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Re: google reads your mail

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  Re: google reads your mail "Johann \"Myrkraverk\" Oskarsson" <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-09-16 23:39 +0800
    Re: google reads your mail Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-17 16:51 +1000
      Re: google reads your mail Lane W <cactus_DAC@yahoo.com> - 2026-09-17 02:43 -0600
        Re: google reads your mail Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-17 23:34 +1000
          Re: google reads your mail Lane W <cactus_DAC@yahoo.com> - 2026-09-17 08:43 -0600
            Re: google reads your mail Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-18 15:36 +1000
              Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-18 22:04 +0000
                Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-20 02:25 +1000
                  Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-19 22:03 +0000
                    Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-20 16:13 +1000
                      Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-20 08:09 +0000
                        Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail) Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2026-09-20 18:25 +1000

#198009 — Re: google reads your mail

On 9/16/2026 9:57 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
> On 16/09/2026 11:08 pm, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>> On 16/09/2026 7:37 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>> On 16/09/2026 12:34 am, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>> On 14/09/2026 4:18 PM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>> On 9/14/2026 12:42 AM, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 11:48 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 2:41 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>> news:1186v8b$tqg8$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 8:51 AM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>> news:1185hd5$dajo$2@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/12/2026 11:20 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> nslookup -type=MX ieee.org
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Non-authoritative answer:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> ieee.org        MX preference = 40, mail exchanger = 
>>>>>>>>>>>> alt3.aspmx.l.google.com
>>>>>>>>>>>> ieee.org        MX preference = 50, mail exchanger = 
>>>>>>>>>>>> alt4.aspmx.l.google.com
>>>>>>>>>>>> ieee.org        MX preference = 10, mail exchanger = 
>>>>>>>>>>>> aspmx.l.google.com
>>>>>>>>>>>> ieee.org        MX preference = 20, mail exchanger = 
>>>>>>>>>>>> alt1.aspmx.l.google.com
>>>>>>>>>>>> ieee.org        MX preference = 30, mail exchanger = 
>>>>>>>>>>>> alt2.aspmx.l.google.com
>>>>>>>>>>> Many organizations have outsourced their email to google.
>>>>>>>>>>> There is obviously value in:
>>>>>>>>>>> - mapping the relationships between communicating parties
>>>>>>>>>>> - reading their correspondence
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Those of us who don't always want our correspondence read
>>>>>>>>>> will find other ways to communicate.
>>>>>>>>> Or, ensure nothing being said needs to be shielded from prying 
>>>>>>>>> eyes!
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> [A friend used to claim he "had nothing to hide".  I noted that
>>>>>>>>> he didn't leave his financial statements "lying around"...]
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Email is a postcard -- every hand that it passes through has a
>>>>>>>>> chance to read its contents (doubly so if those hands are
>>>>>>>>> electronic in nature!).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So let them read about your vacation, unaware of the 
>>>>>>>> steganographically encoded message in the picture.
>>>>>>> Steganalysis can detect the presence of certain types of hidden/ 
>>>>>>> encoded data.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> /Can/ does not imply that a run of the mill three letter agency 
>>>>>> stegana-
>>>>>> lyst will.  Now, I admit I do not have any of their tool-kits, so I
>>>>>> wouldn't off hand know what they do and don't detect if they start 
>>>>>> look-
>>>>>> ing.  I am however fairly certain I can devise a method to hide 
>>>>>> infor-
>>>>>> mation undetectable by the amateur antisteganographer [1].
>>>>>
>>>>> Having access to tools and a near-endless stream of data (in digital
>>>>> form best suited to such analysis), I wouldn't doubt *someone* has 
>>>>> already
>>>>> considered (and acted upon?) the idea.  "Amateurs" likely have neither
>>>>> the tools nor the access.
>>>>
>>>> Oh, my original idea -- the one I was thinking of for the challenge --
>>>> is almost certainly /well known/ in the three letter agency world.  But
>>>> given the brief overview of a tool used by a /security expert/, I 
>>>> forgot
>>>> which or maybe it wasn't named, it didn't seem to be a standard 
>>>> feature.
>>>>
>>>> Then, if I make a custom implementation, there's no guarantee a three
>>>> letter agency tool will catch it.  Just add a little bit of twist, and
>>>> it may well bypass the filters the three letter agencies use.
>>>>
>>>> Or trigger an alert if a /well known adversary/ has used it before.
>>>> It's kind of 50/50 that way.
>>>>>
>>>>> [When I worked for KCP, a "three letter agency" approached us to
>>>>> customize a version of our product.  It was easy to see how it could
>>>>> be used -- and abused -- so we declined their "offer".]
>>>>>
>>>>>> I also feel no need to explain to the public at large how I'd do 
>>>>>> so, but
>>>>>> you are free to raise a challenge if you think it amounts to 
>>>>>> something.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are *countless* ways of "hiding information", especially if the
>>>>> bandwidth (or, total amount of data) is unspecified.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Yes, you could for example use /Linear A/, and relatively few people in
>>>> the world would be able to tell you're using English -- or another mod-
>>>> ern language -- rather than whatever language it was originally used
>>>> for.
>>>
>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A
>>>
>>> None. Linear A doesn't seem to have been deciphered yet, and there 
>>> aren't enough sample of it around to suggest that it ever will be.
>>>
>>> There weren't all that many more example of Linear B, but enough.
>>
>> Dear Bill,
>>
>> /Linear A/ is a script, not a language.  I never implied it had been
>> deciphered, but you can absolutely use it to write English.  You even
>> get to make up your sound values.
> 
> Not a trivial task.

