Madeleine Dupont

If there was one thing that I learned in the subjects of geography and human relationships in 4^th standard, it was the fact that long distance relationships never work out; especially when you never had a relationship in the first place.

~~~*~~~

It all started when I was in fourth standard, way back in 1994, before the times of the ubiquitous Internet and free web email.

Clara Miss (Mrs Clara Arockiaraj), our class and science teacher, weaved through the desks and placed a letter in front of everyone. I noticed there was a photograph stapled to each letter. She approached our desk, gave one letter to me, one to Azeem, my over-sized, cunning and bullying neighbour, smiled at him and moved on to the other desks.

I looked at my letter and the photograph that was stapled to it. There was a girl in it with a big fluffy dog, standing in the front-yard of a house. There was snow all over the place and the dog and the girl were standing on a thick sheet of snow. The girl was very pretty.

“Whoa!” said Azeem, looking at the photograph in my hands. That was more or less my expression too. It took some time for him to close his mouth, “Give me that, you pig!” he snatched at my letter.

I grabbed to it with my dear life. “No! You have yours!”

“Give me that! You keep mine,” he said, tugging at my shirt. I hadn't seen his photograph. He had folded and thrown it on my desk by now.

“No way!” I said, sensing the sinisterness in the deal, “I'll tell Clara Miss.”

“Give me that, or I'll..” He punched me mid-way through the sentence.

“Stop it or I'll tell Clara Miss.”

He punched me again saying, “GIVE. ME. THAT. You pig.”

“Okay, show me yours first,” I said, buying time. Clara Miss was still busy distributing letters and photographs in the last rows.

“Here,” he said and finally showed it to me.

My mother had always told me not to make fun of how people looked and in those days, I used to listen to her. But on that occasion it was irresistible. The boy on his photograph looked like a pink boulder, just like Azeem.

“Hehehe. Good for you,” I said, “I don't want that! I want a girl. So, I won't give you mine.”

“GIVE. THAT. TO. ME,” he said again with clenched teeth and twisted my free arm. He kept pulling at the other and finally managed to muscle the letter out of me. Only then did Clara Miss have the time to take control of the class.

“Quiet now, boys!” she said standing at the center of the class, “Have all of you got your letters?”

“Yes miss!” [chorus]

I wanted to say “No!” and complain about my letter, but it was useless. Azeem would only bully me later and get the letter anyway. In the meantime, Azeem had opened my letter and was already beaming with pride. I looked at the picture of the boy I had in my hands and grew sad at the loss of the girl.

“Alright, all of you,” continued Clara Miss, “Read your letters now. No exchanging. You can take it home and write a reply to that letter and submit it tomorrow. You can also bring a photo of you. Write your name, class and section clearly on the letter. Do not write your address. The replies will come to the school. If you write your address, I will not send your letter. Understood?”

“Yes miss!” [chorus]

My school was (and still is) a part of a Catholic congregation called the Congregation of Holy Cross (Congregation de Sainte-Croix). There are a few schools in India and possibly in other places of the world as well, as part of the congregation. Once in a while, we get visitors from other such schools. I guess, at that time, we had visitors from a constituent school of the congregation in Montreal and they had thought of the brilliant idea to start a pen-friends club. They had instructed the students of a class to write letters to pen-friends and had brought them along.

And mine was at the hands of a bully. I knew I could never fight Azeem. I sighed and thought about plans to get my rightful letter back.

~~~*~~~

One of the good things about the mafia is that they never forget the good deeds you did for their boss. Having the class mafia's boss – Rajkumar, as my bus-stop mate and the constant seat-holding in the school bus and the occasional homework-writing for him – did help in getting my photo and letter back. After the recess, Azeem came back with soiled uniforms and bruised elbows to return them. He snatched his own letter and photo back and left.

~~~*~~~

I went home that day and told my mother I had to write a letter about my hometown Salem (I'm not sure if Clara Miss asked us to do this or I came up with the ingenious idea) to a pen-friend in Canada. My mother was skeptic about the whole affair seeing the cost of international postage involved (money was a little hard to come by then and it was really hard to get funds sanctioned from the Finance ministry), but she soon became supportive after she learnt that it was borne by the school. Noticing my more-than-average excitement, she even supervised my letter writing. We were initially lost on how and where to start. Then I decided to follow the style of the letter I received (I guess the habit stuck!) -

Dear Pen-friend,

My name is Madeleine Dupont. I am 8 years old. I live in Montreal with my parents, my little sister Helene and my dog Chester. I like ice-skating and painting animals. I also like playing with Chester. My father is a policeman and my mother works for our church. I can speak French and English.

Where do you live? Does your city have a zoo? Montreal has a very big zoo. I like visiting it often. It has a parrot called Helene which my sister likes very much. There is also a big statue of a dinosaur I like. But there are no real dinosaurs in the zoo. Does your zoo have a dinosaur?

Madeleine

I noticed that she had a really bad hand-writing (worse than Rajkumar's and even my brother's), but I bore with it. I thought that she was quite dumb in studies. Nevertheless, I wrote a long similar-styled letter back -

Dear Madeleine,

My name is Sivasubramanian*. I am studying in 4th standard in Holy Cross Higher Matriculation Secondary School**. My father's name is Sivakumar. He is a businessman. My mother's name is Sumithra. She is a house-wife. My brother's name is Sivapermual. He is studying in 1st standard. I am a good student. I got 3rd rank in my class in last year's half-yearly exam.

I like to play cricket and leg cricket. I like Jackie Chan films. I also like the Home Alone film very much. I like to eat mini dosa and noodles. I like Golden Dragon noodles. I also know Karate***. My brother is going to Karate class. But I can fight him easily. I also like WWF. I also have two albums full of foreign stamps. My aunty also gave me foreign coins. Do you collect stamps and coins?

My city is called Salem. It is in Tamilnadu state. It is full of mountains. It is famous for mangoes. It is also famous for Salem steel plant and Mettur dam. My father took me to the see that plant during the summer holidays. I wanted to see how the steel grows on the plant. But steel plant means a factory with a big furnace. There is a big lake in Mettur dam. It is also famous for Yercaud. It is a hill station. It has a big lake where we can go boating. There are many monkeys on the way. I am scared of monkeys. I am very scared of dogs also. There is also a big garden with old trees. There is a very old stone tree there. There is a famous temple called kotai mariamman temple in Salem.

There is no zoo in Salem. I have seen a dinosaur only in TV. I have seen the Jurassic Park film with my grandfather in Madras. But there is exhibition every year. In exhibition, there are many rides like giant wheel, tora tora, frog train and helicopter. I am afraid of giant wheel, but I like tora tora. My brother is very afraid of tora tora, but he likes giant wheel.

Do you have snowfall in Montreal? I have seen snow only on TV.

I will send five Romania stamps to you. They are extra stamps in my collection. I have another set. I will also send Indian stamps to you. I have 6 Canada stamps. If you have extra Canada stamps, can you send me?

Your loving friend****,

S. Sivasubramanian

IV Std – C

* - Note the trendy 'n' at the end of my name. An old-school governmental clerk in the Department of Matriculation Exams was responsible for the ugly 'm' that I have now.

** - I never really got the hang of the order of my school’s proper name then.

*** - There had to be a lie somewhere.

**** - That was the only salutation taught in letter writing.

There! It took me three attempts to make a flawless fair draft of that letter. I had written it without a single correction. It was time now for a perfect photograph to go along with it. I couldn't pick any from the recent Madras summer vacation collection because, in summer, I was always given a really bad haircut. So, I found one from a recent wedding collection and put it in an envelope with the letter and the stamps.

The next day, Azeem snatched my flawless letter (knowing well that any damage to it would spell doom) and read it. He said that I should have used a stylish sign instead of just writing my name. He also said girls liked stylish signatures, like how they sign in the films. I was upset and thought of rewriting it. Then I realised that I left my favorite glitter pen at home. It was no use writing the letter with any other pen and consoled myself.

Finally the time came for the submission and I slowly strolled to Clara Miss’s desk and gave it to her for inspection. She opened the envelope to see if I had written my address and noticed the stamps. She smiled as a sign of acceptance and kept it along with the other letters.

Phew! I sighed with relief and walked back to my desk with great hope; feeling like a man who had toiled hard to invest his savings in a 30’x40’ plot in the outskirts of Salem. I was very happy I had a friend in Canada. “Madeleine!” I said to myself. There was a certain joy in having such a pen-friend - the dream of getting to know more about people in a faraway place, the joy of sending and receiving gifts, the chance to invite them to my house for the summer vacation when they come to India or my staying at their house during the summer vacation when(?) I went to Canada. And since Madeleine was a pretty girl, there were also the additional dreams of falling in love and getting married and so on and so forth…

