Slashdot Mirror
Intro to Encryption
An anonymous reader submitted a Techworld story which is a sort of encryption primer. The difference between codes & cyphers, and what all those acronyms like RSA and DES actually mean. This is good primer material for newbs, and a good refresher for fogeys.
Let's say you are 8 years old and you know next to nothing about computing in general and the word 'encryption' piqued your interest. It is at this point that I would guide you to this so-called "primer". WTF do the editors do all day? You submit a well-written story with lots of information attached and you get rejected. You submit an 8 year old's intro to cryptography (i.e. "How to play Celebrity Cypher in your newspaper") and it makes front page. I hope those guys aren't paid to edit.
Oh my, that is such a predictable geeky statement that it isn't even funny. What happened to Slashdot?
Simple, because you failed to include at least one of the following in your post:
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
1) Get 600MB of random noise data from listening for extra terrestrials from for instance SETI.
Simple.
Unbreakable.
Why the fuck would you get your "noise" from SETI.
You are such a fucking moron. Especially when it would be much simpler and safer to generate random noise from your own Geiger counter(s) or weather observation equipment.
SETI is a project, in case you don't know that is looking for some non-random structure in signals. (ie, when there is non-random signal in the SETI "feed" everyone might be surprised (until they find it was some errant satellite) but no one should be fundamentally surprised that some non-random data popped up in their SETI feed as that is the whole point.
Secondly, non of the data you receive from SETI is considered a high grade secret. What prevents anyone else from intercepting your SETI "noise". Even if the SETI signal is encrypted, your whole pad security is now essentially the same as THAT cryptosystem as a whole, and has nothing to do with the OTP.