User talk:Ww

Hello Ww, welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian. You can learn more on the how to edit page. The naming conventions and manual of style pages are also useful. Feel free to experiment at the Wikipedia:Sandbox. If you have any questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. Angela

Enimga <> stream cypher??

Hi, Ww, why are you claiming Enigma isn't a stream cipher? It encrypts one symbol at a time in a way which depends on the machine's internal state, which is exactly what a stream cipher is. If you are concerned that it acts on whole letters rather than bits, don't be; that distinction is practically obsolete. In fact of the 12 examples given beneath the stream cipher article, only 3 are bit-oriented. Securiger 09:06, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

JNC on PH

Hi, not sure I completely understand what you mean by "I have a sense of the other shoe not yet hitting the floor about it" - I apologize for not responding before, there are just so many things to do on Wikipedia, I was busy elsewhere. In other words, don't read anything into my failure to reply!

I just posted a reply on the PH talk page; I read your reply and agree we need to cover the theories in some detail, but I still think it ought to be a separate page. Since only Daniel disagreed (of those who have said anything), if you're OK with it, I think we should do it. Noel 14:07, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

logical fallacy good & Constitutional Debate of Canada

Congratulations on your rephrasing of key paragraphs in the Logical fallacy article! I wanted to clarify it as well, but it is very difficult to construct accurate sentences in a foreign language. Can I ask what is your nationality? I am looking for a non-Canadian to help out in making Constitutional debate of Canada neutral and clear for outsiders. Right now, we (well, it is mostly me) are in the process or restructuring the article (see the talk page) which used to be parts of Politics of Canada so that all visitors can make sense of it even if they are new to the subject. At this point, we just need to know if the proposed structure is understandable and neutral or if it looks obscure and/or biased. Mathieugp 20:16, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

A stranger to the debate is what we need. Ideally, more than one person would be even better. Reading French is sure helpful to dig into this contentious subject. A lot of books were written in that language by Quebecers and they were not necessarily translated to English. Nevertheless, if you would just watch the page as it evolves and point out things that seem non-neutral, vague, out of place, fallacious etc, you would be very helpful. All of us who know of the debate are biased and we know it. Mathieugp 21:43, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your edits were fine, but the article is going to be rewritten completely. Currently, it looks like and accelerated history course and the headings are not very logical. There are also numerous errors. I have a proposed structure for the article here: Talk:Constitutional_debate_of_Canada. Since I conceived it and nobody showed up to participate to my discussion, I am actively seeking people to tell me if they see any bias in it. I will not start writing before that. Mathieugp 15:44, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

CRYPTREC (mc)

Hi ww, great start at CRYPTREC. I can't make head or tails of their website; is the project ended / ongoing? Anyway, good stuff. — Matt 17:23, 25 Mar 2004 (UTC)

CryptoDerk's plans

Thanks for the info about crypto, I'll definitely be editing more pages in the near future, as soon as a finish off my thesis (which, of course, is about crypto). My specific area of expertise is the DLP and related stuff like ECC and HECC, so I'll likely be sticking to that. Block ciphers are not my cup of tea at all, so it'll be rare for me to edit anything like that. I'll definitely be sure to add some more books. CryptoDerk 16:11, Apr 1, 2004 (UTC)

Main Page design ans from Eloquence

Getting back to you regarding your comments on the new Main Page:

1) Structure. There are different opinions about what the Main Page is supposed to accomplish. Some feel it should give every visitor all the knowledge they need to become a contributor. Some feel it should showcase examples of our work. Others think that it should be a directory of articles. My design is based on two assumptions:

a) We want to point users to articles that they likely want to read,

b) We want to provide an incentive for people to regularly view the Main Page.

Let me elaborate on these assumptions.

a) The old design provided merely a catalog of links with no information as to what is behind these links. In the case of the topics directory, this approach may work, because people have a general idea as to what these topics refer to. In the case of news items, new articles, featured articles etc. this was ill-conceived, as there is little motivation for me to follow a link if the only way to get a basic idea of what is behind it is to do so.

b) I only viewed the old Main Page to access other pages, hardly ever to actually read the content. I did not view it regularly. I view the new Main Page every day and follow most of its sections. Why is this difference important? If we can hook our users on our Main Page, then that is a good way to get them interested in the rest of the site. If the reader will, however, be turned away by the Main Page after following a link from somewhere else, we may lose them forever. So it is very important that our Main Page includes "hooks" to catch people, and to create a bond with the site. The information is also much more accessible this way - rather than following dozens of pages, if you want to get a digest of what's interesting on Wikipedia, you can just follow the Main Page.

The old topics index is still there. In my opinion, it is mostly useless, because it gives the false impression that it is a directory, when in reality it is just a list of articles, many of which do not provide a good overview of the general topic. Furthermore, thanks to our ubiquitous redirects, just entering a search term and pressing "Go" often gets you exactly where you want. When the fulltext search is back, that will be the primary way people access Wikipedia articles. I have almost never used the topics index.

The Community Portal is now, in my opinion, much more useful even though there's still a lot of room for improvement. We have space on it to collect all the important Wikipedia: pages, and we can use it to inform our readers about general events of note to the community rather than just readers. Once people become interested in editing, this should be the place where they can learn everything they need to know.

2) Design. Yes, there are always trends in design and we should certainly not follow the latest trend just for the hell of it. I have studied Digital Media for four years, and I was often wildly opposed to the types of designs that were favored there. I was the only one in a room of 40 willing to stand up and say: "This design is crap. The user can't find anything there." So while I understand where you're coming from, I resent the claim that the new Main Page is somehow an expression of fashion, conscious or unconscious. I sat down and designed it (on paper at first) based on ideas that were previously thrown around in the community. If you wanted "the latest fad", the Main Page would consist of a Flash intro, after which you would get a JavaScript based button navigation with the function of the buttons only visible when you move your mouse over them. It would all look very nice but be completely useless.

