Codesmith

Life, Or Something Like It
2004-12-10 15:19:47 (UTC)

Cryptography

It's 1210, Friday. 951am. It seems alright. Alot warmer
than it was a few days ago.

I skipped my last class for the semester. I don't really
care. I don't really fucking care.

I learned more yesterday than I would have ever learned in
that class anyway. The whole day yesterday, I read page
after page on theories I had always been curious about.
Theories relating to computer science of course.

... I guess that means I should probably discuss them then.

Well, in short. I learned a little about software
engineering, cryptography, and cryptanalysis.

It all started when I wanted to see the technical
definition of what a hash was. From there I learned about
the different sorts of algorithms in place to construct
hashes. Like, the MD2, MD4, and MD5 algorithms. I read the
technical documents on those. RFC ... Um ... Wow, she was
hot. A cute blonde about my height, with a hoodie, and red
baseball cap. Wire frame glasses, gold coloured.

That reminds me. The other day I got onto the bus to go
home, and I thought this girl was sort of eyeing me a bit.
I guess it could have been my imagination. I mean, ... that
happens alot. But, for some reason I could have sworn she
really was eyeing me a bit.

She pulled the chord after a few blocks and she was getting
off at this intersection, apparently. Well, she stands up
while the bus is still moving and she kind of stands in
front of me for a moment. The bus of course is coming to a
stop, and she sort of lurches a bit ... but instead of
tilting forward like you'd expect of someone at the front
of the bus, she nearly sat on my lap. I'm not sure how
that's possible. I mean, I guess she must have really lost
her balance. At anyrate, she had this sort of sly grin on
her face.

She was kind of cute, and all I could really muster was a
polite chuckle. I mean, I didn't even try to catch her or
anything. I like, have no suaveness whatsoever. But then,
again. I already knew before hand she wasn't going to fall.
The way she stood, moved, and the change in her posture as
the inertia acted on her body ... I just already she wasn't
in any sort of danger.

Still. It probably would have been in my "best" interest to
pretend I didn't already know all that.

Anyway, I was reading RFC 1319 - 1321, which outline the
technical requirements to construct a MD2, MD4, and MD5
type signature ... to create a sort of hash or digital
signature on files. There are only like, 4 steps to do. Not
terribly complicated. I could most likely construct a
program to do that.

From reading about that, I somehow got onto the topic of
cryptography. From there, I got a very introductory lesson
into cryptanalysis. Cryptography and cryptanalysis are both
highly mathematical in the theoretical sense. At least
following World War 2.

I mean, the encryption process during the time of World War
2, involved the use of mechanical substitution of letters
based on a rotor concept. At least, with the German
encryption machine called Enigma. I believe later, the
machine was made to include three rotors.

We have a similar encryption method in Unix. It's a bundled
program called, "crypt" and was built on the Enigma model.
The only difference is that "crypt" uses 256 rotors.

But it's kind of a weak encryption in itself. I can't
remember why it's a weak encryption system. Probably
because it's the first thing people tried to crack when
Unix was first introduced. Not to mention, ... the weakness
in the encryption system relies on how many identifying
keys the program is using not to mention the key used to
start the encryption process.

Anyway, that's probably all fucking boring. So, with that
I'll end this here and start on a new entry.

Oh, and I also learned about Integer Factorization. How fun
is that?




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