Are you referring to the decipherment of Linear A?  For some light read-
ing, you can pick /The Code Book/ by Simon Singh from your shelf.
Alternatively, a bigger book on the same subject is /The Code Breakers/
by David Kahn.  Those two book should serve as an introductory material
on the subject, and the former is amusing -- I haven't read the latter
yet it is still on my shelf; it's a matter of tsundoku.  I hope you
don't need to look that word up, being erudite and all.

> 
>> Now please direct yourself to the nearest juniour high school, and work
>> on improving your reading comprehension.
> 
> Your own needs some work. I never claimed that linear A was a language - 
> it's a writing system. It will have been devised to write down elements 
> of at least one language - the roman alphabet we use is used to write 
> down several.

You now need to explain and expostulate [1] to yourself why you used the
the word /none/.  You see, I was talking about using Linear A to write
English, and there are indeed people -- or at least people who claim
they are -- able to discover it's not the original language but a modern
one.  The books I referred to in the previous paragraph explain how, in
practice, such is done with statistical analysis.  Even though they're
not a good introduction to the practicalities of modern cryptanalysis.

For that, you might want to read /Differential Cryptanalysis on Hash
Functions: Theory and Practice/ by Tao Xie, and Fanbao Liu; or other
books on the subject of modern code breaking.  I admit I haven't read
this one either.  It's on my tsundoku shelf still.

> 
> My late wife was a world class psycholinguist and I don't think a junior 
> high school would have much to teach me.

Well, presumably she could have told you that it's not polite to assume
nobody can do something, just because you can't.

> 
> American secondary education isn't wonderful, and it probably wouldn't 
> have taught me any more than Tasmanian secondary schools did back when I 
> was reading about the  decipherment of Minoan linear B.

I take it you were reading /The Decipherment of Linear B/ by John Chad-
wick.  Have you thought about buying yourself the corpus of Linear A,
and attack the problem heads on?

> 
>> Best wishes, and happy reading!
> 
> Wishing me into an American junior high school isn't a good wish. I've 
> been reading happily for many years now, but selectively, and reading 
> the nonsense they they serve up - about America being a exemplary 
> democracy - would not be a pleasant experience. Occasionally amusing, 
> but I'd have to hide my amusement.
> 

Oh, don't worry about the American juniour [sic] high school, you can
now study /popular culture/ in universities.  I bring you a link to your
very own University of Texas,

  
https://texasconnect.utexas.edu/2025/09/29/swifties-trekkies-and-other-devotees-unite-in-ut-class-rhetoric-of-fandom/

and I wouldn't know how to react, if I were forced to take such a course
in this day and age, when I hardly like any of the current crop of popu-
lar amusements, and mostly read [or listen to] space captain dramas.  At
least that branch of literature still has men in the lead role, and
manly adventures -- in space.

Now, if that isn't enough hobbies to get you started, you can always
create an account at cryptohack.org, and start doing -- in Python --
instead of reading.  I myself only started today, so don't read anything
from my current low score.

   https://cryptohack.org/user/myrkraverk/

And for that, I've added comp.lang.python to this discussion.  People
there are welcome to share their Cryptohack profiles, and we can have
a friendly competition in cryptographic practicalities!


Best wishes, and happy deciphering!


[1] Yes, I believe this word fits nicely, even though I'm not entirely
sure if Merriam Webster is current on the meaning of it.
-- 
Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com
https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

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#198010

On 17/09/2026 1:39 am, Johann "Myrkraverk" Oskarsson wrote:
> On 9/16/2026 9:57 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>> On 16/09/2026 11:08 pm, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>> On 16/09/2026 7:37 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>> On 16/09/2026 12:34 am, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>> On 14/09/2026 4:18 PM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>> On 9/14/2026 12:42 AM, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 11:48 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 2:41 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>> news:1186v8b$tqg8$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 8:51 AM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>> news:1185hd5$dajo$2@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/12/2026 11:20 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:

