The Changing Value Of π & A Breakdown Of Security
Monday, December 29, 2014
The one undeniable and irrefutable fact that has emerged in
the chaos that this last week has been has been that pi to four decimal places
is 3.141. My dyslexia and other factors beyond my control should have sent me
to another dimension where that figure would not have been the correct one.
My overture to install a password to my computer a week ago (the value of pi to four decimal places) caused my computer to crash. My windows XP is now history and will soon have to deal with the complexity (not an improvement in my opinion) of Windows 7 plus that I will be pouring out of pocket for a digital and slightly more impervious solid state hard drive.
In my effort to protect my wife’s iPhone 4 form unwarranted attention by a visiting teenager I showed how easy it was to install a password on my iPhone 3G. I keyed in pi to four places and everything was fine for almost a day. To my horror when I attempted to type 3141 on my phone the phone told me it was the wrong one. Further attempts led the phone to lock up and make me weight, 5, 10, 15 minutes and finally one hour and a half. I gave up in horror knowing the only fix was taking my phone to an Apple Genius who would electronically dismantle my phone (all data lost).
But in the morning yesterday (I write this on January 1, 2015) I keyed in 3146 and the phone opened. As soon as I could figure it all out I took out the code and my iPhone is happily working.
The word password has been in my mind now for some days and I thought about the Spanish equivalents. It is far more interesting in Spanish. During the long war to push the Moors out of Spain the Spanish army had to devise safety protocols for sieges and when opposing armies where close to each other. The first method was to give out a “nombre”. More often it was the name of a saint that the Moors would be ignorant of. In time that password became a “santo”. As soon as the Moors caught on the Spaniards imposed a second password, a counter-password or contraseña which was called santo y seña which was later simplified to contraseña.
I wonder if the banking term to counter sign does not have some relevance to the above.
