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Hash list and hash tree

Parts of this discussion was copied here from the talk page of R.Koot.

Hi R.Koot. Today you removed several of the references to cryptography in the articles Hash list and Hash tree. So I feel obliged to inform you that both very much is part of cryptography. Merkle trees (as hash trees also are called) was considered a major breakthrough in handling and distribution of digital signing keys when those trees were invented by Merkle back in the 70's. And they are still considered one of the best ways to ensure data integrity (preventing from manipulation by attackers) during storing and transporting of messages. And I hope you know that ensuring data integrity very much is considered an integral part of cryptography. And since the primary goal of hash lists is to ensure data integrity in a cryptologically secure way they too are a part of cryptography. Both those methods are much older then the idea of file sharing / p2p systems as we know it today. But I agree on your adding them also to the file sharing category. If you want to discuss the matter further you are welcome to my talkpage or even better to irc.freenode.net #crypto . (Same IRC network as the #wikipedia IRC channel.) --David Göthberg 03:41, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I tried to put those articles in a more specific category than computer science, the article doesn't make it clear to me however, that they are used in cryptography (only that they can use cryptographic techniques themselves). I removed the word cryptography in the intro for brevety. Cheers, --R.Koot 15:55, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I added some more text on their cryptographic use and background and had some other wikipedians brush up the language. So all good! --David Göthberg 10:57, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

David -- the merge sounds good to me. Nice work on the hash list/tree images, btw! — Matt Crypto 01:04, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I only got positive comments about the merge so far. Guess I will merge in Tiger-Tree Hash in a day or two. (Or perhaps tonight if I get impatient.) And thanks for the comment about the pictures. I enjoy making diagrams to help my explanations. I have seen there is a need for pictures on many crypto pages so I might take a crack at making and adding some pics on some other crypto pages some day. --David Göthberg 21:33, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the hash table image

I just wanted to thank you for the excellent hash table image you added to hash table. I've done some images too but yours are very professional looking and informative. The one thing I might change is to illustrate a collision, for example by having two arrows pointing to one bucket and then showing that that bucket contains two entries. In any case, good job! Deco 01:25, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Ah thanks! Always nice to get some feedback. And yes, I would like to ad a collision to the picture too. But I have not yet figured out how to ad it in a nice way, I have to think a bit more about that. There are some problems with that, first of all it would make the picture very big and complex, and secondly there are two traditional ways such collisions are handled, either by putting the colliding item in the next free slot, or by making a linked list. I am thinking of using a linked list in the example since that shows better that it is a collision. It sounds like you have some ready made pics? I would love to see them since it might inspire me how to make "our" picture better. I will of course credit you on the picture page of the next pic. Could you upload them some where and give me an URL? Or send them to me with email: "david at pjort dot com" --David Göthberg 12:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Oops, sorry, I meant that I'd done images, but not of hash tables, just other data structures. I should've thought to do a hash table. I imagine something like your image looks like now, but with one of the arrows pointing to two boxes stacked right on top of each other. Some more ideas for illustrative images:
  • Bar graphs showing the number of items in each bucket of a simulated chaining implementation after various numbers of insert operations.
  • Line graphs of the average lookup time for various collision resolution techniques as a function of density, on the same graph for comparison.
  • Line graphs comparing the lookup time using a hash table, a binary search tree, and linear search, as a function of the number of elements.
  • Something showing the effect of poor hash function vs. good hash function on clustering and collision frequency.
I could do some of these in Mathematica. There's always room for diagrams. Deco 04:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Hello, I'm remaking your .pngs as vector graphics. I put links into the original files and replace them in the articles. I started it because vector files are easier to translate and I needed that. Apart from that, they're scalable. But they may not be perfect, feel free to edit them. I used Inkscape. ~~helix84 00:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Helix. Sorry to invade David's talk page, but I made some of my images in Illustrator, which is a vector graphics program, so I can convert them to a vector format myself. So you don't have to redo these - just so you know. Deco 01:41, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I do not understand what images you mean. I don't know that I remade your images. These are that I've done so far:

As for your diagrams concerning data structures, I'd welcome if you put their .svg versions on Commons as I want to translate their labels (if there are some) so they can be used in sk: WP. ~~helix84 04:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I of course feel a slight sting in my heart to get my nice pics remade so soon. But I have to admit that having them in a standardised vector format is more in line with the idea of Wikipedia. Since it means they can more easily be edited by others in the future and as you pointed out also translated to other languages. So I guess I have to say: Good work helix84. They do look pretty good too. And Deco, I don't mind at all to get my talk page "invaded" like this. Nice to finally have some activity here! --David Göthberg 02:48, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Crypto steps / layers

Parts of this discussion was copied here from the talk page of Matt Crypto.

