Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:

On 10/02/2025 23:44, Ben Bacarisse wrote:

Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:

On 04/02/2025 01:31, David Entwistle wrote:

...

Yes, as I recall, and as a rather sloppy adversary unaware of your
implementation, my character set ran from char(33) ! to char(126) ~. I >>>> think it was the gap between char(95) _ and char(97) a which caused me the >>>> most trouble. char(96) is top left on a QWERTY keyboard. I never use it, >>>> but it gets used as an apostrophe in some text on the web. As a result >>>> some of my checks failed to do what I expected and I didn't feel confident >>>> posting SCOS-based ciphers.

Well, blow moi down with a feather! I had no idea!

I think you have just forgotten. It was brought up at the time (I have
a post of 7th Dec 2021 about it).

Then I have indeed just forgotten. Unfortunately, my Deja News doesn't
cover the period in question, so I can't check, but I have no reason to
doubt you.

Well, easy to forget as it's hardly matters. But this does raise a
question I don't recall being asked... Do you remember why you
hand-coded a character set rather than just taking it to be ASCII 33 to
126 (inclusive)? That would have made the code a bit simpler. All that
occurs to me is that you might have done so to make it more fun reverse engineer. But then I can imagine you might have mixed up the order of
some the more obvious runs (like A to Z to 0 to 9) to make it even more
so.

Good to see you back, by the way...

--
Ben.

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On 12/02/2025 23:41, Ben Bacarisse wrote:

<snip>

But this does raise a
question I don't recall being asked... Do you remember why you
hand-coded a character set

Yes. :-)

rather than just taking it to be ASCII 33 to
126 (inclusive)?

Cast your mind back, if you will, to the dark days of the second
millennium, when small furry creatures from Alph... [Ach, sod
poetry, it's almost 4am.]

Not hard-coding ASCII values into the source was mere habit; I
only ever hard-coded when I couldn't avoid it (eg when converting
between character sets), because it was a source of
non-portability that 99.99(+)% of the time I simply didn't need.

That would have made the code a bit simpler. All that
occurs to me is that you might have done so to make it more fun reverse engineer. But then I can imagine you might have mixed up the order of
some the more obvious runs (like A to Z to 0 to 9) to make it even more
so.

It would have been (and remains) very easy to do, in fact - just
fiddle with the #defines at the top. But one must know when to
stop, or one risks turn a mild teaser into the head-scratching
challenge it was never my intent to make it.

Good to see you back, by the way...

Thank you. Thunderbird just stopped playing sillybuggers... again...

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

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