Cryptography-Digest Digest #734, Volume #12 Thu, 21 Sep 00 16:13:00 EDT
Contents:
Re: ExCSS Source Code (Roger Schlafly)
Re: Dr Mike's "Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography" - reader (Mike Rosing)
Re: Dr Mike's "Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography" - reader (DJohn37050)
Re: t ("Douglas A. Gwyn")
looking for DESX whitening Java implementation ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Even-Mansour extension? (David A. Wagner)
Re: State-of-the-art in integer factorization (Bob Silverman)
Re: Music Industry wants hacking information for cheap (Scott Craver)
Re: Software patents are evil. ("Paul Pires")
Re: Software patents are evil. ("Trevor L. Jackson, III")
Re: ExCSS Source Code ("David C. Barber")
Re: SUN SPOT 6.51 BILLION square kilometers in size (Jim)
Re: SUN SPOT 6.51 BILLION square kilometers in size (Jim)
Re: SUN SPOT 6.51 BILLION square kilometers in size (Jim)
Re: Music Industry wants hacking information for cheap (zapzing)
Re: Tying Up Loose Ends - Correction (SCOTT19U.ZIP_GUY)
Re: t (zapzing)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Roger Schlafly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ExCSS Source Code
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:09:41 -0700
Eric Lee Green wrote:
> Agreed. While I feel that the anti-circumvention clause in the DCMA is a prior
> restraint upon speech and thus will be proven invalid upon appeal, ...
Don't count on it. The application of DCMA so far has been very
mild. 2600 can still publish the DeCSS links as text URLs, it
just cannot put them as the href of a hyperlink.
The appellate might very well rule that this is a minor restriction
for the sake of a compelling state interest (maintaining the viability
of DVD and protecting copyrights).
------------------------------
From: Mike Rosing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Dr Mike's "Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography" - reader
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:23:16 -0500
Paul Rubin wrote:
>
> I just got this from bn.com (I don't buy from Spamazon any more). I
> won't call this post a "review" since I haven't read through the book
> but have only looked at it for an hour or two. I'm somewhat
> disappointed.
When you get the chance, write a better book yourself. I'm not
flaming here, the whole point was to get *something* out at a
beginner level. A lot has been learned in the past 3 years and
none of it is in there. More books covering different aspects
are clearly needed.
[...]
> Anyway, I'll probably go back to reading Koblitz's "Course in Number
> Theory and Cryptography", the P1363 draft standard, and the stuff on
> Certicom's web site.
Don't forget "Elliptic Curves in Cryptography" by Ian F. Blake,
Gadiel Seroussi, and Nigel P. Smart.
I'd really like to see more books on ECC which cover a lot of
coding practice which has come out in papers over the last 3
years. Nobody has any books on ECC in FPGA's, and that's a whole
'nother ball of wax which needs to be covered too.
No book can be everything to all people. That's another reason
I'd like to see more books on this subject. If anyone out there
has a hankering to write a book, use this review as a good place
to start!
Patience, persistence, truth,
Dr. mike
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (DJohn37050)
Subject: Re: Dr Mike's "Implementing Elliptic Curve Cryptography" - reader
Date: 21 Sep 2000 17:44:35 GMT
To be specific, NIST has a 163-bit curve over a binary field that it says is
appropriate to protect 80-bit symmetric keys. So while there may be a fudge
factor, it mostly comes out in the wash. After all, an ECC operation is likely
slower than a symmetric key operation.