~~~*~~~

A week of such dreaming had gone past after I had sent the letter and there was no news from Clara Miss about the replies. I asked my mother how long it took for a letter to reach Canada and she said it took about two weeks. So I calculated that it would take a month more to get the reply. Mid-term exams arrived on time and I was diverted from the thoughts about Madeleine and her reply. Post mid-term exams, I heard no news about the letters from Clara Miss. Everybody in the class seemed to have forgotten and I was the only one initiating conversations about the pen-friends club and the replies. It looked as if I was the only one expecting the letter.

Finally, after a month and a half, Clara Miss brought a small bunch of letters and distributed them to the class. Only a few of us got the letters and I wasn’t one. She then informed us that those of us who hadn’t received it now will get it in in the next bundle. I sat there frustrated about the ensuing wait, during which time, Azeem taunted me by waving his reply letter in front of my face.

Another month and a half passed and a larger bundle arrived this time. Apart from those who got replies the first time, a few others got their replies as well and I wasn’t part of this tiny group as well. After that tiny heart-break, I entirely dropped the plan of stealing my cousin’s jimmikis that I wanted to send to Madeleine the next time.

Nevertheless, the pen-friends club thrived. They elected a president and vice-president for it from the senior classes. These guys were in charge of collecting the replies and submitting them to the Teacher-in-charge for review and finally to the school’s dispatch section. They even did some useful things like arranging new pen-friends to all those who hadn’t got replies.

With dreams of a union with Madeleine still lingering on in my mind, I refused and decided to wait. Half-yearly exams came and the winter vacation arrived along with the next bundle of replies from Canada. Madeleine hadn’t replied. Finally, after the Christmas and New Year vacation, I gave up. I was officially heartbroken. I was gloomy during the entire vacation and lost my entire collection of Big Babool wrestling cards to Rajkumar in several games of cricket and wrestling cards.

When school reopened, it was time for the publishing of our school literary magazine – “Paper Bridge”. I wrote a poem called “My Lost Friend” for it. Surprisingly, they published it (under Section “Miscellany” Sub-Section “Non-sense poetry”)

Moon may become red

And apples may become white

Dogs may start to meow

And cats may start to bowbow

Lions may fly and eagles may swim, But -

Expecting your letter,

Even in the months of winter -

(November, December and January)

Every day and night, I will wait…

I really thought that it was ingenious and that it deserved a prize. I had even managed to slip her name (or at least its homophone) into the poem that no one found out. But as always, I received nothing.

A little later that year, something cheerful happened - I won the first prize in the fancy dress contest! I still wonder how I managed that feat. There I was, clad in a soiled silk kurta and wearing an over-sized skewed, smelly wig on my tiny head and an even smellier beard on my face, I walked towards the center of the stage, with a nasty-smelling glass bottle (which my father took out - to my mother's surprise and horror - from a secret chamber of his cupboard) filled with Coca-cola. I meandered enough along the way - swaying to the left and right, as my father taught me to, and finally reached the center and faced the audience to deliver my well-rehearsed dialogue.

My mother and I had managed to copy some quotes on love and heart-break from a quotation book I won as a prize earlier. I had the lines by heart and I was supposed to deliver them interspersed with coughs. But by the time I reached the microphone, I had forgotten the lines -

“The course of *cough* *cough* true love… *cough* *cough*… errr… ummm…” and I waited for ten seconds and I couldn’t recollect the rest of it. By this time, the crowd had grown impatient. I then tried recollecting the next line.

“My love for you *cough* *cough* is… ummm… *cough* *cough* past the mind… *cough* *cough* … errr… ummm…” This line deserted me as well. And there I was standing on the center of the stage, being a laughing stock. From there, I could see the crowd laughing at me, including Azeem who was standing on the side of the auditorium in his green rubber dinosaur costume along with his parents. He had received great applause for his highly expensive costume earlier. All he managed to do was stand in front of the mike and say “Gurrr… gurrr… I am a dinosaur…. Gurrr…. Gurrr…” I always wondered why he needed a costume to look like a dinosaur.

Nevertheless, there I was – being a laughing stock in front of my arch-enemy. My mother was standing near the entrance of the stage and was mouthing the lines so that I could pick up. I was bad at reading those days, leave alone lip-reading. I was helpless and so, I contemplated running out of the stage, out of the auditorium and sprinting straight home. And then it struck me - My poem! I began with renewed sorrow -

“Moon may become red *cough* *cough*… And apples may become white *cough* *cough*…

Dogs may start to *cough* *cough* …. 

[…] 

Every day and night, *cough* *cough* I will wait…"

And finally, as rehearsed earlier, I fell on the stage with a BIG THUD and died.

Clara Miss later said that I was the best Devdas in the history of fancy dress in my school. She even said I deserved it. Azeem punched me the next day for cheating. My mother said they gave it to me for the sheer realism with which I delivered my dialogue.

