STGOD 4 OOC Thread

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-04-30 10:56am

Straha wrote:
frigidmagi wrote:InnocentBystander said:
Now Alyrium could you explain in a bit of detail how your government gets all this money, or rather or rather gold. Who does all the mining?
Wait I can answer that! Dwarves!!! Little Ore hounds could find a Gold Nugget 100 meters away in the dark!

Seriously he has posted in the game thread that Dwarves do most of his mining. I don't know if they do it at government orders or for private industry.
Yes, but you see, if the dwarves mine the gold (which is their currency) by themselves, how does the government buy the gold from them?

Magical things called taxes.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-04-30 01:00pm

Bugsby, the Ousters have your encryption keys?

That's the little problem with decryption. The other end has to know the key or its just as much gibberish to them as anyone intercepting it. It seems a lot of people just assume that you can encrypt and send to someone with no prior preparation with them and they'll magically be able to read it just because its addressed to them. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-04-30 01:15pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Bugsby, the Ousters have your encryption keys? That's the little problem with decryption. The other end has to know the key or its just as much gibberish to them as anyone intercepting it. It seems a lot of people just assume that you can encrypt and send to someone with no prior preparation with them and they'll magically be able to read it just because its addressed to them. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

What makes you so sure they haven't worked together before?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-04-30 01:17pm

Its not just him. That's just the latest example. People send encrypted messages to each other all the time with little to no prior contact.

Thirdfain · Post by **Thirdfain** » 2004-04-30 01:20pm

Bugsby, the Ousters have your encryption keys? That's the little problem with decryption. The other end has to know the key or its just as much gibberish to them as anyone intercepting it. It seems a lot of people just assume that you can encrypt and send to someone with no prior preparation with them and they'll magically be able to read it just because its addressed to them. Sorry, doesn't work that way.

I've dealt with the Krell previously. I think it's safe to assume we have methods of contacting one another quietly.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-04-30 01:23pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Its not just him. That's just the latest example. People send encrypted messages to each other all the time with little to no prior contact.

That is a legitimate point. But in this case, I HAVE dealt with the Ousters before. Call BS on someone next time they send an encrypted message to someone they wouldnt know.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-04-30 05:30pm

Ummm, Laz. At this point creating yet another is getting ridiculous.

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2004-04-30 05:31pm

Stormbringer wrote:Ummm, Laz. At this point creating yet another is getting ridiculous.

It is, that's why Pablo said that he's going to finish off with teh Goa'ould (sp?)

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-04-30 05:37pm

Well, he's posted another nation (Zerg) in the OOB thread.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-04-30 05:44pm

Yes, we know. He announced it here as well. It's been dealt with (hopefully).

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-04-30 05:48pm

Right. Pablo told Laz that he should pick up either the Jardanians, or, preferably, the Goa'uld. If he really wants to start another race... well, he cant. We ignore his posts.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-04-30 07:17pm

Okay, Alyrium's going to be away for the weekend. I say we should put a hold on the entire spellbook debacle until he gets back; he is, after all, a central figure in the whole thing.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » 2004-04-30 07:19pm

That would seem fair to me.

Dahak · Post by **Dahak** » 2004-04-30 07:22pm

Bugsby wrote:Right. Pablo told Laz that he should pick up either the Jardanians, or, preferably, the Goa'uld. If he really wants to start another race... well, he cant. We ignore his posts.

I wouldn't like it if Laz just started another power...
It can't be the goal of this STGOD to set a world record for the fastest cycling-through of nations...

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-04-30 09:01pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Its not just him. That's just the latest example. People send encrypted messages to each other all the time with little to no prior contact.

I would like to point out that it is very easy to encrypt data, and that using a GPG-style system with public and private keys, it is extremely easy to share one's keys for ease of contact.

I'd suggest that if you're going to start sniffing through encrypted comms, you should have to deal with a lot of chaff first. Picking up the specific message from Bugsby inquiring about the magic books from the undoubtedly hundreds or thousands of encrypted messages flowing from a mercenary power (security of the clients has to be considered, after all) smacks of something you were complaining about earlier-metagame thinking.

