The market "demands," offerings with mercurial predictability.
The task of the studio appears to answer:
- What is the market asking for?
- What screenplay answers this demand?
- Does this meet my studio agenda?
Sunday, June 7, 2009
What influences certain movies to "get made?"
Screenwriters pour heart and soul into their product.
The market "demands," offerings with mercurial predictability.
The task of the studio appears to answer:
The market "demands," offerings with mercurial predictability.
The task of the studio appears to answer:
Friday, June 5, 2009
Principle of a hash explicated;
To understand the principle of a hash, consider taking a Bible or a Quaran and, from start to finish, collecting only the 3rd letter of every word three letters long or longer.
It should be expected that every time you perform this operation you will get the same characteristic grouping of letters. The same operation on another copy of the same book will give the same value, but you could choose Forbes magazine for your source instead.
Reversing a hash is comparable to taking just the hash file and a dictionary and attempting to recreate the original volume without hints or clues. It is more legitimately illustrated by limiting the input to one page, and including all Forbes magazines of all months ever issued as potential sources.
Good hashes have been devised that yield specific lengths exactly - MD5 yields exactly 128 bits or 16 ASCII characters.
An example of a use for a hash is in ATM pin numbers. When you enter your pin at the Point of Sale device, instead of sending the PIN value, a good banker hashes it before transmitting. If the hash matches the hash in the database, your pin is good.
The reason this is an improvement on encryption is that if the bank's table is compromised, a hash table does not yield a list of valid pins with account numbers.
It should be expected that every time you perform this operation you will get the same characteristic grouping of letters. The same operation on another copy of the same book will give the same value, but you could choose Forbes magazine for your source instead.
Reversing a hash is comparable to taking just the hash file and a dictionary and attempting to recreate the original volume without hints or clues. It is more legitimately illustrated by limiting the input to one page, and including all Forbes magazines of all months ever issued as potential sources.
Good hashes have been devised that yield specific lengths exactly - MD5 yields exactly 128 bits or 16 ASCII characters.
An example of a use for a hash is in ATM pin numbers. When you enter your pin at the Point of Sale device, instead of sending the PIN value, a good banker hashes it before transmitting. If the hash matches the hash in the database, your pin is good.
The reason this is an improvement on encryption is that if the bank's table is compromised, a hash table does not yield a list of valid pins with account numbers.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A mode of communication;
We have many means of communication, and many mediums. We also have much to say. This blog provides for anonymous moderated comment, for example.
I am referring to persuasive speech when I use the word "mode." The method I am fumbling into words is one I first observed in "The Da Vinci Code." The fiction lays claim to so many inaccuracies from trivia to epic catalog that books have been written in commentary.
The point is this. If you can monologue an audience long enough that your mistakes can no longer be addressed in dignified order, you may (in the end) say anything you wish without credible rebuttal.
I have no name for this mode of communication, but I cite another example here. I also see this mode of communication commonly in political commentary on television.
I am referring to persuasive speech when I use the word "mode." The method I am fumbling into words is one I first observed in "The Da Vinci Code." The fiction lays claim to so many inaccuracies from trivia to epic catalog that books have been written in commentary.
The point is this. If you can monologue an audience long enough that your mistakes can no longer be addressed in dignified order, you may (in the end) say anything you wish without credible rebuttal.
I have no name for this mode of communication, but I cite another example here. I also see this mode of communication commonly in political commentary on television.
What is a Democratic Republic;
"The Democratic People's Republic of fill-in-the-blank (Congo for example,)" appeals to all that is noblest and best in philosophies of Government.
Of the two, the Democracy of Athens is better understood than the Republic of Rome.
An Athenian could be part of a number of ecclesias, a Church a gang or a club, but entered upon (direct) Democracy only in the city gates. From recorded oratory of Socrates and Aristotle, sanity was not guaranteed... it was occasionally an oratocracy.