How I wish she knew it came from the bottom of my heart!

~~~*~~~

And thus began a saga of disappointments. As I grew up, I tried all modes of making pen-friends. I tried the pen-friends pages of Gokulam (Kalyan Ragunandan), Wisdom (Vikram M) and Tinkle (Priyanka Garg) and spent my precious pocket-money on postage. And as the squiggly tentacles of the Internet reached the browsing-centers of my small-town, I even tried my hands making penpals on the Internet (Chandrika Vaas and many others). I guess I have the record for sending out the largest number of pen-friend letters without receiving a single reply. And then I gave up (thankfully!) before the rise of social-networking.

(Now is the time I have to admit I have no idea how to finish this story.)

Sometimes, I wonder why I was so excited about pen-friends. Was it the need for companionship? Was it simply adolescence? I guess I always wanted to learn the culture of places that I saw on TV, first-hand from someone who was part of it. (And of course, the falling in love and getting married and so on and so forth parts hold true as well…) I guess I always dreamed a lot.

~~~*~~~

P.S : Load and loads of fiction. :-)

P.S.2 : Inspired by a blog post by Anoop V Namboodiri at my workplace blog about a similar pen-pal mishap.

Game of Life

I am fascinated by the idea of John Conway’s Game of Life. Also fascinating is the term used to describe it – “a zero-player game”. I guess all of us are familiar with zero-player games -  at least those who have built a house with packs of playing cards, stepped back a few feet and have rolled a marble at its foundation to see how it goes crashing down; or those who arranged a long trail of matchboxes and toppled one to set the tumbling in motion (like the dominoes in V for Vendetta). There is some kind of godliness in doing an initial set-up of a system, in kicking it off and in sitting and watching how it pans out.

Conway’s Game of Life is a system with simple rules  -

The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite two-dimensional orthogonal grid of square cells, each of which is in one of two possible states, alive or dead. Every cell interacts with its eight neighbours, which are the cells that are horizontally, vertically, or diagonally adjacent. At each step in time, the following transitions occur:

1. Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
2. Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
3. Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
4. Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.

The initial pattern constitutes the seed of the system. The first generation is created by applying the above rules simultaneously to every cell in the seed—births and deaths occur simultaneously, and the discrete moment at which this happens is sometimes called a tick (in other words, each generation is a pure function of the preceding one). The rules continue to be applied repeatedly to create further generations. (Extract from the Wikipedia article)

We can understand that, when the above simple rules are applied on a particular seed or inital arrangement, complex patterns start to evolve. Interestingly, on the flip side, a very complex inital arrangement when processed by these rules might destroy itself completely. The Game of Life, initally of academic interest alone became popular after an article on it by Martin Gardner in Scietific American. Numerous complex intial patterns were found by academicians and hobbyists. Some of the examples are - still lifes, oscillators, spaceships, methusalahs, guns, puffer trains, rakes and breeders. (Golly is a tool to see these beautiful patterns in action. It comes with a huge set of complex initial states).

There exist patterns that resemble finite-state machines. This means that the GoL system is Turing-complete, meaning that it is capable of performing any computation that could be performed by a modern computer. (I do not have a clear understanding of finite-state machines or turing machines. Need to delve deeper).

What I find the most facinating with these cellular automata is the amount of time and effort researchers, and more surprisingly, hobbyists put on their research. I sometimes wonder what they get out of it. What beauty do they see in delving deep into such an artifical world and in coming up with patterns? There could possibly be no other explanation than curiosity.

An Interesting Reverse-Analogy

The Game of Life is analogous to life. Generations and civilizations are spawned and after a span of time, destroyed. Though GoL emulates life, I wonder if the reverse is possible? Can human life be lived based on extremely simple rules followed religiously?

I sometimes think that God has to put his head through the skies and scream "STOP!" so that the whole of humanity freezes. He then gives them a command - a simple rule to follow and then snaps them out of the freeze. From then on, humanity functions, robotic it may seem, based on that command and everyone leads a life devoid of the problems before the divine interference.

I wonder what that command would be?

I've always wanted to experiment free will. Suppose we are all told - "You can do anything as long as you cannot prevent others from doing anything they want", and if we all were to follow it religiously, how will the world turn out? Will there be utopia or dystopia?

On first thought, I see this brings more happiness. With the rule firmly etched into all of us, there will be no oppression or tyranny. All such explicit methods of curtailing free-will will be eradicated. What would remain are the implicit modes of curtailing free-will. Most of humanity is bound to one or many of these entities - their community, religion, caste, social class or to their family. Very few have complete individual free-will to make their own decisions. Expectations and demands from family members, and family responsibilites play an important role in everyone's decision-making and at times take people far away from their individual dreams. If all such entities (family, social class, religion etc) advocate free-will, then I guess we'd definitely see happier people around.

(At times, I am skeptic about this experiment. I just wish I could try it out! Note to self: Time to work on the Zombie-iser)

A Day in the Life of Jeevan

A Day in the Life of Jeevan

It was an insignificant day, much like the 16ths and 17ths of a month we would let pass unnoticed. The sun did rise in the east that day and found the monsoon sky of Bangalore blanketting the millions of late-risers still snuggled up in their beds. A few beams that did manage to trickle through lit up Jeevan's bedroom. Buying curtains was an item lost somewhere deep on his long TO-DO list. On some day, when he did have the time (which he always did) and interest (which he never had) to go through the long list and check them off, he would find this item surprising and unnecessary. He would wonder what he had been thinking when he had written that. He quite liked the sun lighting up his room. It helped him wake up early, as he did on that day.