After all, it's not as if you knew what you should be looking for. It's just you picking up any and all encrypted traffic from Krell space, which may or may not even be from the Krell themselves, so you can keep tabs on who hires the Krell. That's large-scale espionage, my friend, and you'll find that catching and brute-force decrypting all encrypted transmissions is far from efficient.

Now, if you already had Human Intelligence telling you that the Krell were interested in the Ouster books, and to watch at a specific time for the encoded transmission, fine, but you don't. You have nothing but raw chance, and the odds would most certainly be against you.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-04-30 09:15pm

not knowing what the message was about would make it difficult, esp. because its only one message. Never the less, they would eventually decode it, problem is they would decode so many "good" translations, it would be impossible to tell what the message is really about.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-04-30 09:17pm

Thing is, there's three messages. I'm just not posting all the interceptions at once. Farpoint is an exceedingly sensitive listening post. And yes, there's a lot of chaff. Do you think I'm going to waste everyone's time with a log of random quasar pulses picked up by the outpost?

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-04-30 09:29pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Thing is, there's three messages. I'm just not posting all the interceptions at once. Farpoint is an exceedingly sensitive listening post. And yes, there's a lot of chaff. Do you think I'm going to waste everyone's time with a log of random quasar pulses picked up by the outpost?

No, but having a base capable of decrypting TONS of messages with encryption in a matter of weeks? I'm not talking about white noise, I'm talking about genuine SIGNALS that are encrypted. A lot of things are assumed to happen normally in this universe without it having to be directly mentioned in each post. Workers will wake up every day and go to work, not only the ones mentioned in a few key flavor posts. By the same token, there is almost certainly a LOT more encrypted traffic being sent and recieved by a single power than just one or two messages every few weeks.

This is one of the reasons ECHELON can't possibly exist today, the sheer quantity of encrypted traffic on the net now makes locating any IMPORTANT encrypted data like searching for a gluon in a galactic supercluster.

Again, you should have some sort of justification for picking out that one, single message from the sea of transmissions it is a part of. After all, Farpoint is a VERY sensitive station, right? That means you're REAL good at picking up all possible transmissions...that means you've got a LOT of transmissions to sift through before you could possibly get the one concerning the magic books.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-04-30 09:31pm

Well not to be picky, but quasar pulses are hardly random, however 3 messages about the same thing would be helpful. Unfortunately, you still need to know something about the message, who sent it, who recieved it are good starters.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-04-30 09:36pm

Hotfoot wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:Thing is, there's three messages. I'm just not posting all the interceptions at once. Farpoint is an exceedingly sensitive listening post. And yes, there's a lot of chaff. Do you think I'm going to waste everyone's time with a log of random quasar pulses picked up by the outpost?
No, but having a base capable of decrypting TONS of messages with encryption in a matter of weeks? I'm not talking about white noise, I'm talking about genuine SIGNALS that are encrypted. A lot of things are assumed to happen normally in this universe without it having to be directly mentioned in each post. Workers will wake up every day and go to work, not only the ones mentioned in a few key flavor posts. By the same token, there is almost certainly a LOT more encrypted traffic being sent and recieved by a single power than just one or two messages every few weeks.

This is one of the reasons ECHELON can't possibly exist today, the sheer quantity of encrypted traffic on the net now makes locating any IMPORTANT encrypted data like searching for a gluon in a galactic supercluster.

Again, you should have some sort of justification for picking out that one, single message from the sea of transmissions it is a part of. After all, Farpoint is a VERY sensitive station, right? That means you're REAL good at picking up all possible transmissions...that means you've got a LOT of transmissions to sift through before you could possibly get the one concerning the magic books.

I happen to think Echelon does exist; it is a lot of data, well, look at google, it can search a database of billions of entries, find 100,000 on dwarfism, and present it to you in well under a second. I think they have the processing power and the software to use it. Though chances are it doesn't do a whole lot of good.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-04-30 09:40pm

InnocentBystander wrote:I happen to think Echelon does exist; it is a lot of data, well, look at google, it can search a database of billions of entries, find 100,000 on dwarfism, and present it to you in well under a second. I think they have the processing power and the software to use it. Though chances are it doesn't do a whole lot of good.

