CipherVerse

Multilingualism in Ireland is a podcast series hosted by Stephen Lucek and Marion Schulte. In episode 4 the hosts talk to Dr Bronagh Catibusic about multilingualism and the University of Sanctuary initiative in Trinity College Dublin. 

Dr Bronagh Catibusic is an Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics (TESOL) in the Centre for Language and Communication Studies. She holds a B.A. (Hons.) in English Studies, an M.Phil. in Applied Linguistics, and a Ph.D. from Trinity College Dublin. She has previously lectured on the teaching of English as an Additional Language (EAL) in Dublin City University. She has also been involved in research for the Council of Europe, the National College of Ireland, and several NGOs on issues pertaining to language and migration. Her research and publications relate to language acquisition and pedagogy, curriculum and assessment, and plurilingual and intercultural education, with a particular interest in contexts of forced migration. Bronagh has a long record of teaching, research, and engagement with refugee and migrant communities in Ireland. She recently received an Irish Research Council 'New Foundations' award for a research project focusing on technology-enhanced language learning with adult migrants. She is also actively involved in the University of Sanctuary initiative and leads the Trinity English Conversation Classes, a valuable civic engagement project through which Trinity staff and student volunteers provide language and intercultural support for people who are seeking refuge in Ireland. She currently working on research relating to this project and is involved in initiatives, established within Trinity and by the Irish Universities Association, in response to the crisis in Ukraine.

About the hosts

Stephen Lucek is an Assistant Professor in Linguistics in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics. His research focuses on linguistic competencies and resources of language users in Ireland. This extends to multilingualism, register variation, and polydialectalism. In much simpler terms, he is interested in how users access language in all its forms. 

Marion Schulte is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Rostock. Her research focuses on various contexts of language use and language variation –she is especially interested in sociophonetics, multilingualism in postcolonial societies (Ireland and Namibia), as well as short-term and long-term language change.

Multilingualism in Ireland. Ep4: University of Sanctuary with Bronagh Catibusic

Multilingualism in Ireland is a podcast series hosted by Stephen Lucek and Marion Schulte. In episode 3 the hosts talk to Leire Sarto-Zubiaurre who researched the acquisition of Spanish as a foreign Language by Irish learners for her PhD topic.

About the hosts

Stephen Lucek is an Assistant Professor in Linguistics in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics. His research focuses on linguistic competencies and resources of language users in Ireland. This extends to multilingualism, register variation, and polydialectalism. In much simpler terms, he is interested in how users access language in all its forms. 

Marion Schulte is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Rostock. Her research focuses on various contexts of language use and language variation –she is especially interested in sociophonetics, multilingualism in postcolonial societies (Ireland and Namibia), as well as short-term and long-term language change.

Multilingualism in Ireland. Ep3: language acquisition with Leire Sarto-Zubiaurre

Multilingualism in Ireland is a podcast series hosted by Stephen Lucek and Marion Schulte.

Fióna Bolger is a poet, creative writing teacher & workshop facilitator, based in Dublin. Find out more about her work and poetry. https://www.fionabolgerpoetry.com
https://www.ilsschool.org/dubylon.html and https://www.unapologeticmag.net/new-page

Stephen Lucek is an Assistant Professor in Linguistics in the School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics. His research focuses on linguistic competencies and resources of language users in Ireland. This extends to multilingualism, register variation, and polydialectalism. In much simpler terms, he is interested in how users access language in all its forms. 

Marion Schulte is Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Rostock. Her research focuses on various contexts of language use and language variation –she is especially interested in sociophonetics, multilingualism in postcolonial societies (Ireland and Namibia), as well as short-term and long-term language change.

Multilingualism in Ireland. Ep2: Plurilingualism (with Fiona Bolger, Stephen Lucek & Marion Schulte)

On June 10, The Institute of World Politics welcomed Andres Kütt, Head Software Architect, and Liina Areng, Head of International Relations, both of the Estonian Information System Authority to speak on the state of cyber security globally, as well as their country’s pioneering transition to electronic governance. Mr. Kütt and Ms. Areng generously offered their time and expertise to inform the IWP community about the importance of a rapidly changing cyber landscape. 

