Encryption with a one-time pad is an extremely simple cryptographic method for hiding information. It involves the creation of a random key the size of the text to be encrypted and the modular addition of the two. I just finished up coding an application which offers some simple functions which make the implementation of a one-time pad somewhat simpler. Below is some information about one-time pads and the program.

While typing up some text for this blog a few days ago, I ran into a naming dilemma. What, I thought, should I call the tidbits I occasionally fling up into this website. The three terms which struck me as the most obvious were “post,” “entry,” and “article.” Now this is a rather trivial problem, but it caused me to think about the subtle connotative differences between the terms. “Post,” the most commonly used term, implies a degree of brevity. Even the least substantive of weblog updates could constitute a “post” (tumblr anyone?). Of course, there’s nothing wrong with extreme brevity, it’s just not the style I tend to use.

As usual, a few unanticipated bugs showed up while I was testing the maze solver. The first one involved incomplete solutions being generated because the solver would move across a “junction piece” (a piece with three or more adjacent open squares) which had already been tagged as traveled. This disrupted the way the solver worked, leading to solutions with large chunks of the path missing. The solution to the problem is to make the solver turn back when it encounters a used junction piece instead of moving forward.