He lay wide awake on his bed and stared at the ceiling. There was no reason for him to get out of it. He pondered about something and smiled. The smile grew to a wide grin and then he left his bed to set about doing his tasks for the day.

~~~***~~~

Toilet duties for the day briskly put aside, he first made himself a mug of coffee and then entered the second bedroom of his apartment. It had no signs of being a bedroom - it was his library cum music room cum workshop. He stood in front of his large bookshelf first and wondered what he was in the mood for. He was very happy that day, happier than the past several ones. He picked Destination Moon from his Tin Tin collection. He then stood in front of his music shelf and wondered again what he was in the mood for. He could not make up his mind. He tried running his fingers over a rack of discs to focus. Every disc looked appealing and trite at the same time. Realising he had no appetite for music that day, he decided to go random.

He turned on a random channel on his radio in the living room. He then went out to his balcony and nestled himself on his chair with his coffee and book, as Bangalore's beautiful monsoon sky greeted him. He could already hear the hustle and bustle of the distant Sarjapur road traffic. Down in his apartment block's large parking space and walk-way as well, the commotion had begun. He looked down from the balcony and found the cemented floor washed clean by the overnight rain. Yet again, Mr Ramji, from 4C of the North Tower (also the unofficial custodian of the cleanliness of Jeevan's sprawling four building apartment block), was taking the security guards to task for letting in stray dogs. Yet again, the security guards turned a deaf ear to him and left wondering from where and how the stray dogs came. Mr Ramji then started warming up for his jog while the couple from - Jeevan always forgot their apartment - returned from theirs. In some time, the office-goers and school children would begin to trickle out one by one.

He got back to his coffee and lost himself in his morning read. Tin Tin's adventures reminded him of his once dear ambition in life to become a detective and go on several adventures. He even had a name then - "The Third Eye" detective agency. Several years and several dear ambitions later, at 25, he smiled at the fact that he had pursued none of them. He was lost in thought for a long time and when it was time for breakfast, he found that he had finished reading seven pages. He then had his regular dose of cereals for breakfast and began work at his workshop.

Apart from the large shelves full of his books and music discs, his 'polymorphous' library slash music room slash workshop had an enormous table in the middle, on whose side, he had fixed a vice. Other miscellany in the room included a Guy Fawkes mask, a quiver full of arrows, a witch's hat and a violin - all of them mounted on the wall. Upon the large table, lay a long bow that looked beautiful even without its planned engraving, darkening and polishing. It was the first time Jeevan had ventured to make a bow and after two broken ones, he had managed to carve out a masterpiece. He held it with his left hand and ran his right over the sand-grained surface.

"Perfect," he said to himself, admiring his work, "Legolas would be proud."

It was heavy because of his choice of wood. Knowing that he would never use it, he chose longevity over efficiency. He wondered if someone would actually use such a heavy bow efficiently in battle. The urge to string it and test it was overwhelming. He had spent a month planning, designing, ordering the tools and materials, and then actually making it. He finally gave in to the tempation and strung the bow, took an arrow from his quiver and went to his balcony. He looked around and finally fixed his aim at a trash bin near the South Tower's car park. A shot from the sixth floor balcony to a trash bin about 200 feet away was not the ideal first shot he would have liked for, but he went with it considering the lack of other targets and the safety of materials and men in other places. The beauty of the projectile, which he wanted to admire for long, would continue to elude him until he went outdoors. He gripped the arrow with his fingers, took a deep breath, drew the string, took a clear aim at the plastic bin, released it and listened to the reverberations of the string, as the arrow sped towards and over the bin, missed it by a shockingly long distance and fell flat on the top of a car - thereby denting it and then landed at its side.

"Oops," he said and doubled up for the mini-disaster management.

He quickly sneaked out of the house with his wallet, a pen and paper in case he needed to write a note to the owner of the damaged car, walked briskly to it, retrieved his arrow from its side, estimated the damage it did to the car (which, he was relieved to find, was undetectable and hence harmless) and sneaked back in to his house.

The desire to shoot an arrow satiated, he then removed the string from the bow and began engraving a few lines on it in Elven. After three hours of intricate detailing and engraving (which included his signature as well), he finally began the final task of polishing it. When it was over, it was way past his lunch time and he realised that he had over-worked. Admiring what he had managed to create, he thought it was time well-spent and a meal well-skipped. He even decided against ordering food home and had apples for lunch.

Tired from the engaging work, he rested on his living room couch and considered taking an afternoon nap. He felt the day deserved better than an afternoon nap. In fact, he felt it deserved the best! He picked his favourite movie - 'V for Vendetta'. He had lost count of the number of times he had watched it. He considered himself to be V's greatest fan and he had all of V's dialogues by heart.

Ten minutes into the movie, he muted the audio and sprang from his couch and enacted V's dramatic introduction -

"Voilà!" he said in tandem with V on the TV, "In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition!"

And he swooshed his imaginary sword to etch an imaginary V upon thin air and continued with a note of seriousness -

"The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous," and after a haughty laugh, "Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honor to meet you and you may call me 'V'".

Proudly, he sat back in his couch, turned the volume up again and continued with his movie. At the point where V set Evey free from her captivity, his phone rang.

It was Mary.

"Hey Mary!" he said in a suprised tone, without the customary 'Hello', "Are you back?"

"Oh yes, I am, Bertie Wooster!" said she, pulling his legs.

"Bertie Wooster? Hmmm," he hmmed, buying time to get back at her, "So, how are all the poor children in the North East, Miss Teresa?"

"Oh," she said, "The usual. I mean - like everywhere - malnourished and exploited."

"Even after you've been there for four months?"

"Yes, even after I've been there for four months."

"Good to hear that. So, now you see there's no solution to this problem?"

"Don't start on that argument!" she said, warding off their never-ending discussion on social problems, "So, How's life for you? Still very busy doing nothing? Or you found yourself a job?"

"Job? Haven't I told you - Jobs are a 20th century invention and I don't want one."

"Ah yes! That quote! McCandless, right?"

"No. It's Supertramp's."

"Hmmm," she said trying to remember something she had forgotten.

"So, Are we meeting?" asked Jeevan breaking the pause.

"Oh yes!" and she remembered, "I was coming to that. I need some money."

Jeevan smiled. Mary hadn't changed a bit - she would pull all strings available, however socially inappropriate, to wriggle out of situations and yet keep a cool head while doing so. He wondered what situation she was trying to wriggle out of.

"You just came back from a company sponsored trip to the North East and you straightaway try to borrow money from me?"

"It's not a company. It's an NGO. And isn't that when people borrow money - when they are in need?"

"No, I didn't mean that! Don't they pay you at all?"

"Oh! That they do. But you know - it's a long story. I lost forty thousand setting up a library - a mini-library actually. Had to dip into my personal savings. I thought I could tally it with the help of some rich patron someday. Now, I am in need of it and you tell me - how many other rich patrons do I know?"

He smiled at her logic and tested it further, "No way. You're taking me for granted."

"Oh C'mon, Jeev! What are rich friends for? It's just forty thousand. I'll pay you back when I get a pay hike."

"First of all, I am not rich. My father is. Second of all, do they even have pay hikes in NGOs? Anyway, I'll send you. And this is the last time."

"Last time it is."

It was always the last time, each time. But Jeevan never regretted lending money to Mary. He knew it was money well invested.

"So, Are we meeting?" he asked again, breaking the pause.

"I'll call you about that."

"Alright."

"Alright then. Have fun."

"That, I have. Thank you."

He then went over to his laptop, transferred the money and after looking at his balance, made a note on his TODO list - "Get money from home."

He resumed his movie and as it ended, it left a void in him that every good movie or book did. He made himself some tea and finally, as the day came to a close and as dusk approached, he felt the void grow bigger. He felt he needed a break from the monotony - he felt the need to see people. He decided to go to Forum.

Forty-five minutes later, he managed to drive his car into a vacant parking space at Forum. He roamed aimlessly for sometime and then went to his usual first floor spot and observed his fellow humans. An hour later, he had dinner there and drove back home.

~~~***~~~

Today, If I remember correctly, marks one year since "The Great Quarrel" (Or should I use "The Great Enlightenment"?). So this makes it "My Year of Living Dangerously". ;-) That holds literally too. Anwar anna has even now not given up calling me up and asking me if I am safe. Life has been more than safe. It has been bliss. I do miss them, but I am now happy that I'm living far from them than living a hollow and meaningless life. I am happy that I don't live a life entirely determined by the need to put up faces in front of others. I'm glad those days are over and this is life at its best.

I guess I have not yet conquered the will to have people around. I do feel lonely at times, so lonely I wish I hadn't left home. This makes me doubt if Thoreau ever felt lonely at Walden Pond. I doubt if Supertramp ever felt lonely. Would V have felt lonely had he been real? Or at least boredom? That brings up the question - What's the difference then - between loneliness and boredom?

Why can I not spend all my time watching/reading/listening? Why do I crave for human contact? What's the difference between spending an hour with a book and spending an hour with a person? Customised perspective? Possibility of love? Touch? The answer still eludes me.