I added images not because images are fancy, but because they transport emotions. And I think therein lies one cause of the problem. Many people are opposed to any design that works with emotions. However, I believe this to be necessary if the information that we transport is actually to be memorized and usefully processed. This is how memory works - by connecting information with emotional encoding. Intellectuals can generate these encodings from the smallest bits of information, but most people require a trigger, typically of a visual nature. As an encyclopedia we can choose to write strictly for ourselves or for our readers. The new Main Page is designed to accomplish the latter.—Eloquence 04:52, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

use stubs (isomorphic)

Hi. Thanks for all the stuff you're adding on cryptography, but could you make a little more attempt at formatting on the stubs you create? It won't really add much work for you and it'll save others from having to clean up after you. Especially, don't leave messages in the article itself about what needs to be added. Put that on the talk page. Isomorphic 17:58, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm pretty sure the official position is that you should use the talk page for such things. If you really don't want to use the talk pages, there is one other option that's still much better than inserting a message directly into the article. The Wikipedia markup language allows comments to be made in the code without appearing in the article. The format for this is . I've inserted a comment into this page's code as an example. Isomorphic 19:54, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Jorge Stolfi in re snake oil

Thank you! Jorge Stolfi 18:22, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Being an admin (isomorphic)

Regarding being an admin, how much of an advantage it is depends on what sort of work you do here. I was nominated for admin because someone saw me doing "maintainance" work - fighting vandalism and nominating nonsense pages for speedy deletion. Since I was doing that sort of work anyway, it was convenient for me to get the tools to do it easilly (rollback and deletion.) There are other powers (running direct SQL queries, viewing deleted pages, undeleting, protecting and unprotecting pages, editing protected pages, and a few other things) but I don't ever use them myself. There isn't actually much authority involved since usage of most of the powers is strictly controlled by policy. You can read all about it at Wikipedia:Administrators.

As far as the community aspects of the position, admin is a position of trust and service. Admins aren't required to do any particular jobs but they tend to be the ones taking care of a lot of the boring maintainance tasks. People also tend to expect admins to act as examples by their behavior (staying cool in disputes, being civil and helpful, etc.) There's also some prestige in being an admin, although not a huge amount of it. Some admins don't like the thought that there's any extra status, but in practice it's a position of trust so there's bound to be some respect attached.

Basically, if you aren't doing maintainance stuff there isn't a lot of reason to be an admin. Of course, there's also not a lot of reason not to be one. If you want I'll take a look through your contributions and consider nominating you. Isomorphic 21:24, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security (mc)

Have you come across this: Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security (http://www.win.tue.nl/~henkvt/Content.html)? It's apparently to be published by Kluwer sometime this year (2004) and has some top cryptographers contributing. They seem to be aiming at around 500 articles (we have some three hundred odd). It would probably be profitable to compare their coverage to Wikipedia's. — Matt 20:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

--'s on list of cryptography topics (mc)

ww — thanks for adding articles to list of cryptography topics. One detail though: could you make sure to add a separating "--" to the end of the entry, as this seems to be the style we've inherited for the list. Cheers! — Matt 23:40, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Admin nomination (isomorphic)

Hi, I took a look through your contributions and liked what I saw, so I nominated you at Wikipedia:Requests for adminship. You'll want to wander by there and accept if you want the position. From your edit log it doesn't look like you've been in any disputes or controversies, or made any enemies, and your contrubutions have been valuable. The nomination should sail through easilly. Isomorphic 01:49, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

ISBN (jmabel)

Thanks. I didn't think ISBN was retrospective, but since someone was complaining about my lack of providing an ISBN for a 1940s book, I thought he might know something I didn't. Sounds like I knew something he didn't. -- Jmabel 17:46, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

{{msg:inuse}} (mc)

ww -- can I recommend {{msg:inuse}} for large reedits of a page? it's really useful for avoiding edit conflicts, and looks like this:

This article is actively undergoing a major edit.
As a courtesy, please do not edit this article while this message is displayed. The person who added this notice will be listed in its edit history (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=User_talk:Ww&action=history) should you wish to contact him or her.

— Matt 19:15, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

crypto (jengod)

You're welcome! I've noticed your work because I frequently scan Special:Newpages for possible additions to Template:Dyk and I've recently come across many quality additions to Wikipedia in the cryptography field--most with your name on 'em. I'm so bewildered by math that I'm pretty sure I'm not a particularly good choice to look over your shoulder, but if i ever see anything that could be improved from a fuzzy's point of view, I'll be sure to chime in. :) Cheers! jengod 21:14, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)

Tonkinese cat

Ww,

Glad you got the nomination. It looks like smooth sailing for you. I think you might be the first admin nomination I voted for (or maybe the second). I saw the nomination go up almost immediately and said to myself "Ww, sounds familiar. Oh yeah, the Tonkinese editor." It took me five minutes or so to figure out how to properly edit the first "Support" vote, but I got it in pretty quickly. Actually, I think after your first edit on the Tonk article, you left some things hanging, but the second and following edits fixed things and then really made it a nice article.

Actually, the reason I started the Tonk article is that I looked at the List of cat breeds article for those cats that didn't have breed articles. I did the Egyptian Mau cat article first. My wife and I showed Egyptian Mau cats regularly for a number of years, although we didn't run a cattery (rare folks who show, but aren't breeders). Then I started on what I considered the nicest breeds that didn't yet have articles. I put the American Keuda cat in the breed list, and wrote a short article about them. It's a very rare breed in early development, so few people know much about them. Then I think that the Havana Brown cat was next, probably followed by the Tonks. I really didn't know much about them, but remember liking them from the shows, so I put out a rather anemic article about them, and pleaded in the Summary for some nice Tonk fan to show up and make it a good article. And you did. I was pleased, since this sort of appeal usually doesn't work. Now we've got a good Tonk article.

