Category: How To

The Code

The Book of the Week is “The Code, The Evolution of Secrecy From Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography” by Simon Singh, published in 1999. This book described a few different contexts in which communications needed to be deciphered or kept secret– in war, in determining whether to execute a queen, in learning about life in ancient Egypt and Greece, and in electronic exchanges to prevent theft of identity or assets, or maintain privacy.

The author related not only the details of how the WWII Allies were able to outwit the Germans by learning what they were doing, but also every last technical detail of the code-breaking, which is brain-breaking for most laypeople. But not for cryptography hobbyists.

Anyway, beginning in the early 1930’s for about eight years, a German intelligence agent sold information on his country’s secret communications operations, to a French intelligence agent. The French couldn’t have been bothered with such time-consuming, labor-intensive work that would allow them to intercept encoded military messages to and from Germans.

However, Poland was interested. The French turned it over to the Poles because the latter felt vulnerable to invasion from both sides, from the Soviets and Germans. Fortunately, Poland had a long standing-agreement with France to share such information.

Also, fortunately, the Poles’ lead cryptographer was a genius. But it took even him a year to compile a catalogue of alphabet-letter chain lengths in order to be able to decipher the Germans’ daily messages, whose code was different every day.

In 1938, the Germans added two more scramblers to their existing three, which made code-breaking by foreign intelligence agents, very nearly impossible. So in the summer of 1939, the Poles sent their deciphering equipment to Great Britain, which took over the spying operation.

In early September 1939, the Government Code and Cypher School in Britain hired its own genius, Alan Turing. He invented a setup of structures in which the completing of an electrical circuit would be indicated by a lit bulb when a code was broken. Construction of the contraptions of the top secret operation was completed by summer 1940, but the code-breaking was still agonizingly slow.

Different German contingents, such as the North Africa campaign, the army in Europe, the Luftwaffe, and the navy each had different codes. The navy’s was the hardest to break. But the work was worth doing because it significantly shortened the war by informing the British what the Germans were going to do next.

The Allies’ knowledge of German messages was especially helpful in the Battle of the Atlantic, and was instrumental in the Pacific Theater at Midway– in killing a powerful Japanese admiral in the Solomon Islands.

Eventually, 420 Native Americans of the Navajo tribe conveyed messages on behalf of, and to and from the Americans, because their language was indecipherable to the Japanese.

At this book’s writing, “Diffie, Hellman and Merkle [Americans] have become world famous cryptographers who [allegedly] invented the concept of public-key cryptography while Rivest, Shamir and Adelman [also Americans] have been credited with developing RSA [in 1977], the most beautiful implementation of public-key cryptography.”

However, three different British men conceived of the concept first– by early 1974. They were sworn to secrecy, as it was part of a classified military operation, and computing at the time wasn’t powerful enough to implement their concept. Being Americans, the aforementioned latter trio patented their method, and in 1996, sold their company for $200 million.

Interesting factoids: Cryptanalysts are in greater demand than ever before. The U.S. National Security Agency is still the world’s largest employer of mathematicians.

At this book’s writing, quantum cryptography was the wave of the future in cybersecurity, because it would be absolutely unbreakable. It would use either photon transmission or fiber-optics. The message sender and receiver could see whether there was an interloper because the messages would be altered. A card game– Hanabi– has since been invented, that uses the logic that allows communicators to decipher one another’s messages, while preventing third parties from doing so.

Read the book to learn about Philip Zimmermann (someone whom the National Security Agency viewed as a troublemaker), and the whole kit and caboodle on how codes were historically made and broken, and how messages can be kept secure. Six ways to Sunday.

50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People

The Book of the Week is “50 Secrets of the World’s Longest Living People” by Sally Beare, originally published in  2003. The author visited five places in the world where people are unusually long-lived. She argued that their lifestyles account for that phenomenon.

The residents of Okinawa, Symi, Campodimele, Huza and Bama all have insular cultures and an absence of pollution. Three of the above-named places are in Asia and two are in Europe.  The societies’ economies are self-sustaining agricultural and/or fishing and/or herding villages. They engage in rigorous manual labor– lots of exercise– and have the healthiest diets on the planet. Also, they don’t smoke.

Their diets consist mostly of raw or lightly cooked leafy greens, whole grains, seafood, soy products and other legumes, and fresh fruit; plus, hundreds of different herbs, locally grown. They might flavor their food with extra virgin olive oil, capers, garlic and onions. If they have alcohol, it is rice wine, in moderation. Daily beverages include green tea and calcium-rich water.

The author claimed that the farming societies used no pesticides, artificial fertilizers or genetic modification that generate higher crop yields. Yet the societies had adequate food, insects and birds in the food chain that eliminated pests that would harm the crops.

