The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything

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Thanks to AI, now we have computers that can answer questions that would have been unthinkable to previous computers, including what is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. We know well, thanks to Douglas Adams’s research, that the answer is forty-two, but Deep Thought, the computer that found this answer after eons of heavy computation, was too humble to attempt formulating the question, leaving that for a future computer of immeasurably greater power, which would take millions of years to build and then to operate.

Or so it was thought. . . I happened to bump into the solution to this essentially important problem totally by chance, and so I am humbled to present it here, taking no special credit since it was only sheer luck (if you believe in that) that led me to the Ultimate Question.

So read on if you want to know. But beware: you’re probably not going to like it. . .

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Current version of KyberLock

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Beginning with v2.0, KyberLock uses a self-verifying loading script. File index.html verifies the signature and the hashes of the rest of the code. The only thing the user should verify is index.html itself, which is the same for other apps, such as PassLok and Privacy Bar mobile. Here’s a copy of the file: loader_index.html

The SHA256 of the current index.html loader is:

82b831a9a9450989e7d8a9169e17714c0ab061d17eb8544d74547cef1fe1acd8

I’m not reading it in a video because that has become too easy to fake these days. Instead, you’ll see this hash posted in multiple places, such as the Chrome store pages for the associate extensions.

 

Previous version of KyberLock was: 1.0.1

Made on 11/25/24

Main source: https://kyberlock.com/app

SHA256 for web sources (single html file):

1024-6687-b546-9561-7eb4-0527-311a-cfbc-e8bc-e6c8-ed4b-a51b-4acd-85b8-e153-baab

KyberLock released

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KyberLock is a new web app, similar to PassLok, making quantum-proof cryptography easy to use. It is based on the recently released standard for post-quantum encryption, and has a strength comparable to that of AES-192. The main method is called Crystals-Kyber by its authors, hence the name of the app.

You may ask, why mess with quantum-proof cryptography now, since quantum computers capable of breaking current methods are not yet expected to be available in the next ten years? Because you may have private data right now that you would not like to be vulnerable even in ten years’ time.  Someone might record it in encrypted state, and wait until quantum computers can decrypt it.

You can get it from its GitHub page, or run it from its own page. Don’t forget to look at the code.

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Long article on Cryptography

Paco Ruiz 1 Comment

I have written a fairly long article, entitled “Can a Tabula Recta provide security in the XXI Century?” combining several posts from this website. The overarching assumption is that, in a world where connected computers are everywhere, we may get to a point where no electronic means within a given person’s reach can be trusted. What then? Use low-tech means that have been tweaked and optimized using computers, to stand against computer-aided attack if if comes to that. You can find the article here.

Enhanced keyboard sound with old iPad and MIDI controller

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Some time ago, I wrote this post about enhancing the built-in sounds of a Casio keyboard, and possibly most other keyboards as well, but I was still unsatisfied because of having to mess with virtual buttons and sliders, which feel unnatural when you are in the thrall of music making. But then, Santa Claus dropped a Korg Nanokontrol2 down my chimney. Now I’ve got all of that intuitive nuance I was missing, plus some, courtesy of the Casio MIDI implementation. This article is essentially the same I posted at the Casio Music Forum a few weeks back, so I’m forgiving my self-plagiarism and reposting it here.

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Introducing Flutino

Paco Ruiz 7 Comments

Under wraps for quite some time, now that it is Patent Pending I can finally talk here about one of my latest inventions, the Flutino. It is likely the world’s smallest (playable) musical instrument. It has a range approaching two octaves and loudness over 100 dB. Better yet: it works in every scale, and never needs tuning or even batteries. No fingerings to learn, and you can be playing another instrument (or anything, really) at the same time. You can sound like a pro in very little time.

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Introducing PolyCrypt

Paco Ruiz 3 Comments

Some time ago, a user named Steven uncovered a weakness in the FibonaRNG cipher, leading to this other post as a reply. At that time, I did not think that FibonaRNG needed to be strengthened, but recently I have realized that it would not be very difficult to remove that weakness. The result is PolyCrypt. The “Poly” bit comes from the fact that it can not only add security, but also remove it, making it a good platform to test classic human-computable ciphers.

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PassLok vs. Minilock – 9 years later

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I confess that the development of PassLok learned a lot from a competing app called MiniLock, by Nadim Kobeissi. That app got a lot of press when it was launched 9 years ago but is now defunct. In fact, its successor is also defunct, and so is its successor’s successor. Meanwhile PassLok continues delivering various crypto-related functions and spawning new children. This post collects some of that history and tries to get at the root causes for such a diverse outcome. Morale: sometimes slower is better.

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