Re: Other Efforts

Bret J. Musser (bjm@stat.umn.edu)
Tue, 10 Jun 1997 22:39:30 CDT

In message <19970611005029.1817.qmail@idoru.obfuscation.org> you wrote:
>I think he meant something along the lines of the method to the madness of
>handing out the keys.. is it purely random? is it sequential from 0 to
>(large number here)? sequential wouldn't be very good, and totally
>random probably wouldn't be terribly good either.. i'd guess it was
>splitting the keyspace into n chunks and working away from those points
>in either direction.. but i could be wrong.

Why wouldn't a sequential distribution of keys be good? If the failure of
key X implies nothing about key X+1, then the probability that the real key
is X+1 is the same as any other unchecked key.

I would think that a sequential distribution of keys would simplify the
search. Furthermore, if all three major efforts searched three completely
seperate areas of the keyspace, the contest would be over sooner (since
there would be no overlap of the searched areas) and it wouldn't change the
chance that anybody in DESCHALL would win.

bjm

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 Bret J. Musser -- Univ. of Minn.  -- School of Statistics -- bjm@stat.umn.edu
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