(I am amazed how little exists on the web on the topic.) I had seen a few of the books at a local bookstore, but I was uncertain of their quality. (They also had a number of snake-oil crypto books.)

Well, as soon as people can charge a cyber-dime/quarter/or buck to read/ download you will see a change. Most authors make little (like $1.00/copy) from book sales so if made cheap enough so that is easier to download than pirate you will see a big change.

The author has failed to call me back. I do have some serious concerns about the code. (There is not a single XOR used, except to clear registers!)

Why bother (kind like reinventing ASCII), we have good, proven crypto algorithms, some even in public domain. Is easy to code. Hard part is making it fast and easy & available anywhere (what I like about the PGP enclyptor). Another hard part is good key management. Like computer viruses in which there is nothing interesting about the propagation (what makes a virus a virus), the crypto part is a done deal, have had good stuff for years.

I am starting to suspect that it is based on a mathematical progression based on the numbers 40, 28, 36.

Ah yes, being hearing impaired I always wanted a watch that would poke. My 1968 Seiko "Bellmatic" is close - ringing the bell makes it vibrate.

I am trying to convince him of the futility of the task. (It is hard as his ego keeps getting in the way.) I just want to give him reasons why it is weak and not just glittering generalities.

Not futile, just already done. Should concentrate on things that are "impossible" 8*). Warmly, Padgett