May be, it is easy to throw away a book that you don't like. But not a person. On the contrary, it's hard to get a human you like. Ah! Humans are intrusive and make life complicated. Books are simple and leave you free.

---
I was at Forum today. I see a lot of permanent-tatooed people. It's interesting. Another mode of expression of solidarity to something? (I should get one too.) :-)

---
I finished making the bow today. So, the bow and arrows are ready. The quiver needs some final touches. The ears are ready too. The tailor called. He said he will deliver the cloak tomorrow. The goldsmith said the fiery etchings are done as well. I guess I am all set for Operation Middle Earth.

---
Mary is back and in need of money again. I guess she has got into a habit of borrowing money from me, which is quite worrisome. But yes, Mary is back. :-)

---
I'm glad I'm writing this even after a year - Tomorrow will be yet another day when I wake in my bed and nothing will be expected of me.

Jeevan then put his diary back in its place, picked his copy of The Golden Treasury

and went to bed. ~~~THE END~~~

Irreversibility

Once in a while in the passage of time, a man gets so obsessed with numbers that his life is irreversibly changed. On the day Ram walked into my office with his theory, I knew he was obsessed.

~~~*~~~

I met Ram in my Advanced Number Theory class. It is one of our graduate level courses. I have been teaching ANT for the past 12 years, but I don’t remember any student in all these years who had as much passion for numbers as Ram did. It was evident that he was a class apart from his peers after a few classes. He solved the standard textbooks problems with no difficulties, abstracted what he learnt, posed problems for himself and began working on them. He quickly gave up solving my assignments as well. The only reason he was still attending classes was because he said he needed – in his own words – “fresh perspectives”.

Though he was my best student, we had never met out of the classroom. He worked on his own, never collaborating with anyone. I was sure he made some discoveries worthy of publication, but he never cared to publish. I realized he was aiming for something else. With the questions he was raising in class, he seemed to be on an abstract and directionless pursuit. Though I was curious and worried about where he was headed, I never took the initiative to talk to him out of the classroom. I thought he was a mad genius and it was best to let him be.

Two months into the course, Prof NRV mentioned that a guy in his class had been skipping all other classes except ANT and that he was at the verge of losing his stipend. It was worried it could be Ram. It was. I decided that it was time I had spoken to him.

In the next class, I went to his desk and asked him to meet me in my office after class for a chat. I waited for him, but he did not turn up. He sent me an email in the evening –

“Dear Prof. Hari,

I am sorry for not turning up. I know why you wanted to meet me. I’m alright. I am working on something far more rewarding than my stipend or my classes. I have delved so deep into solving this problem that I find my classes a waste of time. I now realize that I should have enrolled for a research oriented program. Classes don’t make sense to me anymore. But back then, I didn’t know what to pick… my interests are clearer now!

The next few days are the most crucial for me. I hope to make good progress. What I might discover as the solution could be path-breaking. This makes it all the more exciting. I might be missing ANT classes as well.

I’ll meet you soon with some good news!

Ram.

P.S: One-way functions. ;-)”

~~~*~~~

Five days later, he walked into my office. He did not look like someone bringing good news. He was bearded all the time, but his shabby dressing made him look worse. He looked tired as well.

“Good afternoon, Professor.”

“Oh! Good afternoon, Ram,” I motioned him to take a seat, “It’s quite a surprise to see you these days. So, how’s your research going? When are you getting back to classes?”

“Classes? I have not even thought about them Professor, but my research is on track.”

“What are you working on?” I asked, curious about what was holding him back from attending classes.

He hesitated and then spoke, “I am working on finding a universal reversal function. Umm… For example, like a universal de-hashing function.”

I wasn’t quite clear with his terminology. I wanted to make sure if he really meant what I understood it as. “You mean a function that accepts a hash value and returns the original plain text?”

“Exactly,” he said with excitement, “But hash functions are just a sub-set of one-way functions. I intend to find a generic function that can output the original input value when we input the one-way function used and the output it generated. If we use it in the context of hash functions, it can de-hash a hash value generated by any hashing algorithm.”

“Ram,” I paused trying to figure out the best way to put it, sighed and then told him, “I cannot put this in any other way, but what you’re saying is ridiculous.”

“I knew everyone would say this,” he said clearly losing his excitement, “It’s hard to accept the fact that a hashed value can be de-hashed and a one-way function can be reversed.”

“It’s not hard, Ram. It is impossible to accept it. You are trying to deny the very nature and purpose of hash functions. That’s what they are - Once you hash a piece of text, there is no way you can get the original text back.”

“I know the definitions, Professor. I think that’s what blinds you from seeing beyond. You fail to question the definition. I believe there is no such thing as a hashing function. In fact, there is no such thing as a one-way function as well. An input put through a mathematical function resulting in an output can always be reversed. Everything is two-way. I strongly believe in that.”

“You believe?” I asked in disbelief, “one-way functions have been proved to exist!”

“Then I intend to disprove it,” he said suppressing his anger, “Let me explain, Professor. Suppose I take each computation in a one-way function, I can see it has an input and an output. The output of each computation becomes the input of the next. This becomes a chain of causality. I believe – if you have the final output and all the steps of the function – then you can trace it back to the initial input.”

It was then that I realized I was arguing with someone who always questioned the premises of argument. “And this tracing back is what one-way functions do not allow! There is loss of data!”

He remained silent and said “You are going back to the definitions again. You don’t see what I see.”

I couldn’t understand what he could see. He was incorrigible and he was losing the argument. “Okay, Let’s take an example. You say your de-hashing function can give you the original text if you input the hashed value and the hashing function?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s take any hashing algorithm – MD5 for example. Whatever be the input, be it a 100 page Shakespearean play or just a single character – say an ‘A’ – MD5 always spits out a 16 byte output! There is no way you could de-hash the output into a 100 page text! Data is lost during hashing. You cannot conjure up the data from nowhere! And it applies to one-way functions as well.”

“Yes,” he sounded offended, “you cannot conjure up data, but you can certainly do it within the boundaries of present-day mathematics.”

“I’m sorry that I sound discouraging, but I don’t see this going anywhere, Ram. Even if you were to find such a universal de-hashing or a reversal function, there are so many problems. What about hash collisions? There could be infinitely many plain texts leading to the same hash value. If you were to de-hash it, how would you choose the correct input text from the infinite number of possible input texts?”

“It’s hard to explain to you, Professor,” he said and stood up, “I’ll show it you. It’s just a matter of days. I came here to ask you a favour. Now, I don’t need it. Thank you very much.”

