Ah - I just knew Oxford people were solving the puzzle and I was looking for possible texts that might be in a Library there. - Truth is, I was hitting my head on stage 3 for so long, I didn't really get to stage 5 - (Italian? The Language was Italian??? Dagnabit.) -
That, and I'm still working on the old Poe Cipher. Too many goals, and no dates.. suck.
The son of a bitch about stage 5 was that technically, it was a cipher of numbers built off of a key text - you use the first letter of each numbered word (for example, 1 2 3 4 5 in this comment would equal Tsoab - To make it worse, sounds like he just used a short text and numbered the letters instead. And it was a LATIN version of the text. (Lots of those were in foreign languages. Ouch)
So it wasn't so much decrypting as finding a key text that fit the numbers. It's modeled off the Beale cyphers, which are three lists of numbers that supposedly point to gold. The second one used the Declaration of Independance as a code text. No one can find the first or third, as I recall.
It's virtually a one time pad if you wrote the key text yourself, and in all other respects, is more a matter of luck in finding the text then skills/techniques used in any of the other ciphers (frequency analysis, familiarity with the cipher) and so forth) - Most groups didn't get this one till much later. Most skipped it for quite a while.
I was looking for some text that might be based in Oxford myself, like a text of Newton's or something. Suck.
It's there. They used the Fermat Text in latin and did a letter count (as opposed to the word count in Beale Ciphers.) -
Read the PDF on Simon's site.
RB
I brushed up on my C skills and started working on this challenge when it first came out.
What's astonishing is the sheer geekiness of these guys. Factoring RSA keys on distributed clients and everything. Guess it would have been over my head anyway. Still, it was fun.
Congrats to the boys.
RB
Anyone attempting to develop a Left Handed Coffee Cup or designing technology designed to duplicate the function of the left handed coffee cup without the proper license will be hunted down like dogs(like reverse engineering a right handed coffee cup - that's a no no) and they will feel the full wrath of my lawyers.
I know that's not how it's spelled, but they don't deserve to have their name spelled correctly.
While Mr. Fred Durst goes off and sings the praises of Napster, the record company he's a VICE PRESIDENT of joins in on the lawsuit. Can you say hypocrite?
Talking out of both sides of your ass is the corporate way - why not Digital Convergence too?
The whole purpose of this open standard competition was to expose the algorithims to everyone. This isn't just the NSA - Every development team that developed an algorithim was composed of some of the best cryptographers around (inclding guys like Bruce Schneier)
Then, after developing their algorithims, all these developers spent their spare time trying to break everyone else's implementation. The algorithims were open to everyone, and in some cases, they were effectively knocked out of the competition by weaknesses in their implementation.
I realize there are exceptions and the the NSA has behaved badly in the past, but read what this competition was about and how it was run. This was probably the best peer-reviewed encryption scheme/contest/implementation ever run, and anyone with a decent knowledge of encryption can look at the algorithim and decide for themselves how secure it is. (trolls talking out of their ass won't know it, but the experts will) -
And if you're still hung up about it, I'll bet Twofish and Serpent are going to be around for awhile. I might look at Twofish anyway for stuff I mess with.
You can be sure that if a flat fee is paid for Napster the performers will be screwed even worse than they are now, and the RIAA will blame Napster users for cutting into their profits.
RB
I wanted Twofish to win just because of Bruce Schneier and what I've learned from him about cryptography. His book on Applied Cryptography has taught me almost everything I know. Still, even his analysis concluded that either Twofish, Rijndael or Serpent would make a good standard (MARS and RC6 were either too bloated, slow, or insecure) - although he felt Twofish was a better tradeoff overall. I can't make a judgement cause I'm not at a level to make that decision. (Hell, I'm not that good yet, otherwise I wouldn't be just a WAN engineer)
Bruce's analysis of the algorithms is interesting and can be found at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0004.html - There are also papers on counterpane's website showing some comparisions that do put Rijndael at a pretty good spot - usually side by side with Twofish.
That's what I hate the most. Especially if it happens after someone got training.
"Well, I gave them training, and they left, so now we can't train anybody else or otherwise they'll leave too"
Dilbert is so close to not being a parody or satire anymore that it's not even funny. That's part of the reason I became an independent contractor. (that and Rainier Technology laid off 45 workers including myself, thank you very much.) -
Nah - Love hates Universal, and she's trying to get out of her contract, and she's trying to go indie, and she's been speaking about all that stuff (run a search for her speech on Salon) -
Good for her. I think she realized that this is just a record company trying to screw more poeple and trying to get what they owe her.
