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Article #660Re: "Sneakers" -- action/adventure movie about Cryptography
From: Phil Karn
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 20:58
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1992 20:58
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In article <6395@vtserf.cc.vt.edu>, ranck@vtserf.cc.vt.edu (Wm. L. Ranck) writes: |> I saw a preview of "Sneakers" when I was at the movies about a week ago. |> In a couple of scenes they showed groups of letters on a screen rapidly |> changing (sort of like a slot machine) and resolving into words. Now this |> bothered me. The space characters were already in place! In other words |> it was obvious from the cyphertext what the length of each word was. |> Pretty poor encryption scheme that. It sounds like that scene was written by the same guy who did the climax of "War Games". Remember how the computer (Joshua?) cracked the missile launch code ONE CHARACTER AT A TIME? I wish I could find a bank with a vault whose combination lock worked that way. Phil
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arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!gatech!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!network.ucsd.edu!qualcom.qualcomm.com!qualcom.qualcomm.com!karnReferences:
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Newsgroups: sci.crypt Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!gatech!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!news.acns.nwu.edu!network.ucsd.edu!qualcom.qualcomm.com!qualcom.qualcomm.com!karn From: karn@qualcom.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) Subject: Re: "Sneakers" -- action/adventure movie about Cryptography Message-ID: <1992Sep4.205842.12303@qualcomm.com> Sender: news@qualcomm.com Nntp-Posting-Host: qualcom.qualcomm.com Reply-To: karn@chicago.qualcomm.com Organization: Qualcomm, Inc References: <1391@eouk18.eoe.co.uk> <6395@vtserf.cc.vt.edu> Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 20:58:42 GMT Lines: 16