 Can you hear me okay? I do have props, so I'll just warn you. A little housekeeping, as Stuart mentioned. I am not a cryptologist. Full disclosure, I can't factor polynomial time using a quantum dongle. I'm not even sure what a quantum dongle is. But I do have a mystery to submit to you all. First off, thank you to Stuart and Tal for including me. It's an honor to be presenting at the RUM session. It's a mystery that connects through the literary Titan John Steinbeck, the Ukrainian poet, Tereshevchenko, and a gentleman named Thomas Thomas. That's his real name, and he did live on Thomas Street at one point. But I digress. This is Tasha Thomas. She is a classmate of mine from Claremont McKenna. We went to school together. Way back in the 80s. And over beers late one night, we were chatting about the concept of how it's important to read the entire canon of one particular author. The sort of thing you talk about at liberal arts colleges over beers. I proposed that I would read the works of John Steinbeck. He was the first big book that I read when I was a teenager at Canary Row. And I had read a number of his pieces after that, so I was halfway there. Tasha said that she found that very interesting because she had a personal relationship with John Steinbeck. In fact, her father, the Thomas Thomas, he was a college student in Monterey in 1966. And he was looking for a place to live. And so he was introduced to a lovely older lady named Beth Ainsworth, and she said that she'd be happy to have him stay at her house in an empty room. Little did Thomas Thomas know that Beth Ainsworth was actually formerly named Beth Steinbeck, was John Steinbeck's sister, and that this quite little cottage that he rented the room from was the ancestral home of the Steinbeck family. In fact, the building where John Steinbeck wrote a number of his works. So it was certainly a thrill for Thomas Thomas. At this point, John Steinbeck was an international literary superstar, or grapes of wrath, Canary Row, east of Eden of Mison men. He was a titan. And although he lived in the East Coast, he would come back to Monterey on occasion to see his sister. So Thomas Thomas had the opportunity to meet with John Steinbeck a couple of times. He was a big fan of his writing. And at one point, when Steinbeck showed up, Thomas Thomas proposed that he would sign a copy of his edition of Canary Row. And Steinbeck readily agreed. Steinbeck was famous for offering very personal inscriptions. He wouldn't just dash off the signature. And so he took the copy of Canary Row from Thomas Thomas and reappeared a couple of months later and gave him this. On the right is a sort of a clever little personal reference to Tom from John Steinbeck, who's been sleeping in my bed. But on the left is really the reason why I'm here. This is this curious inscription that Steinbeck included in the book as well. Kahn-ni-maum-sirat-twin-ni, sanair-ni-maum-siree. At least that's how I think it's pronounced. Thomas Thomas was thrilled that someone like John Steinbeck would include him on this sort of personal literary quest. And when he left with a twinkle in his eye, he told Thomas Thomas, when you figure this out, let me know. So Thomas Thomas took it upon himself to try and figure out what the heck this thing meant. And he turned over all the sort of obvious clues. He went to linguists. He went to Steinbeck experts. He went to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey. Nothing materialized. Steinbeck died a couple years later, and apparently so did this literary quest until I took it up. I made a film called Lost in the Fog a couple of years ago. And after I finished Lost in the Fog, I was fishing around for my next movie. And so I was going through my folder of materials. That's a recreation. By the way, I just shot that the other day. But I came across this copy of this curious inscription that Tasha gave me many, many years ago back in college. And so I went. And I met with Thomas, and I told him I wanted to take up the mantle, so to speak. And I pretty much did everything that I could. I pretty much did everything that Thomas did. Went to the same sort of people. I couldn't find anything. And so I kind of at wit's end, I finally submitted it to antiquarian books that was in San Francisco. And John Crichton at the Brick Row Bookshop said that he had seen an inscription like this. He didn't know what it meant, but he had seen another reference to it. It occurred at the Rocksboro Club, a famous bibliophile club. They would print these pamphlets at their meetings, and they would talk about whatever the subject of the day was. In 1970, they came across a reference to some writing that Steinbeck did when he was a sophomore at Stanford. And they proposed that they would print that. They went to Steinbeck, and he said, politely he refused, basically. But he did offer something else in its stead. He offered this little piece, which is a translation of a Ukrainian poem by Teres Shevchenko, a famous Ukrainian poet. And he translated into a secret language that he devised. I had found my Rosetta Stone. It wasn't so far-fetched. Steinbeck had been to Ukraine with Robert Kappa and wrote about it in a Russian journal. But I finally found another reference, and I was going to be able to potentially crack this code. There were some obvious similarities, melm, knee, some funny accents. Long story short, now I have to find some Ukrainian experts, which I've enlisted. But the hunt continues. And so I submit it to you, the esteemed members of the International Association of Cryptologic Researchers. If you dame to take on this challenge, I will offer any and all of my materials. And of course, you will be rewarded with fame and fortune, because it's a documentary, of course. Additionally, you can have as many copies of my documentary, Lost in the Fog, as you wish. Thank you for your time.