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Comment Re: No surprise there (Score 1) 263

With an OTP, there is no way to differentiate "Attack at dawn" from "Attack at dusk", both of which are contextually valid. Even if you were given the ciphertext AND the key for the first 11 characters of that message, finding the last 3 would be no less impossible than without them.

Properly used OTP is uncrackable. No ifs, buts, maybes or edge cases.

Comment Re:No surprise there (Score 1) 263

I understand why a piece of pad cannot be reused, but why not in part? If I have a page of, say 1000 chars of pad, and I send messages usually between 50 to 100 chars length, why can't I use the 1000 char page as just a sequence of 10 x 100 char pads? Or, assuming I don't consider length discovery to be an issue, why can't I just use as much of the pad as necessary for a given message? Ignoring the challenges of coordinating which part of the pad is used (which can be resolved with difficulty but is not insurmountable), why is this always recommended againts when implementing OTPs?

Comment Re:Too bad... (Score 1) 861

No, but justified self-defense is a whole different story. Unfortunately, the media is so pro-Israeli that it it is impossible to have the actions of the Palestinians seen in light of self-defense. Every military action by them is labelled as "terrorist aggression", every military action by Israel is labelled "justified pre-emptive strike".

Let's not forget that this current round of bombing was started when Ahmed al-Jabari was assassinated, despite the fact that he was about to sign (the very morning he was killed, in fact) a cease fire agreement he and his Israeli counterpart had been working on for some time. Being about the only man on the Palestinian side with the respect of the actual soldiers on the ground needed to actuall give effect to a cease fire, one can only wonder why Israel killed him, and at that precise moment in time.

On Wednesday morning, letting him get to work like any other morning would have resulted in a long-term ceasefire plan, designed and agreed to by both Hamas leaders as well as Israeli government officials. Instead, they blew up his car on the way to work, triggering the current round of fighting.

Comment Re:You disgust me. (Score 1) 861

Oh I dunno, just that the fact that no state named "Palestine" is often cited as justification for the creation of Israel on land that, according to the Israeli account of history, was uninhabited, unnamed and under the control of the British who had no interest in the land or what happened there. Pretty similar to the terra nullius doctrine that allowed Europeans to annihilate native Australians, Americans and Canadians without having to acknowledge them as real humans.

Comment Re:Too bad... (Score 2) 861

In those days, rockets were made of thin pieces of wood and launched from a device resembling a stringed musical instrument. As a result of their brazen unprovoked attacks, their civilisations were wiped off the face of the Earth by the technologicall superior interlopers a few decades after arrival. Kind of like the Palestinians. Isolated by the lines that the British drew all over the Middle East, impoverished by a long standing blockade and confined to the largest concentration camp in human history, all the while being bombed, starved and shot into annihilation.

How dare some of them get angry enough to attempt to fight back?

Comment Re:Get Some Priorities! (Score 2) 107

While I agree with you on your overall sentiments, your general tone is offensive. Many who died may have prepared, but the means to do more may have been out of their capacity. What would you do to prepare for a storm? Board the windows? Brace the doors? Put everything sharp in a closed, low height cupboard? How would that help if Sandy dropped a few cars on your house, levelling it? And even if you did survive that, remember, the biggest killer in natural disasters is the disease and sepsis that follows.

Off your high horse, buddy.

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