Game developer, author, and cryptographer
Elonka Dunin (@ElonkaDunin) is a professional game developer, writer, and cryptographer. She is webmistress of two popular crypto-related websites which contain information about the world's most famous unsolved codes. As of 2014, her elonka.com website has had nearly five million page views. In 2000 she was awarded a prize for being the first person to crack the 1999 PhreakNIC v3.0 Code. In 2003 she led the team that cracked the famous Cyrillic Projector cipher, which turned out to contain extracts of classified KGB documents. In 2006 she authored "The Mammoth Book of Secret Codes and Cryptograms", which has been published internationally with multiple re-printings. Bestselling author Dan Brown honored Elonka by naming one of the characters in his Da Vinci Code sequel The Lost Symbol after her: "Nola Kaye" is an anagrammed form of "Elonka". She has also been featured by the popular webcomic Penny Arcade, where she created a cipher that dovetailed with the daily comic. In other hobbies, Dunin is an avid Wikipedia editor, was elected as an administrator in 2007, and has been a significant contributor to over 500 articles, especially in topics related to the Crusades and medieval history.
When not in front a computer, she's probably out geocaching.