I am working on a cryptographic article that covers something I think is missing both on Wikipedia and in most crypto books. An article that briefly explains which steps one does in which order when encrypting a message. That is, make/exchange IVs, perhaps compress the message, MAC the message, encrypt the message etc. Since I have not come up with a good name for the article yet and it only is a very rough draft I have put it under my user page for now: User:Davidgothberg/Crypto_steps I would love to get some help to brush it up to an acceptable level and to figure out a good name for it. --David Göthberg 15:44, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Sorry that I've taken ages to get back to you. An article such as you suggest is a great idea. In Niels Ferguson and Bruce Schneier's Practical Cryptography, they address essentially the same question under the title of "The secure channel"; perhaps you could merge your work into that article (which could do with an overhaul in any case)? An alternative is cryptosystem, but that would seem to be a wider scope than you seem to be describing (key management, for example). I'll try and help out if I get chance. One potential pitfall is that there's lots of ways of going about encrypting a message, and we need to balance explaining the various options against giving some concrete examples of what people do in practice. — Matt Crypto 10:39, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, excellent suggestion, thanks! I took a look at the secure channel article. Seems to be a good place to put a subheading called something like "Example(s) of how a secure channel works / is implemented". And yes, cryptosystem is probably a too wide scope. Although both pages need work, guess I'll put them both at the top or near the top of my todo list. Regarding the pitfall I think I can keep it simple and state something to the effect: "There are many ways to create (hopefully) secure channels, this example describes one fairly common way of doing it." --David Göthberg 18:18, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Sami

(In response to what David wrote on Habj's user page)

It's OK. My grandparents grandparents were not sami, but newsettlers in sami area - my grandfather knew how to make sami shoes, made from skin from the reindeer's legs with the hair still (on it and under the sole in two different directions, so you don't have shoes that is very slippery in one direction) similar to this kind [1]. Originally, dried grass was used inside them too keep the feet warm.

Just in case you find this kind of stuff interesting. // Habj 06:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I seen such shoes and know about the technique to have the hair in two directions on the sole so you don't slip. Nifty stuff. Didn't know about using grass for isolation though, but sounds like it would work fairly well. And yes, I am faschinated by all kinds of technology. All the way from "simple" indigenous techniques like that (which really often is hightech) all the way up to stuff like my own computer resarch in p2p algorithmics. --David Göthberg 06:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hash functions based on block ciphers

Good work! Could you do me a favor and let me know when your done by leaving me a message on my talk page? I want to add some stuff later; the article should be about more than just those three constructions, and I have some familiarity. Thanks! Mangojuice 21:10, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, will do. And yes, I agree it needs more info on other methods. --David Göthberg 04:43, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi David, you're doing some great work on the hash function from block cipher stuff, don't really want to interrupt, but I thought I'd suggest you might like to upload your diagrams to Commons instead of the English Wikipedia. The end result is the same, but the files can be shared by all the language projects. — Matt Crypto 23:00, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Matt. By the way, I have seen how much excellent work you put in on other crypto articles so I should say the same: You do FANTASTIC work around here! I was just learning to make svg images so I had just uploaded svg versions of those images instead of the png images to english Wikipedia as you wrote that. (Which makes them easier to edit for others in the future.) So, when I saw your comment I read up on the commons thing. Wow, I didn't know that it shared name space for images with all Wikipedias! I will definitely use commons for images from now on. So I uploaded the images to commons too. Unfortunately it seems it takes ages until any admin will delete the images here on english Wikipedia even though they are tagged for deletion due to being copied to commons. So since you are an admin feel free to speedy delete the three svg images in the article. --David Göthberg 11:51, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Great. I've deleted the copies here. Allegedly, I'm meant to be on a short WikiBreak (I'm an addict, what can I say?) but I hope to bump into you again after next Monday! — Matt Crypto 18:11, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

CTR mode

Do you have a reference for the claim that the IV and counters can be added or XORed in addition to being concatenated? Adding in particular seems problematic to me, say for a 64-bit cipher, since for large messages it'd become quite likely that overlapping would occur (and thus reuse of keystream). Lunkwill 21:02, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't remember where I first learnt it since I studied cryptography since the late 80's and worked with crypto since the late 90's. (But note, I am no cryptanalyst.) However, in this case it is basic maths. First some general conclusions before I try to explain it better:
  • To me adding and XORing actually seems more secure then concatenation. No matter if we use a 64-bit crypto or a 128-bit crypto. This is due to concatenation using the address space in a clumsy/inefficient way. (Although for a 128-bit crypto it isn't that much of a problem.)
  • Adding is more or less the same thing as XORing. Adding use a range of values from the IV and up, and XORing use a range both up and down from the IV. But the size of the range used in a session is the exact same for both adding and XORing.
I am working on and thinking of a longer more detailed answer including some of the maths for you. I will add it later. Would of course be easier to explain in a chat so if you pop in to #crypto in irc.freenode.net some day we can discuss it there. (Same IRC network as the #wikipedia IRC channel.)
--David Göthberg 09:23, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Barnstar

I, JesseW, award this Barnstar to David Gothberg for his excellent work on hash tree and his interesting and new(to me) article on Filmjölk. Keep up the good work!


