From thinkit8@lycos.com Fri Sep 21 15:27:33 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: thinkit8@lycos.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 21 Sep 2001 22:27:33 -0000 Received: (qmail 55871 invoked from network); 21 Sep 2001 22:27:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 21 Sep 2001 22:27:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n24.groups.yahoo.com) (10.1.2.111) by mta1 with SMTP; 21 Sep 2001 22:27:32 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: thinkit8@lycos.com Received: from [10.1.10.29] by ef.egroups.com with NNFMP; 21 Sep 2001 22:27:18 -0000 Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:27:13 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Lojban as "Private" Language (was Re: terrorists using lojban) Message-ID: <9oges1+ui8s@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: <9og5hk+415c@eGroups.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2954 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 24.5.121.32 From: thinkit8@lycos.com --- In lojban@y..., hfroark@b... wrote: > 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. of course the greatest benefit is fooling the investigators by using "osamas" instead of "osama".