Monday, July 09, 2007

`Its Huffman coded!' does make sense!

On the post Math Terms used in Real Life- Good or Bad I mentioned the following:
On 24, season two, there was a line `we can't break in, its been Huffman coded!' This makes no sense mathematically but it raises awareness of security issues.
I had thought that Huffman Codes are just used to compress data and had nothing to do with hiding information. I was wrong! Yakov Nekrich pointed out the following to me:
Actually Huffman codes can be difficult to break, see for instance this article: On breaking a Huffman code by Gillman, D.W. Mohtashemi, M. Rivest, R.L.
I'm curious- did the writers of 24 know this or not? I would guess no, and they just lucked out. Unless Hillman or Mohtashemi is moonlightening as a writer for 24 (I doubt Rivest needs the money.)

3 comments:

  1. This is the second time I am pointing out a typo:), Bill.

    It's Gillman in the last sentence not Hillman.

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  2. Compression in general does an okay job of obfuscating data. Not even vaguely cryptographically secure in the modern sense, but reasonable at making it look like line noise.

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  3. Slate carries an interview with 24 writer Loeff, where he says he is "a mathematician and programmer by trade."

    I happen to play Go with another 24 writer. Methinks the writers of this show are more technologically savvy than one might otherwise expect.

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