Mandelbrot and Julia sets

Thanks for your comment! I am new in the Wikicommunity... and it is the first time I am talking with someone else here! Take a look at the new figure and the link to the applet in my homepage (http://to-campos.planetaclix.pt/fractal/mandelgen.html (it is something I have done already some years ago... but it was a lot of fun doing it!). --Tó campos 23:29, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

Wow, that was a nice applet! --David Göthberg 00:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


David wrote on Tó campos talkpage:

"Changed caption back, forgott I was on To campos talkpage, not the article talkpage. (To Campos, I hope you don't mind me answering his question?))"

Not at all! You had the answer! I did not... --Tó campos 0:20, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Gothenburg "ö"s

You made a post about the abundance of "ö"-pronunciations at Talk:Gothenburg a while ago. I made a reply that I would very much like you to read.

Peter Isotalo 18:48, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Robert ****

Hey David,

I'm William, I think you know me very well by now, I've been editing the Robert **** article here. I would like to clarify a few things because from where you are, you don't know exactly what the situation is. Firstly, I'm the webmaster of Robert ****'s site, and his www.rovista.com main site, secondly, I save all my web related content to a USB flash drive and edit/upload/download at a specific computer at my college. The various contributions listed from the IP addresses are not all mine, only the Robert **** article, and the other pages that would involve the name Robert, eg. Australian Actors, People with the name Robert, etc. Because it is a shared computer, Internet Explorer's save password option saved my password onto here causing someone else to log in and edit the listed Neve Campbell pages after the administrator of the network at the college had contacted me.

Now I know this isn't going to mean much to you at all, but all I ask is that you please understand this and that I don't see the point in vandelising a web site when it would create more work for you to maintain and manage, being a webmaster myself, I only like to stick with the facts and true information and I wanted to clear this with you. I apoligise for everything.

--Redkane 14:16, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Hello William.
Well, personally my best guess is that you are that vandal and that you also are William Stinoski that when working as an actor goes under the artist name "Robert ****". Or that your real name actually is Robert **** but when you don't want people to know you are that Robert you instead call yourself "William Stinoski". If that is not correct I guess it must feel bad for you that I think so. However, the nice thing is that all that doesn't matter! Here at Wikipedia any vandal (or anyone we suspected to be a vandal) can at any time redeem himself simply by not vandalise anymore and start doing good edits. That means guys like me will still keep an eye on your edits for a long time but if we see your edits are good we won't revert them and over time we might even stop keeping an eye on you. So, no worries mate, just forget about it and keep editing and there won't be any problems! (Of course if some vandal is using the same computer as you you should consider using another computer so you two are not mixed up.)
Oh, and by the way. I really liked the Robert **** web site you made. That's really good webmastering with really nice pics and everything!
--David Göthberg 10:45, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Nice to hear from you once again, David,
I would like to convince you otherwise that what you have stated above but it's all in the past. Now listen, if you have any problems with my edits here, please just bring it up with me, hopefully you don't find any faults or flaws in my edits. By the way, for the article section on my Redkane user page, what are the possibilities to put there? --Redkane 19:33, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Dear David,
Robert IS a Vandal, he pretends to be William, as he once stated "Wouldn't it be a bit prude to make a website about yourself? Robert must suffer from multi personalities, since he doesnt know which person he really is. I advise him to seek medical help from a doctor ASAP.
- William@iamfake.com (203.121.199.18 at 12:21, 2 August 2006)
Well, it is pretty normal for an actor to use an artist name while working, or sometimes use a fake name when not working if he uses his real name when working. But as I stated, that does not matter. All that matter is if he from now on do good edits or not. And I don't find it strange if an artist makes a web site about himself. That is called "marketing". Just the same as me and my friends have a web site about the software we are making and offering to the world. And hey, I too have a web site about myself complete with photo of me. And I even have my own video online! (Well, the German computer club put it online after I talked at the Berlin congress. I just linked to it.) It's pretty neat to be able to say: "Have you seen my video yet?" :))
--David Göthberg 13:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Pity he isnt an actor isn't it. - William@iamfake.com (203.121.199.18 at 09:23, 4 August 2006)
Well Josh, unfortunately for you, he is. And I have great pity on you since you have decided to take this path for yourself. --Redkane 14:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Well an actor who is currently enrolled in IT, and is a backstabber, I dont see him doing much acting. And the only path i follow is in people who dont backstab others
- Orangefoxmonkeypurpledishwasher (yes i can use fake names too!)
(203.14.53.15 at 02:33, 7 August 2006)
Moved from here to 203.121.199.18's talk page. --Redkane 07:57, 7 August 2006

What did i vandalise? - william@iamfake.com

Request action to be taken

Hi. David. This user 203.14.53.15 (Josh Taylor) has been originally comming to Wikipedia to vandal under the IP address (203.14.53.15) and also 203.14.53.15 (a college subnet) and has constantly accused me for being an invidivual I'm not. I have never met Josh in person, nor have I ever spoken to him before and I only wish for peace here at Wikipedia and for this person to stop vandelising my pages and falsely accusing me. I please ask that you please take this further. --Redkane 11:19, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Deleted data

