Re: ... challenge?

From: ošin (ošin@ragnarok.com)
Date: 03/05/03 

From: "ošin" <ošin@ragnarok.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 09:52:05 -0800

> I guess simplifying and complicating things a bit at both ends...

I am trying not to flame - but nobody here would have a clue what that is
supposed to mean, including you.

> but in the end the whole thing is stupid.

Do not feel sad. Instead, enjoy learning much new interesting stuff in
crypto.

You have been flamed badly, but my advice is that you dust yourself off, and
learn about entropy, and how you cannot increase entropy. Also, study
existing algos more, and study how to break algos. Google is your buddy.
Then, after you have covered a lot of ground, *maybe* you can start dabbling
in algo design fore your own enjoyment.

This reminds me of a friend I had back in Engineering. He was in mechanical,
and in 1st year, while he was still convinced that perpetual motion machines
can be designed and built. He made a fool of himself with a professor in
class during the first week of the first term. He kept it up for two years,
getting flamed on a regular basis. Then, in third year, he took his first
thermodynamics course, and he finally understood at a fundamental level that
what he was trying to do was stupid. He was actually a very intelligent guy,
he passed the thermo course, which you cannot do if you have no brains at
all. The reason I tell you this story is that your idea of increasing
entropy is exactly the same as his idea that thermodynamics would allow
perpetual motion. It is a perfect analogy, because you were both trying to
get more out than you put in (actually the math is closely related in both
cases, related to information theory at a fundamental level.

So cheer up and keep working on your understanding.