As a musician who keeps his own mp3's out on mp3.com, it saddens me to know that they're probably going out of business, and I'm going to be forced to stash those friggen things on tripod.com homepages or something.
Fair Use takes another blow to the skull. Kind of feeling screwed here. Thank you Universal, (whip snap!) for merging, (snap!) and wrecking A&M (snap!), and for not compromising and screwing over the consumer in general. (snap!) Thank you very much! - May I have another, please?(snap! snap!)
Ok - I'm willing to set up a webpage (or rather, a mirror) for DeCSS - and I'm going to modify the names of the files or.zip them so they won't show up except as a mirror site. And to be sure, I'm moving the page to a UK location (actually their servers are in Germany, I think, but who cares - it's not here.)
Question is, what happens when the MPAA gets wind of it? Can they prosecute me under U.S. law for a site in the U.K.? Can I tell them to go screw themselves, or am I in trouble?
I am in the US with a US webpage. At this point, it's obvious that I cannot link or publish DeCSS. My question is, how will this apply to international pages published by US residents. For example, can I put up a web page using some service in, say, Germany and still be held liable in the U.S. when the offending material and content is outside the United States?
Would this ruling also ban all expressions of URL's that weren't hyperlinked? For example, some websites I visit don't include links (due to things like Geocities restrictions) - but they'll type the plaintext of the address in for someone to cut and paste. It's not a hyperlink, but is info to a location that could be used to get DeCSS. Could this be the next alternative to a mirror list of hyperlinks?
Can you hear the anti-gun lobby? I'm pro gun and pro-firearm, but the concept of a machine that will simply start firing without human judgement, respect for life, or emotion scares the hell out of me. I'd break into the bank just to knock it out.
If something is broadcasted over public airwaves, I don't think it's illegal to record it for personal use (of course, cable, private schemes aren't the same legally) - but I think that's the price they pay for using a public resource (the airwaves
I love how people use Napster as the solution to the "Evil Corporation" that the Record industry is supposed to represent while ignoring the fact that Napster is a business (attempting to go IPO, I believe) that is sucking in a ton of venture capital with the idea of making a few people rich at the expense of artists all over the world. It's the greatest scam I've seen in a while
Wake up kids - Napster is a corporation - they're just like all the other dot.com's out there that we've come to know and despise and they trade in a copyrighted commodity that they can conveniently dismiss as being a "service" - As far as Gnutilla (sp?)and other free sharing clones - well, that's your conscience - but at least no one's getting rich off of it. That really is power to the people, but not Napster! Napster's just another money-making scheme you bought into.
Napster has the same fat cat mentality as the record companies - and you better believe that if things did work out for them, you'd soon be getting banner ads, fees for services, and a whole crapload of stuff that will remind you how the "little guys" at Napster intend to make money off you at the expense of the artists who created the music. Grow up.
I question this statement by Jon Katz. I doubt the NSA has the technology to break the keys generated by PGP in a reasonable amount of time.
I would be much more likely to believe the NSA has resources to sneak into my place, put keyboard sniffers and steal keys from my computer before I think they'd decrypt a message from , oh, say PGP 6.53 with one of the larger key sizes.
This also doesn't forget the fact that the NSA can probably tell WHO is sending encrypted messages, so there is a privacy issue there, but I don't think it's that big. I want an encryption I can use on a floppy disc and send from my Library without having to deal with getting PGP from home.
While I think Pentium 4 is pretty dull, at least we're spared the ravages of other lameass names -- Pentium 2000 The e-pentium Pentium for dummies Pentium Professional -----------
Band's don't make that much money!
on
Pay Lars
·
· Score: 1
If I read one more ignorant opinion from a computerhead who knows NOTHING about the music business, I'm going to be sick. People who talk about how much money bands make are IDIOTS!.
On average, the vast majority of bands break even, and do a little better. Most record companies take advances, costs, lawyers fees, and everything out of the performer's cut which is usually (and this is fairly high) 10 percent. AND THAT'S A HIGH ESTIMATE! - Furthermore, bands get the shaft on a lot of other things as well from the Record companies
However, I do think it's stupid that this fund is being created. If Metallica had set it up, there'd be room for flames all over the place. In this case, it's just an overzealous fan. I got the same kick when Bill "poor me" Clinton set up a defense fund so that we could help pay the President of the U.S. for exposing himself.
