Page 100

[TrashMan]

I doubt the Lori can figure out and decipher human recordings in a matter of hours.
Especially not if they are encrypted - and a vessel like Bellarimne they would be.

Evne for something as basic as a you tube video you have to have an apropriate codec.

[Karst45]

I doubt the Lori can figure out and decipher human recordings in a matter of hours.
Especially not if they are encrypted - and a vessel like Bellarimne they would be.

Evne for something as basic as a you tube video you have to have an apropriate codec.

It been at least a week since the battle [...]we had several jump.

I dont know how long it take to cross a system, but "several jump" sound like more than 3 to me. The at least a week make it seem like he lost count of the day, so maybe 2 week. That is assuming loroi maintain a 24h schedule. maybe they do 28 hours a day

[javcs]

I doubt the Lori can figure out and decipher human recordings in a matter of hours.
Especially not if they are encrypted - and a vessel like Bellarimne they would be.

Evne for something as basic as a you tube video you have to have an apropriate codec.

It been at least a week since the battle [...]we had several jump.

I dont know how long it take to cross a system, but "several jump" sound like more than 3 to me. The at least a week make it seem like he lost count of the day, so maybe 2 week. That is assuming loroi maintain a 24h schedule. maybe they do 28 hours a day

I'm certain that they're working on deciphering the data recordings that were recovered from Bellarmine ... but unless they recovered a Trade to Terran Standard (or w/e it was) translation dictionary, I think it is unlikely that they've managed to get everything decrypted and translated to be reviewed and studied.

[Nathan_]

It would be immensely difficult for them to decipher how files are stored, what the various formats are, what the executable instructions are, how programs are laid out, and so on well before they get to something like being able to display a video. It will probably just be simpler for them to ask nicely once they meet up with the tanker.

[fredgiblet]

I dont know how long it take to cross a system, but "several jump" sound like more than 3 to me. The at least a week make it seem like he lost count of the day, so maybe 2 week. That is assuming loroi maintain a 24h schedule. maybe they do 28 hours a day

My initial assumption was that anticarrot was talking about the initial conversation between Beryl and Alex way back in the first few pages of chapter 1. Of course we're in a thread about Page 100 so in retrospect it's pretty clear he's talking about now.

That still runs into the issue that others have brought up. Compression and encryption are very similar, they utilize similar methods to accomplish different tasks, so every piece of media on the Bellarmine is going to be effectively encrypted (though admittedly weakly). In addition to that there's the difficulty with even determining where to start, file formats are largely transparent to end users here, but that's because all the work that goes into them has already been done by the programmers. For someone to take an unencrypted, uncompressed file like a bitmap and figure it out without any context or documentation would be a significant feat on it's own.

Add to that the fact that there's probably not a lot of programming experience on-board and that data is locked away until they get it to someone with a lot more training and experience to call on.

[discord]

or they could ask alex to look over the wreckage and assemble a working computer with installed OS.....just thinking out loud here....

[anticarrot]

I doubt the Lori can figure out and decipher human recordings in a matter of hours.

Alex quite clearly said he'd been stuck in there for a week, or I quite clearly used the phrase 'intact e-reader'. If all you need to do is find the 'play' button, you don't need to worry about codecs. Alex survived intact. Things smaller than him probably survived too. Many of them. Some will work without being plugged into the rest of the ship. Some will do interesting things.

Whether Beryl has the training or not, if she's in charge of talking to the alien, and spotting interesting slipups, she'll have seen the cliff notes versions of those that do understand such things. She'll need the context. Something as simple as a working light fixture will tell you things about what conditions humans finds most comfortable. The Loroi can work things out by looking at human nuts and bolts, and they will be looking, because they don't know what's important. On long system transists, there's also little else to do.

And by all means, what's your suggestion about why she hasn't spoken to Alex for a week?

[anticarrot]

For someone to take an unencrypted, uncompressed file like a bitmap and figure it out without any context or documentation would be a significant feat on it's own.

But it becomes easier if you have multiple files. With two or three the top and tail of the file become easy to identify, and the remainder is large number of bits which is a multiple of three, and then a limited range of other numbers. SETI has actually put quite a bit of thought into this problem. Many human security agencies have as well. I'm sure the Loroi have as well.

There's also the possibility that the ship was carrying a very rugged 'rosetta stone' to aid in first contact. And that the Historian AI has been taking every opertunity to stick its nose where it's not wanted. Hmm. I suppose Beryl might have spent some time ruthlessly grilling it for information...