He then stormed out of my office with stern determination.

~~~*~~~

I hadn’t heard of him for a week after that. Then, I received an email –

Dear Prof. Hari,

I’ve done it! I’ve managed to come up with the way to reverse a one-way function! (and to “conjure up” data! :-))

Here’s a sneak preview of my algorithm –

6dc48f564c3f21cbde15075932df63494968589b

Oh! I’m sorry I forgot it’s hashed and I’m the only one (except for Prof. Basu) who knows how to unhash it. :-)

Prof. Basu is hosting an inter-departmental seminar at the RCAMR this Friday. Researchers from the center are also invited. Prof. Basu is planning to make my discovery public that day. Please do come.

Ram.

Prof. Basu was the head of our department and the director of the Ramanujan Center for Advanced Mathematical Research. The “center” as we called it, was a privately funded research organization in our campus. I couldn’t believe Prof. Basu would invite researchers of the center for Ram’s seminar. Either it was going to be path-breaking or he would be making a fool out of himself. I thought I’d know in two days’ time.

~~~*~~~

It happened the day before the seminar. I remember that instance very vividly. I was in a class that morning. Prof. NRV walked swiftly into the class and whispered into my ears to step out. I was first confused. He said it was very important. He was sweating profusely and was acting hysterical. Just as I stepped out of the class along with him, he sputtered –

“Prof. Basu passed away in an accident today. He was on his way to the campus. And that boy – Ram – he was found burned to death in his room. It was a fire accident. No one knows how it happened.”

~~~*~~~

For the next few days, our campus was the talk of the country. There were several media reports, investigations, controversy theories and other such cacophony. After it all died away, I was left with what caused it all –

6dc48f564c3f21cbde15075932df63494968589b

It took away two lives.

It had the key to ultimate reversibility.

And it was irreversible.

~~~THE END~~~

Accommodation Available For 1 Person in a 1BHK in Konapana Agrahara - C1 - P1

Hello People-Who-Are-Looking-For-A-House-For-Rent or their Friends and Ye Dear Olde Non-Existent Readers of Mine,

Accommodation is available for one person in a 1 BHK in Konapana Agrahara (close to the Ayyappaswamy temple). It is very close to Infy as well! (If one walks at a brisk pace, one can start from the house at 8:53 AM be on-time for a 9 AM meeting in Building 36. And you can get your tie done on the way too! :-)). Currently, I am the only person staying and the house is immediately available for occupation.

Details and Some Assorted Protocols of the House –

• Expenditure for a month : 5150 to 5250 (Rent : 3800 + Internet : 1100 + Electricity : 250-350) to be shared equally by 2 occupants though the new one is welcomed to offer a bigger share considering the poor financial state of affairs of the older one. (Dear Person from the HRA Verification Division of the Income Tax Department, I’ll deal with you later. Hold On.)
  


• All basic amenities and furniture are available including a gas stove and a WiFi Router and a backward-compatible USB 3.0 powered nose-trimmer which is forbidden for common use, although the sufficiently large book-shelf can be used by both occupants. No geyser though, only an immersion heater!
  


• The sump never gets empty. So, 24x7 water supply in the pipes! (Intermittent air supply available because everyone in the building is too lazy to go and switch on the motor :-)).
  


• No parking facility. Not even for a bicycle. Wait! We can manage some space for a bicycle, but definitely not for a bike. Wait! There is plenty of space for a bicycle in front of the entrance of the house! Just that it has to be carried up two floors as the house is on the second floor. The same can be said about a bike, if the new occupant happens to be Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent (C’mon, you can trust me with your secret identity! I can be your side-kick!). Err... Why does Clark Kent need a bike? :S
  


• No TV in the house! Yes, it’s Cricket World Cup Time! But still no TV! You’ll just have to manage with high-speed internet. :-)
  


• The cosmopolitan in me has been resisted by the conservatively-upbrought in me (And by the neighbours' broomsticks). Hence, women needn’t apply.
  


• The new occupant has to sign a 3132 page roommate agreement drafted meticulously by the previous roommate. (Yes, He is Sheldon! I’m just Leonard!)
  


• The door on the room has space left for only one poster. And the poster should blend in with Meg Ryan and Vasundara Das.
  


• With great accommodation comes great responsibility. Hence, the new occupant has to uphold the intellectual lineage of the house. In this regard, he needs to embrace British Comedy, meaning - he needs to watch at least one episode of any British comedy show daily. Also, he is expected to read the Madras Edition of The Hindu or the Calcutta Edition of The Telegraph daily for local news. All other Indian newspapers are forbidden as they have been tested and rated as, as Captain Edmund Blackadder puts it, “soft, strong and thoroughly absorbent”. International news accumulation methods are left to the person’s taste.
  


• Any visitor (relative or friend of the new occupant) to the house will be treated caringly for the first 3 days and sparingly for the next 3 and will be frowned upon thenceforth. No vice-versa enforcement allowed for this rule.
  


• Few stages in the hitherto enforced "Rite of Passage" to become the occupant of the house has been relaxed owing to the headache that has arisen in constant pondering over the very low response rate of applicants (and over the sudden use of profanity by them) after taking a look at the “Instructions and Hints For The Rite Of Passage To Become a House Member”. From now on, the applicants need not write a 14 page ballad titled “The Scratch On the Wall” nor write a summary of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire or of Finnegans Wake nor cook a three-course French meal nor program an artificially-intelligent story-telling engine nor be filthy-rich enough to play venture-capitalist to the existing occupant’s business ventures. Other stages of the "Rite of Passage" hold though.
  


• The house needs to be dust-*aaa…choooooooo*-ed, swept, re-dust-*aaa…hmmm*-ed and moped to perfect cleanliness every week. Since the house is vulnerable to dust accumulation, the level of dust should be constantly monitored and kept under 100 ppm.
  


• The occupant’s laptop should have an attractive girl’s name. The adjective “attractive” qualifies the word “name” and not “girl”! (Ah! The vagaries of the English language). The house’s “Laptop Name Hall Of Fame” (rhymes!) includes “Rachel” and “MITRA (My Information Technology Research Assistant)”. An “Emma” or a “Zooey” is highly welcomed and would aid in the tie-breaker in case of multiple applicants achieving the same admit-score.
  


• The new occupant is advised to doze off well before the existing one because of the existing one’s godzillic snoring abilities. If he refuses to pay heed to the advice, he is warned that he would learn by mistake. Now, no thought should strike upon you about the sudden vacation of the house by the previous roommate. Some people are just incapable of bearing the slightest of disturbances.
  

I would like to end Chapter 1 - Part 1 of the “House For Rent” advertisement abruptly. I will publish the other chapters of the clearly drawn-out advertisement in a few days’ time. I am waiting for my ghost-writer and editor Mr. Frank Pickle to truck me the edited final draft. He is struggling to find a courier company with a 10-ton truck at their disposal.

I take leave. Good bye for now.

The Inconsiderate Bandh

22-Jan-2011
Electronics City, Bangalore.

Dear Chief Minister,

I write to you in a state of severe frustration. After witnessing the events that took place today as a result of the inconsiderate bandh, I have realized that you and your government have been entirely ignorant of the welfare of the common man.

Today, my family spent Rs.450 for travel in auto-rickshaws where we could have spent well under Rs.100 in buses or Rs.200 at the maximum in Volvos if we needed some luxury. The auto-rickshaw journey from electronic city to Majestic cost us Rs.300 and we considered ourselves lucky because of the compassionate auto-driver (Another auto-driver outrageously asked us Rs.800. We were so shocked to hear the amount that we weren't even interested in bargaining). The point to be noted here is that we could afford Rs.300 for this trip. I am sure you know the vast majority of our people cannot afford such a travel.