But the idea that we're going to be able to justify the theft of these ideas and products from the artist is just one more sign of how far downhill we've gone. PIRATING SOFTWARE IS ILLEGAL!! (go open source instead) - PIRATING MUSIC IS ILLEGAL!!! - Got that? Maybe the record companies should have found a better way to handle internet content, but just because they didn't doesn't now give you license to STEAL the work of an artist. Very simple. All musicians have a right to protect their work. If you can't handle it, get off the internet.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah - I just knew Oxford people were solving the puzzle and I was looking for possible texts that might be in a Library there. - Truth is, I was hitting my head on stage 3 for so long, I didn't really get to stage 5 - (Italian? The Language was Italian??? Dagnabit.) -
That, and I'm still working on the old Poe Cipher. Too many goals, and no dates.. suck.
The son of a bitch about stage 5 was that technically, it was a cipher of numbers built off of a key text - you use the first letter of each numbered word (for example, 1 2 3 4 5 in this comment would equal Tsoab - To make it worse, sounds like he just used a short text and numbered the letters instead. And it was a LATIN version of the text. (Lots of those were in foreign languages. Ouch)
So it wasn't so much decrypting as finding a key text that fit the numbers. It's modeled off the Beale cyphers, which are three lists of numbers that supposedly point to gold. The second one used the Declaration of Independance as a code text. No one can find the first or third, as I recall.
It's virtually a one time pad if you wrote the key text yourself, and in all other respects, is more a matter of luck in finding the text then skills/techniques used in any of the other ciphers (frequency analysis, familiarity with the cipher) and so forth) - Most groups didn't get this one till much later. Most skipped it for quite a while.
I was looking for some text that might be based in Oxford myself, like a text of Newton's or something. Suck.
It's there. They used the Fermat Text in latin and did a letter count (as opposed to the word count in Beale Ciphers.) - Read the PDF on Simon's site. RB
I brushed up on my C skills and started working on this challenge when it first came out. What's astonishing is the sheer geekiness of these guys. Factoring RSA keys on distributed clients and everything. Guess it would have been over my head anyway. Still, it was fun. Congrats to the boys. RB
Anyone attempting to develop a Left Handed Coffee Cup or designing technology designed to duplicate the function of the left handed coffee cup without the proper license will be hunted down like dogs(like reverse engineering a right handed coffee cup - that's a no no) and they will feel the full wrath of my lawyers.
This is my patent.
I know that's not how it's spelled, but they don't deserve to have their name spelled correctly.
While Mr. Fred Durst goes off and sings the praises of Napster, the record company he's a VICE PRESIDENT of joins in on the lawsuit. Can you say hypocrite?
Talking out of both sides of your ass is the corporate way - why not Digital Convergence too?
The whole purpose of this open standard competition was to expose the algorithims to everyone. This isn't just the NSA - Every development team that developed an algorithim was composed of some of the best cryptographers around (inclding guys like Bruce Schneier)
Then, after developing their algorithims, all these developers spent their spare time trying to break everyone else's implementation. The algorithims were open to everyone, and in some cases, they were effectively knocked out of the competition by weaknesses in their implementation.
I realize there are exceptions and the the NSA has behaved badly in the past, but read what this competition was about and how it was run. This was probably the best peer-reviewed encryption scheme/contest/implementation ever run, and anyone with a decent knowledge of encryption can look at the algorithim and decide for themselves how secure it is. (trolls talking out of their ass won't know it, but the experts will) -
And if you're still hung up about it, I'll bet Twofish and Serpent are going to be around for awhile. I might look at Twofish anyway for stuff I mess with.
You can be sure that if a flat fee is paid for Napster the performers will be screwed even worse than they are now, and the RIAA will blame Napster users for cutting into their profits. RB
I wanted Twofish to win just because of Bruce Schneier and what I've learned from him about cryptography. His book on Applied Cryptography has taught me almost everything I know. Still, even his analysis concluded that either Twofish, Rijndael or Serpent would make a good standard (MARS and RC6 were either too bloated, slow, or insecure) - although he felt Twofish was a better tradeoff overall. I can't make a judgement cause I'm not at a level to make that decision. (Hell, I'm not that good yet, otherwise I wouldn't be just a WAN engineer)
Bruce's analysis of the algorithms is interesting and can be found at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0004.html - There are also papers on counterpane's website showing some comparisions that do put Rijndael at a pretty good spot - usually side by side with Twofish.
That's what I hate the most. Especially if it happens after someone got training.