By contrast Plato's Republic represented all classes of society hierarchically, but not necessarily proportionately (or fairly?) To add to the confusion there was no written "Constitution," until 1786 for which the US may be justifiably proud.
Despite flaws and weaknesses, historically the tortured wheels of justice turned farther in Republics than Democracies, Kingdoms or Communes. Look no farther than Socrates' trial.
A glance at Latin Proverbs of Philosophy and Government will show that Italian Latins left many warnings behind as their civilization fell, trade ships leaving Rome empty without exception.
Here is a list, I recommend Plato, Cicero, Horace and even Juvenal.
Positive law is not addressed directly by Democracy; In a Republic the highest of the high is "under law." Positive law depends on manipulation and subversion of choice by a benevolent tyrant, and fails upon his death - see 'The education of Cyrus,' by Xenophon.
From these historic foundations I have always chosen the GOP to defend the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. These are embarrassing times to be Republican. The party has strayed. It needs to return to the fundamentals of Republic; America under God and under law, with liberty and justice for all.
Of the two, the Democracy of Athens is better understood than the Republic of Rome.
An Athenian could be part of a number of ecclesias, a Church a gang or a club, but entered upon (direct) Democracy only in the city gates. From recorded oratory of Socrates and Aristotle, sanity was not guaranteed... it was occasionally an oratocracy.
By contrast Plato's Republic represented all classes of society hierarchically, but not necessarily proportionately (or fairly?) To add to the confusion there was no written "Constitution," until 1786 for which the US may be justifiably proud.
Despite flaws and weaknesses, historically the tortured wheels of justice turned farther in Republics than Democracies, Kingdoms or Communes. Look no farther than Socrates' trial.
A glance at Latin Proverbs of Philosophy and Government will show that Italian Latins left many warnings behind as their civilization fell, trade ships leaving Rome empty without exception.
Here is a list, I recommend Plato, Cicero, Horace and even Juvenal.
Positive law is not addressed directly by Democracy; In a Republic the highest of the high is "under law." Positive law depends on manipulation and subversion of choice by a benevolent tyrant, and fails upon his death - see 'The education of Cyrus,' by Xenophon.
From these historic foundations I have always chosen the GOP to defend the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic. These are embarrassing times to be Republican. The party has strayed. It needs to return to the fundamentals of Republic; America under God and under law, with liberty and justice for all.
There are no words;
An entry for which there are no words? Shouldn't it be blank? This entry is a call to greater articulation. Poe wrote "I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words with even more distinctness than that which I conceived it..." Tales Of Mystery and Imagination by Alan Parson's Project.
To say, "There are no words," is either to draw back from the horror of fresh injury or to simply refuse to exert the effort, depending on your vantage point in space and time.
For those for whom "there are no words..."
"You cannot imagine;" your imagination is too lazy.
"You cannot understand;" put it into words, I will attend.
"You have no idea;" globalism is based on shared ideas. Share your idea.
"You don't know;" is that such a good thing? Teach me!
There are no words? Will you attempt to write them now, or grope for them years from now when they are lost in the sands of time?
There are no words... my words are too harsh for your innocence, too rough for your tender sensibilities, too weathered for your sheltered reality.
If there truly "are no words," then I am sorry, because you are lonely for a confidant who can share them with you. I have been lonely too; I grieve your loss. I too once said, "there are no words!"
To say, "There are no words," is either to draw back from the horror of fresh injury or to simply refuse to exert the effort, depending on your vantage point in space and time.
For those for whom "there are no words..."
"You cannot imagine;" your imagination is too lazy.
"You cannot understand;" put it into words, I will attend.
"You have no idea;" globalism is based on shared ideas. Share your idea.
"You don't know;" is that such a good thing? Teach me!
There are no words? Will you attempt to write them now, or grope for them years from now when they are lost in the sands of time?
There are no words... my words are too harsh for your innocence, too rough for your tender sensibilities, too weathered for your sheltered reality.
