From fork-admin@xent.com Wed Oct 2 11:48:05 2002 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yyyy@localhost.example.com Received: from localhost (jalapeno [127.0.0.1]) by jmason.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4E40D16F1B for ; Wed, 2 Oct 2002 11:47:39 +0100 (IST) Received: from jalapeno [127.0.0.1] by localhost with IMAP (fetchmail-5.9.0) for jm@localhost (single-drop); Wed, 02 Oct 2002 11:47:39 +0100 (IST) Received: from xent.com ([64.161.22.236]) by dogma.slashnull.org (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id g923VAK23777 for ; Wed, 2 Oct 2002 04:31:11 +0100 Received: from lair.xent.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 792772940FB; Tue, 1 Oct 2002 20:31:02 -0700 (PDT) Delivered-To: fork@example.com Received: from rwcrmhc51.attbi.com (rwcrmhc51.attbi.com [204.127.198.38]) by xent.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3166629409C for ; Tue, 1 Oct 2002 20:30:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from Intellistation ([66.31.2.27]) by rwcrmhc51.attbi.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with ESMTP id <20021002033102.BBXR17535.rwcrmhc51.attbi.com@Intellistation>; Wed, 2 Oct 2002 03:31:02 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From: Eirikur Hallgrimsson Organization: Electric Brain To: Rohit Khare , fork@example.com Subject: Re: Optical analog computing? User-Agent: KMail/1.4.1 References: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Message-Id: <200210012330.47704.eh@mad.scientist.com> Sender: fork-admin@xent.com Errors-To: fork-admin@xent.com X-Beenthere: fork@example.com X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Friends of Rohit Khare List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 23:30:47 -0400 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-8.4 required=5.0 tests=AWL,IN_REP_TO,KNOWN_MAILING_LIST,NOSPAM_INC, RCVD_IN_MULTIHOP_DSBL,RCVD_IN_UNCONFIRMED_DSBL,REFERENCES, USER_AGENT,USER_AGENT_KMAIL version=2.50-cvs X-Spam-Level: Uh, WWII Enigma was cracked at Bletchly Park, based on the work of some Poles, who had been trying to figure out when they would be invaded. Entirely mechanical! Definitely not optical at all. Enigma was originally broken based on bad use practice. If it had been employed more sensibly it would have been a lot harder. See "The Code Book" by Singh, Doubleday, 1999. Or, for that matter, "Cryptonomicon" by Stephenson, which is a fictionalization of the Enigma cracking story, and pretty accurate. I eventually get born as a side-effect of the Battle of Britain, you see.... Computing with interference patterns, etc, makes perfect sense, but Enigma was cracked by building mechanical systems that were essentially Enigma machines and brute-forcing. Eirikur