I'm pleased to support you. Thanks for all of your good works. Brian Rock 00:24, Apr 15, 2004 (UTC)

danny

Thanks for your comments. Although I had never noticed your edits before you were nominated, I checked them out and found that they really were excellent. I am pleased to be able to support you as an admin. My talk page was protected because someone had been vandalizing it over the past few days. Danny 01:09, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

My mind isn't working well (jwr)

And I don't know what you mean by KBO, unless it's Kuiper Belt Objects. :-) I'm glad my Washingtonian stuff is welcome -- I imagine you're referring to Seafair? It's probably the best of what little I've yet offered. I'm still mulling over how to approach Northwest Folklife and Bumbershoot. And I'm happy to look over cryptography articles if you'll tell me which ones need special focus. I should admit, however, a casual interest in cryptography -- I read Simon Singh's The Code Book and enjoyed it, and so read a couple of other very popular-style approaches to cryptography....about 2-3 years ago now, but if it disqualifies me as a pair of eyes, well, just let me know. :-) Congrats on your adminship (pending? Or are you in by now?), and I'm happy to have helped. I do remember the Curse fiasco now (goodness, a tempest in a teapot), and am sorry your edits got lost, but that discussion went in weird directions before resolving. Let me know what I can do to help out, and thanks for your note, Jwrosenzweig 18:32, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A general impression with a few ideas is at Talk:Enigma machine. :-) I'll try to get to others as I have time over the next couple of weeks. And my request is a fairly simple one: I've been begging a long time for people to look at Medieval literature, which is almost entirely written by me. People have been content to object to it generally on a few occasions, without offering any specific ideas for improvement. Any thoughts about where it can be expanded, what is unclear, how it can be better structured, etc., are very welcome. If you do that and feel a little more literary interest, I've done a lot of overhauling on the still woefully incomplete History of literature, and would love some ideas on that one too. Thanks! :-) Jwrosenzweig 20:43, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Heh, thanks for the amusement on my talk page. Don't freak out -- I'm not looking for sophisticated literary analysis....just general thoughts. I think actually the character of my remarks regarding Enigma (which really didn't rely on my limited technical knowledge of cryptography much at all) is what I'm asking for, and I've every confidence you can handle it. :-) I'm afraid I don't drink beer (see teetotaller for more info ;-), but perhaps a burger and a Coke will suffice if literature proves beyond your abilities! Anyhow, thanks for the marvelous conversation, and let me know if there's anything else I can do beyond a shot at a few cryptography articles. I promise, on at least one of them, I'll say "Perfect! Change nothing!" ;-) Jwrosenzweig 21:23, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Happy to help (cecropia)

Hi Ww, Sure, I'll be happy to look over your cryptography article and anything else you suggest, and make suggestions. I've just looked at the first paragraph or two, and the material is (from the layman's POV) much better written than most, actually. The one thing I know I'll suggest is trying to sum up the issue (i.e., the "dictionary definition" opening, in the first sentence, with the etymology at the end. I'll be more specific when I've looked at it a little more.

I'm in the point now in my work where, as far as tech knowledge is concerned, I learn what interests me, but only work to have a thorough knowledge of what I need to know, if you know what I mean. Many technical issues have a short layman's explanation, enough to tell the non-techie what s/he needs to know, and I especially want to write new openings for articles like Domain Name System. If I can help with that kind of rewrite of articles of interest to you, that's my special focus. Cheers! Cecropia 19:34, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I get it! I'll read over the article with your comments in mind. Cecropia 20:11, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

meelar

I'd certainly be willing to look over the cryptography articles, and I appreciate your offer of return help. I've actually been looking for someone to do this sort of thing; mainly on articles about U.S. political topics, since that's my area of expertise. Part of that would be for NPOV, as well as too much of an "insider" approach (i.e. unfamiliar terminology etc.). I'd really appreciate looks at southern strategy, campaign finance reform, and realigning election. Any particular articles you'd care to have me examine, or should I just look at your contributions and user page? Yours, Meelar 21:06, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Brian (catbar)

I'm willing to help, too. I'm no expert in cryptography, but I have a pretty good knowledge of computing and mathematics in general. I may be helpful to you, and I may not. Perhaps my biggest handicap in that area is a lack of strong interest, but that may be of use to you - making sure the article appeals to as wide an audience as possible.

I'll watch your work and get back to you as I can. Feel free to make specific requests, too. Brian Rock 00:07, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

...it's crypto generally.

Ouch. Sorry for the misinterpretation. I'll start to look around the crypto pages as time allows. Spring has started in my neck of the woods (more like summer, actually). I was out taking what I hope will be wikipictures today. But the cold and rainy days will be back - it is April in NE Ohio, after all. Talk to you later. Brian Rock 20:47, Apr 18, 2004 (UTC)

message form Simpson'sFan

Hi how you doing? Simpson'sFan 15:56, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

New pages! (mc)

ww - hey, good work on the new pages that you've added in the last couple of days (5-6 isn't it?). I add them to List of cryptography topics when I notice them, but I'm not sure that I catch them all; I don't suppose you could add them to the list on creation? — Matt 20:29, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thoughts (jwr)

Your thoughts are more than welcome! History of lit is less pressing for me because, as yet, no one seems to want to write the half of the article that is still missing, and I have considerably less knowledge in much of it -- still, I'd be interested in your thoughts concerning what's there presently. The subject is far too big. And I may not have as much WP time in the next few weeks, but what I have, I'll devote a chunk of to cryptography pages. Thanks for your help. :-) Jwrosenzweig 16:48, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sysop congrats (several)

Congratulations! You are now an administrator after getting 100% support on WP:RFA. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. Good luck. Angela . 02:49, Apr 20, 2004 (UTC)

Congrats from me as well. You're right, a lot don't go that smoothly, but you haven't been in any fights and your contributions are good. So no problems :-) Isomorphic 17:25, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Congrats! Arvindn 18:27, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Congratulations, Ww! Cribcage 20:30, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Info: Page access counts (mc)

ww - you might be interested in perusing User:Matt Crypto/Crypto hits March-2004, which gives some popularity data for the crypto articles from last March. Moreover, congratulations on becoming an admin! — Matt 02:58, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)

A Wikiproject Cryptography?

Do you think we would benefit from a Wikiproject Cryptography? I have hacked together a proposal for Wikiproject Cryptography. It might be a reasonable place for collecting together useful information, identifying needs, and hosting more general discussions. I guess we don't (at the moment) have a huge number of editors working on this, but it still might prove useful. What do you think? — Matt 17:38, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Your suggestions (meelar)

Hi, sorry it took so long to get back to you--I just got finished writing a long paper that kind of swallowed my weekend. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts on realigning elections, but I have a few bones to pick as well.

I'm not so sure that TR marks a polarizing point--I would say that liberal-to-moderate Republicanism survived well after this (for example, you could make a case for Dwight Eisenhower, as well as Rockefeller et al). A good couple of resources for this are "Grand Old Party", by Lewis Gould, a history of the GOP. Also, Gould wrote "1968: The Election that Changed America", and Kevin Phillips' "The Emerging Republican Majority" are quality reads about Nixon, Goldwater, Rockefeller, and the final collapse of moderation.