Unless I'm mixing cases, the data you had on your page contained the personal name and location of a minor from which the Wikimedia Foundation received a complaint about privacy. I happen to be on the group processing requests on behalf of the Foundation. David.Monniaux 17:22, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Davidgothberg, I have removed the personal information from your User Page that David had earlier removed. Please be advised that both David and I provide correspondence for the Wikimedia Foundation, and this is in response to a complaint. Furthermore, you should not be displaying personal information for someone who is not you on your user page, whether or not you suspect that person of vandalism. You can list incidents at WP:AN/I. If you need to retain this information for yourself, please copy it to some location on your hard drive. Bastique▼parler voir 17:33, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

As per Wikipedia removal of information

Dear David Gothberg,

As you know, I have contacted Wikipedia for my personal information, this being my full name and locale next to some comments that do not relate to me on the web addresses “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davidgothberg”, “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Davidgothberg” and “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:203.14.53.15/2006#This_is_user_is_a_vandal” which date to June 2005 and came from a network most probably used by quite a number of people . If I did how ever play a part in any “vandalism”, it is still in appropriate and now appears in popular search engines, I know this because many people have searched my name and other related keywords and found this information on your pages at Wikipedia.

David Minnoux was kind enough to remove such information and restore my privacy, how ever you insist to keep it remain and hold what appears to be a grudge. This has obviously been done without my permission. Now, I'm sure there are many vandals at Wikipedia, yet somehow I seem to be the only one on you clearly label and continue to hold this grudge you have.

And I know indefinite that something as ridiculous as to become another person and "criticize" myself is beyond a joke, as so stated on your very own page at Wikpedia.

I have been patient and I have been cooperative, how ever, David Monniaux has decided not to deal with this anymore even though he seems to answer the e-mails at Wikipedia, I have approached Wikipedia politely and resulted powerless to you. David Monniaux has also showed a sign or neglect and rudeness by referring to me as ******** in an e-mail that clearly explained my reasons for why my name only said ******* and the e-mails we're clearly signed by me, ********

You have put my own safety at jeopardy. I ask kindly that you please remove the information regarding me on all pages at Wikipedia that contain my name regardless of the excuses since I do not use or edit Wikipedia as the information sources here aren't to my reliability, otherwise I will report this to my internet service provider and seek legal assistance.

Since I cannot e-mail you personally, I am contacting you via this method.

Sincerely, ********

Well, first of all most of the things you are complaining about was not added by me. It is other persons that come here and add this information to my talk page. Now you yourself (who ever you are) have added the comment above which contained several names of non-wikipedians. I took the liberty of censoring those names.
Secondly, at the time you wrote the above comment I had already removed what you are refering to from my user page and from this talk page. The third thing you pointed out was my old comment on a page I had long forgotten about, the "This user is a vandal" comment. I have now censored parts of that comment too.
However, I must point out to you that I am not a "Wikipedia admin" so it is not in my power to delete pages, thus I can not affect what is available in the history database of pages. And it certainly is not my responsibility to "remove the information regarding you on all pages at Wikipedia".
So I ask of you and the others to keep this discussion away from my talk page since it is none of my concern any more. --David Göthberg 12:13, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia kvalitet?

Jag vill kommenterar en rad du har på din user page, du säger att Wikipedia är den bästa eller kommer antagligen bli det, jag håller inte med för att man kan använda det för att sprida missinformation, allting som är politiskt känsligt kommer alltid att påverkas av olika viljor. Och vem som helst kan ändra på små detaljer eller ta bort små eller lägga till små stycken som ändrar hela karaktären på artiklen. Förmågan att byta små detaljer och därigenom ändra allting betyder att Wikipedia inte kan vara den bästa.

Det är mycket svårt för någon som inte är insatt i ett ämne att veta vad som är rätt eller fel eller vad som är rimligt eller inte. Och därför drar jag slutsatsen att alla artiklar som är politiskt känsliga kan mycket lätt manipuleras och ändras så att de visar en helt felaktig bild.

Jaja det är ju bara min åsikt, vad tycker du? (Deng 11:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC))

