From hfroark@bigmailbox.net Fri Sep 21 12:48:24 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: hfroark@bigmailbox.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 21 Sep 2001 19:48:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 13815 invoked from network); 21 Sep 2001 19:48:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 21 Sep 2001 19:48:22 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n1.groups.yahoo.com) (216.115.96.51) by mta3 with SMTP; 21 Sep 2001 19:48:17 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: hfroark@bigmailbox.net Received: from [10.1.10.122] by hh.egroups.com with NNFMP; 21 Sep 2001 19:48:09 -0000 Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:48:04 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Lojban as "Private" Language (was Re: terrorists using lojban) Message-ID: <9og5hk+415c@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2707 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 204.211.254.24 From: hfroark@bigmailbox.net X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 10934 Jay Kominek wrote: > On Wed, 19 Sep 2001 thinkit8@l... wrote: >> since lojban is itself somewhat of a code, i doubt the feds would >> bother to check up on this before the incident. afterwards, you'd >> get a lot more lojban experts, particularly in the government. of >> course these guys aren't particularly the logical type ("there's a >> magical place full of virgins you will go to when you die"). > > ba le nu do morsi ku do klama le makfa stuzi be vono balvi gletu ninmu > However, there are significantly easier ways to encrypt things such that > the government can't figure out what they are. > > (There are significantly easier ways to avoid having ones information > compromised, especially with the processing power of modern computers. > So why bother with Lojban?) Oddly enough, I was reading some of the extra texts about Lojban, and read about the "competition" between Lojbanists and Esperantists for speakers. One of the proported advantages of Esperanto is the recognizability of many Esperanto congates to Europeans in general, and English speakers in specific. I noted _at that time_ that for some of my considered applications, that that recognizability is in fact a disadvantage. _One_ of my considered uses for Lojban is as a language that I can write in and have some security that even if the text is found that it still probably won't be readable to the finder. Now I am speaking of the types of writings that might show up in a diary or journal. However as Jay said, Lojban by itself is not a very efficient "way[] of avoiding having one information compromised," particually by those with the resourses of the US government. The only advantage to Lojban that I can think of is that I can't do PGP en/decoding in my head, or with any reasonable speed with paper to store intermediate results on. On the other hand I have also considered that encrypting Lojban text, instead of English text, might have the effect of slowing cryptanalysis, because patterns have been used for cryptanalysis, and some of those patterns only exist in English or the Germanic languages. Whether or not this would apply to modern cryptography, like PGP and similar programs, I can only speculate. On the other hand, if one was expecting English to come out of one's cryptanalysis and instead got something that looked as weird as Lojban would look to someone unfamiliar with it's existence, one might dismiss that particular attempt as a failure and look at a different key or method. I am not learning Lojban solely in order to have a "private" language. Without the logical aspect, I would not have decided to learn it.