Of course, that's only if you're interested in this sort of thing; as my girlfriend would attest, sometimes I assume that everybody is. I'm not sure I agree with your comments entirely, but you're right, FDR didn't just spring up ex nihilo. What would you suggest?

Yours, Meelar 01:01, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Treecats (piotrus)

Awesome work you did, I dont think I can add anything more to it now. I will work on some other honor-related links. One think that could be done is to add graphics from my page, but I am not sure how Wiki policy applies to it (see Honor Harrington discussion page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Honor_Harrington) for my questions regarding this).

--Piotrus 18:39, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

just some more of the same - you are the treecat boss! :) --Piotrus 01:57, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks (Wmahan)

Hi ww, I wanted to let you know that I replied to your comment regarding cipher versus cypher. By the way, I appreciate all the work you've done on the articles related to cryptography. Thanks! Wmahan . 16:15, 2004 May 1 (UTC)

I apologize for my gross misuse of the English language. My only hope is that no one else will notice, because my transgression is hidden in the history of a talk page. Wmahan . 19:38, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

ww, I assure you that I would never attempt such a bad pun in real life--I do want to keep my friends. Please don't tell my school about this embarrassing incident, because if they found out they might not give me my diploma in a week! Wmahan . 20:20, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments. I'll see if I can look over some of the crypto articles when I have a chance. Talk to you later, Wmahan . 20:37, 2004 May 4 (UTC)

ROAR (dpbsmith)

Actually, my experience was almost the opposite. I graduated from MIT in 1966. I was in graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin 1966 to 1975, and paying very little attention to Boston. We returned to the Boston area in 1975. So I left an only-normally-racist city and returned to a viciously racist city... Dpbsmith 20:18, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

Wikicode (dcoetzee)

Hi! I noticed you've contributed to computer science articles. I've started a project on WikiProject Computing to propose a standard pseudocode for use throughout the Wikipedia that I call wikicode. Please join the WikiProject (no commitment required) and please participate in the discussion about wikicode. Thanks!

Derrick Coetzee 16:48, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

Subheading style (mc)

ww — it's Wikipedia style to capitalise the first letter of section headings, including subheadings. Have a look at: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings) or Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Headings. That's the reason behind the changes at Substitution cipher (and elsewhere). — Matt 08:10, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Good work (mc)

ww -- good start at side channel attack; it was quite a notable gap in our coverage. (I've also replied at User talk:Matt Crypto re PGP — Matt 11:04, 21 May 2004 (UTC)

..cypher.. vs ..cipher..

The reason I corrected those instances was because I found them on User:Wmahan's list of misspellings, not because I was looking for messing up the crypto corner. I was unfortunately not aware that this matter had been discussed at all.

I did verify that I was actually changing real errors, though. Note that I've never changed the word "cypher", only "encypher". According to m-w.com and dictionary.com, cypher and cipher are both valid spellings, but the only spelling given for "enciphering" something is with an "i".

I see you've challenged this argument elsewhere, but I disagree that non-conventional spelling should be used for any reason, including that of being used by some experts. I don't think people who prefer the variant "y" make up the largest part of Wikipedia's target audience even when it comes to this somewhat specialized section of articles.

There seems to be consensus against what I'm saying, though, so I'll keep off of the lawn in the future. Sorry for the trouble, and thanks for leaving me a note about the issue. Fredrik 17:29, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

I've replied at User talk:Fredrik. — Matt 09:23, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Also, I've put a case for "cipher" on Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography/Cipher vs Cypher — Matt 11:48, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

On a somewhat related point, thank you for posting a message to my Talk page alerting me to the new discussion.
James F. (talk) 20:59, 25 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I've replied on my talk page. Arvindn 03:15, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Resolution on cipher vs cypher (and NSA)...

ww -- I was hoping we could finish off our cypher vs cipher discussion (Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography/Cipher vs Cypher), seeing as how no additional comments have been forthcoming for a while. I was particularly hoping for a response to the "Can we agree on what to do?" section, the gist of the proposal being that since it seems "mostly harmless" to yourself, yet others think it is important, there's little cost to yourself to standarise.

On a related note, I was surprised to see your changes to Eli Biham and PGP, changing "the NSA" to "NSA". In Talk:National Security Agency you appear to be advocating standardising the articles, Thus, among us cryptiacs (or cryptonauts?), and in articles on same, it should be NSA, no 'the'.. This seems at least a little at odds with your various arguments about accepting usage variations in the English language.. — Matt 15:42, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Matt, I waited for a while to respond to your can we agree on what to do section as we two are not the only participants. Indeed, I have twice tried to respond (the time for waiting having been sufficient by some vague standard) but have lost the edit in both cases. WP has been up and down of late... I'll try again.

On the revision at Biham, I was trying for a more historically relevant account of how it was that it became known that diff crypt had been discovered at least twice before. The historical sequence is as I have left it; the edit summary could accomodate only a brief comment which seems to have been a bit confusing.

As for the other, it's not an inconsistency in my position. For the NSA or NSA only, the NSA really does ring quite clearly wrong in some circumstances. I've tried to develop an explanation of this at talk:NSA, but as you might guess from that none seems quite compelling even to me.

Does it not ring equally wrong in some cases to your ear? Albeit yours is a BE ear? On this, because of the clear wrong ring, I think there is less room for debate, though this being English, I'm absolutely confident there will be some, as there has been.

To my ear, just "NSA" rings wrong, and "the NSA" seems correct; there's plenty of room for debate, e.g. Schneier uses both forms in Applied Cryptography (e.g. p597-599, 2nd ed, if you have it). Equally, "block cypher" looks hideous to my eye. Having said that, I would stress that I don't think we should go by what we feel to be correct, but follow what is actually used in various writings. I do think this is an inconsistency in your position, though, because you simply declare that the NSA "really does ring quite clearly wrong", yet argue that we should tolerate both "cipher" and "cypher" because English has lots of variation. — Matt 21:15, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Matt, Have to disagree about the inconsistency. In the one case we have the language itself (perhaps) changing -- Sassure's 'parole'. On the other we have a coding issue from sound (leaving out accentual effects on the orthography) to a written representation. I don't know that the language itself is changing and I don't know any way even in theory to even reach more of an awareness of what's happening than I (or you) have already. In the other, it's arbitrary, albeit without a rational system in place (or an Academy to issue eidts) how to settle the arbitrary is harder.

