Re: Ian Grigg's Crypto Fiction Choices

From: Matthew Gaylor Subject: Ian Grigg's Crypto Fiction Choices Cc: iang@systemics.com

http://www.iang.org/crypto_fiction/

A Fire Upon The Deep

I think Vernor Vinge would have to be my favourite science fiction author, just pipping out Stephenson. A Fire Upon The Deep is a tour de force of 90's science fiction.

It actually has very little crypto in it, so it is hard for me to award it more than 3 bits of entropy. The main players ship out of a port with a third part of a one time pad. The other two parts ship via other means - a security precaution.

The one time slice never makes it to its destination, but is used later in a last ditch effort to establish comms with the good guys, whilst being chased by the bad guys across the universe.

This is not a funny book, but Vinge's humour comes through with a single crypto joke which still makes me laugh. To enjoy the joke, you'll have to buy the book.

You missed "A Deepness in the Sky", written by Vinge, and published in 1999. Crypto plays an important part of the story, and, well, it's Vinge, it's worth a read. -- -- http://www.apa.org/journals/psp/psp7761121.html It is one of the essential features of such incompetence that the person so afflicted is incapable of knowing that he is incompetent. To have such knowledge would already be to remedy a good portion of the offense.