Mr. Kütt told the audience how there is a constant war being waged between the governments, corporations, and organizations that secure private data and the rogue criminal hackers who seek to steal it from their databases. In reality, he said, there is not a guaranteed method of securing online data in this modern era. Rather, there are differing levels of coding sophistication and mathematical formulas by which cryptographers and cyber attackers engage in their web-based warfare. 

Mr. Kütt explained how, essentially, this worldwide data conflict is driven by secure codes and encryptions that protect data and the efforts by rogue states or actors to disrupt them. Time, he says, is the worst enemy of cryptographers, as their electronic battlements are constantly under siege. The most effective way to mitigate the risk of cyber attack, he noted, is to hire the most talented pool of cyber defenders. 

Mr. Kütt and Ms. Areng informed the audience that governments are at the forefront of the cyber challenges that face the 21st century. The Republic of Estonia in particular has been a global leader in so-called “E-governance,” transforming their Baltic nation of 1.3 million into a cyber powerhouse. Estonia, they report, has been highly successful in its endeavor to render the services and obligations of government into electronic models. For example, Estonia is the only one of its kind in the world to have institutionalized E-voting in national elections. This kind of groundbreaking civic engagement, the speakers emphasized, is dependent on a high degree of trust in its accuracy and incorruptibility. 

Mr. Kütt and Ms. Areng explained how the Estonian government relies on its advanced corps of citizen-cryptographers. The Cyber Defense League was established in 2010 as a response to the unprecedented cyber attacks on the country years earlier. This organization of volunteer cryptographers serves the national cyber defense by donating their talents in service to Estonia. 

Mr. Kütt and Ms. Areng went on to explain the interconnectedness of the digital ecosystems that populate the Internet. What affects one facet of the web is sure to translate into tangible consequences for the other. Further, the immense difficulty in identifying the origins of a cyber attack means that a coherent, reliable encryption is increasingly the only viable avenue of defense. 

Cryptography And Trust- Estonia And The Modern Information Society

Luke Casserly is a multidisciplinary performance maker from Longford, Ireland.

His work weaves together ecological research, autobiography, sound art, and site as a way of carving out space for new possibilities to emerge between live performance and physical landscape. His projects have brought audiences through city streets, back gardens, train stations, beaches, and a bog in the Irish Midlands. These have led to the creation of a network of wildflower meadows across Ireland (1000 Miniature Meadows, 2020–23), the planting of 1,000 indigenous trees (Root, 2021), and the development of an organic perfume made using botanicals from the Irish bog (Distillation, 2023). Often using autobiography as a starting point, his work attempts to open new conversations around humanity’s impact on the environment. He is interested in making work with a positive environmental legacy beyond the moment of live encounter with an audience, creating gentle, subversive interventions in response to the climate crisis while avoiding the anxiety, greenwashing, and didacticism that often surrounds the topic in contemporary society.

In 2024, he was appointed as a Biodiversity Artist in Residence at Dublin City Council. For more information go to Luke's website: https://www.lukecasserly.org

In episode 1 of Extracts Luke talks to hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster about his work.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’. We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

Extracts - Episode 1. Luke Casserly


EXTRACTS is a podcast series about how artists are working to reimagine the potential futures of mined, excavated, and extractivist landscapes hosted by Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster. 

In episode 2 of Extracts, hosts Sarah and Megan talk to Rhiannon Gwyn about her work.

Rhiannon Gwyn was raised in Sling near Bethesda - a quarrying village in North Wales, a place that has, and continues to strongly influence her creative practice.

In 2019 Rhiannon graduated with a first class Artist Designer: Maker degree from Cardiff School of Art and Design. On the course she was encouraged to experiment with a variety of materials and their processes and found her interest to be with slate and clay, now her practice seeks to discover new possibilities in the crafting of these materials.

You can find more information about Rhiannon Gwynn's work at https://www.instagram.com/rhiannongwyn.artist

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’.

We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.