Don Johnson
------------------------------
From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: t
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:09:07 -0400
John Savard wrote:
> T
> NNT
> NF
> TOT
> TOF
> FOT
> TIT
> FIT
> FIF
> TET
> FEF
> TAT
> LTR
> LNNTR
> LNFR
> LTOTR
> LTOFR
> LFOTR
> LTITR
> LFITR
> LFIFR
> LTETR
> LFEFR
> LTATR
> TALFOTR
> NLLTAFROTR
> NLFOFR
> NLTIFR
> NLTEFR
> NLFETR
> NLTAFR
> NLFATR
> NLFAFR
ROTFL
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: looking for DESX whitening Java implementation
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:09:06 GMT
Hello,
I'm planning to use the Cryptix package to do some DESX operations, but
I've discovered the Cryptix implementation requires the DES, pre- and
post whitening keys as different arguments. I already have the key as a
16-byte string so I looked into the key generation algorithm. Before
writing my code based on the public description that floats in various
newsgroups, I was wondering whether this hasn't been done before.
Many thanks for any hint.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (David A. Wagner)
Subject: Re: Even-Mansour extension?
Date: 21 Sep 2000 11:33:06 -0700
Doug Kuhlman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I get lost at the next stage, though, where I combine these two ideas
> into idea 3:
> c=P(P(m ^ k1) ^ k2) ^ k3
>
> I couldn't figure out how to directly address this with sliding with a
> twist. My thought was to make Pk2P into one step called Ek2 (encryption
> with k2). Then I set up a twisted slid pair
>
> k1
> Ek2
> k3 k3
> Dk2
> k1
>
> where Dk2 is the inverse of Ek2. Call the left side m->c and right side
> c'->m' and I get a slide pair k1=m ^ Dk2(c')=m' ^ Dk2(c).
>
> This is where I falter. It seems like computing Dk2(c) would require
> brute force across k2, which in the DESX case is only 56 bits but in
> mine is the full length of the key. Any hope here? Or have I made a
> fatal mistake along the line?
Sounds right to me! I don't know of any better attack on
c=P(P(m^k1)^k2)^k3. In fact, I think there are some theoretical
results (from Stefan Lucks) to suggest that it may be somewhat
stronger than plain c=P(m^k1)^k2, in which case it would not be
surprising that the DESX slide attack does not apply.
------------------------------
From: Bob Silverman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: sci.math
Subject: Re: State-of-the-art in integer factorization
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 18:28:25 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
JCA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I've got Peter Montgomery's excellent survey on integer
> factorization
> algorithms. However, being as it is five years old now I was wondering
> if there is something more up to date out there. Or, at the very
least,
> and
> addendum to this paper.
Nothing has been written. Improvements have been only incremental.
(i.e. slightly faster machines, a few more percent squeezed from
code, etc.). There hasn't been a new algorithm in 11 years.
--
Bob Silverman
"You can lead a horse's ass to knowledge, but you can't make him think"
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Scott Craver)
Subject: Re: Music Industry wants hacking information for cheap
Date: 21 Sep 2000 18:39:43 GMT
Sagie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> So I suppose your one of those guys that actually do acquire DVDs from
>your own region alone? ;)
No, haven't yet tried a DVD (I get my entertainment from USENET)
but just study watermarking systems.
> Seriously now, any type of content restriction that has been presented,
>to this date, is already defeated/ignored. I suppose you did not know this,
But this says nothing about future security systems. The fact is
that, if someone who controls the patents to a media technology want
a security feature honored, it will be honored. This is the case
with DVD watermarking: when it's ready for deployment, makers of
DVD recorders will not be allowed to ignore them, if they want
to be allowed to legally build DVD recorders.
Defeating content restrictions is a different matter. The main
problem of piracy prevention is that it must usually be a public
scheme, so all the devices in the world can read your disk.
This approach has been used and defeated ever since personal
computers existed.
However, the industry is most concerned about "common case" theft.
If you prove that a hacking tool can bypass a security system,
at least in pre-DMCA days, you'd often get the response that anyone
downloading a hacking tool is not a common case. That most
consumers will just have black boxes made by Panasonic or Sony,
and they won't use this hacking tool.
> Besides, if manufacturers would actually go through this, you can be
>certain that SDMI-signal-defeaters would arise, and that your local
>electronics repairman would happily re-arrange the internal circuitry of any
>SDMI compliant player you would give to him.