<snip>

>>>>> Oh, my original idea -- the one I was thinking of for the challenge --
>>>>> is almost certainly /well known/ in the three letter agency world.  
>>>>> But
>>>>> given the brief overview of a tool used by a /security expert/, I 
>>>>> forgot
>>>>> which or maybe it wasn't named, it didn't seem to be a standard 
>>>>> feature.
>>>>>
>>>>> Then, if I make a custom implementation, there's no guarantee a three
>>>>> letter agency tool will catch it.  Just add a little bit of twist, and
>>>>> it may well bypass the filters the three letter agencies use.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or trigger an alert if a /well known adversary/ has used it before.
>>>>> It's kind of 50/50 that way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [When I worked for KCP, a "three letter agency" approached us to
>>>>>> customize a version of our product.  It was easy to see how it could
>>>>>> be used -- and abused -- so we declined their "offer".]
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I also feel no need to explain to the public at large how I'd do 
>>>>>>> so, but
>>>>>>> you are free to raise a challenge if you think it amounts to 
>>>>>>> something.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are *countless* ways of "hiding information", especially if the
>>>>>> bandwidth (or, total amount of data) is unspecified.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, you could for example use /Linear A/, and relatively few 
>>>>> people in the world would be able to tell you're using English -- 
>>>>> or another modern language -- rather than whatever language it was 
>>>>> originally used for.
>>>>
>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A
>>>>
>>>> None. Linear A doesn't seem to have been deciphered yet, and there 
>>>> aren't enough sample of it around to suggest that it ever will be.
>>>>
>>>> There weren't all that many more example of Linear B, but enough.
>>>
>>> Dear Bill,
>>>
>>> /Linear A/ is a script, not a language.  I never implied it had been
>>> deciphered, but you can absolutely use it to write English.  You even
>>> get to make up your sound values.
>>
>> Not a trivial task.
> 
> Are you referring to the decipherment of Linear A?  For some light read-
> ing, you can pick /The Code Book/ by Simon Singh from your shelf.

Why would I bother?

> Alternatively, a bigger book on the same subject is /The Code Breakers/
> by David Kahn.  Those two book should serve as an introductory material
> on the subject, and the former is amusing -- I haven't read the latter
> yet it is still on my shelf; it's a matter of tsundoku.  I hope you
> don't need to look that word up, being erudite and all.

My wife had several Japaneses collaborators, and while our house 
contains a lot of her books that I haven't read, I do read every book I 
buy (or at least enough of it to realise that I shouldn't have bought it).

The nearest that I've got to a book in that area is "Security for 
Computer Networks" ISBN 0 471 90063 by Davies and Price, and I only 
bought it because I'd done a little bit of work with the authors.

>>> Now please direct yourself to the nearest juniour high school, and work
>>> on improving your reading comprehension.
>>
>> Your own needs some work. I never claimed that linear A was a language 
>> - it's a writing system. It will have been devised to write down 
>> elements of at least one language - the roman alphabet we use is used 
>> to write down several.
> 
> You now need to explain and expostulate [1] to yourself why you used the
> the word /none/.  You see, I was talking about using Linear A to write
> English, and there are indeed people -- or at least people who claim
> they are -- able to discover it's not the original language but a modern
> one.  The books I referred to in the previous paragraph explain how, in
> practice, such is done with statistical analysis.  Even though they're
> not a good introduction to the practicalities of modern cryptanalysis.

I used the word "none" because anybody using the symbols of Linear A to 
write modern English would have had to have made some arbitrary choices 
about what the symbols represent in modern English.

> For that, you might want to read /Differential Cryptanalysis on Hash
> Functions: Theory and Practice/ by Tao Xie, and Fanbao Liu; or other
> books on the subject of modern code breaking.  I admit I haven't read
> this one either.  It's on my tsundoku shelf still.

I certainly don't want to read either book. I'm interested in 
communicating with people, not with communicating with some people and 
freezing others out.

>> My late wife was a world class psycholinguist and I don't think a 
>> junior high school would have much to teach me.
> 
> Well, presumably she could have told you that it's not polite to assume
> nobody can do something, just because you can't.

My wife was frequently impolite in just that way. The nobodies in 
question were young kids and most of them acquire particular linguisitc 
skills as they get older that they don't have when young.

>> American secondary education isn't wonderful, and it probably wouldn't 
>> have taught me any more than Tasmanian secondary schools did back when 
>> I was reading about the  decipherment of Minoan linear B.
> 
> I take it you were reading /The Decipherment of Linear B/ by John Chad-
> wick.  Have you thought about buying yourself the corpus of Linear A,
> and attack the problem heads on?

Wrong, as usual. The decipherment of Linear B was in the news back then 
- not as front page news, but in specialist magazines (some of which 
made it even to Tasmania).


