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Today in class we received a brief introduction to cryptography, an important application of the concepts we've learned so far. In particular, we studied a few different strategies for encrypting a message. One of these was strategies was the "Caesar cipher," used by Julius Caesar himself. It's relatively straightforward - to encrypt a message, simply replace each letter in the message with the letter that is 3 letters down the alphabet, so A becomes D, D becomes G, and so on. In fact, the title of this blog was encrypted using the Caeser cipher! Test your hacking skills and see if you can decrypt our title. We also studied RSA encryption, a strategy that is still used by modern software, and is extremely complicated to explain!

After class we had an extended lunch period, where we ate various meals (like another round of Langos!) as well as spent some time on homework. When we reconvened as a group once again, the circumstances were more solemn as we watched the award-winning Hungarian film, "Son of Saul." The film followed a Jewish man, Saul, who was captured and forced to work at a concentration camp. Many tears were shed as we watched Saul persevere through his horrifying labor. The camera stayed focused on Saul for the duration of the film, though in the background of every shot we witnessed the graphic scenes of the camp. With no music being played for the entire film, we felt the tragedy of the holocaust at deeply visceral level. We discussed the film afterwards, before splitting off to different dinner locations. Overall, the evening was spent studying and unwinding.

As our time in Budapest nears closer to its end, we cherish every moment that much more. Today was a particularly productive and thought-provoking day.

Aaron Telander

Justin Pacholec

Zareef Kamal