“Most genetically modified crops grown in the United States are corn, canola, and soybeans, as well as cotton, papaya and squash… Genetically modified crops have nothing to do with feeding the world and everything to do with the billions of dollars they are worth annually.”

The author mentioned Monsanto as just one monster-sized corporation that creates substances that contaminate America’s food supply. Disclosure of the data collected by various entities on carcinogens and other harmful food additives created by Monsanto, has been suppressed with cooperation by the U.S. government, just like with the tobacco companies in previous decades.

Read the book to learn which specific foods cut the risk of cancer, and why they do so; and the specific foods, exercises and activities that can help retard aging.

Total Recall

The Book of the Week is “Total Recall, How to Maximize Your Memory Power” by Joan Minninger, Ph.D., published in 1984.  This book gives real-life examples of how people can prevent memory failure with regard to names, phone numbers and other pieces of information.

People often forget specific incidents or data for subconscious emotional reasons. Sometimes it is better to forget past incidents than to trigger painful memories again. But improving one’s memory can play a role in improving or maintaining relationships at work, school or in one’s social life.

Multitasking hinders the absorption of new information. Remembering what was learned will be a fraction of the total number of activities the learner is doing simultaneously. For example, if the learner is doing five things at once, retention will be one fifth as much as if the learner is doing one thing. So it makes sense that research has also shown that retention is better when a student is studying in silence rather than when studying while listening to music.

Read the book to find out the methods for remembering almost anything.

Inviting Disaster

The Book of the Week is “Inviting Disaster” by James R. Chiles, published in 2002. This is an ebook that describes the causes of fatal mechanical failures in aviation and industry.

Human error is always a factor. There is never just one cause. “A disaster occurs through a combination of poor maintenance, bad communication, and shortcuts.” Taking shortcuts such as omitting the testing of newly manufactured machine parts leads to improper, unsafe modification by end users.

In the stages leading up to a catastrophe, when workers realize they are in trouble, most react with intense concentration, anger at the malfunctioning equipment, fear and even panic.

Hypervigilance is a form of extreme panic with trembling hands, hyperventilation and heart palpitations; the mind blanks on what one was taught in training, and perception narrows. Often this causes people to take a course of action with the best of intentions– that makes conditions worse.

Architectural engineers must make sure buildings are designed to withstand the natural disasters that typically hit the areas where they are located. About every sixteen years, Manhattan gets hit by a hurricane that might cause, say, a particular building to collapse. That was why, shortly after it was built in 1978, the Citicorp Building had to be structurally modified at great expense. However, many deaths were likely prevented.

A common chain of events precipitates disasters in third world countries. A light manufacturing plant might be erected in a lower-class residential area. As time passes, however, the owner might want to begin making hazardous products.

Certain conditions prevail:  There is a dearth of laws governing environmental impact; the local economy would suffer if the plant couldn’t expand; the local residents enjoy living there. Over time, people become sloppy about safety.

Before lots of accidents, internal memos warning of an unsafe situation go unheeded. “The bureaucratic solution is to let the memo sit in the inbox for a while– then send it back for more explanation.” It is easier than making trouble, and in the short term, economically advantageous.

One way companies such as Boeing are checking themselves from making the same mistake twice is by continually adding to a knowledge base– confidential archives of troubleshooting reports that are actually read by designers.

Read the book to learn about other ways deadly mishaps could have been, and can be avoided.

Thank You For Arguing

The Book of the Week is “Thank You For Arguing” by Jay Heinrichs, published in 2007. This is a book on debating. The author teases apart the differences between arguing and fighting, and logic and rhetoric.

There are three kinds of persuasive language:  blame, values and choice. Each is of a different tense. Blame is past tense. Values depict the present. Choice talks about the future. The author advises the reader to switch tenses if an argument gets heated. The future, though, is the tense most likely to bring about peace.

People in a courtroom recount past events that involve blame. However, to get their points across, lovers and politicians should try to stick to the present and future. Two useful questions to ask when a problem crops up are, “What should we do about it?” and “How can we keep it from happening again?”

Values, which involve morals, are undebatable. The author says, “Argument’s Rule Number One:  Never debate the undebatable. Instead, focus on your goals… If you want your audience to make a choice, focus on the future.” Also, “When you argue emotionally, speak simply. People in the middle of a strong emotion rarely use elaborate speech.”

One more tip:  When one is deciding on an issue to argue, the most persuasive issue will be the broadest one. For instance, in launching a protest against consolidating two departments in a workplace, one should seize upon the issue of productivity, rather than fairness.

The author sadly concludes that universities used to teach rhetoric, but stopped doing so in the 1800’s when “…academia forgot what the liberal arts were for: to train an elite for leadership.”

Read the book to learn more debating techniques.

Multipliers

The Book of the Week is “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter” by Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown, published in 2010. This repetitive ebook discusses two kinds of leaders:  “Multipliers” and “Diminishers.”

