If the method of encryption is a one time pad, then Test_key in general cannot decide when it has the correct key.
A one time pad consists of a bunch of randomly chosen shifts for each letter in the message you would like to encrypt. This has the effect that any specific encoded n-letter message could be decoded to any n-letter string. For example, akldjsadhas could be "hello world" or "hello jenny" or anything you could think of with the required number of letters - with longer lengths, there are far more messages possible, and padding the sent message with some random data to make use of the whole list of shifts can make the task really hard. The idea is that there's too little information contained in the encoded message to decode it.
Of course, there's always the potential for attacks on the one time pad in specific situations: if all the possible messages have different lengths, and you know all the possible messages, then it's trivial to work out what has been sent. The point is that in the general case this - and some other ciphers - cannot be broken.
Giant Creator-Wombat: "I refuse to prove that I exist, because proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
Man: "Ah, but the Babel fish is so incredibly useful that it absolutely proves you exist. Thereby, according to your own argument, you don't."
Giant Creator-Wombat: "Oops, I hadn't thought of that."
Whereupon Giant Creator-Wombat disappears in a puff of logic. Man goes on to prove that up is down, black is white, and promptly gets himself killed at the next traffic crossing.
This somehow reminds me of a series of memorandum I came across in Paradox, a magazine published by the Melbourne Uni Math Society (MUMS).
It consists of a bunch of proofs that there is no largest prime - the list of proofs is entitled "15 good reasons why Pure Mathematics is not taught to first year students." My favourites are:
Proof by example:
"Let x be the largest prime. Then x=91 but 91+6=97 which is prime. Therefore 91 cannot be the largest prime number. Therefore there is no largest prime."
Proof by intuition:
"Prime numbers are integers that can be divided by themselves only; prime numbers are odd with the exception of 2. By intuition as n->infinity, there will always be an odd number cannot be divided by another number besides itself."
Proof by experimental data:
"Suppose n is the highest prime. Then 2n-1 is also prime. But 2n-1>n so there is no highest prime. (Check: 2*2-1=3, 2*3-1=5, 2*5-1=11, 2*11-1=23, so true.)"
But the greatest of them all:
Proof by having no idea what a prime is:
"Say the largest prime is x, then 2x is also a prime since the statement is true for all natural numbers."
Re:What about Star Control 2?
on
Humor in Games?
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· Score: 1
Fwiffo rocks:
"I swiftly matured into a fine example of my species and with my parents' assistance, achieved independence. Specifically, they pried me from the doorjam, and rolled me into the street. Thus prepared, I set out to make my fortune. I had great dreams in those days, yes, great dreams! I knew that someday I would be vastly rich, wealthy enough to afford a large, well-fortified mansion. Surrounding my mansion would be vast tracts of land, through which I could slide at any time I wished. Of course, one can never be too sure that there aren't monsters hiding just behind the next bush, so I would plant trees to climb at regular, easy to reach intervals. And being a Spathi of the World, I would know that some monsters climb trees, though often not well, so I would have my servants place in each tree a basket of perfect stones - not too heavy, not too light -- just the right size for throwing at monsters. I was thinking about what color the stones would be painted (aqua, mauve or magenta,) when a vegetable cart came careening down the street outside my house, and knocked me unconscious."
And let's not forget:
"If you held a gun to Fwiffo's head, he would say anything you want - come to think of it, if you held a vegetable to Fwiffo's head, he would still probably say anything you want."
There are some good reasons for this - but mostly I think it's crap.
The main reason as I see it is that Microsoft can make patches work together much more nicely; there's more time available assembling the patch set and hence less likelihood of patch A breaking patch B.
On the other hand, as you say, the wait time, which could really stuff things up if a worm came along.
And sure, it might make it easier for Joe Home User to only have one patch in the list instead of one for every bug, but this came be fixed in a much more logical fashion: simply hide the individual patches until you press one of those neat little drop down buttons to get more detail.
As such, I lean towards the individual patch method - anyway, how the heck does this make it easier for admins to plan updates? They could just do it once a month anyway - and if they're the neurotic type, they have the option of doing it more often.
Ever tried to set up a 56k modem in linux? Don't go there.
Granted. Very much granted - but only if we're talking about internal modems. And I blame the hardware manufacturers for that one.
Get a printer working under CUPS? Faster to ask your neighbour to print it.
This one really depends; the software itself has some arcane configuration methods, but with a good guide (the Gentoo Printing Guide is fantastic, even for non-Gentoo users) you can have it set up in two or three minutes.
And as for names, well, I think I understand what your gripe is about, but really, there IS a limited namespace out there - and developers do need to be original and careful: we saw what happened to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox.
Besides, I have a suspicion that if you find an application like "xmms" under the "Music Player" or "Multimedia" menu, I would think it's pretty clear what it actually does...
I think we should all stop and appreciate the men and women who pushed the idea of freedom of speech in the first place.
It was a fundamentally important insight: I agree that we simply have the right to freedom of speech, but it's also an incredibly practical concept. It saves a lot of time trying to change morality-based laws every fifty years or so...
So I say shame on the EU, or the OSCE, or whoever. I also say shame on the Australian government; get freedom of speech into our bloody constitution!
Just my two cents, and don't forget: as long as we keep both sides talking there's no way we can lose.
Slashdot Mirror
If the method of encryption is a one time pad, then Test_key in general cannot decide when it has the correct key.
