malteselizzie

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Years and years ago, I read a book on cryptography that I picked up because it looked interesting--and it was!

But there was a side anecdote in there that stayed with me for more general purposes.

The author was describing a cryptography class that they had taken back in college where the professor was demonstrating the process of "reversibility", which is a principle that most codes depend on. Specifically, it should be easy to encode, and very hard to decode without the key--it is hard to reverse the process.

So he had an example code that he used for his class to demonstrate this, a variation on the Book Code, where the encoded text would be a series of phone numbers.

The key to the code was that phone books are sorted alphabetically, so you could encode the text easily--picking phone numbers from the appropriate alphabetical sections to use ahead of time would be easy. But since phone books were sorted alphabetically, not numerically, it would be nearly impossible to reverse the code without exhaustively searching the phone book for each string of numbers and seeing what name it was tied to.

Nowadays, defeating this would be child's play, given computerized databases, but back in the 80s and 90s, this would have been a good code... at least, until one of the students raised their hand and asked, "Why not just call the phone numbers and ask who lives there?"

The professor apparently was dumbfounded.

He had never considered that question. As a result, his cipher, which seemed to be nearly unbreakable to him, had such an obvious flaw, because he was the sort of person who could never coldcall someone to ask that sort of thing!

In the crypto book, the author went on to use this story as an example of why security systems should not be tested by the designer (because of course the security system is ready for everything they thought of, by definition), but for me, as a writer, it stuck with me for a different reason.

It's worth talking out your story plot with other people just to see if there's a "Why not just call the phone numbers?" obvious plot hole that you've missed, because of your singular perspective as a person. Especially if you're writing the sort of plot where you have people trying to outsmart each other.

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things i’ll not call you a whore for:

sexual activity

how you dress

things i’ll call you a whore for:

stealing my food 

stealing my lemons

my cat likes you more than me

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some loser: humans are innately selfish creatures

my psych book:

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outcast of the village

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Look upon my beast who tries to bolt out the front door

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Hands down one of the most gorgeous cats I've ever seen. She's a Russian blue and a bit over a year old.

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people who don't follow chess I promise this post is really funny

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my favorite part of utena is that she in fact did not study the blade, she was just so good at basketball that it by proxy made her awesome at sword fighting, in fact better at sword fighting than the people sword fighting their entire lives. the most jock of all time

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it's funny, I was talking to someone last night who didn't really know what an illustrator was. so when I introduced myself as one, he gave a speech that would've probably gone over well with a gallery artist, but which was precision-tailored to make any illustrator within a 50 mile radius go into eyes-glowing-red kill mode.

his speech was about how there is a difference between craft and art, and how people can practice craft (as in, skillfully execute a painting) without it having any artistic merit.

so I'm someone who gets paid to paint waffles for restaurant menus and dinosaurs for museums exhibits, and AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! you can't make art without it being something something you've made. does that make sense? like every illustrator I know has an individual way of approaching any given imagery that is informed by a lifetime of inspiration, and of passive intake of culture, and of the specific mistakes they make because of whatever their particular mass of grey matter deems as important thing to render or unimportant, just fuck it up.

I can make something that is informed by both a century of Canadian print-making and by my own particular neurosis, and it can also be commissioned commercial imagery that I regurgitate without care because I want to pay my mortgage. everything is art, nothing isn't art, art is something sticky and impossible to shake off of you.

anyway he got very wide-eyed and said "I'm sorry if I offended you," so today I feel a bit bad for having gotten so, uh.... excited.

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one time i told a guy with a huge punisher decal on his car that i loved the punisher but that i'm too scared to have any of his merch because in the current political climate i wouldn't want people to think i support killing police and the man had. no response whatsoever. he was smiling and completely frozen in place. i'd never seen anyone bluescreen that hard

do with this information what you will

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if a sword is like an extension of the wielder. and a sword can be said to have its own identity. then can a sword not feel grief and sorrow at being forced to clash with its opponent forged in the same crucible but forced to turn against it. can a sword not cry out in the screech of metal on metal from the pain of betrayal.

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Baird's tapir Tapirus bairdii

With yellow-headed caracara Daptrius chimachima

Observed by infinitaselva, CC BY-NC

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