I'm surprised that your ear doesn't hear something odd about the NSA. Maybe it's an AE shift that we (I) are sensing seismically deep in wherever languages change. Fascinating, and as I note below, a very odd feeling. ww 13:53, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I guess I perceive inconsistency, as the arguments that you give to variation in spelling also, it would appear to me, apply also to variation in "NSA" vs "the NSA" — I don't think you've yet mentioned the reason for a distinction. But I don't particularly want to discuss that, but rather I was hoping that you might reflect on your desire to standardise on "NSA" over "the NSA" — based on (what seems to be) just your preference — and understand why people might wish to use "cipher" instead of "cypher" — based on what's used overwhelmingly frequently in modern cryptography. — Matt 16:21, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Matt, Let me try again, then. What is a language? It is, obviously, a collection of vacabulary (different (more or less) than other languages) together with a notional codebook mapping vocabulary to meaning (in a complex multitudinously self referential way) and some rules for structure (grammar and such). So far, so (probably) not very controversial. The controversial part begins when we try to get any closer to any of these elements in any particular case, say the assorted English pluperfect (imperfect, sort of perfect, really not perfect, ...) tenses.

For a long time, until Sassure (mentioned here and there in some of my comments on this issue), what test one might apply to determine whether this word or this usage pattern (ie, grammatical construct) was part of a language was not really too clear. Consider such border problems as the edge of the Danelaw for determining what was Anglo-Saxon or not, or Alsace and Lorraine for much of their histories, or the similar border through what is now Belgium for French v Nederlands, or ... Sassure claimed that the test was parole, ie what is actually found in the wild (like computer or other viruses, sort of) among fluent speakers of a language. Thus, my opinions on whether this or that is properly a part of Gaelic (any flavor) are incompetent. I can't speak a lick of any of them. But I speak a bit of French (about 1 bit just like a typical monoglot AE speaker) and might have an opinion on some question of French usage. But, by Sassure's criterion, I'd still be irrelevant as I'm hardly fluent. And some agent of the l'Academy would probably extremely sanction me (ie, fatally) if I dared. Cowardice forbids. And so it is that, if this account of language's nature makes sense to you, the Miss Fidditches of the world are permanently irrelevantly babbling to the extent they refuse to acknowledge that the textbook is at best an approximation.

Since fluent speakers occasionally (!) disagree on what is (or is not) proper usage or vocabulary, what a language is is a bit indeterminate. Which neatly explains how it is that a language can change, as for instance English (or various proto versions of it) has so persistently done. Just change what the fluent speakers think is right. Or find a new group of fluent speakers (as happens in creoles), and what they speak becomes a new language. It's something of a non explicit, unconscious, never quite called for a vote, hard to watch, ... kind of plurality rules thing. How it is that this happens is mysterious, but it certainly does. If most (and we're not talking a (50% + 1) majority here, but something rather larger and hard to pin down) fluent speakers of English accepted awful as meaning full of awe than it would be an appropriate word for a reaction to, say, St Paul's. On the other hand, if most (in this same sense) took awful to mean really truly horrid, then it presumably wouldn't apply to St Paul's (modulo architectural taste, of course). The word (however it's written) has actually been used both ways within historical times, I understand. One use seems to me to be a misuse, but I'm now well on the other side of the divide. Many words in Shakespeare have changed meanings in similarly significant ways, one of the reasons Shakespeare's intent in this or that passage is less than limpidly clear today. Corruption of text, lousy note taking, publisher 'improvements', editor follies, ... all contribute of course as well. Thus far, we're talking about something happening within our joint brains. This is (if you think Chomsky's on to anything at all) not arbitrary in any sense, but a reflection (some levels of indirection on) of physiology or inherited wiring patterns or some mysterious such. My participation in such determinations is obscure, not easily noticed, and I'm fascinated, if only occasionally able to watch. It's the possibility that the NSA v NSA is such a thing that's so interesting, and the reason I'm interested in what your (BE) ear hears.

Spelling, on the other hand, is merely an arbitrary englyphment of the sounds used (approximately and ignoring accents). We would still have the English language in exact full if it were written using Tengwar, or one of the developments of the Brahmi script, or han gul, or in katakana. My sense of participation in the insanity of English spelling is at best bemusing, and mostly maddening, unlike that noted above. You've noticed how my fingers have decided to wash their hands of the whole matter? Who determines what is the correct mapping (or, in English, the mishmash mapping) between sound and glyphs is not at all obvious. In English it's certainly not any sort of consistent phonetic scheme. It's not you nor me, and it's not majority vote either (at least going by the history of English spelling), nor is it merely that the experts use this spelling (however crudely coerced by their editors), as the only 'neutral' authorities we have (the dictionary compilers) retain variants for extended periods.

Does this clear up the conflation in your mind? ww 14:27, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm afraid I'm going to have to be honest and say "not entirely"... ;-) From what I can gather, you're saying that language tends to standardise itself to a large degree and that spelling remains fuzzy. Well, bringing it back to our specific discussion, I would ask you to consider again a point which you've already agreed: the spelling "cipher" is used overwhelmingly more frequently than "cypher" in modern cryptography. The current standings are about thirty books to zero, and (if I could be bothered to list them) hundreds (thousands, probably) of academic papers to, well, almost zero. Yes, there's divergence of spelling for other words: "colour" vs "color", "spelt" vs "spelled" and so on, but our case, "cipher" vs "cypher", in the context of modern cryptography? An agreement seems to have evolved — Wikipedia should mimic that agreement. — Matt 15:52, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Matt, Enough ':'? I'm afraid I have to agree with your "not entirely". I'm not at all sure 'language' does anything at all (there's distorting reification here, lurking like recumbent cats in a dark hallway tripping us all), but rather its fluent practicioners do (more or less jointly) something that we can sort of observe. What's going on and how it happens and how speakers cooperate in doing so is the fascinating (and almost entirely unknown) bit. At least I think it's fascinating. But whatever is happening, Sassure's point is that to define as language anything else (specifically including the written variants thereof) is to miss the point. It's in that arena that the the NSA v NSA thing is happening, if anything is. I still feel a virtual itch surrounding this usage, despite some weeks of having it in the foreground of my thoughts. As for the spelling thing, let me get back to a reply to you at the cy v ci discussion. I'm loosing the : here! ww 16:22, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think here we are encountering an actual case of parole (in the Sassurian sense) trumping school lessons on perceived (wrongly in this case) correct practice. It's a very odd feeling to become aware of this happening in one's head. I've seen it happen, after the fact, in regard to much slang terminology (of course examples have just fallen out of my left ear!), but I had no sense of being involved personally. I feel at one with Chaucer and Shakespeare and Pope and Jefferson in this case -- well at least a microscopic amount.

