts and that there's just no way you can write a song about PKI.

Few days later I couldn't stop thinking about it and actually composed something. My advisor created a (quite generic) video and uploaded the thing on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp9JriLfH1w

As I learned later, the song become quite accepted within various security and cryptography communities. The only downside is the video.

The audio is - of course - CC-BY-SA. Composing, recording, vocals and everything made by me (I noted it upfront this is gonna be a shameless self-promotion).

On a side note, the whole thing was composed on Gentoo Linux in emacs (yes, I am one of those) and recorded using Rosegarden, FluidSynth, jack-audio-connection-kit, generic M-Audio Oxygen61 MIDI keyboard and Audix OM-6 microphone. It was never meant to be actully published so generic Intel HDA codec was used. If anyone could produce a decent video, I can re-record the audio tracks in better quality in my garage studio. The current version - including microphone audio tracks - were recorded in the computer lab. And yes, the bass line should be polished. I know.

If any of the Soylentils could create a video that would actually fit the lyrics, it might become - with is short duration - a useful explanation of how PKI works. And being one of Solentils, contacting me is as easy as writing a comment under the story. Rest assured, I am here all the time :)

[Ed. Note: We don't usually run stories whose sole content is a video, but this seems like it could spark interesting discussion. It would be helpful if the author could post the lyrics in a comment.]

[Ed. Note 2: This puts me in mind of the Dance Your Ph.D. contest they run over at Science Magazine.]


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by dzoe on Monday May 22 2017, @08:57PM (1 child)

    by dzoe (1934) on Monday May 22 2017, @08:57PM (#513757)

    Yes it is. That's one of the reasons I decided to post it here - it is my hope that someone might actually create a meaningful video for this :)

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  • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:38PM

    by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:38PM (#514269) Journal

    No. You missed my point. The message is audio. It's music and lyrics. Adding video adds nothing of value. In fact, it bloats it and wastes bandwidth and storage. So perhaps I should have said video degrades the message.

    When there's an audio message, the benefit, if any, comes from listening, not focusing on something visual.

    If there's no message - as is almost always the case with pop music - then sure, give me dancing girls and I might stick around and tap my foot. But for this? No.

    You put dancing girls on this, and I guarantee you I won't have any idea what the lyrics were when the song is over.