Day: September 14, 2001

Crack Down on Prime Numbers!

ZDNet reports that some members of Congress want a worldwide ban on “uncrackable” computer encryption in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States.

First, no existing system of computer encryption is uncrackable. Very difficult to crack if implemented correctly, but not uncrackable. Even systems using what should be an uncrackable scheme — one time pads — usually end up being cracked given enough time due to human factors that for a number of reason are almost impossible to eliminate.

Second, we need “uncrackable” computer encryption. As computers have gotten faster and advances in mathematical theory and programming have occurred, we’ve seen one after another encryption scheme brought down to the ground by some creative folks. Look at SSH, for example, which is a widely deployed and extremely secure system, except it is possible in theory to crack it because of idiosyncracies about how people tend to type (i.e. in theory, you might be able to guess my password by seeing how long it takes me to go from one letter to the next and then inferring from that which keys I must be typing). The more uncrackable, the better.

Third, even if it were a good idea, the possibility of a global ban on something like public-key encryption is ludicrous. There is no way such a ban could ever work. Would they really want to go around and arrest anyone who posts a PGP key? It’s just a silly proposal, especially when it comes to terrorists. Afghanistan let Osama bin Laden set up terrorist training camps in that country — does Congress really think they would have demanded that he relinquish his copy of PGP?

My Horrible Evening

Today my Grandmother underwent her second (and hopefully final) angioplasty surgery. She’s getting up there in years (80+) and her doctors discovered she had exteremely poor circulation below the waist due to severely blocked arteries. The circulation was so bad that the choice was either have the angioplasty or almost certainly amputate her legs in a few years.

My brother is a military cop at an Air Force base here, and has been working 15 hour days ever since the 9/11 terrorist attack, so last night Lisa and I drove to Battle Creek, Michigan. She returned to our house with my daughter, and I slept on my Grandma’s couch.

This morning I drove my Grandmma to the hospital, she went through the surgery, and as the surgeon put it, she was back to her old ornery self within a couple hours. But then things really started to get weird.

Lisa was supposed to pick up Emma from her school, get her some food, and then drive to Battle Creek to pick me up (the drive takes about 20 minutes). I figured she’d be there around 6 p.m., but wasn’t concerned when she still wasn’t there at 6:30 p.m. When 7 p.m. rolled around, though, I was a little angry thinking she was dinking around rather than coming to Battle Creek right away.

By 7:30 p.m. I was past the anger and straight into being worried that something had happened to her. Her cell phone kept giving me “That caller is unavailable” and when I tried to call her family members, none of them were home either.

By 8:00 p.m. I was basically freaking out. I finally got her father on the phone who said that when he had talked to her around 5:30 p.m. that my daughter had a fever and had thrown up. So now, I’m calling all the hospitals, her pediatrician, the urgent care at the doctor’s office, and other places seeing if she had taken my daughter there.

Finally I decided to go back to my Grandma’s apartment and see if she was there, but on my way out I checked all of the parking lots and was very happy to see her car there. I ran into the hospital to hear my name being announced over the loudspeaker asking me to return to my Grandma’s room.

It turns out her evening had been just as frustrating as mine. She had shown up at the hospital at 6:30 pm. only to be told that my Grandmother had been discharged earlier in the evening. This was completely false, but she had no idea. Thinking my Grandmother had been discharged, she had spent two hours alternating between hanging around my Grandma’s apartment complex waiting for her to show up and taking my daughter to a nearby store to keep her occupied (the last thing in the world you want to do is sit around waiting with a four year old).

By the time 8 p.m. rolled around she figured something was up and returned to the hospital. Asking for more information about when my Grandma had been discharged, she was told that in fact she was in a critical care room for an overnight stay.

Whew! I was really stressing out there for a few minutes with all sorts of ugly scenarios and possibilities going through my mind.

The Home Grown Religious Fanatics

Today I was laughing out loud at the media coverage of the 9/11 attack after CNN reported that Iranian hard liners were blaming the attack on Israel and chanting “Death to Israel.”

But comments by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on the terrorist attack are even more distressing to my mind than even the Palestinians and Lebanese celebrating the attacks.

Appearing on the 700 Club, Falwell said of the attack, “God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.”

To which Robertson replied, “Jerry, that’s my feeling. I think we’ve just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven’t even begun to see what they can do to the major population.”

Then Falwell really goes off the deep end (which is saying a lot given his previous statements over the years),

The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America — I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’

Sickening. Fortunately, Falwell/Robertson no more represent most Christian Americans than Osama Bin Laden represents mosts Muslims.