Thanks for including the new snake oil article in list of crypto topics -- you beat me to it by moments, it seems, for it was done when I got there. And for moving snake oil it to the paren'd title, I was waiting for Jorge to respond before even attempting to do so, as will be apparent from my note in the Talk page. ww 16:23, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

How to add something to a category

ww -- to add an entry for an article to a category page, you insert a "Category" tag into the text of that article itself; e.g. inserting Category:WikiProjects at the end of WikiProject Cryptography. — Matt 20:26, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Response to welcome (decrypt3)

Hi ww, I'm just acknowledging your welcome to WikiProject Crypto, with thanks. As to the cipher-cypher debate, on my user page you'll also note that I'm half American and half Japanese, so my American side puts me firmly in the "cipher" camp! (My Japanese side doesn't really care.) I can't think of anything I can add to the debate, so I'm staying silently on the "cipher" side. Once again, thanks for the welcome. --Decrypt3 20:52, Jun 11, 2004 (UTC)

cy v ci

I'm not fluent in Japanese, unfortunately, but I can tell you a few things. It's almost completely standardized throughout Japan. Of course there are regional dialects, but they affect primarily spoken language, not written. For what you were saying about the relationship between sounds and glyphs... there are about a zillion kanji that can be pronounced "ki", but if you're wanting to say "tree", only one of them is correct. Additionally, a lot of them can be pronounced as something other than "ki" depending on their context.

I do speak Flemish (Belgian dialect of Dutch) adequately, however. I've gone and added notes on pronunciation to the Rijndael page. And like the Japanese regional dialects, Flemish deviates from Dutch primarily in the oral aspect, not written. Dutch tends to be faster and more guttural. Flemish speakers also roll their r's, whereas Dutch speakers don't. --Decrypt3 18:15, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

I guess I misunderstood you the first time. There is a one-to-one correspondence between Hiragana and Katakana. All of the Kana are distinct from each other, except for two pairs: "shi" and "chi", with the dakuten (the little marks that turn "ta" to "da", for example), are the same sound - "ji", as well as "su" and "tsu" with dakuten both being "zu". However, there are rules that determine which to use when there is a "ji" or "zu" sound. See Hiragana for details. The Romaji are also in one-to-one correspondence with the Kana, like the Romaji as I've used here.

WikiReader Cryptography

ww -- another cunning scheme: a Wikipedia:WikiReader/Cryptography, a collection of cryptography articles gleaned from Wikipedia. It'd be great to have your suggestions. — Matt 20:24, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Crypto

I thank you for the invitation, but I'll stay outside for a while -- most of my edits were requested categorization I did, and crypto is not my main interest. I find it hard to contribute, since our crypto articles have such high standard, so I don't think there is a topic I can cover. Kudos to all-you crypto writers and good luck! ✏ Sverdrup 15:50, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Now I've seen the notice; my watchlist is growing past the unusable, so I missed it earlier. I'm not too serious about apologising, note the smiley :-), no worries. [[User:Sverdrup|✏ Sverdrup

] 15:24, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Emmett Watson...

At last -- why didn't I think of him? :-) I know what you mean about being tormented by not recalling this kind of thing. Sorry, btw, that I haven't helped much more with crypto. Is there an article you want me to set my limited layman's eye to, or are things moving along nicely? Thanks for your note while I was away -- I appreciated it, and it helped remind me of why I like it here. Obviously it worked -- I'm back and happy again. :-) Jwrosenzweig 20:07, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Informing wider community

ww - I thought I'd advertise the WikiReader Cryptography plans a little tonight (well, tonight for me...); does the proposed article page look OK? (P.S. "cipher" vs "cypher"? *grin*) — Matt 20:00, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(I've replied at User talk:Matt Crypto) — Matt 20:14, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

ww - I don't suppose you'd mind signing your comments on the WikiReader page? Helps keep track. I was also hoping you might be able to add your own "numerical" score to the summary table, or is that just too much complexity / hassle? — Matt 21:03, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(I've replied to some things at User talk:Matt Crypto). Is the summary table OK? It would be very useful to maintain, as you could glance at it and see what people thought about various articles, but if it's too much hassle for people to edit / update it, then we're probably better off without. — Matt 15:44, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

(I've replied at User talk:Matt Crypto) — Matt 16:23, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)

PaX FA Discussion

Could you take another peek at PaX and elaborate a bit more on the FAC page about your objections? :)

I've moved the "Why PaX is signficiant" section to the top, which starts off by simply stating that PaX turns most security attacks into DoS attacks, with a short explaination of exactly what that really means.

Also, I removed "most" as used in the first sentence of that section and replaced with "many;" really, there's only a handfull of software packages that are still exploitable with PaX in place, but I would rather be more conservative about this and not go yelling on the wiki that PaX can catch damn near 100% of everything. In my experience, it gets damn close:

http://www.cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=format+string

AFAIK that is the only class of attack which PaX can't catch :) That list only ever gets bigger; it doesn't lose items just because a software package was fixed.

--Bluefox Phoenix Lucid 01:07, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)

re2 PaX comment

Sure I'm willing to put up with limited help :) It's always great to see someone willing to help rather than cheer from the sidelines (like I do normally).

First off, what do you see wrong with the structure as is now? It's best to work with the majors first: Section order, missing or false (I shouldn't have anything false) information, unneeded cruft that just confuses the reader. After that's all good, concerns about minor bits of wording are worth raising.