If there truly "are no words," then I am sorry, because you are lonely for a confidant who can share them with you. I have been lonely too; I grieve your loss. I too once said, "there are no words!"
Friday, April 17, 2009
An analysis of Blowfish cribbed from 'Pengo.'
An explanation of why I believe in the Blowfish algorithm (minted by Bruce Schneier in 1995.)
Blowfish is a Feistel network. I would like to begin with a discussion of a much simpler Feistel network, older and better investigated. Having talked about it, I will note how similarities between Vigenere and Blowfish give me confidence that Blowfish is reliable.
I first learned Vigenere as a lossy version, but later learned a lossless implementation in 'The Code Book,' by Simon Singh. I wrote an implementation of the lossless kind in GFA BASIC on an Atari 520ST, around 1995. I used it in the following manner to conclude that Vigenere is not a 'group.'
I made a message of 6 E's. I used looping to build a file containing 6 character key space of cryptograms of 'eeeeee,' exhaustively - IE; the file comprised a table of all possible encryptions of the 'eeeeee' message with a six character password.
I then used my knowledge (acquired by experimentation,) that double encrypting with Vigenere results in the unicity distance spreading entropy over the product of the prime factors of the key lengths. IE; a two character password and a three character password give a six character repeating pattern if you run all e's through the Turing Machine. However, a 10 char password and a 6 char password would yield a 5 x 2 x 3 = 30 char unicity distance.
I then searched the "cryptogram space" file, for the resulting 6 char string and found that it was mathematically absent. I was intuitively dismayed that a pattern similar to the naked human eye was present, brought to my attention by a portion matching my 1 step cryptogram, and the remainder matching the first chars of the next entry in the 2 step file. I am not completely sure what to make of this.
I'll now denote that Vigenere is cryptanalyzed by lining up the message in rows of unicity distance length, and performing statistical analysis on the resulting 'Rogue's Gallery' of substitution ciphers. To summarize, Vigenere is a set f(x) such that f(x) yields q and f(q) yields k, but there exists no value 'g' such that f(g) yields k.
By comparison, Blowfish is a Feistel network in not 2, but 16 rounds. The most important question I can ask about Blowfish is, If f(x) yields f'(x) and f'(x) yields f2(x) ... f15(x) yields f16(x) (badly noted, but asking for human understanding,) IS THERE a (or some,) Y such that f(y) yields f16(x). If there is not, we can argue that Blowfish is not a group, leaving us to wonder if there is even an analog of statistical analysis that can be employed on some binary rogues gallery to cryptanalyze it?
Under those conditions, things would still be difficult for cryptanalysis because the implementation with which I am familiar does not neglect aggressive compression before encryption, as an efficiency measure. Goodbye statistical characteristics.
To compound the difficulties, experimentation on the resulting block cipher does the following;a string of e's yields an apparent substitution simplicity. Introduce exactly 1 q in the 'stream,' of e's and observe that (specifically in the 56 bit implementation,) the resulting entropy cascades over three characters. I suppose that means three blocks, leaving me mystified as to how it actually decrypts. The relevant conclusion is that comparing letter pairs really doesn't get me anywhere with it either.
I have a cognitive dissonance that results from asking 'what is the unicity distance of (a block cipher) Blowfish.' I blindly trust the current AES as a black box because it is no longer new. The implementation I use has a random number generator written by 'some Polack.' Since NSA tried to sabotage AES, I infer they can't really break it conveniently.
In closing, please note that Blowfish derivative, TwoFish, is now an AES candidate with NIST.
Blowfish is a Feistel network. I would like to begin with a discussion of a much simpler Feistel network, older and better investigated. Having talked about it, I will note how similarities between Vigenere and Blowfish give me confidence that Blowfish is reliable.
I first learned Vigenere as a lossy version, but later learned a lossless implementation in 'The Code Book,' by Simon Singh. I wrote an implementation of the lossless kind in GFA BASIC on an Atari 520ST, around 1995. I used it in the following manner to conclude that Vigenere is not a 'group.'
