Creative Binary
No serious programmer does not know what the binary number system is, how to use it, count, add, subtract, XOR, OR, shift and AND in it. They can even do a lot more than that, human creativity is endless, unlike computers'.
For computers, binary operations are the lowest level the computer "understands". Computers are not clever at using binary. In fact, they are very dumb. If computers were designed to use the decimal system, I cannot imagine the heat that the Pentium Processor would generate. You could possibly use it instead of your central heating system.
The binary number system was chosen for computers precisely because of its simplicity, and to keep the Pentium fan small-ish. It's much easier to design circuits and represent digits electronically that have only two states or symbols: 0 or 1, true or false, on or off, ie binary.
When it comes to humans or programmers more specifically, the situation is somewhat different. A friend of mine used to insert binary notation in his normal everyday sentences: "I am active-low today", meaning: I am at binary 1 when I do not have a current through me!! Don't ask. Or, “I went to the cash machine and it returned FALSE” - i.e. it wouldn't give him money (and we all know why, don't we), or my favorite, is my mathematician programmer friend who used to advertise the fact that the pin codes for his credit cards are arranged as a "tree" in binary digits! Since pin codes normally comprise four decimal digits, then to make a tree in binary, I guess he would have written his pin code down something like this:
You might think that these don't look like trees, but you will have to be a machine code programmer to see it. Just like in the Matrix.
So, does this mean that real trees are pin codes for some global bank? I'll have to think about that!
Having been encouraged by the “usefulness” of binary in everyday life I decided to do the same. I started writing down my pin codes and passwords in binary safe in the knowledge that not everyone is a programmer and therefore, no one will be able to decipher my code. In fact, it would make my note book look cool and important, But wait, what if a pick-pocket pinched my wallet and he happened to be a top class 6502 machine-code programmer or even worse, 68000? This is worrying. I must do something about this, I can't just write my pin code down in "straight" binary! Maybe I can apply binary arithmetic and logical operations to it to make it more secure. I could XOR the bits or AND them with something. That's what I'll do, this way they'll never find out.
A year or so down the line I forgot my pin code for my cash card. No problemo, I knew I had it written down somewhere, in binary no less. I looked for my note book and sure enough I had the following entries:
1101 1010 0011 0111 1100
0001 1011 1100 1010 1111
Great, this is 13 10 3 7 12 1 11 12 10 15 !!!? This didn't look anything like any of my pin codes!! Wait, maybe I shifted the bits left by 1. What did I do with the carry bit? Where is the Status-Register when you need it? Maybe, I XORed all the bits with 11111111 then shifted them right (logical shifts of course, I hate arithmetic shifts). No? Did I ROR the bits into some other fictitious bits? I tried every operation I could think of but could not get my pin code back. I ran out of options. Well, I could write a program which would systematically go through all possible combinations, but I had a feeling that it would not work either and it would take ages to write the program. I needed my cash urgently. The only option left was to pick up the phone and call the bank: "I lost my pin code, could you please send me a new one?"
A few days later I received my new pin code. It was very reassuring to see that they had sent it in straight decimal without dividing it or multiplying it by some weird number.
That evening, I wrote one more thing in my note book next to my binary coded indecipherable pin code: “Don't use binary unless you are a dumb computer and however dumb computers are, they are damn right better at using binary than you. Stick to decimal”
For computers, binary operations are the lowest level the computer "understands". Computers are not clever at using binary. In fact, they are very dumb. If computers were designed to use the decimal system, I cannot imagine the heat that the Pentium Processor would generate. You could possibly use it instead of your central heating system.
The binary number system was chosen for computers precisely because of its simplicity, and to keep the Pentium fan small-ish. It's much easier to design circuits and represent digits electronically that have only two states or symbols: 0 or 1, true or false, on or off, ie binary.
When it comes to humans or programmers more specifically, the situation is somewhat different. A friend of mine used to insert binary notation in his normal everyday sentences: "I am active-low today", meaning: I am at binary 1 when I do not have a current through me!! Don't ask. Or, “I went to the cash machine and it returned FALSE” - i.e. it wouldn't give him money (and we all know why, don't we), or my favorite, is my mathematician programmer friend who used to advertise the fact that the pin codes for his credit cards are arranged as a "tree" in binary digits! Since pin codes normally comprise four decimal digits, then to make a tree in binary, I guess he would have written his pin code down something like this:
You might think that these don't look like trees, but you will have to be a machine code programmer to see it. Just like in the Matrix.
So, does this mean that real trees are pin codes for some global bank? I'll have to think about that!
Having been encouraged by the “usefulness” of binary in everyday life I decided to do the same. I started writing down my pin codes and passwords in binary safe in the knowledge that not everyone is a programmer and therefore, no one will be able to decipher my code. In fact, it would make my note book look cool and important, But wait, what if a pick-pocket pinched my wallet and he happened to be a top class 6502 machine-code programmer or even worse, 68000? This is worrying. I must do something about this, I can't just write my pin code down in "straight" binary! Maybe I can apply binary arithmetic and logical operations to it to make it more secure. I could XOR the bits or AND them with something. That's what I'll do, this way they'll never find out.
A year or so down the line I forgot my pin code for my cash card. No problemo, I knew I had it written down somewhere, in binary no less. I looked for my note book and sure enough I had the following entries:
1101 1010 0011 0111 1100
0001 1011 1100 1010 1111
Great, this is 13 10 3 7 12 1 11 12 10 15 !!!? This didn't look anything like any of my pin codes!! Wait, maybe I shifted the bits left by 1. What did I do with the carry bit? Where is the Status-Register when you need it? Maybe, I XORed all the bits with 11111111 then shifted them right (logical shifts of course, I hate arithmetic shifts). No? Did I ROR the bits into some other fictitious bits? I tried every operation I could think of but could not get my pin code back. I ran out of options. Well, I could write a program which would systematically go through all possible combinations, but I had a feeling that it would not work either and it would take ages to write the program. I needed my cash urgently. The only option left was to pick up the phone and call the bank: "I lost my pin code, could you please send me a new one?"
A few days later I received my new pin code. It was very reassuring to see that they had sent it in straight decimal without dividing it or multiplying it by some weird number.
That evening, I wrote one more thing in my note book next to my binary coded indecipherable pin code: “Don't use binary unless you are a dumb computer and however dumb computers are, they are damn right better at using binary than you. Stick to decimal”
posted by Sam Kerbeck at
4:16 PM
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