To Be or Not To Be - That Is The Gazodenplatz

by Peter Merritt

A number of years ago I was asked to investigate the feasibility of an email system on an IBM mainframe using APL for the end-user control software. During this project, the idea of actually protecting the data came up (OK, I suggested that senior officers sending “Councillor X, what a waste of space, eh?..........”, in clear was a rather, ah, short-term activity). This article is therefore by way of an introduction to some simple, rather ‘off-the-wall’ techniques for data encryption which I doodled at the time. There is nothing new about them (I’ve just used some APL primitives to make things easier), but I’ve been pleasantly surprised on three separate occasions since then by the reactions of newcomers to APL when I showed them the results. Unfortunately, the last person to whom I mentioned this work was a member of the editorial committee of VECTOR - baaaddddd mistake...................

Anyway, having avoided the evil moment for a few months, I now offer the following text (in 5x character groups) as a form of competition, the solution (if it’s not too obvious) being in the main article which will be in the next issue (which can be interpreted as either a ‘taster’, for regular subscribers, or as a form of annoyance for those who will only get this copy as a ‘freebie’!). First prize will be a free copy of VECTOR; second prize two copies etc. etc. Good hunting.

SRWL8 9xjdf 1GJA2 CafQf mnwBz 2DceO ZXq6a 2rRTy vRprd AT7h6 jmepT cuYto FizQU 1KSmp MQr3L DJsHi YaECF sYMgP uHinr GvM12 jON9l XgWqX hjeb6 S4VwK o7Zkp qn0WL xjtoS R89xj WLwBe OJATy vRWLd ASRep 2Cpr1 Ga2uY TcmnQ fq6df to89T 7Dcxj rRjmZ Xz2h6 afWLp qT7pq QfuHp qQfWL pqpqH iZXuH T7pqh 6Qfpq 12ton 0Qfpq pqn0p qq6Hi n0LDM Q12T7 12xj2 CQfWL uHpqL DECWL ZXQfH iWLMQ Dcxjp qpqTc pqpqn 0Tc2C pqQfp qwBMQ jmWL1 GuHpq QfT7a 2HiMQ Hia2p qtopq jmLDu HpqTc topqS RpqJs ZXQfY MQfWL ZXQfZ XpqMQ LDWLL DpqHi QfpqH iT7WL WLpqn 0LDpq HiuHp qpqpq h6tO7