Hej Deng. Ja, jag håller med om att de politiska artiklarna kommer alltid att vara utsatta för stridigheter och kommer under del av tiden (kanske under större delen av tiden) att vara mer eller mindre värdelösa. Men andra artiklar som inte är politiskt känsliga (som t.ex. mitt huvudområde artiklar om kryptering) håller en mycket högre kvalitet och har mycket mindre problem med felaktig information och vandalisering. Men visst, även sådana tekniska artiklar innehåller ett visst mått av felaktig information. Ofta på grund av att okunniga personer skriver artiklar eller kanske ännu vanligare att okunniga personer försöker rätta eller förtydliga korrekta artiklar men istället gör dem felaktiga. (Men sådan "rättningar" brukar snart fixas av andra som vet bättre.)
Men jag har en teori om inlärning/utbildning: Det gör inget om "eleven" lär sig en del felaktiga saker om det mesta eleven lär sig är korrekt. Då har elevens totala kunskapsnivå trots allt höjts. Och med den högre kunskapsnivån blir det senare lättare för eleven att lära sig ännu mer och att senare upptäcka och lära om de saker han lärt sig fel. Till och med läroböckerna i skolan innehåller en hel del felaktigheter men det gör inte så mycket eftersom de trots allt tillför mycket mer korrekt information än felaktig information till eleverna.
Och eftersom jag varit ingenjör och forskare under många år måste jag ju tillägga: Det är samma sak inom förskning. Vi tar fram teorier och modeller som verkar passa på verkligheten. En del är riktigt användbara och används av oss ingenjörer m.fl. för att bygga alla möjliga saker. Senare upptäcker forskarna bättre modeller och de gamla modellerna betraktas som för enkla eller till och med felaktiga. Men trots allt var modellerna bra eftersom de var användbara och mycket bättre än att inte ha någon modell alls. De gamla modellerna innebar alltså en högre kunskapsnivå än tidigare och är ofta en förutsättning för att vi sedan skall kunna forska fram ännu bättre modeller. Så vi vet att många av modellerna som beskrivs i våra läroböcker i framtiden kommer att betraktas som felaktiga, men det är trots allt bättre att ha dem i böckerna än att inte ha någon bok alls.
--David Göthberg 11:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Claw-free permutation

I just touched up the claw-free permutation to reference Ivan Damgard as originating this term. I don't think this page explains itself very well, certainly not to the level of your M-D construction page; I'm not entirely sure this page should exist. You might wish to have a go at it since you seem to know this topic. I'll watch here for any reply. MaxEnt 02:31, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, thanks for the comment about the Merkle-Damgård construction page. I did take a quick look at Claw-free permutation and must admit it is partly over my head. But there migth still be some things I might be able to add to it or fix in it. (Perhaps I'll even read the papers it links to and see if I can make the page more easy to understand.) I think the page very much belongs here on Wikipedia. But hey, I am an inclusionist, I know we got plenty of space here. But I find too short articles boring, so perhaps it can fit better as a sub section in some other crypto article with a redirect from Claw-free permutation. I'll take a deeper look at it after the summer. (Summer time for me mostly means outdoors activities and not much Wikipedia editing...)
--David Göthberg 10:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
Cool. I'm removing this page from my watchlist. Feel free to drop a note on my own talk page if there's anything you'd like to discuss when you get back to it. MaxEnt 07:16, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Your Images

