Cryptonomicon Pontifex/Solitaire We're back to my favorite book for another round. We've done quite a bit with Cryptonomicon so far. One of my favorite moments is when Enoch Root introduces a cipher that two prisoners used to communicate using just a humble playing card deck. Drawing of the mine

A while ago, I explained in detail how to generate one time pad sheets [https://imapenguin.com/simple-unbreakable-encryption-with-a-pencil/] and use them to encrypt and decrypt messages. It turned out to be doable, only requiring a pencil and a way to create random numbers, but it's slow, error prone and tedious.

Hashes We did an implementation of a once popular hashing function in Part 8 on RC4 [https://imapenguin.com/making-and-breaking-ciphers-on-the-commodore-64-part-8-rc4/] without really going into why. A hash function is any function that is used to map data of an arbitrary size (input) to a fixed size output. An algorithm is

Recap So far we've * Reversed a string [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-1/] * Shifted bits left and right (mostly right) [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-2-the-shift-cipher/] * Brute forced a known simple cipher [https://imapenguin.com/making-and-breaking-ciphers-with-a-commodore-64-part-3-the-caesar-cipher/] * Channeled our inner John Connor by cracking ATM machines [https://imapenguin.com/making-and-breaki

Recap So far in this 8 part series on doing weird things with Ciphers on old computers we've: * Reversed a string [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-1/] * Shifted bits left and right (mostly right) [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-2-the-shift-cipher/] * Brute forced a known simple cipher [https://imapenguin.com/making-and-breaking-ciphers-with-a-commodore-64-part-3-the-caesar-cipher/] * Channeled our inner John

So far in this 7 part (shocked I've made it through 7!) series on doing weird things with Ciphers on old computers we've: * Reversed a string [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-1/] * Shifted bits left and right (mostly right) [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-2-the-shift-cipher/] * Brute forced a known simple cipher [https://imapenguin.com/

Review So far we've: * Reversed a string [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-1/] * Shifted bits left and right (mostly right) [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-2-the-shift-cipher/] * Brute forced a known simple cipher [https://imapenguin.com/making-and-breaking-ciphers-with-a-commodore-64-part-3-the-caesar-cipher/] * Faked it, but then looking for a 4 digit known pin [https://imapenguin.com/making-and-breaking-c

In Part 1 we did a simple reverse of a string [https://imapenguin.com/cracking-codes-with-python-er-commodore-part-1/]. While simple, these software steps will help build the skills we need going forward in Assembly without feeling like I skipped right to a 300 line  after doing a short one. One foot in front

Sometime during my weeklong exploration of SHA-256 on a Commodore realized that there was a whole world of exploration that could be explored. Just because a Computer system is old, doesn't mean it's not interesting or useful. I had expected it to take months to figure out the SHA-256 implementation,