Aliens and UT Encryption

[Joseph Paul]

Is encryption based on mathematics so fundamental that there is no room for making alien species encryption harder to break? Any fundamentally different pathways for computing to go down? Trinary rather than binary?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Is encryption based on mathematics so fundamental that there is no room for making alien species encryption harder to break? Any fundamentally different pathways for computing to go down? Trinary rather than binary?

Changing the base really doesn't change anything, but there is actually quite a lot you can do.

If you have quantum computing, there is a field called post-quantum cryptography based on what cryptographic methods can't be cracked easily by quantum computing. Not to be confused with quantum cryptography, which is about using quantum computing in cryptography and requires a quantum machine on each side.

Additionally, we don't have cryptography perfected by any means, and improvements continue to trickle out year by year even on the stuff we use all the time.

Knowing what algorithm your opponent is using is also super useful. Also, if you're not familiar with their protocols, file formats, and language... that's going to be another hurdle. Especially the language.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Is encryption based on mathematics so fundamental that there is no room for making alien species encryption harder to break? Any fundamentally different pathways for computing to go down? Trinary rather than binary?

<shrug> There are variable fundamental assumptions about how future tech will work.

UT assumes relatively breakable encryption as the norm. Transhuman Space assumes nigh-unbreakable encryption as the norm. If you try and plug TS into the UT framework TS turns out to be a (mostly)TL9-10 society with TL15 and 1/2 encryption technology.

Your newly discovered alien society doesn't have to fit in with the norm of what others have seen before.

There are also questions of mathematical "black art". You can be quite confident in your encryption because Wahtsitz' Law proves that no conceivable computer could crack it in the next billion years. Then some mathematical genius who can just barely grow a moustache comes along and proves Idunno's Theorem which just incidentally means that there's a very doable end run around Wahtsitz' Law.

Alien encryption could be as different as alien math will be. 2+2 will still equal 4 but once you get way out into the boonies things could be very different. Math isn't constrained by physical law the way physical sciences are.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Is encryption based on mathematics so fundamental that there is no room for making alien species encryption harder to break? Any fundamentally different pathways for computing to go down? Trinary rather than binary?

Harder to break than what? Some mathematical algorithms are harder than others, and of course random one time pads are unbreakable.

Since you can probably fit enough random numbers to encrypt more characters than you could type in a lifetime on a flash drive no harder to deliver than a new code book, I'd be surprised if much really sensitive stuff is breakable even in theory these days. You'd still use encryption for video, or stuff where the communications channel isn't a dedicated pre-arranged one.

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Harder to break than what? Some mathematical algorithms are harder than others, and of course random one time pads are unbreakable.

Since you can probably fit enough random numbers to encrypt more characters than you could type in a lifetime on a flash drive no harder to deliver than a new code book, I'd be surprised if much really sensitive stuff is breakable even in theory these days. You'd still use encryption for video, or stuff where the communications channel isn't a dedicated pre-arranged one.

Harder to break in the sense that the alien's mathematics differs in some fundamental way or for some subset that has been used for encryption purposes. Question designed to probe if that is a real possibility or are we pretty close to confirming that 'math is math and a universal language at that'.

I would like to see this conversation at Bletchly:

"Well we understand this component and the underlying math but that leaves us with maths that give contradictory answers about physical constants. Or it's baby talk."

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

or are we pretty close to confirming that 'math is math and a universal language at that'.

The latter half of this statement is inaccurate. Math does not have to conform to the rules of this universe.

You can do perfectly good math about universes with 2 dimensions or 17 or ones where pi is equal to 3 or any other thing that is nonsensical in our experience.

[acrosome]

I seem to recall in some prior GURPS discussion that encryption is unbreakable to any methods of a lower TL.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Is encryption based on mathematics so fundamental that there is no room for making alien species encryption harder to break? Any fundamentally different pathways for computing to go down? Trinary rather than binary?

Breaking encryption generally requires some idea of what unencrypted data looks like, so if you don't know the data format the aliens are using, you aren't going to decrypt it.

Other than that, the realistic answer to "can X be decrypted" is "did the people encrypting it make a mistake".

[Flyndaran]

Isn't that why the Navajo language worked so well in WWII?

I think I remember that most, if not all, of the major code breaks of the war required human error on the part of the enemy.

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The latter half of this statement is inaccurate. Math does not have to conform to the rules of this universe.

You can do perfectly good math about universes with 2 dimensions or 17 or ones where pi is equal to 3 or any other thing that is nonsensical in our experience.

And that would be good for a setting where the Big Reveal is that the Universe is not what you thought it was...

Originally Posted by Anthony

Breaking encryption generally requires some idea of what unencrypted data looks like, so if you don't know the data format the aliens are using, you aren't going to decrypt it.

Other than that, the realistic answer to "can X be decrypted" is "did the people encrypting it make a mistake".

Good to know I have a reason to send PCs on missions to get alien data modules/novels/newspapers.