Extracts - Episode 2. Rhiannon Gwyn

Dr Adrian Huang, graduated from UCD Medicine in 2011. 

Dr Huang is a Clinical Associate Professor in the UBC Department of Orthopaedics and an Orthopaedic Surgeon at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. He completed his orthopaedic surgery residency at the University of Ottawa and went on to complete two clinical fellowships: the first focusing on Orthopaedic Trauma at the Orthopaedic Trauma Institute at the University of California San Francisco and the second on Upper Limb Surgery at the Hand and Upper Limb Centre at Western University.

Dr Huang hosts the Canadian Orthopaedic Association podcast series, Ortho Insider, chatting with top orthopaedic surgeons from various backgrounds. He is passionate about digital media in medical education and working with the medical students and residents to help them grow their careers. 

MGA Clinical Influencers

UCD MGA launched its Podcast Series - MGA Clinical Influencers - in 2022.

During this podcast series, graduates give us a trip down memory lane when describing their time at UCD (and on some occasions in other Schools of Medicine) and as junior doctors.

They discuss their stellar careers in their chosen speciailty and highlights and challenges during those careers, how they share their expertise and coach others. On a personal level, they will discuss how they manage a decent work life balance, where that is possible and books for us to enjoy and holiday locations we should be thinking about. Our interviewees have compelling stories to tell that will spark your curiosity about life in the clinical speciality they have chosen and the career path they have travelled.

https://www.ucd.ie/medicine/alumni/mgapodcastseries/

Adrian Huang - Orthopaedic Surgeon (UCD Class of 2011)

In episode 3 of Extracts, hosts Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster arein conversation with Siyabonga Mthembu. Based in Johannesburg, Siya is the lead member of one of South Africa’s best known musical ensembles, The Brother Moves On. The Brother Moves On is widely regarded for their music which, in their own words, offers "transitional music for a transitional generation", An incredibly popular band, The Brother Moves On attracts huge audiences in South Africa and around the world. Their live shows are known for the band’s experimental performance approach which mixes art, music, and stories to create the conditions for transformative audience experiences. In today’s episode, Siya talks with us about the music industry, how Johannesburg’s gold mining foundations and legacies continue to shape his work, his concept of ultra sanity, and the projects he is looking forward to experimenting with next.

About Extracts

EXTRACTS is a podcast series about how artists are working to reimagine the potential futures of mined, excavated, and extractivist landscapes hosted by Sarah Comyn and Megan Kuster.

The music is from the South African performance art ensemble ‘The Brother Moves On’. We gratefully acknowledge the UCD Humanities Institute and UCD’s College of Arts & Humanities Research Strands Seed Funding scheme for funding this project.

Here's the link to John Grzinich's album 'Geofractions,' mentioned in the intro: https://maaheli.bandcamp.com/album/geofractions

Extracts - Episode 3. Siyabonga Mthembu

In this episode a recording of a keynote from the Irish Humanities Alliance's Annual Conference for 2025.  

The conference, entitled 'Feeding the Soul - Transnational Narratives of Food and Belonging' took place in UCD Humantities Institute on 4-5 September 2025

The first keynote was given by Raúl Matta (Centre de Recherche Institut Lyfe).
His keynote, 'Foodscapes as affective assemblages, or why (food) stories matter' was preceded by some conference opening remarks by UCC Professor Brendan Dooley, Chair of the Irish Humanities Alliance.

The second keynote was given by Tania Aguila-Way (University of Toronto)
Title: ''root & stomach and seed speak glottal' - Tracing Stories of Plant-Mediated Diasporic-Indigenous Solidarities from the Poetic Page to the Community Garden'.