A one time pad consists of a bunch of randomly chosen shifts for each letter in the message you would like to encrypt. This has the effect that any specific encoded n-letter message could be decoded to any n-letter string. For example, akldjsadhas could be "hello world" or "hello jenny" or anything you could think of with the required number of letters - with longer lengths, there are far more messages possible, and padding the sent message with some random data to make use of the whole list of shifts can make the task really hard. The idea is that there's too little information contained in the encoded message to decode it.
Of course, there's always the potential for attacks on the one time pad in specific situations: if all the possible messages have different lengths, and you know all the possible messages, then it's trivial to work out what has been sent. The point is that in the general case this - and some other ciphers - cannot be broken.
Human race != civilization. The human race has been around for 2 million years, but civlization has not.
"Oh, it's the meek! Blessed are the meek! Oh, that's nice, isn't it? I'm glad they're getting something, 'cause they have a hell of a time."
Pfft I don't want her, she doesn't have huge ... tracts of land.
Man: "Ah, but the Babel fish is so incredibly useful that it absolutely proves you exist. Thereby, according to your own argument, you don't."
Giant Creator-Wombat: "Oops, I hadn't thought of that."
Whereupon Giant Creator-Wombat disappears in a puff of logic. Man goes on to prove that up is down, black is white, and promptly gets himself killed at the next traffic crossing.
QED
It consists of a bunch of proofs that there is no largest prime - the list of proofs is entitled "15 good reasons why Pure Mathematics is not taught to first year students." My favourites are:
Proof by example:
"Let x be the largest prime. Then x=91 but 91+6=97 which is prime. Therefore 91 cannot be the largest prime number. Therefore there is no largest prime."
Proof by intuition:
"Prime numbers are integers that can be divided by themselves only; prime numbers are odd with the exception of 2. By intuition as n->infinity, there will always be an odd number cannot be divided by another number besides itself."
Proof by experimental data:
"Suppose n is the highest prime. Then 2n-1 is also prime. But 2n-1>n so there is no highest prime. (Check: 2*2-1=3, 2*3-1=5, 2*5-1=11, 2*11-1=23, so true.)"
But the greatest of them all:
Proof by having no idea what a prime is:
"Say the largest prime is x, then 2x is also a prime since the statement is true for all natural numbers."
Go to http://www.ms.unimelb.edu.au/~paradox/archive/ for the magazine, these proofs appeared in issue 2 of 2002.
"I swiftly matured into a fine example of my species and with my parents' assistance, achieved independence. Specifically, they pried me from the doorjam, and rolled me into the street. Thus prepared, I set out to make my fortune. I had great dreams in those days, yes, great dreams! I knew that someday I would be vastly rich, wealthy enough to afford a large, well-fortified mansion. Surrounding my mansion would be vast tracts of land, through which I could slide at any time I wished. Of course, one can never be too sure that there aren't monsters hiding just behind the next bush, so I would plant trees to climb at regular, easy to reach intervals. And being a Spathi of the World, I would know that some monsters climb trees, though often not well, so I would have my servants place in each tree a basket of perfect stones - not too heavy, not too light -- just the right size for throwing at monsters. I was thinking about what color the stones would be painted (aqua, mauve or magenta,) when a vegetable cart came careening down the street outside my house, and knocked me unconscious."
And let's not forget:
"If you held a gun to Fwiffo's head, he would say anything you want - come to think of it, if you held a vegetable to Fwiffo's head, he would still probably say anything you want."Insightful? Oh dear...
Thank God! I thought so too - thought it would be about a corny A Clockword Orange rehash...
2) DO NOT SPEND ALL YOUR FREE TIME LEARNING LINUX/*BSD ...
Agreed! Just go to http://www.downloadable-shit-for-your-brain.com/ instead...
Combine this with teachers who have trouble with spelling and we have a real problem here...
The main reason as I see it is that Microsoft can make patches work together much more nicely; there's more time available assembling the patch set and hence less likelihood of patch A breaking patch B.
On the other hand, as you say, the wait time, which could really stuff things up if a worm came along.
And sure, it might make it easier for Joe Home User to only have one patch in the list instead of one for every bug, but this came be fixed in a much more logical fashion: simply hide the individual patches until you press one of those neat little drop down buttons to get more detail.
As such, I lean towards the individual patch method - anyway, how the heck does this make it easier for admins to plan updates? They could just do it once a month anyway - and if they're the neurotic type, they have the option of doing it more often.
Granted. Very much granted - but only if we're talking about internal modems. And I blame the hardware manufacturers for that one.
Get a printer working under CUPS? Faster to ask your neighbour to print it.
This one really depends; the software itself has some arcane configuration methods, but with a good guide (the Gentoo Printing Guide is fantastic, even for non-Gentoo users) you can have it set up in two or three minutes.
And as for names, well, I think I understand what your gripe is about, but really, there IS a limited namespace out there - and developers do need to be original and careful: we saw what happened to Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox.
Besides, I have a suspicion that if you find an application like "xmms" under the "Music Player" or "Multimedia" menu, I would think it's pretty clear what it actually does...
I agree ... but let's keep arguing anyway.
It was a fundamentally important insight: I agree that we simply have the right to freedom of speech, but it's also an incredibly practical concept. It saves a lot of time trying to change morality-based laws every fifty years or so...
So I say shame on the EU, or the OSCE, or whoever. I also say shame on the Australian government; get freedom of speech into our bloody constitution!
Just my two cents, and don't forget: as long as we keep both sides talking there's no way we can lose.
Yeah, and let's block ad companies from working with open source too. Get real: as long as the work goes into the community, where's the harm in it?