I would like to bring up the plight of others that I witnessed. I saw people travel in cramped private buses. There were overloaded private buses, cabs, tempo travellers and even maruthi vans. I watched 10 people (both men and women) get into a Maruthi Omni van. I doubt if these modes of travel are legal. People travelling in these modes of transport had to face two problems -

(i) The amount of money such cab and bus operators charged. I suspect they charged double the usual fares. Though I did not travel in it to actually get to know the fare, I strongly base my suspicion on the claim that auto-drivers and private bus operators do not miss a chance to exploit the plight of the common man.

(ii) Safety! People hanging off foot-boards. 10 people cramped into a Maruthi van. I am sure you would understand how unsafe such situations are.

These problems are not new or specific to the bandh. We can find people experiencing these problems ALL the time. But there was always a way to overcome these problems and that way was to plan in advance. And what bothered me to the limits of severe frustration was the lack of no such option! Every common man dependent on public transport had to experience all these problems today or pay exorbitant prices for other modes of transport.

It is time to ask more important questions that nag the common man. The first one is - Why a bandh?

I phrased this question in different ways first - "Why did you call for a bandh?" and realised that the stress is on the word "you'. I realised that you did not call for the bandh yourself and that your party did it in your welfare. Then I phrased it as "Why did you let your party call for a bandh?". Then I realised the question was much simpler. "Why a bandh?"

I am sure you know better than I do about how a bandh affects the common man. Given this, It is pointless to call for a bandh for any cause. In this instance, it was called for in order to protest against an allegation against you. Whether you were rightly or wrongly accused is immaterial. Even if your supporters and party members think that it is a false accusation, is it not your responsibility as a leader to put the welfare of the common man first and call off the bandh? Are you not capable enough to call off a bandh called for by your own supporters and party members?

Even if they went on with the bandh, should you not be worried about the common man first than your supporters? Shouldn't you go ahead and take a stand on continuing essential services like transport at least? An efficient police system can definitely can take care of miscreants and the transport system can definitely be run. Even if it might lead to the damage of public property, it is worth a try. It is time a leader like you took a stand against such pointless bandhs disrupting essential services and causing trouble to the common man. The common man has enough problems to face. He needn't wake up to face a small bunch of people calling a bandh for a pointless cause and make his day harder.

The second important question I wanted to ask is - Why declare it overnight?

I hope you do understand that the fact that this second question has been asked in itself is a failure on your part. I believe an ideal chief minister should stand up against anything that goes against the welfare of the common man. But, I'll compromise on that. Suppose calling for a bandh is inevitable, then why do it overnight? Is it not your duty to give time for the common man to plan for himself so that he is least affected?

That is all I have to ask though I might have missed an important point. The mere definition of a bandh might be to disrupt the normal life of a common man. But in this specific case, I found the reason for it utterly pointless and since the reason concerned you, I find you, as a leader, irresponsible and inconsiderate because you did nothing to stop it.

If I were given all supreme powers and if I were to pick the chief minister the next time amongst those who asked me to consider them, and if you are one of them, I would first ask you - "Why did you not stop the pointless bandh on January 22, 2011? What is your answer for the troubles a common man faced on that day?"

Sincerely yours,
A frustrated common man.