Tania Aguila-Way - Tracing Stories of Plant-Mediated Diasporic-Indigenous Solidarities from the Poetic Page to the Community Garden

Information Security
 1. Introduction
  ○ Security by obscurity
   § Steganography
    □ Hiding data inside another form of data, like using non-used bits in image to hide a message
     § Cool, but not practical.
     § Disadvantages
      ◊ Algorithm secrecy vs. key secrecy
  ○ Cryptography is everywhere and yet if done right, you can barely see it.
  ○ Goals: 
   § Confidentiality
    □ Secrets stay secret.
   § Integrity
    □ Data is not tampered with.
   § Non-Repudiation
    □ No party can deny sending messages.
   § Authentication
    □ Each party can ensure that the sender is what they expect.
  ○ Cryptography
   § Hashing
   § Encryption
   § Signing
   § Protocols
  ○ Random Number Generators
   § Extremely important, almost all encryption/hashing strength is affected by how random the random number generator is.
   § Don't use simple random number, use a cryptographic random number generator with a sophisticated source of entropy.
   § Pseudorandom number generator
   § Dual_EC_DRBG random generator backdoor
 2. Body
  ○ Hashing (one Way)
   § Properties
    □ Fixed length output no matter what size the input was
    □ Very easy to compute the hash of a given message, however very hard to compute from a hash the corresponding input.
    □ Mathematically infeasible to generate a message that has a given hash
    □ Any modification to a message produces a completely different hash that has no relationship to the original message's hash.
    □ It is mathematically infeasible to find two messages with the same hash. Hash Collision
   § Hashing Functions
    □ Provides data integrity, however lacks authentication
    □ Examples
     ® MD5 
      ◊ Considered Insecure
     ® Secure Hash Family SHA-X, Sha-1, Sha-2 [Sha256, Sha512], Sha-3
      ◊ Sha-1 is considered insecure.
      ◊ Sha-1, Sha-2 designed by NSA
      ◊ Sha-3 is not designed by NSA, Competition winner.
    □ Attacks
     ® Brute force
      ◊ CPU's are getting faster and cheaper every day.
      ◊ GPU's are getting faster and cheaper every day.
      ◊ Special Hash calculating hardware is becoming more available especially with the BitCoin push.
     ® Rainbow table attacks
      ◊ Pre-Calculated tables where you can reverse lookup a hash to a value
      ◊ Try www.crackstation.net
   § Hash Message Authentication Codes (HMAC)
    □ Adds authentication to integrity
    □ Can be used with all previous algorithms, HMACMD5, HMACShA1, HMAC256 … etc.
   § Salted Hash
    □ Adds random salt to mitigate rainbow table
    □ Salts are unique per record, and not a secret.
   § Password Based Key Derivation Function (PBKDF2)
    □ RSA Public Key Cryptographic Standard PKCS #5 Version 2.0
    □ Internet Engineering Task Force RFC 2898 Specification
     ® Adds a lot of iterations to slow it just enough to mitigate brute force (default 50,000 iterations)
     ® Adds random salt to mitigate rainbow table
    □ Disadvantage: It can be easily implemented with hardware which makes it vulnerable to bruteforce even with high number of iterations
   § Bcrypt
    □ Password Hashing function
    □ State of the art password hashing
   § Usages
    □ Integrity Check
Password Storage

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EP46 - AskDeveloper Podcast - Cryptography - Part 1 - Introduction and Hashing

#3 John Pacific of NuCypher | Applied Cryptography, Adversarial Thinking & Arbitrary Computation on Encrypted Data

#3 John Pacific of NuCypher | Applied Cryptography, Adversarial Thinking & Arbitrary Computation

Interview location: Palo Alto
Interview date: Thursday 31st Jan, 2018
Company: Cryptomathic
Role: Cryptographer and Security Expert

A number of pioneers developed the cryptographic and technical foundations for which Bitcoin is built upon. Nick Szabo highlighted a number of these people in his Tweet:

“Inventors of the most important technologies in Bitcoin: digital signatures and Merkle trees (Merkle), elliptic curve crypto (Koblitz), malicious-fault-tolerant consensus (Lamport), elliptic curve crypto (independent inventor: Miller).”

Many others along the way have contributed to the success of Bitcoin, either through early work or attempts at created a digital currency, names such as Adam Back, David Chaum and Szabo himself.

Whitfield Diffie sits alongside all of these people. His work on cryptography should not be forgotten in the history of Bitcoin and I had the pleasure of sitting down with him to discuss this, how he was introduced to Bitcoin and other such topics as privacy and security.