There is a massive difference between a search engine searching through an established database and a computer program capable of intercepting and decrypting gigabytes worth of data every hour.

Current encryption can be powerful enough that EVERY COMPUTER EVER MADE could be used to attempt and decrypt one message and it would take more time than the universe has existed.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2004-04-30 09:45pm

The government often has special methods of "finding what they want", people hack through 128-bit encryption all the time, but there's no reason to argue over something that might not exist, or at least something that we aren't supposed to know exists.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-04-30 09:56pm

InnocentBystander wrote:The government often has special methods of "finding what they want", people hack through 128-bit encryption all the time, but there's no reason to argue over something that might not exist, or at least something that we aren't supposed to know exists.

People hack through 128-bit encryption, sure. They've had the algorithms for a long time, and have studied them for potential weaknesses. Also, they know when and where to look for the encrypted messages so they pick up the ones they want, and not the ones they don't.

And the fact of the matter still remains that the difference between brute-forcing a 128-bit key and a 129-bit key is that you have to spend TWICE as long on the 129-bit key.

I'm not saying he shouldn't be able to intercept the message, I'm saying he shouldn't be allowed to intercept any encrypted message any time he feels like it. He should have some foreward knowledge of when and where to look for the transmission. He had none. This is a simple dragnet, which is massively inefficient and should frankly take him years to sift through.

Also, the government methods of finding what they want rely on more than just simple brute force decryption. Human intelligence, keystroke logging programs, methods which intercept the data either before it has been encrypted or after it has been decrypted. Also, government-instituted backdoors into encryption software (hidden "master keys", which may or may not exist in reality). In any case, since this is one nation spying on ANOTHER, there is no reason to expect that Rogue 9 has any sort of backdoor into the Krell or Ouster encryption systems, so it's a moot point.

I have no problem whatsoever if Rogue 9 wants to use Farpoint station to listen in on MY comms traffic all the way outside of known space, he can listen to my unencrypted traffic all he wants...even if it's just a miner in a vacuum suit without any comms boosting telling his wife how is day was while floating in deep space.

Encrypted traffic is a lot more difficult to deal with, however. Again, I'm not saying he can't ever intercept the messages he wants to, but to be able to do so just by intercepting EVERY encrypted message sent from a power is hideously broken and unbalanced, especially if he hopes to do it in a matter of weeks.

He needs human intelligence, it's just that simple.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-04-30 09:56pm

Hotfoot wrote:
InnocentBystander wrote:I happen to think Echelon does exist; it is a lot of data, well, look at google, it can search a database of billions of entries, find 100,000 on dwarfism, and present it to you in well under a second. I think they have the processing power and the software to use it. Though chances are it doesn't do a whole lot of good.
There is a massive difference between a search engine searching through an established database and a computer program capable of intercepting and decrypting gigabytes worth of data every hour.

Current encryption can be powerful enough that EVERY COMPUTER EVER MADE could be used to attempt and decrypt one message and it would take more time than the universe has existed.

Yeah, if you want to talk to NSA and convince them to let you use their most advanced one-time encryptions. But they're a pain in the ass to use, since by definition they can only be used once if you want to guarantee that they remain unbroken. And this one was used three times; you'll note that they specified the encryption number. Breakage for me, yay.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2004-04-30 10:02pm

Rogue 9 wrote:Yeah, if you want to talk to NSA and convince them to let you use their most advanced one-time encryptions. But they're a pain in the ass to use, since by definition they can only be used once if you want to guarantee that they remain unbroken. And this one was used three times; you'll note that they specified the encryption number. Breakage for me, yay.

No, dumbass, you can do that with FREE, PUBLIC encryption, with very large keys.

Secondly, it's clear you don't understand encryption very well if you don't understand that the best form of encryption is hardly advanced at all, it's called a One Time Pad, and we had them long before we even had computers. Oh, and here's the bitch of it, One Time Pads are COMPLETELY SECURE. You CAN NOT BREAK THEM unless you already have the key. Brute force is absolutely impossible.

I'm wasn't even talking about one-time pads, however. Modern, PUBLIC encryption is strong enough to take as long as I mentioned (more time than the universe has even existed). Deal with it. Singal intelligence does not rule. You need human intelligence, get over it.