This could be the case if (when?) that one part of the DMCA is
ruled unconstitutional. Until then, your electronics repair-
person is at risk when doing something like this.
Also, the more monolithic things get, the harder it is for
people to bypass a security feature. If there's a chip somewhere
on the mainboard which outputs a 1 or 0 to refuse to copy an audio
clip, okay, that's easy. But what happens when you have a single
chip with decompression and watermark detection integrated together?
-S
------------------------------
From: "Paul Pires" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Software patents are evil.
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:03:08 -0700
Bill Unruh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8qdf0a$dj3$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> "Trevor L. Jackson, III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
writes:
> ]> Patents had has almost nothing to do with software until recently. Yet,
> ]> you could not say that software has suffered in the US.
>
> ]Well, given that we have no control against which to test the history of
software in the
> ]US, and given that the software industry is fairly young there does not seem
to be much
> ]that can be said in a definitive way. Yet, for the purposes of discussion, I
can take a
> ]Devil's advocate position. Resolved: that the low quality of US software is
due to the
> ]lack of an effective protection for intellectual property.
>
> Low quality is almost always due to a lack of comptetition, not a lack
> of intellectual property rights. The USSR had immense itelletual and
> other property rights protections-- manufacturers were handed monopolies
> on all kinds of goods. There is no evidence whatsoever that this
> resulted in the manufacturers spending time and effort to make sure that
> their products were the best possible. Just the reverse.
Why do you continually insert the monopoly practices of the former USSR into
the discussion? What, it happend there so it could happen here? The issue isn't
whether state sanction monopolistic practices are good or bad but whether
the particular one under discussion is. Hey, they were bad. Guess what, they
are gone. Move on.
> ]First, the low quality is evaluated against what we know could/should be done
rather
> ]than against what is done in other countries (where IP protection is even
less
> ]effective). Second, the observation that intellectual property is not
effectively
> ]protected is demonstrated by the Lotus 123 suits (vs Visi and vs clones) and
the
> ]Xerox/Apple vs Microsoft/HP suit. I submit that there was appreciable
intellectual
> ]property at issue, and that the good guys lost.
>
> Well, I sure would not argue that the good guys lost in the Look and
> Feel cases, if that is what you refer to. Those cases were ludicrous.
> Their only purpose was to stifle competition.
>
> ]The central thesis is that lack of effective IP protection lowers the
barriers to entry
> ](generally perceived to be a good thing) and lowers the potential payoff by
diluting the
> ]market for good software with bad software (generally perceived to be a bad
thing).
>
> Yes, just like coffee. We should institute laws that only allow say
> starbucks to open coffee shops in any city. Think of how great the
> coffee would be then! Competition does far far more for increasing
> quality than does nay intellectual property protection.
Too much prior art for such a grant. The reason it hasn't happend is that the
process you deride will not allow it. You are citeing its hypothetical
non-operation
as an example of its poor operation.
>
> ]If effective IP were available it would be worth investing great effort into
being the
> ]best. Without effective IP protection such effort is wasted because it can
be cloned
> ]cheaply and the fruits squandered. Some consider this a good thing in that
it makes
> ]whatever accidentally turns out to be good (more accurately popular) widely
available
> ]within a short time span.
>
> ]Others consider this to be a bad thing because there is a positive
disincentive toward
> ]quality. It costs time. And the sine qua non of modern software marketing
is to be
> ]first rather than best.
>
> And you raplidly have to be best as well, or you are out.
>
>
> ]In the short term, we can economically purchase the best that is available in
the market
> ]because any innovation is rapidly emulated. In the long term the best that
is available
> ]in the market is far lower that it would be because there is no incentive
(differential
> ]advantage) for production of better software. Since short term effects
dissipate and
>
> I disagree completely with this anticompetitive stance. Barriers to
> competition simply enrich the monopolists, and do not lead to
> improvements.