>>> Best wishes, and happy reading!
>>
>> Wishing me into an American junior high school isn't a good wish. I've 
>> been reading happily for many years now, but selectively, and reading 
>> the nonsense they they serve up - about America being a exemplary 
>> democracy - would not be a pleasant experience. Occasionally amusing, 
>> but I'd have to hide my amusement.
>>
> 
> Oh, don't worry about the American juniour [sic] high school, you can
> now study /popular culture/ in universities.  I bring you a link to your
> very own University of Texas,
> 
> https://texasconnect.utexas.edu/2025/09/29/swifties-trekkies-and-other-devotees-unite-in-ut-class-rhetoric-of-fandom/

It's not mine. My wife got her Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics from the 
University of Texas at Austin, and went on to do as post-doc at MIT 
where she took part in seminars with Noam Chomsky and other 
psycholinguistic heavyweights. Her supervisor at Austin was good value 
but the rest of the faculty was mixed.
> 
> and I wouldn't know how to react, if I were forced to take such a 
> course in this day and age, when I hardly like any of the current crop 
> of popular amusements, and mostly read [or listen to] space captain 
> dramas.  At least that branch of literature still has men in the lead role, and
> role, and manly adventures -- in space.

I started reading science fiction in the late 1950's and later found 
that trying to put science fiction on TV or film dumbed it down to an 
unacceptable extent. American science fiction does tend to be 
unfortunately right wing. Ken MacLeod is Scottish and knows the 
difference between a Leninist, a Trotskyist and Stalinist which make his 
work less fatuous.
> Now, if that isn't enough hobbies to get you started, you can always
> create an account at cryptohack.org, and start doing -- in Python --
> instead of reading.  I myself only started today, so don't read anything
> from my current low score.
> 
>    https://cryptohack.org/user/myrkraverk/

Why would anybody bother?
> 
> And for that, I've added comp.lang.python to this discussion.  People
> there are welcome to share their Cryptohack profiles, and we can have
> a friendly competition in cryptographic practicalities!
>  
> Best wishes, and happy deciphering!

Why would anybody bother?

> [1] Yes, I believe this word fits nicely, even though I'm not entirely
> sure if Merriam Webster is current on the meaning of it
"Expostulate" is part of my passive vocabulary. I can't recall ever 
posting the word. I have been know to post "albeit" here, and nobody 
else seems to have. It is evidence that I read too many books as child.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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#198011

