briefing -3-

posted 2009.06.04 at 23:55

The noteworthy thing about TSCR (Totally Secure Comms, and the fact that it's Range Limited) is that with organic computing and hardware like the Majestic packs, the entire spectrum can be snooped and cracked, quite often in real time. That includes comms lasers. Don't ask me how, mind you - the tech is just That Good. What makes Totally Secure Comms totally secure is that the source is close enough to the target that relativity is no longer an issue.* Inside this range, one-time pads of the type used by this sort of scheme are practical, and limited only to processing power.**

While the super-hardware that can sniff and scarf a comms laser from orbit will still be able to sniff the traffic, the encryption changes so rapidly that the conversation is typically over by the time the observer has obtained anything actionable.

While the specialists on the Sabrosa could crack the Daedalus crypto package easily, West is doing this more to piss off the Templar, as the crypto kit Greymalkin has access to is still silicon based.

* There's a bit of a delay between, say... earth and the shuttle. A bit more between earth and the moon. No matter your crypto, the second relativity gets involved, you're open for intercept.

** I read Cryptonomicon. Great book, gave me some ideas - but not the kind I get to use much. I'm no crypto nerd - I'm not even a math nerd - but I think an OTP smart enough to change up every second or two would make even the most talented crypto types tear their hair out.

First Edition Metadata

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Man, after the pain in the ass that was the last page, it feels good to get a page cranked out in two nights instead of three. Might as well be one night- all that gone done on Monday was basic frameing and creating the file.

Bit of a switchup, too- I was happier with West than I was with anything else on the last page.... this time it's the reverse. Learned a couple more tricks about backgrounds- I'll probably be using the silhouette technique quite a bit more, at least where appropriate.

.... and I just spotted the typo. I'll get it fixed in the evening- the comms bubbles are a pain to correct. Also, Raven shouldn't be purple. She isn't. She wasn't. She never was. But somehow she turned out that way somewhere between the b and f progressionals. I'll fix that too. And then I'll update this some more about the exciting things I'll be doing this week that you will, if everything goes smoothly, be seeing a hint of on Saturday.

===[ a few hours later... ]===

Okay, that's fixed. Silly me- there wasn't a proper type layer for this page, so I had to do some rubber-stamping to clean out the affected word balloon. Oops. Also made some minor adjustments to the second West panel- mostly contrast and shading stuff, with some minor color corrections. One of those things that would have been fixed out of the gate if I'd had more time last night, or if I'd held off on the finish until today.