The intent of the patent process is to remove barriers to competition and
therefore stimulate innovation. You can rightly cite some examples where the
Process has failed or been abused to do the opposite. So what? No law or
practice
shall be allowed unless it is demonstratably perfect in the presence of a
determined
adversary? Wasn't it the Polish who had a practice that regulations could only
be
passed by unanimous approval of their senate.
>
> ]long term effects accumulate, at some point past initialization the market
will be
> ]dominated by long term effects, and saturated with bad software.
>
> Just like it is saturated with bad coffee? Wouldn;t it be nice if we
> only had one coffee company, one car company( with no imports allowed),
> one runhing shoe company,... Think of how great all of our products
> would be then!
> The arguements you give were exactly the arguements made by the
> Communists in setting up their economic system. Competition is wasteful.
> Competition means that the manufacturers spend all their time wasting
> time worrying about their competitors rather than worrying about how to
> make the best product for the consumer. Unfortunately that is not the
> way the world works. Competition is the best incentive for improving
> both the range AND quality AND price of products in the vast majority of
> situations. It is not universal, and there are times when limits on
> competition are beneficial. But those need to be thought through very
> carefully, that those anticompetitive practices really do more good than
> harm. The problem is that all industries love anticompetitive laws--
> they no longer have to worry since there is noone to take their market
> away. And those industries will put immense pressure on corrupting the
> governments to grant them anticompetitive laws. Those pressures should
> almost always be resisted. And they should especially be resisted in the
> software industry.
>
> For example, software copyrights should be reduced to say 3 years,
> extendible to 7 is the source is published. Any more than that is just
> silly. And given MS claim that they lost the source code for DOS, giving
> copyright protection where the code is not made public is strongly
> against the public interest. (Note that this would have made the Y2K
> problem a hell of a lot more manageable.)
You wish to ammend law on the basis of the antics of bad boy Bill?
I'm sure he is flattered.
>
>
> ]Some observers attribute the low quality of software to its commodity status,
reasoning
> ]that if the customers cannot tell the difference between high and low
software quality
> ]there will never be any reason to "waste" effort on raising quality because
it will not
> ]result in more sales. In fact it will result in less revenue based on
upgrades.
>
> Ah, yes, the theory that governments should be there to protect the
> stupid consumer from having to make uninformed choices.
>
>
> ]But this misses the point. Customers _can_ tell the difference. But that
difference is
> ]dominated by cost differences. So a company that prices its software higher
than the
> ]competition to cover serious development effort will price themselves out of
the market
> ]composed of competitors who "me too!" the fruits of the development effort
without
> ]paying for it. So customers will always pay less for approximately the same
quality.
>
> ]Effective IP would restore the balance between quality and cost and reduce
the
> ]domination of the first-to-market mentality.
>
> All the evidence is to the contrary in country after country, century
> after century. Monopoly powers breed contempt of the consumer, not
> heightened regard for his/her well being.
>
> Consumers are perfectly capable of making the choice between price and
> quality on their own without governments and laws to "help" them.
>
> ]Conclusion: I can say that software has suffered in the US if low quality
counts as
> ]suffering.
>
>
> ]Is this off topic? Perhaps not. Crypto is similar to software as an
industry with an
> ]abstract, almost ineffable, product. And crypto -- as an industry -- is
younger than
> ]software. Perhaps crypto can do better.
>
>
> Not if it is going to get mandated by the government.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 15:15:36 -0400
From: "Trevor L. Jackson, III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Software patents are evil.
David Rush wrote:
> It's a hell of a way to de-lurk, but I just can't help myself.
>
> "Trevor L. Jackson, III" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> > Terry Ritter wrote:
> > > Patents reward successful research. If we have a situation where
> > > patents are ineffective, the only research we get is what happens for
> > > free.
> >
> > Not quite. To make the preceding sentence accurate one needs to insert
> > "public" prior to "research". Vast amounts of research would still occur,
> > but every research lab would be a skunk works, and trade secrecy would
> > dominate good engineering. No thanks.
