Literatecode

Geographiction

Ilya — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:20:43 +0000

Ok, I’ve made a discovery: there were Singaporeans among the US founders. Want a proof? Take a look at the state name Oklahoma. Got it? A homa of ok lah! Iowa also can: Aiyoh wah.

Just like that.

Speaking about relevancy

Ilya — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:58:53 +0000

What a nice touch from Google Adsense. These ads were shown to me at Gmail in a single context of a booking confirmation letter for the latest Batman movie: a circumcision surgeon, a Singapore Army promo and the Lufthansa official site.

I wish the Adsense relevancy would be this funny here, at my blog. Still to happen. If you’ve spotted one then please let me know, would you?

Alive check

Ilya — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:19:07 +0000

It were two months off-line. Thank you for your patience. I’ve been a bit busy with a project that was recently announced at a high level here, in Singapore. Although the main reason is my family. They are visiting me for a whole summer. It is really nice to have them all together at once.

I’ll be back online soon with some stuff which you may find interesting. So, as it says: “please stay tuned” :)

Bletchley Park to be gone

Ilya — Thu, 22 May 2008 16:46:03 +0000

Bletchey Park museum in financial trouble, according to ZDNet UK. This is bad. I hope there will be some funding after all and the museum will stay. I’d like to visit it one day.

What seems to be strange to me here is a lack of UK Government help on the issue. Bletchley Park is indeed a memorial which must be preserved.

Almost doghoused

Ilya — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:39:44 +0000

Today I’ve found Spynote (one of my projects) dragged into the Schneier’s doghouse debates. It is always amazes me how easily people jumps into the mentor’ shoes on a subject they have very basic idea and assumes an opponent to be a clueless dumbhead. Not just for these debates but in general.

On the subject… ugh, I’d rather avoid to be involved because I don’t know how to comment. It is quite straightforward and simple: a) some information must never be put online; b) if you do not trust then do not use.

Redacted secrets of NSA

Ilya — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:32:43 +0000

You know that NSA is all about secrecy and stuff. This is why they always redact declassified documents out of any sensitive information. Just like this one: a Cryptologic Spectrum article “The Russian Language Training Program” (pdf, 627kb). Let us look at the page 3 there. Here is the snapshot (the red marks are mine):

Marvelous isn’t it? Actually, the whole The Staff section looks like a puzzle similar to Einstein’s Challenge. “Will spy for lulz”, yeah.

RFID trolley also can

Ilya — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:03:49 +0000

Cold Storage will introduce RFID-enabled trolley: “The trolley … will be able to identify the shopper’s location and … will be able to display information such as product locations and targeted advertisements”

Nice, but what we really need here is a trolley with a kangaroo bumper in front. Oh, wait – it would be a trolley for FairPrice then.

Encentuate goes IBM

Ilya — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 02:43:14 +0000

IBM announced the purchase of Encentuate. As the one who have designed few product’ core features during my time at Encentuate, I’m pleased to see it as a part of IBM Tivoli now.

UPDATED on Mar 19, 2008: Here are couple interesting responses to the news:
“Why Enterprise Single Sign-On (E-SSO) is More Than Just a Tactical Add-on”
“IBM acquires Encentuate - did they just dump Passlogix?”

Zcipher Algorithm

Ilya — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 01:32:00 +0000

Zcipher is a symmetric encryption algorithm made by me few years ago. It is a 64-bit block cipher with a 128-bit key. Zcipher is unpatented and public domain. Please note that it is a toy cipher, not a serious replacement for AES, Twofish, RC6, etc.

Here are

Algorithm specification (pdf, 54kb)
zcipher.c - reference implementation in C (1614 bytes)
test.c - test application and usage sample (2605 bytes)

UPDATED on Dec 9, 2007: I’ve updated the codebook section of Appendix A in the algorithm specification document with the cryptovariable value for clarity. I also put online the slides from the rump session talk at Asiacrypt 2007 (pdf, 50kb)

Multics OS

Ilya — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:45:23 +0000

The source code for the final Multics release is available at MIT
http://web.mit.edu/multics-history/

A good piece of history or nostalgie, depending on who is looking.