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The latest 99% Invisible podcast episode focuses on locks and lockpicking. I think you'll find some nice parallels with cryptography, especially around Kerckhoff's Principle and the idea of not knowing if your security system has been broken.

This 99% Invisible podcast episode focuses on locks and lockpicking. I think you'll find some nice parallels with cryptography, especially around Kerckhoff's Principle and the idea of not knowing if your security system has been broken.

Print your own TSA master keys!

What really stood out to me about this article was that they said the NSA actually pays more attention to those people who use encryption. So, in order to protect ourselves and also avoid prying NSA eyes, we should encourage people to stand in solidarity with encryption. I thought this was really interesting because I always thought that encryption would undoubtedly make everything more secure, but here they're saying that it actually attracts attention (which isn't necessarily a good thing).

When I was a kid, I read an issue of Superman in which he faces Batman's villain, the Joker. At one point, the Joker tells Superman that he's kidnapped all of Superman's best friends (Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and so on) and locked them inside lead-lined caskets, hidden throughout Metropolis. Since the caskets are air-tight, they only have an hour to live, and Superman can't find them because his x-ray vision can't see through lead! That's what the Joker said. Actually, since Superman can't see through lead, those caskets *stood out* when he scanned the city with his x-ray vision, and he rescued all his friends in short order. Same basic idea.

You can find anything on the Internet: http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/superjoker6.jpg.