--John Moser 19:33, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Cryptography mailshot

Hi, quick note to let you know about what's happening with the WikiReader in Cryptography. There's now a provisional Table of Contents to work with, and for the next 68 days or so there'll be an "Article of the Day" scheme: each day there'll be a particular article highlighted for reviewing and fixing. There's two templates for this purpose: Template:WikiReaderCryptographyAOTD and Template:WikiReaderCryptographyAOTD-Verbose. The smaller one looks like this:

WikiReader Cryptography — article of the day edit (https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php?title=Template:WikiReaderCryptographyAOTD-Verbose&action=edit)

MRR

Monday, 20 June

HMAC

(Talk)

(History) (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=HMAC&action=history)

Tuesday, 21 June

Data Encryption Standard

(Talk)

(History) (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Data_Encryption_Standard&action=history)

Wednesday, 22 June

Classical cipher

(Talk)

(History) (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Classical_cipher&action=history)

Thursday, 23 June

Linear cryptanalysis

(Talk)

(History) (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Linear_cryptanalysis&action=history)

Friday, 24 June

Secure shell

(Talk)

(History) (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Secure_shell&action=history)

Notes: If you find problems that you can't fix (or it's too much effort), it would be very helpful if you could place a note on the Talk: page. Articles need to be checked for 1) Accuracy (Factchecking: Are there any mistakes? Is the writing precise? Are sources cited?), 2) Completeness (Any obvious omissions? Does it need illustration?) 3) Quality of writing (Copyedits: Grammar and spelling, phrasing, structure) 4) Neutrality (Is it written from the NPOV? Do we document all relevant points of view?) — Thanks!

— To-do list for Classical cipher Template:Ed2

Talk:Classical cipher/to do

(See all to-do lists for this WikiReader)

These articles are likely to be some of the earliest English Wikipedia content to get turned into a print version, and any help in making them as good as possible would be much appreciated. Thanks! — Matt 01:48, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Constitution et al

Hi. I haven't had a chance to look at that yet; thank you very much for reminding me. As for the Constitution, Emsworth says he found several factual errors, esp. in the Bill of Rights section. I suspect it's the history, but I'm not sure--would you mind doing a quick review? Thanks very much; I'm not sure what's wrong, but hopefully it will get fixed, because once we get the facts down, I think it's definitely featured article material. Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:23, 2004 Jul 30 (UTC)

Not sure about the context, but I'll go over it with that in mind. As for the errors, I suppose I'll ask the objector himself, who apparently does keep a history library in his head (he's been responsible for about 20% of all featured articles over the last month). Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:56, 2004 Jul 30 (UTC)

Thanks for your words (SirJective)

Hi ww, you told me not to worry too much about my untrained english on my discussion page. I already heard about "ghoti" = "fish" and found it very funny.

In the future, I might take the challenge and translate german articles into english. *g* (Until now, I only translated the other way round.) This may start with just placing my proposal of an addition from Talk:Cantor-Bernstein-Schroeder theorem into the article. Had I done this already in october 2003, it would surely be transformed into the correct wording. --SirJective 15:27, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC) (Please correct mistakes you find here, so I can learn.)

Enigma

Thanks for your compliments on my Enigma diagrams! When the Wikireader on cryptography is ready for it, I'd be glad to make a cover design for the purpose. My cryptography knowledge is fairly limited, but it's fascinating stuff.

Colorado Springs has been home to some interesting people. I need to get over to the Nikola Tesla museum sometime. Who is RAH? Living at 1776 Garden of the Gods Road these days would be tricky; it's all businesses and industrial centers along there now. -- Wapcaplet 18:06, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Kludge admireabity

Hi, I note you added to 'kludge' a sentence nothing that that it's never elegent or admireable. I've slightly altered the wording to suggest that the only admirable quality of a kludge is that it does the job. Please take a look and see what you think.

Yes, the _one_ good thing about a kludge is that it does work, hence my change. I believe I've left your ironic point intact, although I don't know that the original phrasing necessarly spoke to the common usage to which you refer. I think the most important part of your addition is that kludges are not good, which could be overlooked in all the talk of kludges being a solution. Yes, calling something a kludge is an ironic act, as by definition you're calling something an ugly work of art. I've tweaked my phrasing a couple of times since I wrote you, you might want to take another look. To support your "ironic usage" perhaps we should add "It generally takes a skilled craftsman, someone intimately familar with the properties of the material at hand, to produce a working monstrosity which is artitstic enough to be called a kludge."? BTW, I'm only familiar with the term in it's CS usage. (Is this how/where this discussion business works? Should it be on the kludge discussion page? I suppose I should get a username.) i-- 66 Aug 5 07:44:45 UTC 2004

Thanks for the welcome.--Kop 04:56, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See Talk:kludge for more on ironic and your latest edits. (Can't make it link directly :-( ) Maybe some of that text can make it into the article. See you in weeks.--Kop 05:12, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Password cracking

Hello.

I notice that on 16:23, 23 Jun 2004, you added informations to the 'Brute force attack' paragraph, however, one of you sentence appears to be unended. It starts with : 'Using longer passwords in such cases (if possible,'

... then nothing else.

Have a nice day.

Crypto illustrations (wapcaplet)

Thanks once again for the kind words! I've had a visual talent for as long as I can remember; graphics were what got me into Computer Science, so it's somewhat ironic that I haven't done much of anything graphical in terms of programming. I've done so many graphics lately for Wikipedia that I'm considering putting together a demo-DVD of my graphic work, since programming employment hasn't fallen in my lap yet.

I think you're right about the "long key." I'll see if I can emphasize it better (though it's obviously kind of impractical to make it, say, 4096 bits in comparison with a 64-bit "normal" key.)

Yeah, it's a little unfortunate that a digital signature doesn't too closely resemble a handwritten one, but it really seems like the best analogy we have; it's a kind of authentication. From what I understand, most of the caveats involved with proving the validity of a digital signature (certainty that Bob's public key is really Bob's, that nobody else has his private key, that a good protocol is used) have analogies in a handwritten signature too (i.e., ability to recognize Bob's signature, certainty that nobody else can forge his signature; use of a good protocol would maybe be analagous to how hard it would be to forge Bob's signature - if he scribbles, it may be easier, but if his handwriting is distinct, it's harder). At any rate, unless someone can suggest a better metaphor than a pen, I'll stick with that. (By the way - alien wombats living under Greenland? 1 Whose artistic flourish was that?)