Bill Sloman wrote:
> On 17/09/2026 1:39 am, Johann "Myrkraverk" Oskarsson wrote:
>> On 9/16/2026 9:57 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>> On 16/09/2026 11:08 pm, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>> On 16/09/2026 7:37 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>> On 16/09/2026 12:34 am, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 4:18 PM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>> On 9/14/2026 12:42 AM, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 11:48 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 2:41 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>> news:1186v8b$tqg8$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 8:51 AM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>>> news:1185hd5$dajo$2@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/12/2026 11:20 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>>>>> Oh, my original idea -- the one I was thinking of for the 
>>>>>> challenge --
>>>>>> is almost certainly /well known/ in the three letter agency world. 
>>>>>> But
>>>>>> given the brief overview of a tool used by a /security expert/, I 
>>>>>> forgot
>>>>>> which or maybe it wasn't named, it didn't seem to be a standard 
>>>>>> feature.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Then, if I make a custom implementation, there's no guarantee a three
>>>>>> letter agency tool will catch it.  Just add a little bit of twist, 
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> it may well bypass the filters the three letter agencies use.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Or trigger an alert if a /well known adversary/ has used it before.
>>>>>> It's kind of 50/50 that way.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [When I worked for KCP, a "three letter agency" approached us to
>>>>>>> customize a version of our product.  It was easy to see how it could
>>>>>>> be used -- and abused -- so we declined their "offer".]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I also feel no need to explain to the public at large how I'd do 
>>>>>>>> so, but
>>>>>>>> you are free to raise a challenge if you think it amounts to 
>>>>>>>> something.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> There are *countless* ways of "hiding information", especially if 
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> bandwidth (or, total amount of data) is unspecified.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, you could for example use /Linear A/, and relatively few 
>>>>>> people in the world would be able to tell you're using English -- 
>>>>>> or another modern language -- rather than whatever language it was 
>>>>>> originally used for.
>>>>>
>>>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_A
>>>>>
>>>>> None. Linear A doesn't seem to have been deciphered yet, and there 
>>>>> aren't enough sample of it around to suggest that it ever will be.
>>>>>
>>>>> There weren't all that many more example of Linear B, but enough.
>>>>
>>>> Dear Bill,
>>>>
>>>> /Linear A/ is a script, not a language.  I never implied it had been
>>>> deciphered, but you can absolutely use it to write English.  You even
>>>> get to make up your sound values.
>>>
>>> Not a trivial task.
>>
>> Are you referring to the decipherment of Linear A?  For some light read-
>> ing, you can pick /The Code Book/ by Simon Singh from your shelf.
> 
> Why would I bother?
> 
>> Alternatively, a bigger book on the same subject is /The Code Breakers/
>> by David Kahn.  Those two book should serve as an introductory material
>> on the subject, and the former is amusing -- I haven't read the latter
>> yet it is still on my shelf; it's a matter of tsundoku.  I hope you
>> don't need to look that word up, being erudite and all.
> 
> My wife had several Japaneses collaborators, and while our house 
> contains a lot of her books that I haven't read, I do read every book I 
> buy (or at least enough of it to realise that I shouldn't have bought it).
> 
> The nearest that I've got to a book in that area is "Security for 
> Computer Networks" ISBN 0 471 90063 by Davies and Price, and I only 
> bought it because I'd done a little bit of work with the authors.
> 
>>>> Now please direct yourself to the nearest juniour high school, and work
>>>> on improving your reading comprehension.
>>>
>>> Your own needs some work. I never claimed that linear A was a 
>>> language - it's a writing system. It will have been devised to write 
>>> down elements of at least one language - the roman alphabet we use is 
>>> used to write down several.
>>
>> You now need to explain and expostulate [1] to yourself why you used the
>> the word /none/.  You see, I was talking about using Linear A to write
>> English, and there are indeed people -- or at least people who claim
>> they are -- able to discover it's not the original language but a modern
>> one.  The books I referred to in the previous paragraph explain how, in
>> practice, such is done with statistical analysis.  Even though they're
>> not a good introduction to the practicalities of modern cryptanalysis.
> 
> I used the word "none" because anybody using the symbols of Linear A to 
> write modern English would have had to have made some arbitrary choices 
> about what the symbols represent in modern English.
> 
>> For that, you might want to read /Differential Cryptanalysis on Hash
>> Functions: Theory and Practice/ by Tao Xie, and Fanbao Liu; or other
>> books on the subject of modern code breaking.  I admit I haven't read
>> this one either.  It's on my tsundoku shelf still.
> 
> I certainly don't want to read either book. I'm interested in 
> communicating with people, not with communicating with some people and 
> freezing others out.
> 
>>> My late wife was a world class psycholinguist and I don't think a 
>>> junior high school would have much to teach me.
>>
>> Well, presumably she could have told you that it's not polite to assume
>> nobody can do something, just because you can't.
> 
> My wife was frequently impolite in just that way. The nobodies in 
> question were young kids and most of them acquire particular linguisitc 
> skills as they get older that they don't have when young.
> 
>>> American secondary education isn't wonderful, and it probably 
>>> wouldn't have taught me any more than Tasmanian secondary schools did 
>>> back when I was reading about the  decipherment of Minoan linear B.
>>
>> I take it you were reading /The Decipherment of Linear B/ by John Chad-
>> wick.  Have you thought about buying yourself the corpus of Linear A,
>> and attack the problem heads on?
> 
> Wrong, as usual. The decipherment of Linear B was in the news back then 
> - not as front page news, but in specialist magazines (some of which 
> made it even to Tasmania).
> 
> 
>>>> Best wishes, and happy reading!
>>>
>>> Wishing me into an American junior high school isn't a good wish. 
>>> I've been reading happily for many years now, but selectively, and 
>>> reading the nonsense they they serve up - about America being a 
>>> exemplary democracy - would not be a pleasant experience. 
>>> Occasionally amusing, but I'd have to hide my amusement.
>>>
>>
>> Oh, don't worry about the American juniour [sic] high school, you can
>> now study /popular culture/ in universities.  I bring you a link to your
>> very own University of Texas,
>>
>> https://texasconnect.utexas.edu/2025/09/29/swifties-trekkies-and-other-devotees-unite-in-ut-class-rhetoric-of-fandom/ 
>>
> 
> It's not mine. My wife got her Ph.D. in Psycholinguistics from the 
> University of Texas at Austin, and went on to do as post-doc at MIT 
> where she took part in seminars with Noam Chomsky and other 
> psycholinguistic heavyweights. Her supervisor at Austin was good value 
> but the rest of the faculty was mixed.
>>
>> and I wouldn't know how to react, if I were forced to take such a 
>> course in this day and age, when I hardly like any of the current crop 
>> of popular amusements, and mostly read [or listen to] space captain 
>> dramas.  At least that branch of literature still has men in the lead 
>> role, and
>> role, and manly adventures -- in space.
> 
> I started reading science fiction in the late 1950's and later found 
> that trying to put science fiction on TV or film dumbed it down to an 
> unacceptable extent. American science fiction does tend to be 
> unfortunately right wing. Ken MacLeod is Scottish and knows the 
> difference between a Leninist, a Trotskyist and Stalinist which make his 
> work less fatuous.
>> Now, if that isn't enough hobbies to get you started, you can always
>> create an account at cryptohack.org, and start doing -- in Python --
>> instead of reading.  I myself only started today, so don't read anything
>> from my current low score.
>>
>>    https://cryptohack.org/user/myrkraverk/
> 
> Why would anybody bother?
>>
>> And for that, I've added comp.lang.python to this discussion.  People
>> there are welcome to share their Cryptohack profiles, and we can have
>> a friendly competition in cryptographic practicalities!
>>
>> Best wishes, and happy deciphering!
> 
> Why would anybody bother?

