That's the only way I could describe the novel. I read the whole thing, cover to cover, in about five hours time, finishing at about 2AM. I couldn't put it down.
I have a habit of reading books several times over, but I could not get through this book the second time. Once I was over the suspense and action I found that almost half the book was stupid, implausible, fictional, inaccurate, unbelieveable, and contrary to all logic. Example: A Google search for "Rotating Cleartext" (which was one of the major parts of the supposedly unbreakable encryption) turned up exactly two results; both of them were about the book itself.
The major failure, though, was the idea that a supercomputer--even a really really fast one--could crack an unknown algorithm by brute force. The idea of applying key guessing to a unknown encryption type is rediculous and impossible.
If you tried it for a long enough time you could probably decode it into an entirely different message, for the same reason monkeys could produce the full works of Shakespeare. And then if you know the algorithm, key guessing by definition will always work, although it may take centuries (not hours, as the book claims). There are more technical inaccuracies that I noticed and that others noticed (especially the final firewall scene).
That said, the book was a fun read for a couple of hours, and I might have some fun later illustrating exactly where the book got it wrong (Answer: A lot of places).
Sure, digital elections are more secure than conventional ones.
Well I'm sure that they can be, just as long as you don't use guess whose voting system.
My parents are something like that. In front of them and when I know they're watching I am a vertiable angel, I'm gifted and talented in computer science. When they're not watching I surf porn and hack the school network and goof off.
Rember Princess Leia's quote from Star Wars? "The more you tighten your grip, the more galaxies will slip through your fingers"
(forgive any innacuracy, i did that from memory)
The reason for this is that if the only reason you give your kids not to do these things is that you'll chatch them and they'll get in deep trouble then the moment they know you won't find out they'll do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft = Totalitarian Dictatorship? As if we didn't know that already
That's the only way I could describe the novel. I read the whole thing, cover to cover, in about five hours time, finishing at about 2AM. I couldn't put it down.
I have a habit of reading books several times over, but I could not get through this book the second time. Once I was over the suspense and action I found that almost half the book was stupid, implausible, fictional, inaccurate, unbelieveable, and contrary to all logic. Example: A Google search for "Rotating Cleartext" (which was one of the major parts of the supposedly unbreakable encryption) turned up exactly two results; both of them were about the book itself.
The major failure, though, was the idea that a supercomputer--even a really really fast one--could crack an unknown algorithm by brute force. The idea of applying key guessing to a unknown encryption type is rediculous and impossible.
If you tried it for a long enough time you could probably decode it into an entirely different message, for the same reason monkeys could produce the full works of Shakespeare. And then if you know the algorithm, key guessing by definition will always work, although it may take centuries (not hours, as the book claims). There are more technical inaccuracies that I noticed and that others noticed (especially the final firewall scene). That said, the book was a fun read for a couple of hours, and I might have some fun later illustrating exactly where the book got it wrong (Answer: A lot of places).
Sure, digital elections are more secure than conventional ones. Well I'm sure that they can be, just as long as you don't use guess whose voting system.
My parents are something like that. In front of them and when I know they're watching I am a vertiable angel, I'm gifted and talented in computer science. When they're not watching I surf porn and hack the school network and goof off.
Rember Princess Leia's quote from Star Wars?
"The more you tighten your grip, the more galaxies will slip through your fingers"
(forgive any innacuracy, i did that from memory)
The reason for this is that if the only reason you give your kids not to do these things is that you'll chatch them and they'll get in deep trouble then the moment they know you won't find out they'll do it.