From: miner <miner333@dogbert.xroads.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1997 17:21:03 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Making OCR'ed code transfer easier
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19970130011914.00737930@dogbert.xroads.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


A month or two ago someone related their experience with OCRing code and
getting it to work; even when it compiled correctly there were still subtle
errors that he/she had to spend hours finding. With the recent threads on
OCRing the DES cracker I was thinking of ways to make it more foolproof
without going so far that the FEDs would get excited. 

If the author/publisher was to include a hash of the source code the person
doing the scanning would know when it was good without having to compile it
and then run it to discover there were still errors in the source. A hash
per page of code would be even easier as it would localize the errors to a
more manageable area, or even more sophisticated methods could be used to
localize any errors.

How far you could go in providing feedback on the correctness of the OCR
process without getting the FEDs all excited is the question.

Just a thought
miner