That's great. An old curmudgeon and an asshole to the last. Your hostile 
attitude is very quaint and charming.

-- 
Everything I fight for leaves a bitter taste
Everything I cry for laughs into my face
Everything I scream for barely knows my name
Everything I'd die for will die just the same

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#198013

On 17/09/2026 6:43 pm, Lane W wrote:
> Bill Sloman wrote:
>> On 17/09/2026 1:39 am, Johann "Myrkraverk" Oskarsson wrote:
>>> On 9/16/2026 9:57 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>> On 16/09/2026 11:08 pm, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>> On 16/09/2026 7:37 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>>> On 16/09/2026 12:34 am, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 4:18 PM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 9/14/2026 12:42 AM, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 11:48 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 2:41 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>> news:1186v8b$tqg8$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 8:51 AM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>>>> news:1185hd5$dajo$2@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/12/2026 11:20 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:

<snip>

>> Why would anybody bother?
> 
> That's great. An old curmudgeon and an asshole to the last. Your hostile 
> attitude is very quaint and charming.

It's not all that hostile - I don't call other people assholes, for a 
start. I'd be perfectly happy to register a certain low level hostility 
towards you, as posting unhelpful negative comments is a depressing 
waste of bandwidth, if not irritating enough to provoke vulgar abuse.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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#198014

Bill Sloman wrote:
> On 17/09/2026 6:43 pm, Lane W wrote:
>> Bill Sloman wrote:
>>> On 17/09/2026 1:39 am, Johann "Myrkraverk" Oskarsson wrote:
>>>> On 9/16/2026 9:57 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>> On 16/09/2026 11:08 pm, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>> On 16/09/2026 7:37 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>>>> On 16/09/2026 12:34 am, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 4:18 PM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 9/14/2026 12:42 AM, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 11:48 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 2:41 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>>> news:1186v8b$tqg8$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 8:51 AM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> news:1185hd5$dajo$2@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/12/2026 11:20 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
> 
> <snip>
> 
>>> Why would anybody bother?
>>
>> That's great. An old curmudgeon and an asshole to the last. Your 
>> hostile attitude is very quaint and charming.
> 
> It's not all that hostile - I don't call other people assholes, for a 
> start. I'd be perfectly happy to register a certain low level hostility 
> towards you, as posting unhelpful negative comments is a depressing 
> waste of bandwidth, if not irritating enough to provoke vulgar abuse.
> 
You remind me of myself when I was a young dog. Taking offense at 
anything new that should approach. Don't go looking for snakes, you 
might find them.

Have you ever considered how provincial you are way out here in the sticks?

-- 
And I will pray to a big god
As I kneel in the big church

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#198016

On 18/09/2026 12:43 am, Lane W wrote:
> Bill Sloman wrote:
>> On 17/09/2026 6:43 pm, Lane W wrote:
>>> Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>> On 17/09/2026 1:39 am, Johann "Myrkraverk" Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>> On 9/16/2026 9:57 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>>> On 16/09/2026 11:08 pm, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>> On 16/09/2026 7:37 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 16/09/2026 12:34 am, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 4:18 PM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 9/14/2026 12:42 AM, Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> On 14/09/2026 11:48 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 2:41 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>>>> news:1186v8b$tqg8$1@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/13/2026 8:51 AM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Don Y" <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote in message 
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> news:1185hd5$dajo$2@dont-email.me...
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 9/12/2026 11:20 PM, Edward Rawde wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> Why would anybody bother?
>>>
>>> That's great. An old curmudgeon and an asshole to the last. Your 
>>> hostile attitude is very quaint and charming.
>>
>> It's not all that hostile - I don't call other people assholes, for a 
>> start. I'd be perfectly happy to register a certain low level 
>> hostility towards you, as posting unhelpful negative comments is a 
>> depressing waste of bandwidth, if not irritating enough to provoke 
>> vulgar abuse.
>>
> You remind me of myself when I was a young dog. Taking offense at 
> anything new that should approach. Don't go looking for snakes, you 
> might find them.
> 
> Have you ever considered how provincial you are way out here in the sticks?

Having spent 22 years in England - 11 of them in Cambridge, UK, and 19 
years in the Netherlands, all of them in Nijmegen, I've got a very clear 
idea of what provincial looks like, and I'm equally well aware that I'm 
not "provincial" since I do know what is going on in the wider world.

My father was in one sense provincial since he spent the critical part 
of his professional life in Burnie, Tasmania (population 15,000 at the 
time).

It didn't stop him getting an international patent on counter-current 
continuous cooking, where you convert wood chips into paper pulp by 
letting them fall down through a rising stream of sodium hydroxide. 
solution. We did get international visitors. One was

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Richter_(inventor)

who'd invented the concurrent continuous digestor that my father 
eventually modified for counter-current operation. Johan had tried for 
some ten years to get it to work counter-current, and his company 
(Kamyr) never paid any royalty on my father's patent, though the 
industry adopted the process very rapidly.