>
> And trade secrecy *doesn't* dominate good engineering now? When did
> you last read an `industry-standard' IPA?
Trade secrecy is real. I've signed too many NDAs to count, and insisted upon my
share as well. Point is that without patents encouraging public disclosure
trade secrecy would be the only protection for IP. I do not consider copyright
to be a protection for intellectual property. It protects published
expression. Which is useless most of the time.
If trade secrecy is the only mechanism available to secure intellectual property
restrictive licensing will become rampant and innovation will fade as some
portion of the incentive for doing innovative work disappears.
Personally I'd like to find ways to _increase_ the incentives. C.f., the IBM
slogan "machines should work, people should think".
------------------------------
From: "David C. Barber" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ExCSS Source Code
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:24:21 -0700
Court, John, not courts. One judge in one court has made this
determination. Others may disagree.
Btw, I wonder if they'll attempt prosecution of whom ever spammed usenet
with the code?
*David Barber*
"John Savard" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> I still think the DMCA is a bad law, but that is a separate issue. The
> only potentially valid argument in the defence of people distributing
> the crack would be that insofar as the DMCA made their actions
> illegal, it was unconstitutional - because of the First Amendment. But
> that defense was also rejected by the courts, and on the basis of
> reasons that appear to be largely valid.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim)
Crossposted-To: sci.military.naval,alt.conspiracy,sci.geo.earthquakes
Subject: Re: SUN SPOT 6.51 BILLION square kilometers in size
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:36:18 GMT
Reply-To: Jim
On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 09:57:17 +0200, Ichinin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Eugene Griessel wrote:
><SNIP>
>
>Let me guess, you want sci.crypt feedback?
>
>Hints:
>
>- Using the magnetic storms as a random number generator = bad idea, if
>someone put up a satelite in front of your measure point they will be
>able to predict the sequence output of the RNG.
Expensive cryptanalysis aid !!!
>- Will a potential sunstorm affect the outcome of PRNG's? Who knows, it
>could be worth studying how radiation can affect and possibly control
>the output of such a device (That's for you alt.conspiracy people :o)
>
>- Digitising the sunspot into a one time pad = also a bad idea, since it
>is visible to everyone at all times, and would probably be recorded by
>thousands ranging from pro-astronomers to hobby-astronomers
Just ordinary radio noise is good enough for me!
--
Jim Dunnett
amadeus @netcomuk.co.uk
nordland @lineone.net
g4rga @thersgb.net
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim)
Crossposted-To: sci.military.naval,alt.conspiracy,sci.geo.earthquakes
Subject: Re: SUN SPOT 6.51 BILLION square kilometers in size
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:36:19 GMT
Reply-To: Jim
On Wed, 20 Sep 2000 14:15:18 -0700, Doug Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>And lo, it came to pass on Wed, 20 Sep 2000 20:28:40 GMT that
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Eugene Griessel), wrote thusly:
>
>
>>Yep - I have rightly been slapped smartly on the wrist and taken to
>>task by some creature calling itself Stanislav Shalunov who is
>>indignant that I allowed my drivel to soil its pristine newsgroup.
>
>I'm sort of confused as to what sort of conspriacy is inviolved
>in creating sunspots. Or why geo.earhtquakes is included. And
>why isn't sci.astro on this list?
These large electrical storms cause huge problems with submarine
cables - induce large voltages across them, so let's include some
of the Telecomm newsgroups as well.
Perhaps measuring the voltage changes could be used as a source
of random.
--
Jim Dunnett
amadeus @netcomuk.co.uk
nordland @lineone.net
g4rga @thersgb.net
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jim)
Crossposted-To: sci.military.naval,alt.conspiracy,sci.geo.earthquakes
Subject: Re: SUN SPOT 6.51 BILLION square kilometers in size
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:36:20 GMT
Reply-To: Jim
On 21 Sep 2000 10:59:24 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk) wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Doug Berry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>I'm sort of confused as to what sort of conspriacy is inviolved
>>in creating sunspots.
