m***@gmail.com
2007-03-26 14:14:44 UTC
So I've just started reading Dan Brown's "Digital Fortress." It's been
about ten years since it's been published. But there were a couple
things that I noticed and wanted to mention. The sentence "No more
secrets." in chapter 3 or 4 is a big tip of the hat to the movie
"Sneakers." Very cool.
The other thing I wanted to have a crack at was the ciphertext in
Chapter 3:
JHdja3jKHDhmado/ertwtjlw+jgj328
5jhalsfnHKhhhfafOhhdfgaf/fj37we
ohi93450s9djfd2h/HHrtyFHLf89303
95jspjf2j0890Ihj98yhfi080ewrt03
jojr845h0roq+jt0eu4tqefqe//oujw
08UY0IH0934jtpwfiajer09qu4jr9gu
ivjP$duw4h95pe8rtugvjw3p4e/ikkc
mffuerhfgv0q394ikjrmg+unhvs9oer
irk/0956y7u0poikIOjp9f8760qwerqi
At first glance I noticed that it uses upper and lower case letters as
well as the 10 digits and the characters + and /. The 64 characters
are convenient for encoding data into text (Does uuencoding do
this?).
Any way, the other thing I noticed was the text above was probably
typed in by some one sitting at a keyboard typing in letters randomly.
There are a lot of runs of 3 or more letters that are consecutive on a
QWERTY keyboard. For example, look for "qwer", "ert", "rty", "56y7",
"890" etc...
It would have been cool if this were a real code to crack. I know that
Dan Brown wrote hidden puzzles into the Da Vinci Code.
The last thing I noticed is that he wrote:
"The number of different possibilities was in the neighborhood of
10 [to the power of] 120-ten with 120 zeros after it. Correctly
guessing
a pass-key was as mathematically unlikely as choosing the correct
grain
of sand from a three-mile beach."
Am I missing something? It's actually much *much* harder to guess than
that isn't it? There aren't 10^120 atoms in the entire universe!
So far a cool book though! Can't wait to keep reading. What did you
think of it?
mjswart, Waterloo
about ten years since it's been published. But there were a couple
things that I noticed and wanted to mention. The sentence "No more
secrets." in chapter 3 or 4 is a big tip of the hat to the movie
"Sneakers." Very cool.
The other thing I wanted to have a crack at was the ciphertext in
Chapter 3:
JHdja3jKHDhmado/ertwtjlw+jgj328
5jhalsfnHKhhhfafOhhdfgaf/fj37we
ohi93450s9djfd2h/HHrtyFHLf89303
95jspjf2j0890Ihj98yhfi080ewrt03
jojr845h0roq+jt0eu4tqefqe//oujw
08UY0IH0934jtpwfiajer09qu4jr9gu
ivjP$duw4h95pe8rtugvjw3p4e/ikkc
mffuerhfgv0q394ikjrmg+unhvs9oer
irk/0956y7u0poikIOjp9f8760qwerqi
At first glance I noticed that it uses upper and lower case letters as
well as the 10 digits and the characters + and /. The 64 characters
are convenient for encoding data into text (Does uuencoding do
this?).
Any way, the other thing I noticed was the text above was probably
typed in by some one sitting at a keyboard typing in letters randomly.
There are a lot of runs of 3 or more letters that are consecutive on a
QWERTY keyboard. For example, look for "qwer", "ert", "rty", "56y7",
"890" etc...
It would have been cool if this were a real code to crack. I know that
Dan Brown wrote hidden puzzles into the Da Vinci Code.
The last thing I noticed is that he wrote:
"The number of different possibilities was in the neighborhood of
10 [to the power of] 120-ten with 120 zeros after it. Correctly
guessing
a pass-key was as mathematically unlikely as choosing the correct
grain
of sand from a three-mile beach."
Am I missing something? It's actually much *much* harder to guess than
that isn't it? There aren't 10^120 atoms in the entire universe!
So far a cool book though! Can't wait to keep reading. What did you
think of it?
mjswart, Waterloo