I really like the images that you made on your talk page illustrating hash trees, hash lists, etc. How do you make them? -- Bsmntbombdood 03:04, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh thanks! Well it's a process in several steps. First I look at any other related images in other articles to see how they done it. To so to speak "steal" any good ideas they had and perhaps to colour match my images so the same kind of boxes in my images has the same colour as in their images. I also ponder what I want to explain/teach to the viewer of the image. Then I draw a draft with pencil and paper to quickly try out some ideas. Then I make the images in some vector based image editing software. Then I often get feedback from other Wikipedia editors and thus discuss and change the images so most people understand them right.
Until recently I used the simple image editing that comes with MS word. Long time ago I used more advanced vector softwares but since the MS word one was good enough if one knew the tricks and it was always available in all places I use computers I started using that one. And it was convenient since I also do my slides for my teaching in MS powerpoint which uses the same way of editing vector graphics. Then when the image looked ok in MS word I made a screen dump of it by pressing the "Print Screen" button on the keyboard and pasted the screen dump into a pixel based image editor. There I cut out the image (cropped it) and then saved it in .png format since Wikipedia takes .png format. Since MS word can not save the vector image in any decent standardised format. However using .png images for graphs is not that nice since that means they are hard for others to edit and change later on, since then they are pixel based and not vector based.
Recently I changed methodology. Now there is a standardised vector format for images on Wikipedia, the .svg format. So I downloaded and learnt to use one of the free programs that the Wikipedia page about .svg recommends. As usual it took some time to learn to use the program. So far I only tested the program Inkscape. But I am going to test some more when I get the time since that program is a bit weird. But right now I am on a vacation from Wikipedia since it is summer over here!
--David Göthberg 07:38, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your explanation. I'm going to try making some images with Inkscape and see how they turn out.
--Bsmntbombdood 15:09, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
DG, Being a visually impaired sort, my artistic gift is minimal. One of those sad congenital things, you know. So I'm pleased you're having at some visual aids for the abstract descriptions, particulalry at public key cryptography. I've only a couple of points for you to consider.
Alice and Bob are both conventional and amusing, so I'd suggest that at least the names be used (instead of 'A' and 'B').
It is helpful to the Average Reader if the connection lines have directional arrows to show information goes here, goes there. It really does help the uninitiated.
Asymmetric crypto is not necessarily public-private key crypto. There are some algorithms in which one key is deducible from the other. This is the reason public key crypto is a poor term for the field. Most of the articles used to make this point, but editors are careful to avoid the seemingly obscure and so increase obscurity. I can't suggest a way to reflect this in the existing diagrams (perhaps one specially for key generation might make this point?, and note the absolute requirement that key generation be done oneself, not by some other (perhaps, eeck! -- Mallory_in_mufti!)?) but it's an issue.
Asymmetric keys are muuuch longer than symmetric keys and perhaps this could be refelcted visually? A point not always appreciated by the Average Reader.
The two keys used in asymmetric key algorithms (w/ or w/o the publi-private property) are closely related. I think the shape of the keys could be used to indicate this connection visually. Mirror image shapes, perhaps?
Since, in a two way interaction, there are 4 keys involved, there should be some way to distinguish along this dimension as well. Perhaps an A in the head of Alice's keys and a B for Bob's?
Some browsers won't have distinguisable colors, and for that matter, some users won't be able to see them anyway. I suggest that public keys be visually distinguished from private keys by something that doesn't depend on color. Perhaps the private key could be surrounded by a dashed line, or be partially greyed out, or ...?
We the art-impaired salute you (who can draw)! Keep up the good work. ww 20:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
He, I did not know you that you can not "decipher" light. Your statements make it clear you can not see those images at all. Secondly, great minds think alike! Most of your suggestions are already very much in those images! So lets see: Yes, I use text next to each item in the images so next to the green key it says "Public key of Alice". I don't use the short label "Apk". And next to the red key it says "Private key of Alice". So the red and green colours are not necessary, just a visual aid for those of us that are not red-green colour blind. And all the text is black on more lightly coloured backgrounds so can be read no matter what type of colour blind a person is. (Actually had that in mind when doing the labels since red-green colour blindness is so common.)
And yes, I use very clear directional arrows everywhere showing what is done in which order and what key is fed where etc. And yes, I am aware of the other possible meaning of "asymmetric crypto" but these pictures show keypairs and the article talks about "public-key crypto". And yes, I have an image describing key generation. I do not show much about who makes the keys although that image is marked "Alice". But sorry, I do not show that the keys are longer than symmetric keys. Infact, those images include no symmetric stuff at all. They are very simplified.
And yes, I have shaped the keys so the "tooths" on Alice's public and private key is a mirror shape so the two keys fit together. And the same for Bob's keys, Bob's keys look different from Alice's but the public and private keys of Bob fit together. Actually, I thought I had made a very nifty and unique thing when I added that since I never seen that in any books, and now you suggest the same! Guess it wasn't that unique or we are both VERY smart. :))
So, since you can not see the images let me tell you what they contain:
Image 1: Whole image is marked "Alice" and shows key making: A big random number is fed (an arrow) into a box marked "Key making function" and out comes two keys marked "Public key of Alice" and "Private key of Alice".
Image 2: Shows basic public-key encryption and decryption. Upper half of image marked "Bob". Bob inserts the message "Attack at dawn" and the "Public key of Alice" into a box marked "Encrypt". Out comes a random looking encrypted message. The encrypted message is sent over to the other half of the image marked "Alice". Alice inputs the encrypted message and "Private key of Alice" into a box marked "Decrypt". Out comes the decrypted message "Attack at dawn".
Image 3: Shows basic public-key signing and verification. Upper half of image marked "Alice". Alice inserts the message "I will pay $500" and "Private key of Alice" into a box marked "Sign (encrypt)". Out comes a random looking signed message. (Encrypted really.) The signed message is sent over to the other half of the image marked "Bob". Bob inputs the signed message and "Public key of Alice" into a box marked "Verify (decrypt)". Out comes the verified message "I will pay $500".
Image 4: Shows shared secret agreement (for instance Diffie-Hellman). Half the image is marked "Alice". Alice feeds the "Public key of Bob" and the "Private key of Alice" into a box marked "Combine keys". Out comes a a random HEX string marked "Alice and Bob's shared secret". The other half of the image shows the exact same thing for Bob.
That is really all there is. The images do also have descriptive image captions that I hope you can read? So the images show the basics of how public-keys work and what operations can be done with them. The images do not show stuff like hashing a message and then signing just the hash. They don't show that we just encrypt a random session key and then use symmetric crypto on the bulk data in the message. And I don't show any certificate stuff, CA stuff or web of trust stuff. All that would need a whole lot of more diagrams and those should perhaps go into other articles.
--David Göthberg 00:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

<----

DG, Ummm... 'Visually impaired' was meant to imply no ability to draw, congentially art-impaired, limited to children's refrigerator art expertise, ... not blindness or something akin to it. Though bifocals have almost the same effect for about 1/2 the world. One has a choice of a whole world though fuzzy, or half a sharpish world. I dream of stem cell derived eyes... Sorry to have confused in this case.

I note that we have passed in the night as it were. Most of my suggestions have been more or less incorporated. But, there is never an end to them, needless to say. Is it possible to change "Key of xyz" to "xyz's key"? The former is quite unusual, even awkward, in English? And, I have an observation with regard to the third of the diagrams, though. We should identify a protocol which combines keys for a shared secret, of course, so our Gentle Reader might go off to study the concept in another article. ww 14:55, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I changed the key captions to "Alice's public key" etc. And I agree it sounds better that way. But there are many ways to combine public keys to a shared secret. The most well known is to use Diffie-Hellman but you can also do it with RSA or ECC and many other public-key systems. I think such extra information is more for the article text than for the image and the image caption. --David Göthberg 12:51, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

FOX etc

Hi David, no problem -- I'm glad I could help. Thanks also for your nice public key crypto diagrams. I'll try and chip in with some comments, but they look pretty good. — Matt Crypto 06:00, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Userbox auto addition to participants list

I have moved this discussion to the talk page of the WikiProject_Cryptography since I think this discussion is of public interest. --David Göthberg 12:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: SVG-making software?