>
>Well it's pretty clear that it has to be either the Jews,
>the Masons, the Homosexuals, the Bilderburgers, the British,
>the namby-pamby Environmentalists, or -- and this would be
>my guess -- the World Communist Conspiracy, also known as
>the Liberals.
Definitely the British, and probably the Conservative
British.
--
Jim Dunnett
amadeus @netcomuk.co.uk
nordland @lineone.net
g4rga @thersgb.net
------------------------------
From: zapzing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Music Industry wants hacking information for cheap
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:40:27 GMT
These so called technological methods of
protecting a copyright are the purest of
fiction. At some point it must be converted
into sights and sounds so that a Human can
enjoy them. At that point, just record it
and copy it as much as you wish.
Unless if you think that they are going
to put one of their DVD-whatever-things
into every camcorder in the world. LOL.
--
Void where prohibited by law.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SCOTT19U.ZIP_GUY)
Subject: Re: Tying Up Loose Ends - Correction
Date: 21 Sep 2000 19:52:42 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mok-Kong Shen) wrote in <39CA4046.AFBD4987@t-
online.de>:
>
>
>Tim Tyler wrote:
>>
>> Mok-Kong Shen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>>
>> : If my message is over one hundred bytes, do you think
>> : that I need to care about wasting 5 bits?? [...]
>>
>> At worst, this can reduce the size of keyspace by a factor of 32.
>
>Sorry, I don't understand. What do you mean by 'keyspace'
>here? This is the message space. The message gets longer
>by 5 bits. There is no information in the above of how
>big the key is. Do I loose or gain security by, say,
>always appending 5 0's to the ciphertext?
>
>M. K. Shen
>
I thought we are talking about compressing then ecnrypting.
If you always add 5 zeros or any other fixed amount of bits
after a compressed string or any file for that matter which is
then encrypted. The attacker know what the last few bits are
and throws out keys that don't match. So if the last five bits
of a file are known then it means you reduce your key space by
5 bits.
David A. Scott
--
SCOTT19U.ZIP NOW AVAILABLE WORLD WIDE
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/Kong/scott19u.zip
Scott famous encryption website **now all allowed**
http://members.xoom.com/ecil/index.htm
Scott LATEST UPDATED source for scott*u.zip
http://radiusnet.net/crypto/ then look for
sub directory scott after pressing CRYPTO
Scott famous Compression Page
http://members.xoom.com/ecil/compress.htm
**NOTE EMAIL address is for SPAMERS***
I leave you with this final thought from President Bill Clinton:
------------------------------
From: zapzing <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: t
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 19:51:30 GMT
In article <8qcise$l6i$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Thomas Pornin) wrote:
> According to Douglas A. Gwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> > Others who have approached this problem have usually assumed
> > more commonality among the communicants
>
> On a slightly different point of view, read "The Forever War" from
> Joe Haldeman.
>
> There is also the classical "Stranded on Venus" problem: some
scientists
> have a technical problem on the ground of planet Venus. To get back to
> the orbital station, a button must be pushed on the control panel of
the
> station, but there is nobody left to push that button... except some
> bypassing (and altogether cooperative) aliens.
>
> The scientists manage to establish a radio communication with the
> aliens, and build up some sort of language (they are *good*
scientists).
> But the main problem is that there are two buttons on the panel. The
> left one is the one to be pushed. The other one is the self-destruct
> command.
>
> How will the scientists and aliens agree on the notion of left and
right ?
OK, Helpful Aliens. Just take a look at the third planet
from this here star. It's got a Nitrogen, Oxygen atmosphere
with a bunch of other neat stuff. The "northern" hemisphere
is the one with most of the land masses on it. If you are
standing with your back to the sun, and looking at Earth
(the third planet) with your head pointing north, and your
feet pointing south (opposite of north) then a point on the
planet on the sunny side will be moving left to right (or
is it right to left?).
--
Void where prohibited by law.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
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