-- 
Bill Sloman. Sydney

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#198017 — Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

On Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:36:33 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:

> It didn't stop him getting an international patent on
> counter-current continuous cooking, where you convert wood chips
> into paper pulp by letting them fall down through a rising stream of
> sodium hydroxide. solution. We did get international visitors. One
> was
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Richter_(inventor)
>
> who'd invented the concurrent continuous digestor that my father
> eventually modified for counter-current operation. Johan had tried
> for some ten years to get it to work counter-current, and his
> company (Kamyr) never paid any royalty on my father's patent, though
> the industry adopted the process very rapidly.

But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a patent.

Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb. Did
he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken by Joseph
Swan.

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#198020 — Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

On 19/09/2026 8:04 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:36:33 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:
> 
>> It didn't stop him getting an international patent on
>> counter-current continuous cooking, where you convert wood chips
>> into paper pulp by letting them fall down through a rising stream of
>> sodium hydroxide. solution. We did get international visitors. One
>> was
>>
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Richter_(inventor)
>>
>> who'd invented the concurrent continuous digestor that my father
>> eventually modified for counter-current operation. Johan had tried
>> for some ten years to get it to work counter-current, and his
>> company (Kamyr) never paid any royalty on my father's patent, though
>> the industry adopted the process very rapidly.
> 
> But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a patent.

It's frequently helpful to have a working example. The counter-current 
continuous digestor was quite a tricky design - which is why Johan 
Richter could never get any of his versions to work - and potential 
users would set set up industrial scale trials.
'
The provisional patent I'm working on is a lot simpler, and won't need a 
working example.

> Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb. Did
> he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken by Joseph
> Swan.

Who'd done quite a much development work as Thomas Edison.

Both inventors patented much the same invention at much the same time, 
and found it expedient to set up a joint company to exploit them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Swan

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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#198030 — Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 02:25:11 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:

> On 19/09/2026 8:04 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a
>> patent.
>
> It's frequently helpful to have a working example. The counter-current
> continuous digestor was quite a tricky design - which is why Johan
> Richter could never get any of his versions to work - and potential
> users would set set up industrial scale trials.

What exactly stopped him getting the patent on the idea? Because
that’s what patents are -- a Government-granted monopoly on an idea.

>> Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb.
>> Did he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken by
>> Joseph Swan.
>
> Who'd done quite a much development work as Thomas Edison.

The patent went to the person who thought of the idea, not the one who
made it work.

> Both inventors patented much the same invention at much the same
> time, and found it expedient to set up a joint company to exploit
> them.

Only after Edison fought unsuccessfully to overturn Swan’s patent, I
believe.

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#198031 — Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

On 20/09/2026 8:03 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 02:25:11 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:
> 
>> On 19/09/2026 8:04 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>> But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a
>>> patent.
>>
>> It's frequently helpful to have a working example. The counter-current
>> continuous digestor was quite a tricky design - which is why Johan
>> Richter could never get any of his versions to work - and potential
>> users would set set up industrial scale trials.
> 
> What exactly stopped him getting the patent on the idea? Because
> that’s what patents are -- a Government-granted monopoly on an idea.

If you can't reduce it to practice - lawyer-ese for making it work - it 
isn't a valid patent. As far as I know Johan Richter never applied for a 
patent because he never had a scheme that looked like working. My father 
made a fuss about his localised counter-current wash at pulp outlet of 
the digestor, but not in terms that lead me to think that it was a 
patent-winning innovation. There was definitely some ingenuity involved 
but I wasn't close enough to the action to have much of an idea. I do 
remember a pneumatic subtracting circuit that got the revers flow right.

The digestor got computer control with a Ferranti Aurgus 400 computer a 
few years later, and that worked more reliably when they went over from 
Paxolin printed circuit boards to expoxy-bonded glass fibre.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_paper

My father was responsible for that installation too, but it did happen a 
few year later.

>>> Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb.
>>> Did he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken by
>>> Joseph Swan.
>>
>> Who'd done quite a much development work as Thomas Edison.
> 
> The patent went to the person who thought of the idea, not the one who
> made it work.

The US patent went to Thomas Edison who had made his idea work in the 
US, and the UK and European patents were taken out by Joseph Swan who 
had made his version work in the UK. By setting up a joint company, 
Edison and Swan avoided a lot of expensive litigation

>> Both inventors patented much the same invention at much the same
>> time, and found it expedient to set up a joint company to exploit
>> them.
> 
> Only after Edison fought unsuccessfully to overturn Swan’s patent, I
> believe.

That gets it backwards. Swan sued Edison in the British court for patent 
infringement when Edison tried to sell his lamps in the UK and won.