[fredgiblet]

or they could ask alex to look over the wreckage and assemble a working computer with installed OS.....just thinking out loud here....

Sure, but that's past the point we're at right now. The discussion is about what might have been done in the time between chapters.

Alex quite clearly said he'd been stuck in there for a week, or I quite clearly used the phrase 'intact e-reader'. If all you need to do is find the 'play' button, you don't need to worry about codecs.

You DO however need to know the language, watching movies won't get them that much since they'll all probably be in English with a smattering of native languages. Plus they'll need any passwords, and I doubt that there's much there that isn't password protected.

Whether Beryl has the training or not, if she's in charge of talking to the alien, and spotting interesting slipups, she'll have seen the cliff notes versions of those that do understand such things. She'll need the context. Something as simple as a working light fixture will tell you things about what conditions humans finds most comfortable. The Loroi can work things out by looking at human nuts and bolts, and they will be looking, because they don't know what's important. On long system transists, there's also little else to do.

Light bulbs won't help with decoding files. Beryl probably doesn't have much, if any, training for first contact situations given her station. Chances are the only person with such training on the ship is Tempo, and even then it's highly unlikely she's trained to re-construct file formats or reverse-engineer data transfer interfaces.

And by all means, what's your suggestion about why she hasn't spoken to Alex for a week?

Stillstorm isn't allowed to fuck with Alex directly, so she does what she can by isolating him as much as she is allowed to.

Also, Arioch wants to move the story forward but doesn't want to skip a bunch of conversations and doesn't want to get to the next major event at roughly the heat death of the universe.

But it becomes easier if you have multiple files. With two or three the top and tail of the file become easy to identify, and the remainder is large number of bits which is a multiple of three, and then a limited range of other numbers.

Which still doesn't help if you aren't a programmer. It's doubtful that the average Loroi soldier has programming skills, if any of them on the Tempest do they are probably second-tier programmers or hobby programmers who've never re-constructed compressed file formats from scratch before.

SETI has actually put quite a bit of thought into this problem. Many human security agencies have as well. I'm sure the Loroi have as well.

The Loroi NSA will probably be able to take care of this in a reasonable timeframe. The technical division of the Loroi NSA probably doesn't have anyone on board Tempest.

There's also the possibility that the ship was carrying a very rugged 'rosetta stone' to aid in first contact.

Probably. Hidden behind several layers of encryption. After all, if there's no humans alive to unlock it why would we want them to have it? Consider the preposterous situation where a diplomatic vessel is attacked by an unknown entity (Impossible I know), would we want the perpetrator of that act to be easily able to read the files contained onboard? Of course not. It would be a massive security failing if there wasn't full-drive encryption on every device on the Bellarmine.

[Arioch]

The Loroi NSA will probably be able to take care of this is a reasonable timeframe. The technical division of the Loroi NSA probably doesn't have anyone on board Tempest.

Yeah, even if there were people aboard Tempest with the right skills to try to decipher/decode the Terran files, I don't think anyone except Tempo and a few very senior officers would even have clearance to look at such potentially sensitive information. Intelligence is Mizol territory.

[fredgiblet]

So only Stillstorm gets to watch the porn then?

[Karst45]

So only Stillstorm gets to watch the porn then?

nope tempo

[Grayhome]

I'm sure they'd be happy to share.

[Mr Bojangles]

SETI has actually put quite a bit of thought into this problem. Many human security agencies have as well. I'm sure the Loroi have as well.

The Loroi NSA will probably be able to take care of this in a reasonable timeframe. The technical division of the Loroi NSA probably doesn't have anyone on board Tempest.

Actually, probably not. For any piece of digital storage media, everything on it is a 0 or a 1 with no context. You need the file format, which basically acts as a bootstrap to make the data human-readable. And, the format itself is just 0s and 1s, so it can't really be "read," either. This is where you will also need knowledge of the hardware that is meant to display the files you want to see.

In reality, this is a problem humanity is facing now. Data preservation is becoming a major issue, with datasets from as early as the 1980s becoming almost impossible to read. This is due to knowledge of the original file formats and HW either being lost or simply not existing anymore. It's an active area of research in CS departments and a reason for the push towards standardized file formats.

And this without even considering the fact that the Loroi don't have any knowledge of human natural languages, thought processes, or symbols. They can't know how we would encode characters, let alone what the characters even are. The Loroi won't be decoding any of the Bellarmine's file systems, not on their own, and definitely not in a week. The only way they'd see or hear anything without Alex's help would be if they found an intact, powered computer system.