The What Bitcoin Did Podcast

Whitfield Diffie on the History of Cryptography

The pending cryptographic Quantum Apocalypse requires that we replace the hashing and encryption algorithms used through the internet, enterprise networks, mobile service, and popular devices. Join our experts to learn more about the requirements for quantum-resistant algorithms to survive the Quantum Apocalypse.

Root Causes 06: Quantum-Resistant Cryptography

Prof Gary McGuire (UCD) - “Post Quantum Cryptography”, a podcast from the UCD/IBM Quantum Technologies Colloquium 2019.

The colloquium focused on emerging research opportunities in Quantum Technologies and was organised in partnership with IBM Research - Ireland, UCD Research, and the UCD Institute for Discovery. It took place in the Moore Auditorium in the O'Brien Centre for Science at UCD on 28th of March 2019.

Quantum technology is an emerging and highly interdisciplinary field of study that draws on expertise in Science and Engineering but is expected to be highly disruptive to a range of other disciplines. Though early in its development, quantum computing is now available on real hardware via the cloud through IBM Q. This radically new kind of computing holds open the possibility of solving some problems that are now and perhaps always will be intractable for “classical” computers.

This event will cover a broad spectrum of cutting-edge technologies ranging from quantum simulation, to quantum computing, to post-quantum cryptography, and will combine academic and industrial sessions, with contributions from leading scientists and practitioners in the field. As part of this event, IBM Research -- Ireland will introduce IBM Q, an industry-first initiative to build universal quantum computers for business and science, and UCD will outline exciting new developments in Quantum Computing hardware.

UCD Institute for Discovery supports emerging interdisciplinary research in University College Dublin and helps to build and strengthen interdiscplinary networks and research themes across all disciplines in the University. For more information go to www.ucd.ie/discovery

The speakers were Dr Martin Mevissen (IBM Research), Prof Monique Laurent (CWI Research Centre), Prof Gary McGuire (UCD), Prof Jiri Vala (NUI Maynooth), Dr Krzysztof Pomorski (UCD), Dr Radu Marinescu (IBM Research-Ireland), Dr Elena Blokhina (UCD), Dr Dirk Leipold (CEO of equal1.labs), Prof Bogdan Staszewski (UCD), Dr Jakub Marecek (IBM).

The colloquium focused on emerging research opportunities in Quantum Technologies and was organised in partnership with IBM Research - Ireland, UCD Research, and the UCD Institute for Discovery.
It took place in the Moore Auditorium in the O'Brien Centre for Science at UCD on 28th of March 2019.

UCD Institute for Discovery supports emerging interdisciplinary research in University College Dublin and helps to build and strengthen interdiscplinary networks and research themes across all disciplines in the University. For more information go to www.ucd.ie/discovery

The speakers were Dr Martin Mevissen (IBM Research), Prof Monique Laurent (CWI Research Centre), Prof Gary McGuire (UCD), Prof Jiri Vala (NUI Maynooth), Dr Krzysztof Pomorski (UCD), Dr Radu Marinescu (IBM Research-Ireland), Dr Elena Blokhina (UCD), Dr Dirk Leipold (CEO of equal1.labs), Prof Bogdan Staszewski (UCD), Dr Jakub Marecek (IBM).

Gary McGuire - Post Quantum Cryptography

Founder of EPIC Knowledge Society and SPACE Creative Culture Labs. I am a Futurist and Data Scientist with Professional Mastery and Pragmatic Insights on Digital Transformation and Innovation Management with extensive credentials on Digital Enterprise Architectures, Crypto Economics, Customer Experience Design, Social Entrepreneurship Incubation, Business Model Innovation, Innovation Ecosystems, Innovation Analytics, Innovation Consulting, Social Business Networks, Academic Research Networks, Industrial Research Alliances, New Service Incubation, New Product Incubation, New Platform Innovation, High performing Teams, Cross Competency Innovation etc.

Gary McGuire - Post Quantum Cryptography

UCD Institute for Discovery

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