Multipliers positively influence the people around them so as to draw out almost two times what they previously believed their capabilities to be, as reported by senior professionals interviewed by the authors. “People reported actually getting smarter around Multipliers.”

A study conducted in a non-workplace arena showed that people who were lauded for their efforts rather than for their intelligence “actually increased their ability to reason and solve problems.” The book’s authors relate this to Multipliers, saying that Multipliers create a self-fulfilling prophecy of greatness by recognizing their colleagues’ accomplishments, spurring better thinking from everyone.

The authors cited many examples of this, including one in which a company did not hire additional talent in order to meet its goal of increasing sales quickly, but instead, utilized Multipliers to better leverage the brain power of its existing sales force. Another company used Multipliers effectively in that “They didn’t box people into jobs and limit their contribution… [they]… let people work where they had ideas and energy and where they could best contribute.”

In addition, Multipliers have a great sense of humor– the trait of a great leader– it represents security with oneself, and a lack of self-consciousness. Multipliers search for talent all over, identify and draw out the positive behaviors that come naturally to the people they influence, maximize performance, and remove obstacles.

Read the book to learn the many other ways Multipliers bring out the best in their coworkers, and how Diminishers negatively impact their coworkers.

Blind Descent

The Book of the Week is “Blind Descent” by James M. Tabor, published in 2010.  This book describes various expeditions in the 1990’s and later, of supercavers in their quest to find the world’s deepest cave.  Passionate expedition leaders have included Bill Stone, Alexander Klimchouk and Yury Kasjan.  The months-long trips must be meticulously planned in advance, funding secured by dozens of sponsors such as National Geographic, permission obtained by the political entity governing the cave being explored, and supplies collected and hauled into the location.

The supercavers must be very physically fit and not the least bit squeamish, as they wear backpacks weighing upwards of thirty pounds while tolerating squalid living conditions– camping for days exploring dark, narrow, muddy, wet passages hundreds, if not thousands of feet underground. They might encounter bats or spiders, and eat freeze-dried food.

The skills required for supercaving are the same as those required for mountaineering, rock climbing, space exploration and SCUBA diving. The aforementioned Stone constructed a device for SCUBA diving, called a rebreather, that allows a diver to stay underwater for hours longer than was ever possible before. Nevertheless, people have died due to the extreme nature of supercaving.

Rescuers take hours or days to arrive when an underground explorer’s life is endangered, and wireless communications are inoperable underground. There are numerous dangers, including falling off of a steep ledge, getting a slight injury that develops an infection from any of many underground microbes, getting a case of “the bends,” not to mention drowning in a flood or being buried in an avalanche. Meanwhile, the rescuers are endangering their own lives.

This book contains the suspenseful stories of risk-takers surveying the last few places on earth that have yet to be explored.

Confessions of an Event Planner

The Book of the Week is “Confessions of an Event Planner” by Judy Allen, published in 2009.

This volume contains various realistic scenarios of business, personal and charity events to show the reader the nature of the event planning industry. The acronym for how to prepare for any problems is ABC: Anticipation, Backup plan, Code of conduct.

There is always at least one troublemaker at every business event, who must be watched. The author describes their personality types, a few of whom include those who make unwanted sexual advances; those who feel entitled to a hotel room better than the one they were assigned; men who show off their masculinity, and women who are provocatively dressed.

The author points out that meticulous planning is required with business celebrations to head off possible untoward occurrences. There are companies that try to cheat on their taxes, and business executives who have their hand in the company cookie jar. Irate guests might do damage to hotel property. There may be a male executive officer whose mistress (and secretary) is booked in a separate room, but stays in his room at night. When children are attending an event, the planner has to consider appropriate food menus, food allergies, legal waivers and contingencies for liabilities. Part of the planner’s job is to prevent lawsuits by thinking through safety issues and complying with the law. Sometimes, event employees will recognize a situation in which guests’ behavior is about to spin out of control, and put the kibosh on it. They need to work as a team.

Sometimes event planners must deal with “too many chiefs, not enough Indians” with clients preparing a personal or nonprofit celebration. The goal of the nonprofits is to raise funds, but if the goal of the nonprofits’ events representative is to acquire social power, publicity for herself, or find her next husband, then the charity event may actually suffer a monetary loss. Even when all parties have the best of intentions, the nonprofit event may also be a failure because inexperienced volunteers are running it.

In short, the author provides advice on what to do before, during and after an event to ensure a safe, enjoyable occasion that a planner can be proud of.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The Book of the Week is “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R. Covey, published in 1990.  The author tells readers how to improve their social skills to achieve their goals. He illustrates his points with anecdotes on parenting in his own large family. One phrase in the book that stuck in this blogger’s mind is, “Use your resources and initiative.”