For Alice and Bob, I was mostly just having fun. Any ideas for how they might be changed to better reflect anything that is known about them? I wanted them to be generic, overall, without being uninteresting. Found myself struggling with the question of their ethnicity... I suppose in some strange way they are reminiscent of the college professors I had. Bob, especially, resembles at least two of my CS profs. -- Wapcaplet 18:31, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

You are blessed with quite a vivid imagination :-) A bingo ball cage or Lotto-style ball fountain are certainly good analogies for random number generation, but unfortunately cumbersome to encapsulate in a smallish icon. I've made a six-sided die for that purpose, because it's simple and easily recognizable as something that produces random output.

Faked moon landing, yeah; the American public is strangely unskeptical. I remember a few years back FOX aired a special (http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html) on that, hosted by Mitch Pileggi of The X-Files. Completely lame and ridiculous. "Can't see the stars in the sky! The dust doesn't get stirred up by the air! Must be faked!" (I think the Gallup poll showed something more like 6% of Americans think it's a credible theory; isn't there another statistic somewhere showing that 6% of Americans will agree with just about anything (even alien wombats) in a poll?).

By the way, I read that great essay about the personalities of Alice & Bob. Perhaps I should give them each sunglasses and a turned-up trenchcoat collar? Maybe Bob should be chain-smoking? Alice with a tinfoil hat? Both should have that wild-eyed paranoid look. I dunno, though; I have always pictured Alice and Bob as two normal people with a healthy dose of doubt about the good intentions of others. They are happy people, because they believe their communications can't be easily tapped by agencies operating under the USA PATRIOT Act. I don't want the illustration to be distracting.

I still gotta think of something better than that ink pen/digital signature, though... -- Wapcaplet 16:12, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

On email contact (mc)

Hi ww, you said (at Talk:Jerzy Ro*$£9"*$£something) (which seems I'm able to fix even without admin powers):

On another subject altogether, I noted that you should get in touch with me on email in an earlier comment. I now renew the request.

Sorry if I overlooked this; I can't remember noticing the request at all! Feel free to get in touch with me by email; you can do so by clicking "E-mail this user", a link which should appear when you visit User:Matt Crypto. — Matt 00:07, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Reply (isomorphic)

I see that someone has already switched the article back to its old name, so I miss my chance to duck into a phone booth... anyway, there are no hard guidelines for how long someone should be around before being nominated for admin. Generally it's around three months and a couple thousand edits, but it depends on the person. From what I've seen of Matt's work, I'm sure he'd be a shoo-in. Isomorphic 03:42, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Diabetes Mellitus

Hi, it's Prisonblues. Thanks for the feedback and for more work on the diabetes mellitus diagrams. I made this one from my notes on glucose action on insulin, but don't seem to have that much more information available (I saved some cash this year sharing some text books with friends, so don't have them here at home). Have you got any images in mind that I could work from (from scratch though) for what you had in mind? --Prisonblues 01:16, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yr secret ID

Looks like you are probably User:163.151.0.253 (a fact that would at least be worth mentioning at the corresponding user page; you should also get the nearly 800 edits that are apparently yours under this IP attributed to User:Ww). That would make what i asked at User talk:163.151.0.253#Lists & TRAC much easier than i made it sound, if so; could you check there and tell me on my talk page where you choose to reply, or that i'm mistaken? --Jerzy (t) 09:39, 2004 Aug 26 (UTC)

J, Sorry, no spandex suit here. And no phone booth either. This seems to be an artifact of the Wiki deciding I've been on long enough and 'helpfully' logging me off. More response at Talk:Jerzy. ww 15:53, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks

Thanks for welcoming me back. It's good to be back in full force again. You're right about the down time -- while I was gone I finished up my Masters thesis and relocated to Canada for PhD work. Cheers. CryptoDerk 04:36, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

Minor edits

Hi, Just a suggestion: typically only spelling corrections and such are marked minor (in non talk pages). Addition of any actual content, or any change in the meaning, no matter how small, should not be marked minor. Thanks. Arvindn 04:58, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Infosecpedia

I happened across one of your edits on Wikipedia. I started looking at your contributions, and liked what you had to say about and the edits you made to the information security related articles. I was wondering if you wanted to participate in a project I've started. If you have a few minutes take a look at Infosecpedia at http://www.infosecpedia.org. --Chris Brown 22:20, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. – Ram-Man ^{(comment (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Ram-Man&action=edit&section=new)) (talk)}[[]] 14:13, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

cypher v cipher

Actually, my concern is not the spelling. I can tell this is a serious issue when I saw this page. However, all I know is that the link for cypher is a disambiguation page, but cipher redirects to Encryption. You can obviously see my predicament. Seeing as how it seems cypher can mean a number of things, I think cipher by default becomes the preferred spelling. Otherwise, I guess we're going a number of pages with [[cipher|cypher]] in them. Also, correct (or just make a note not to change things) on the cypher page. In reality, I couldn't care less, and I'll leave it to you all to debate. --Ricky81682 (talk) 05:25, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Re. Math CotW

That article you nominated (Modular forms) is a pretty bad article, but it doesn't fit the Collaboration of the Week standards (it's too big an article). Perhaps one week we can add it as a "rewrite from the top down" special collaboration- I'll keep it in mind. ral315 02:32, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

New Mathematics Wikiportal

Whoops...I posted this to a ton of contributors to the math articles I've seen...as you already know about the Wikiportal, disregard this message. ral315 02:58, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

dka

Thanks for the note. I had not even looked at the DKA article. It really is fairly bad-- nothing but oversimplified pathophysiology with some errors and omissions. Nothing on circumstances, treatment, risks, etc. I put a brief synopsis of dka in the main diabetes article at your request a few mos ago, and one of these days I will rewrite the dka article. Your note nudged it up a little higher on the list. alteripse 23:33, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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User talk:Ww

Welcome

Enimga <> stream cypher??

JNC on PH

logical fallacy good & Constitutional Debate of Canada

CRYPTREC (mc)

CryptoDerk's plans

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Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security (mc)

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crypto (jengod)

Tonkinese cat

danny

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meelar

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message form Simpson'sFan

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..cypher.. vs ..cipher..

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How to add something to a category

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cy v ci

WikiReader Cryptography

WikiProject Crypto

Emmett Watson...

Informing wider community

PaX FA Discussion

re2 PaX comment

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Constitution et al

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