Hello, sorry for the slow response, I've been on a wikivacation for the summer. I use the last version of Inkscape. I had very few problems with the way MediaWiki renders the svg images to png. I remember some problems when using multiple layers. And some images were not rendered correctly by Opera, which still doesn't have complete SVG support (none of the browsers does, AFAIK). Anyway, Inkscape adds a lot of unuseful stuff to the svg file which you can safely remove. I also recommend doing a cleanup (File/Vacuum defs) before publishing. Which version are you using and why doesn't the latest version work on ME? ~~helix84 11:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, sorry for my late answer. I am kind of on a prolonged wikivacation. I lowered my activity for several reasons (among others since I got slapped by some admins). Anyway, I use Inkscape 0.42 since that is the last version that works on Win 9x. The more recent versions only run on Win XP. The Inkscape makers state so on their web pages and I also tried to run those newer versions on my Win ME anyway and they failed to run. And regarding the Wikimedia SVG rendering problems: It is mainly some problems with text in the images. And it does not help to "vacuum" the images and save them as "plain SVG". But I have found workarounds for pretty much all of the problems. Including the one that surely is not the fault of Inkscape: Old MS Internet Explorers can not handle the transparent background that Wikimedia makes for the PNG rendered SVG images. So I nowadays always put one big white square that cover the entire image as the lowest object and thus Wikipedia render the PNG as non-transparent with white colour as "background". So now the images look the same in all web browsers I have tested. --David Göthberg 06:49, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

DG, I've taken a look and, to the extent the quadfocals let me see anything, have only the following reaction. The Templates yo've produced are all oriented toward crypto inside baseball. Since, from the Average User's perspective, crypto is concerned with such things as confidentiality, message integrity, message authenitication, and non deniability, I suggest that there should be templates for these issues as well. From an inside crypto perspective, I suppose we might have templates noting crypto protocols and partial or zero knowledge protocols, as well. Have I seen anything you were hoping for? ww 03:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, I see what you mean. Note, this is just a preliminary answer since I just got out of bed, I will rework this answer after breakfast:
We already had most of those templates. I only made the small "main/generic/introductory" one which we can have in all crypto articles. And I made it so that several of our nav templates can be shown neatly together in one frame.
And yes, you are right. The main/generic/introductory template (the one titled "Cryptography") is not simple enough for beginners. We probably need more introductory articles (or perhaps we already have them some where) and then the main template should have some links to such introductory articles. Perhaps even marked in some way so it is clear those links are introductory reading for beginners. Something like links named "How to hide data" (would be about encryption + steganography etc), "How to prevent that others from tampering with your data" (about hashes, MACs etc) and so on. And yes, from an inside crypto perspective we off course can and will have more templates covering more areas.
So yes, you certainly have seen several things I didn't think of. Thanks a lot! I always enjoy your feedback. --David Göthberg 11:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Fubuki

DG, Confusing submission wasn't it? I'll go with your rewrite (save that I added a link to Fubuki) until I actually plow through their submission to see where I went awry. Not immediatley in any case. ww 03:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it was confusing. Took me a little googling to find out what it was about. Afterwards I realised I should probably have put those links in as "External links / References". But instead I got busy making a disambiguation page for Fubuki since it can mean at least 7 different things. But I only put 6 of them on that disambig page since one of them were about the porn star named Fubuki. I am an "inclusionist/mergist" but I prefer not to link to porn star articles... --David Göthberg 11:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
DG, Looks like I was more confused than I thought. How does one recognize this condition in one's self? The problem applies directly to Sanger's expert-based approach for his new version of the Wikipedia. In my case, I find my own understandings tripping over thier own shoelaces far too regularly. I think we naked apes have taken this understanding thing to the limit of our performance, characteristically. I expect that there is an absence of good sense circuits in our brains which would keep us out of our hot water problems (remember the frog) rather better than we've managed so far. Anyway, thanks for cleaning up the roundabout here. ww 16:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, I have researched chaos as my dayjob for many years now (randomised algorithms that is) so I think I can call my self an expert in chaos and randomness by now. But I admit I to all too often discover I am confused over lots of things. I think we simply have to accept that life is chaotic. Regarding shoelaces: When I dance I always tie them with an extra knot (what we at least in Swedish call a "double knot") thus I never trip over my shoelaces. It seems to me Wikipedia also kind of comes with "multiple knots". That is, other editors that double and triple check what we edit. So no worries mate! --David Göthberg 16:58, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Nema (disambiguation)

