Soufiene Benkirane

Personal interests

Basket Ball

I am a big basketball fan, having practised it for more than 15 years now. I played for the CAFC in Morocco for 6-7 years (sorry, no link available apparently), la Pontoise for a year, two years for the ENSEEIHT, my university in France, and another year for Heriot-Watt in Edinburgh. I have also been selected when I was 13ish in the selection of my city (Casablanca) for an international tournament in Pacé. Good times...

Today, I play casually with people from the university. But I am still looking forward to the next time I will be able to play in competition again!

Reading

I enjoy the occasional book, especially from authors like Amélie Nothomb, Daniel Pennac or Alexandre Jardin.

Cryptography

This is a more recent interest. In 2006, I was reading Digital Fortress from Dan Brown, which reminded me of a maths course on prime numbers I took in High School. I then became interested in RSA and I decided, out of interest and boredom, to try to find a way to solve the problem behind cracking RSA. I'm of course nowhere near anything interesting, but it keeps me entertained during long train trips.