From: rarachel@prism.poly.edu (Arsen Ray Arachelian)
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 94 09:39:29 PDT
To: rishab@dxm.ernet.in
Subject: Re: Publishing code books
In-Reply-To: <gate.iHugLc1w165w@dxm.ernet.in>
Message-ID: <9404271626.AA00241@prism.poly.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


How about publishing them as scantron coded circles with a checksum at the
end.  Granted this will be expensive, but it can be made portable, and
we could also include some decoding software that will do the OCR for you.
Most modern scanners are TWAIN compatible these days..  For those that
are not, we could have the program accept different file formats.  TIFF,PCX,
etc. and have it scan the picture and resolve it into binary in minutes.

We should also include the plaintext versions of the source code in the
same book in a large, clear OCRalble font... say Courier at 14 points.  This
way you are guaranteed that you can get at the sources...


The scantron version could also be compressed to a ZIP file let's say...
Text files compress pretty well, so it shouldn't be a problem, and the book
can include the decoding software.  Would this be exportable?

Do you guys remember those old Commodore program listings that had a checksum
at the end of every line?  We could do the same thing to verify OCR to typos.
If an error occurs, we could go and enter the text or binary pattern in by
hand.

Another option is the new 2D barcodes which can store a lot more info than
the regular kind.   Are bar codes on paper exportable?

We could simply include some software to read off the pages with a scanner
and be done with it.


Even so, I'm sure that >SOMEONE< outside the USA would be very willing to
pay a secretary to type in the source code of a book.  :-)  Whatever happened
to the mafias and undergrounds of other countries?  I'd imagine they'd have
the most to gain from crypto software...  Hell, they probably already typed
in all the code in all the crypto books...

In this day and age, this shouldn't be a problem anymore...