I made a message of 6 E's. I used looping to build a file containing 6 character key space of cryptograms of 'eeeeee,' exhaustively - IE; the file comprised a table of all possible encryptions of the 'eeeeee' message with a six character password.
I then used my knowledge (acquired by experimentation,) that double encrypting with Vigenere results in the unicity distance spreading entropy over the product of the prime factors of the key lengths. IE; a two character password and a three character password give a six character repeating pattern if you run all e's through the Turing Machine. However, a 10 char password and a 6 char password would yield a 5 x 2 x 3 = 30 char unicity distance.
I then searched the "cryptogram space" file, for the resulting 6 char string and found that it was mathematically absent. I was intuitively dismayed that a pattern similar to the naked human eye was present, brought to my attention by a portion matching my 1 step cryptogram, and the remainder matching the first chars of the next entry in the 2 step file. I am not completely sure what to make of this.
I'll now denote that Vigenere is cryptanalyzed by lining up the message in rows of unicity distance length, and performing statistical analysis on the resulting 'Rogue's Gallery' of substitution ciphers. To summarize, Vigenere is a set f(x) such that f(x) yields q and f(q) yields k, but there exists no value 'g' such that f(g) yields k.
By comparison, Blowfish is a Feistel network in not 2, but 16 rounds. The most important question I can ask about Blowfish is, If f(x) yields f'(x) and f'(x) yields f2(x) ... f15(x) yields f16(x) (badly noted, but asking for human understanding,) IS THERE a (or some,) Y such that f(y) yields f16(x). If there is not, we can argue that Blowfish is not a group, leaving us to wonder if there is even an analog of statistical analysis that can be employed on some binary rogues gallery to cryptanalyze it?
Under those conditions, things would still be difficult for cryptanalysis because the implementation with which I am familiar does not neglect aggressive compression before encryption, as an efficiency measure. Goodbye statistical characteristics.
To compound the difficulties, experimentation on the resulting block cipher does the following;a string of e's yields an apparent substitution simplicity. Introduce exactly 1 q in the 'stream,' of e's and observe that (specifically in the 56 bit implementation,) the resulting entropy cascades over three characters. I suppose that means three blocks, leaving me mystified as to how it actually decrypts. The relevant conclusion is that comparing letter pairs really doesn't get me anywhere with it either.
I have a cognitive dissonance that results from asking 'what is the unicity distance of (a block cipher) Blowfish.' I blindly trust the current AES as a black box because it is no longer new. The implementation I use has a random number generator written by 'some Polack.' Since NSA tried to sabotage AES, I infer they can't really break it conveniently.
In closing, please note that Blowfish derivative, TwoFish, is now an AES candidate with NIST.
J. Swift on communication and veracity - why lie?
This is excerpted from Gulliver's Travels, Part IV, Chapter 4. Gulliver finds himself (a curious application of the active voice:-) in a land where the top of the food chain is occupied by the Equine species. Houyhnhnms are horses, and bipeds are Yahoos, with many Cretan characteristics.
MY MASTER heard me with great Appearances of Uneasiness in his Countenance, because Doubting, or not believing, are so little known in this Country, that the Inhabitants cannot tell how to behave themselves under such Circumstances. And I remember in frequent Discourses with my Master concerning the Nature of Manhood, in other Parts of the World, having occasion to talk of Lying, and false Representation, it was with much Difficulty that he comprehended what I meant, although he had otherwise a most acute Judgment. For he argued thus: That the Use of Speech was to make us understand one another, and to receive Information of Facts; now if anyone said the Thing which was not, these Ends were Defeated; because I cannot properly be said to understand him; and I am so far from receiving Information, that he leaves me worse than in Ignorance, for I am led to believe a Thing Black when it is White, and Short when it is Long. And these were all the Notions he had concerning that Faculty of Lying, so perfectly well understood among human Creatures.
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