-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hello dmacfarlane@zip.sbi.com (David Macfarlane), cypherpunks@toad.com and packrat@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (ie Bruce Murphy <packrat@ratbox.rattus.uwa.edu.au>) BM wrote:
In message <9601292041.AA14422@zip_master2.sbi.com>, David Macfarlane wrote: ... If secure input is needed then it shouldn't be too much of a problem. I doubt the program would recognize either of INTERCAL input or output (as a random example) ...
Original INTERCAL had numbers spelled out in English as input, and output in butchered roman numerals. I guess you can get people to do the input (four or eight digits at a time only), but I don't think the roman numerals are going to cut it, somehow... and anyway it's not that much more secure. C-INTERCAL is less anglo-centric, allowing numbers to be input in eight languages (eight = ashtan = zortzi = walo = chicue = rva = malhgwenalh = j"ol). But do you really think people will be willing to spell their credit-card number in classical Nahuatl for the sake of security (the *bank's* security)? If you mean INTERCAL as a programming language, then I guess you can use the C-INTERCAL binary I/O (character deltas, output reverse), but then it's no different to any other programming language (except nobody bothered to implement file and network I/O for it yet so you'd have to invent it yourself). ...
And before pm. says it, this has very little to do with cryptography.
Or trees.
Well, how about security through INTERCAL? Would anyone be able to figure out what an INTERCAL encryption program is doing? What does the following fragment do? PLEASE DON'T GIVE UP DO .3 <- !3~#15'$!3~#240' DO .3 <- !3~#15'$!3~#240' DO .2 <- !3~#15'$!3~#240' (Hint: it's from the "cat" program, ie copy stdin to stdout verbatim.) Anyone have a bignum library in the said language? For the person who was worried about his Linux box, perhaps the virus runs under WINE? (And you *know* how dangerous these viruses can get when they are drunk :-) I think I'll put [NOISE] into the subject line... Jiri - -- If you want an answer, please mail to <jirib@cs.monash.edu.au>. On sweeney, I may delete without reading! PGP 463A14D5 (but it's at home so it'll take a day or two) PGP EF0607F9 (but it's at uni so don't rely on it too much) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2i iQCVAwUBMQ7/OyxV6mvvBgf5AQEofgQA7cU//xtzW6/A0uRvMSPi7zrBKDoE+q5a WpHR2VW7V9fCWfC4dj2MtIVgk/5L90C0lLcEIeYLwJUoPf9+NspWrIG7glWVv3Oj 55ctRz0682ZIBuRXr+OzxSQXfa8QlpjynHtPi9kHnWHFSXzJBeZeAe80lYllLLzK am1pu+ky53k= =EVVx -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----