The Science of Secrecy - Part III

This blog was posted on my workspace blog on 08-FEB-2008


~~~***~~~

The Science of Secrecy - Part III

Links to the previous parts : Part I and Part II

RSA

At the end of part II, We saw that Diffie, Helman and Merkle key exchange method was used to communicate the secret key among two people. This scheme was workable but imperfect as it lacked spontaneity. Then they proposed the concept of public key cryptography or asymmetric encryption. This remained a theoretical concept as they had not yet found a special one-way function that could satisfy the requirements of an asymmetric encryption system. So their concept remained a perfect but unworkable one.

After 2 years, since the concept of an asymmetric cipher was proposed by D-M-H(in 1975), another trio named Ron Rivest, Leonard Adleman and Adi Shamir discovered a working model of an asymmetric encrytion system.

All three of them were researchers in the MIT Lab for computer science. Rivest and Shamir were computer scientists while Adleman was a mathematician. It was first Rivest's idea to find a solution for this problem. He then approached Adleman to help him and then Shamir joined in. It turned out to be a perfect partnership.

Rivest and Shamir worked hard to find one one-way function after the other, only to let Adleman find flaws in it. This continued till one day in april 1977, when Rivest came home drunk after a pass-over party. He was sleepless and was pondering over the asymmetric cipher problem. And then all of a sudden, he had a 'Eureka!' moment. At daybreak next day, he was ready with a full length scientific paper. Shamir and Adleman tried to find flaws but the efforts were of no use this time.

The Adleman-Rivest-Shamir(as it was first called by them) asymmetric encryption system was perfect! Then Adleman renamed it as RSA as he was the one to put minimal efforts into it. Before going into the mathematics of RSA, let us recollect the requirements of an asymmetric encryption system:

1. Alice must create a public key with which anyone(Bob) can encrypt their messages to her. It should be an one-way function so that no stranger(Eve) can reverse it to get the secret message.

2. Alice must decrypt the encrypted message. She must therefore have a secret private key which allows her(and only her) to reverse the one-way function.

Putting it black-and-white, we need a system with a one-way function which can be reversible under special conditions(which help only Alice to reverse the irreversible one-way funtion). And this was what R-S and A found:

The Mathematics of RSA

Stage 1 : Alice chooses 2 prime numbers p and q, say p=17 and q = 11. These are her secret.

Stage 2 : She works out N = p x q = pq = 17 x 11 = 187 and then she chooses another number 'e', say e = 11.

Stage 3 : N and e are published in a directory by Alice as her public key or encryption key. It is to be noted that N is unique for every person while 'e' can be common. So these two numbers put together can be used by anyone to encrypt messages to her.

Stage 4 : Now let us say that Bob wants to send her the letter 'X' (its ASCII value is 88). To find the ciphertext C for the plaintext M(which is only the letter 'X'), Bob should use the common one-way function : C = M^e(mod N). Substituting the values, we get:

C = 88⁷(mod 187) = 11. {NOTE : 88⁷ is a very large value. But there are simple techniques to find out 88⁷(mod 187) easily}

Stage 5 : Bob sends the ciphertext C = 11 to Alice. Now Eve can intercept this message. Eventhough he knows the C = 11 value, N , e and the function used, she cannot get the value of M = 88 because the function used is an one-way funtion. (NOTE : It is the same function used D-H-M key exchange method)

Stage 6 : Now Alice can decipher the message back because she has some special information. She knows p and q. She first works out the decryption key or her secret private key named 'd' with the formula :

e x d = 1 {mod[(p-1) x (q-1)]}

so substituting the values:

7 x d = 1 [mod (16 x 10)] = d = 1 (mod 160) / 7 = 23. [Note : finding 'd' is easier thru a technique called Euclid's algorithm]

So, d = 23 is Alice's private key.

Stage 7 : Now, Alice just has to pass her Ciphertext and her private key into a simple formula to get the plaintext M. The formula is M = C^d(mod N) = 11²³(mod 187) = 88! which was Bob's message to Alice. The calculations of this stage are similar to stage 4.

Note : RSA system needs mathematical tools to easily perform calculations for Stages 4, 6 and 7. I feel that understanding the working of this system is itself a great thing from me. My understanding about RSA would be complete only after understanding the proof and how R-S and A created such a method. But I'm worried about the mathematics behind. So if any of you understood the proof, please do a KT to me :-)

Getting bBack, we have already seen the system from Eve's point of view till Stage 5. She cannot get back M = 88 from C = 11 as it is one-way function. But she knows all the values of N, e and the function. So, Instead of trying to reverse this function to get the plaintext, Can't Eve just work out the decryption key 'd' just as Alice did? like in Stage 6? The answer is 'no'! because she doesnot know the value of p and q(which are Alice's secret).

But Eve knows N. And N was calculated from p and q (i.e., N = pq). So will it not be easy for Eve to find p and q from N? The answer is another big 'No' and here lies the beauty of RSA. N is a product of two prime numbers - p and q. It is very difficult and time consuming to factorise N which is a product of 2 primes. In real life the values of p and q chosen are so large, that it is practically impossible to crack an RSA encrypted message.

As of 2005, the largest values of N factored is 200 decimal digits(660 binary digits or bits) long. That means that p and q were each 100 digits long(compare them with our example of p = 17 and q = 11). It is an accepted fact that 128, 256 and even 512 bit keys are vulnerable to attack because of distributed computing. So the choice of keys are either 1024 or 2048 bits as of now. But computing power and resources exponentially increase day-after-day forcing the use of longer keys.

Unless someone finds an algorithm for rapid factoring(the existence of which has not been proved or disproved by mathematicians and it still remains a great puzzle), RSA is impregnable. The increase in computing power may push the limits of the key-length. But computing power is like a double-edged knife as it can also be used to search for larger primes and thus feeding RSA with high-security keys. (NOTE: The largest known prime, as of August 2007, is 2^232,582,657 - 1 . This number is 9,808,358 digits long! If p and q are this long, N would be 19,616,716 decimal digits long!). Anyways, this holds true no matter what! :-) Edit : Intranet Link

But since RSA is ultimately dependent on the factoring of N back to the primes p and q, the final verdict is that a breakthrough in Mathematics and rapid prime factoring can give RSA the run for its money.

For the time being, RSA system has solved the problem of spontaneity. Anyone could use Alice's public key and send her their encrypted emails while her own computer could decrypt it with her private key and have the message waiting for her to be read. This is totally unlike D-H-M key exchange method where it requires few intermediate calculations to be exchanged between Alice and Bob before the actual message is exchanged. One more problem with D-M-H method is that with each person one communicates, the choice of numbers must vary. But in RSA, Alice can use the same set of public and private keys as long as she feels that they are safe.

RSA was patented in August 1977 and RSA Data Security Inc was found by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman. It first sold its data security products to militaries and large corporations. The products were initally designed for the computing power and resources of such organisations and it was the effort of a free-thinker named Philip Zimmermann that brought RSA out to the public.

PGP :

"Pretty Good Privacy" was the name Phil Zimmermann gave to his controversial application that he distributed across the Internet as a freeware in 1991. It was controversial because it used the concept of RSA encryption without receiving a license from RSA Data Security Inc. RSA Inc branded PGP as a Banditware and Zimmermann was sued for copyright infringements.

PGP was responsible for the data security of the common masses. One main drawback of RSA was that it required high computing power to encrypt long texts. But Zimmermann reused the age-old technique of encrypting it with someother encryption system.(Note that encryption algorithms were really strong(ex: DES) even before D-M-H and R-S-A. But it was only the key distribution problem that undermined them). So Zimmermann used an encryption system called IDEA to encrypt the message and RSA only for the initial key exchange! This resulted in using RSA even in PCs and thus the wide spread use!

The PGP application had other great features too. It was very user-friendly. It kept the RSA, IDEA and other technical mumbo-jumbo to itself and helped the user to just type in, choose the PGP option and send the email. Even the choice of public and private key was innovative. A user could move his mouse in random directions and according to the movement, the public and private keys(the 2 large primes) were selected. PGP also listed everyone's public keys in a directory thus avoiding the need to remember other people's public keys.

Now comes the best part about PGP. Imagine this : Alice wants to send Bob a love letter. She knows Bob's public key. She can encrypt it with Bob's public key and send it to him. Bob can decipher it with his private key. But everyone knows Bob's public key, right? So why can't Eve write a love letter and put Alice's sign at the bottom and send it to him? What guarantee is there that the email that you receive is from the person you expect it to be from? PGP solves this in an brilliant yet simple manner!

Imagine this and see if this makes any sense - What if Alice encrypts her message using her private key(note: private) and sends its across to everyone? does that make any sense? Everyone can dechiper it with her public key and read it, right? It doesnt help for security. But it helps for 'Identity'! If Alice encrypts a message with her private key and sends it to someone, And if they can decrypt it with her public key, it surely means that the message is only from Alice and no one else!

So PGP uses a double encryption system for this 'digital signature':

1. Alice encrypts her message using her private key first (This identifies Alice). Then she encrypts this message with Bob's public key. This ensures that only Bob get the message(and Thus the security).

2. Bob decrypts it with his private key first. And then to see if it really was from Alice, he decrypts it with her public key!

This system was the first to implement the concept of 'Digital signatures' and was the forerunner to SSL(Secure Socket Layer).

The Anti-Climax:

In 1997, after nearly 3 decades from the time Diffie thought he could solve the key distribution problem, the British Government declassified information about three cryptographers of Government Communication Head-Quarters(GCHQ) with the claims that they had discovered the solution for the key distribution problem and the working concept of asymmetric encryption or public key cryptography way back in 1975 (2 years before RSA was patented)

The British Government gave the credits to three of its cryptographers namely - James Ellis, Clifford Cocks and Malcolm Willianson for discovering it even before the DMH and RSA's times. Since, it was for invented for the military, it was classified as 'top secret' and it remained so for 20 years till 1997 when the British Government thought that it was no use keeping it secret anymore.

It is another story of remarkable ingenuity, anonymous heroes and a government cover-up that endured for decades. It is indeed a sad story which I do not wish to share here for the fact that you will kill me for sucking your time.

FYI, from Wikipedia : "On June 29, 2006 it was announced that EMC Corporation will acquire RSA Security for $2.1 billion." But Cocks and Williamson remained unrewarded till 1997 looking at their invention taking over the world. And the saddest was that James Ellis who discovered a solution to key distribution problem in 1969(4 years before Diffie) died even before the information was declassified!

Phew... Whatever it is, my e-banking account and transaction passwords are safe! Thanks to Modern Cryptography!

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