"Well, I gave them training, and they left, so now we can't train anybody else or otherwise they'll leave too"
Dilbert is so close to not being a parody or satire anymore that it's not even funny. That's part of the reason I became an independent contractor. (that and Rainier Technology laid off 45 workers including myself, thank you very much.) -
I wonder if this is the first ex-NSA analyst to make this statement. Wonder how long it is before he gets sued or taken out.
Good for her. I think she realized that this is just a record company trying to screw more poeple and trying to get what they owe her.
I couldn't use my band's burned CD in my player DVD player either. some of them aren't setup for CD-R/CD-RW
DECSS.MP3 D.O.A.? MPAA P.O. @ DECss - MP3.COM C.Y.A. - B.F.D.
Fair Use takes another blow to the skull. Kind of feeling screwed here. Thank you Universal, (whip snap!) for merging, (snap!) and wrecking A&M (snap!), and for not compromising and screwing over the consumer in general. (snap!) Thank you very much! - May I have another, please?(snap! snap!)
Question is, what happens when the MPAA gets wind of it? Can they prosecute me under U.S. law for a site in the U.K.? Can I tell them to go screw themselves, or am I in trouble?
Thanks. RB
I am in the US with a US webpage. At this point, it's obvious that I cannot link or publish DeCSS. My question is, how will this apply to international pages published by US residents. For example, can I put up a web page using some service in, say, Germany and still be held liable in the U.S. when the offending material and content is outside the United States?
Would this ruling also ban all expressions of URL's that weren't hyperlinked? For example, some websites I visit don't include links (due to things like Geocities restrictions) - but they'll type the plaintext of the address in for someone to cut and paste. It's not a hyperlink, but is info to a location that could be used to get DeCSS. Could this be the next alternative to a mirror list of hyperlinks?
If something is broadcasted over public airwaves, I don't think it's illegal to record it for personal use (of course, cable, private schemes aren't the same legally) - but I think that's the price they pay for using a public resource (the airwaves
I love how people use Napster as the solution to the "Evil Corporation" that the Record industry is supposed to represent while ignoring the fact that Napster is a business (attempting to go IPO, I believe) that is sucking in a ton of venture capital with the idea of making a few people rich at the expense of artists all over the world. It's the greatest scam I've seen in a while
Wake up kids - Napster is a corporation - they're just like all the other dot.com's out there that we've come to know and despise and they trade in a copyrighted commodity that they can conveniently dismiss as being a "service" - As far as Gnutilla (sp?)and other free sharing clones - well, that's your conscience - but at least no one's getting rich off of it. That really is power to the people, but not Napster! Napster's just another money-making scheme you bought into.
Napster has the same fat cat mentality as the record companies - and you better believe that if things did work out for them, you'd soon be getting banner ads, fees for services, and a whole crapload of stuff that will remind you how the "little guys" at Napster intend to make money off you at the expense of the artists who created the music. Grow up.
I question this statement by Jon Katz. I doubt the NSA has the technology to break the keys generated by PGP in a reasonable amount of time.
I would be much more likely to believe the NSA has resources to sneak into my place, put keyboard sniffers and steal keys from my computer before I think they'd decrypt a message from , oh, say PGP 6.53 with one of the larger key sizes.
This also doesn't forget the fact that the NSA can probably tell WHO is sending encrypted messages, so there is a privacy issue there, but I don't think it's that big. I want an encryption I can use on a floppy disc and send from my Library without having to deal with getting PGP from home.
RB
While I think Pentium 4 is pretty dull, at least we're spared the ravages of other lameass names --
Pentium 2000
The e-pentium
Pentium for dummies
Pentium Professional
-----------
On average, the vast majority of bands break even, and do a little better. Most record companies take advances, costs, lawyers fees, and everything out of the performer's cut which is usually (and this is fairly high) 10 percent. AND THAT'S A HIGH ESTIMATE! - Furthermore, bands get the shaft on a lot of other things as well from the Record companies
However, I do think it's stupid that this fund is being created. If Metallica had set it up, there'd be room for flames all over the place. In this case, it's just an overzealous fan. I got the same kick when Bill "poor me" Clinton set up a defense fund so that we could help pay the President of the U.S. for exposing himself.
But the idea that we're going to be able to justify the theft of these ideas and products from the artist is just one more sign of how far downhill we've gone. PIRATING SOFTWARE IS ILLEGAL!! (go open source instead) - PIRATING MUSIC IS ILLEGAL!!! - Got that? Maybe the record companies should have found a better way to handle internet content, but just because they didn't doesn't now give you license to STEAL the work of an artist. Very simple. All musicians have a right to protect their work. If you can't handle it, get off the internet.