Edison started countersueing Swan in the US in 1882, but his legal team 
didn't like their chances, whence the joint company.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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#198032 — Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:13:55 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:

> On 20/09/2026 8:03 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 02:25:11 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>
>>> On 19/09/2026 8:04 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>
>>>> But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a
>>>> patent.
>>>
>>> It's frequently helpful to have a working example. The
>>> counter-current continuous digestor was quite a tricky design -
>>> which is why Johan Richter could never get any of his versions to
>>> work - and potential users would set set up industrial scale
>>> trials.
>>
>> What exactly stopped him getting the patent on the idea? Because
>> that’s what patents are -- a Government-granted monopoly on an
>> idea.
>
> If you can't reduce it to practice - lawyer-ese for making it work -
> it isn't a valid patent.

That’s not what “reduce to practice” means. Remember, it only applies
to the wording of the patent application. All it means is “make the
description sound plausibly as though it *could* work”.

If “reduce to practice” really meant “prove it works”, then none of
that notorious stream of patents on perpetual-motion machines would
ever have been granted.

>>>> Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb.
>>>> Did he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken
>>>> by Joseph Swan.
>>>
>>> Who'd done quite a much development work as Thomas Edison.
>>
>> The patent went to the person who thought of the idea, not the one
>> who made it work.
>
> The US patent went to Thomas Edison who had made his idea work in the
> US, and the UK and European patents were taken out by Joseph Swan who
> had made his version work in the UK.

That self-evidently makes no sense at all. If it works in one place,
it works in both places.

> By setting up a joint company, Edison and Swan avoided a lot of
> expensive litigation

Except that ...

>>> Both inventors patented much the same invention at much the same
>>> time, and found it expedient to set up a joint company to exploit
>>> them.
>>
>> Only after Edison fought unsuccessfully to overturn Swan’s patent,
>> I believe.
>
> That gets it backwards. Swan sued Edison in the British court for
> patent infringement when Edison tried to sell his lamps in the UK
> and won.
>
> Edison started countersueing Swan in the US in 1882, but his legal
> team didn't like their chances, whence the joint company.

Why didn’t his team like their chances? Didn’t Editson already have
his own patent? Why was that considered weaker than Swan’s patent?

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#198033 — Re: Patents (was Re: google reads your mail)

On 20/09/2026 6:09 pm, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 16:13:55 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:
> 
>> On 20/09/2026 8:03 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sun, 20 Sep 2026 02:25:11 +1000, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 19/09/2026 8:04 am, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> But you don’t need to prove something works before getting a
>>>>> patent.
>>>>
>>>> It's frequently helpful to have a working example. The
>>>> counter-current continuous digestor was quite a tricky design -
>>>> which is why Johan Richter could never get any of his versions to
>>>> work - and potential users would set set up industrial scale
>>>> trials.
>>>
>>> What exactly stopped him getting the patent on the idea? Because
>>> that’s what patents are -- a Government-granted monopoly on an
>>> idea.
>>
>> If you can't reduce it to practice - lawyer-ese for making it work -
>> it isn't a valid patent.
> 
> That’s not what “reduce to practice” means. Remember, it only applies
> to the wording of the patent application. All it means is “make the
> description sound plausibly as though it *could* work”.
> 
> If “reduce to practice” really meant “prove it works”, then none of
> that notorious stream of patents on perpetual-motion machines would
> ever have been granted.
> 
>>>>> Thomas Edison put together the first working electric light-bulb.
>>>>> Did he get the patent on it? No, because that was already taken
>>>>> by Joseph Swan.
>>>>
>>>> Who'd done quite a much development work as Thomas Edison.
>>>
>>> The patent went to the person who thought of the idea, not the one
>>> who made it work.
>>
>> The US patent went to Thomas Edison who had made his idea work in the
>> US, and the UK and European patents were taken out by Joseph Swan who
>> had made his version work in the UK.
> 
> That self-evidently makes no sense at all. If it works in one place,
> it works in both places.

Except that Edison and Swan used slightly different carbon filaments.
Edison ended up with bamboo-derived filaments, while Swan used 
parchmentised cotton threads before going over to carbonised nitrocellulose.

>> By setting up a joint company, Edison and Swan avoided a lot of
>> expensive litigation
> 
> Except that ...
> 
>>>> Both inventors patented much the same invention at much the same
>>>> time, and found it expedient to set up a joint company to exploit
>>>> them.
>>>
>>> Only after Edison fought unsuccessfully to overturn Swan’s patent,
>>> I believe.
>>
>> That gets it backwards. Swan sued Edison in the British court for
>> patent infringement when Edison tried to sell his lamps in the UK
>> and won.
>>
>> Edison started countersueing Swan in the US in 1882, but his legal
>> team didn't like their chances, whence the joint company.
> 
> Why didn’t his team like their chances? Didn’t Editson already have
> his own patent? Why was that considered weaker than Swan’s patent?

Swan had got there first. Read the history.

-- 
Bill Sloman, Sydney

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