[saint of m]

No, but they can probably figure sertain things out.

[While watching the first film she has decoded]

Still Storm: What are you...watching?

Tempo:If I had to guess, a vid on mating, although I am mearly going on what the Neridi and the Delridis females watch as entertainment.

Still storm: Boring, not enough vie [sees a group of ninja come in on in on the screen, kill the boy, fight the girl, girl walks out all bloodied with a sword in one hand and a severed head in the other] never mind, I'll get a couple of [equivalent to beer].

[fredgiblet]

I definitely agree that it would be very difficult, but I'm not so certain it would be impossible as long as they have access to functioning hardware. Reverse-engineering a cell-phone and figuring out what the data does would be extremely difficult, but I have little doubt that the Loroi would put their best people on it and give them plenty of resources, at least until they actually got results and realized that they had. One of the things that's important to consider is the "Rosetta stone" that was previously mentioned, that would be the com system since our com system would be functional with both our com systems and galactic standard com systems, that could go a long way towards giving ideas of how the information is formatted.

[CaptainChaos]

Tempo: "we've searched that ship from top to bottom and all we've found is porno, porno, porno!!!! *Throws a bunch of porno mags on the table in front of the senior officers*

Berly: "Hmmm... But Ensign Alexander said that human males often go extended periods without mating encounters".

StillStorm: *Cautiously lifts the edge of one magazine and raises an single eyebrow at what she sees*. " I believe this explains how they do so.

[Michael]

I'd just like to add something to the computer talk,

Loroi and human computers would probably not have compatible software, while we build all computers on a binary code system (0's and 1's), it doesn't necessarily mean the Loroi do to. Although having said that, its probably safe to assume they, as to the best of my knowledge there isn't any other way of doing, then again, part of the point I'm making is it the only way we know.
Main point is, if you don't even understand the language the system was built on, decoding it will be very hard to do.

[Mr Bojangles]

I definitely agree that it would be very difficult, but I'm not so certain it would be impossible as long as they have access to functioning hardware. Reverse-engineering a cell-phone and figuring out what the data does would be extremely difficult, but I have little doubt that the Loroi would put their best people on it and give them plenty of resources, at least until they actually got results and realized that they had. One of the things that's important to consider is the "Rosetta stone" that was previously mentioned, that would be the com system since our com system would be functional with both our com systems and galactic standard com systems, that could go a long way towards giving ideas of how the information is formatted.

Sorry about that, but I should have been clearer in that I was talking to the "reasonable" timeframe in your original quote. With intact hardware, reverse engineering should be possible. The Loroi's tech level is higher than humanity's in Outsider, so they'll be able to understand the physics, engineering and mathematics that went into any human hardware. No doubt that the Loroi would put there best minds to the task, but a realistic timeframe would be months at the least. This, of course, isn't considering the fact that they have no way of knowing how we encode data, let alone the characters that make up the data. Reverse engineering on their own, with no input from Alex, would likely take many years.

As to the "Rosetta stone," it would make sense that the Bellarmine would carry such a thing, at is a scouting vessel. It's meant to contact other species. On the other hand, it's on a military mission to search for and contact two warring nations. Nations that are likely to capture or destroy an unknown vessel. When viewed in that light, a Rosetta stone would be a bad thing: you don't want to give potential enemies the chance to understand your data.

[Mr Bojangles]

I'd just like to add something to the computer talk,

Loroi and human computers would probably not have compatible software, while we build all computers on a binary code system (0's and 1's), it doesn't necessarily mean the Loroi do to. Although having said that, its probably safe to assume they, as to the best of my knowledge there isn't any other way of doing, then again, part of the point I'm making is it the only way we know.
Main point is, if you don't even understand the language the system was built on, decoding it will be very hard to do.

The thing to remember is that those 0s and 1s are abstractions for us, not the computer. For the computer, that is off and on, no current and current. For a Loroi engineer looking at our hardware, that's what they would see: a vast number of nanoscopic switches. They wouldn't need to know 0 and 1. So, they could certainly understand our hardware, the physics and mathematics behind it. What they would need to know is the pattern of those 0s and 1s, the encoding of the data. That's the software, and like you say, those aren't likely to be compatible.

We use binary in our systems because it is the absolute simplest means of encoding data. All you need is 0 and 1 (False and True) to represent logic, and thus any known type of computation. You could probably use more "types" of bits to represent data, e.g., 0, 1, and 2 (trinary). How you would map those to logical values, though, I'm not too sure about...