This is not a big deal one way or the other, but I thought I'd let you know that the reason I removed "U.S." is not because I think that it is a given, but rather because dab entries are supposed to be short (just long enough for the reader to find the right one) and that seemed like the least necessary word. --Strait 18:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see what you mean. Yeah that entry is a bit long. But all the other entries state the country and for those of us that are not from the US it feels kind of weird to not state in which country that "National" organisation belongs. Anyway, nice to hear that the primary reason was not "US centric" editing. --David Göthberg 20:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on Navigation bar template

Hi - I've moved the discussion about the navigation bar template from WP:VPT to template talk:Navigation bar. I'd like to understand specifically what you think is ugly about it. Please comment there. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 13:46, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I am still interested in your comments about this. Please comment at template talk:Navigation bar. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, sorry for not responding earlier. I have been busy with other stuff (most of it out in the real world). And yes, I will take a look and comment. --David Göthberg 16:00, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. There seems to be fairly strong sentiment that scrolling is inherently evil and should not be allowed (at least from some camps). It's a little hard to tell if there's only a few editors who violently object or if this is a widespread objection. If we end up with "scrolling shall not be used in any circumstance" this template will be deleted. I'm thinking about a way to generalize the previous "virtual scroll" idea (one template that looks different on each page), but without requiring a script to generate it. If the actual scrolling version goes away, we'll have to do something else. I'm not thrilled with your version (6 templates), but it's certainly far better than a huge monstrosity. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, some people seem to react too strongly against the scrolling. I just think it is slightly ugly but in most other ways it is a good suggestion. And both your scrolling method and my "splitting up on several templates" method sure is nicer than one big monstrosity.
By the way, I think I have an idea what "something else" could be. I think I know how one could make a generic template that can take several parameters and automatically split it up into several different "views" like if it where several different templates. I just have to think a bit more about how to code it up. But I think it is doable. And only using the template logic (no javascript) that Wikimedia offers. --David Göthberg 20:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I could see how to do this on a template by template basis, but a generic version seems like it might be difficult. I've put together a parameterized version of the 4x100 relay template. You give it the year and see only the details for that year, like this:

{{Footer Olympic Champions 4x100 m Men/small|1928}}

Template by template, I suspect there's almost always "something else", although I do like the horizontal scroll approach because it's so simple to use. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Haha, that was a quick respons AND you coded a new template too. You work to hard. I think that preferably the range list (the list of years) should be smaller than the actual list of links (the names of athletes). So I think in this kind of aproach one should list about 3-4 lines of links (3-4 years) at once. As I did paint it at Template talk:Navigation bar#Looks somewhat ugly. That is, it needs more data and less meta data.

To make it so in the template you used here is simple. But as you pointed out that template was handcoded. Making a generic template for it is slightly more tricky, but I think still doable. --David Göthberg 00:35, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Just FYI, I've revised the 4x100 relay template and its references so it shows details for multiple years in cases where a single athlete has won it multiple times (like Carl Lewis and Frank Wykoff). The least ugly way I could think of to do this involved extracting the details by year into a separate template. It would be possible to include the details from the previous Olympics (prior to the first win) and following (subsequent to the last win), but I kind of like the very compact version. And, perhaps at the risk of belaboring this one, what do you think about Template:Places in Bedfordshire/a-z (yet another version)? This could definitely be a generic template. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:49, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Crypto templates

I'm pretty sure you don't have the best set-up - if you would like to link to the various cases that broke, and explain the ways in which the template is used, then I can fix it. The first screenshot you posted just a problem with extra line breaks. The second problem looks like someone has included the template directly, which is wrong. I didn't change any pre tags or remove any nbsps, so I don't see how I can have broken any wrapping issues either. ed g2s • talk 17:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I have restored my edits, with the line-break fix mentioned, and checked the first 100 transclusions on FF and IE. As you can see on NESSIE, this is working fine. The second example you gave is a case of bad implementation, and not an error on my part. If there are any pages which are rendering incorrectly please inform me, and I can correct the code, but there is no need to revert all my edits. Thanks, ed g2s • talk 17:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I've also done an AWB search through the transclusions of {{crypto block}}, and it seems none of them include the template directly. The only page it found that did was one of your sandbox pages, so I don't know if this is a real problem... ed g2s • talk 17:28, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Salt (cryptography)

Hello, today I was searching for info on salt and I found this forum post explaining the concept in a very clear way. I think you could use some of its structure in the article, e.g. private/public salt and their pros/cons. I didn't feel competent to do it so I just added the extlink.

BTW, you probably missed my response to User_talk:Helix84#SVG-making software? in #Re: SVG-making software?. ~~helix84 01:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I have read the salt forum post. And yeah, that post has a much better explanation. But I don't like that one either. I usually explain salts in a very different way. And I usually explain salts and IVs at the same time, since I see them as just different variants of the same thing. But it wasn't me who wrote the salt article here on Wikipedia and I must admit I am in no mood to rework the salt article, sorry. --David Göthberg 07:11, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject user template

That's awesome, thanks.--Mike Selinker 23:23, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

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