(2004) Edward and Mable

[Mable Wood]

Mable takes Edward to a quiet corner. "So, I thought we could do a quick review of the Laws. But let's start with do not directly approach the Prince."

She got out her phone to pull up the Laws to review.

[Edward Heinrich]

"Without an invitation," Edward intoned as acknowledgement. "I apologize for disrupting your night, Keeper Wood, I can't imagine scolding a wayward Daeva was what you had in mind for the night." He smiles thinly, "Onto the review, shall we begin with the etiquette section, or did you have something else in mind?"

[Mable Wood]

Mable gave him a smile. "Yes, without an invitation. I'm not here to scold. You aren't a child but a man. And sometimes, we all need reviews of the rules."

Mable handed her phone to Edward. "Just reread these please and ask if you have any questions. Next time please speak with the seneschal or the herald before approaching the Prince. It's not you. But in the past there has been issues and in formal court it is even more important to keep the rules in mind. I just want to add, the Prince in general tends to be very approachable, but it is up to us all to keep her protected."

[Edward Heinrich]

Edward took the phone graciously, "Thank you, Keeper Wood." Deciding that was response enough, Edward held the phone without yet looking at it. "I will act in accordance with your words, Keeper Wood. I trust there is good reason backing her Grace's laws."

It took Edward just under a minute to skim the laws, he did not catch any changes, and so handed the phone back. "Her Majesty's laws are as fair as they are concise. I find no room for misinterpretation." Clasping his hands, Edward waited to see if Mable would have more to say.

[Mable Wood]

Mable took the phone back, "Just out of curiosity then... Why did you approach the Prince without permission?" Mable wasn't sure if Edward felt entitled as an invictus or if there was another reason.

[Edward Heinrich]

Edward paused, his body still, as Mable asked her question. "In all probability, I have allowed myself to become overly occupied with work. My mind is scattered, and that means important details such as the very Laws of the Domain momentarily slip from awareness. I will not twice conduct this strategic error." This was, maybe a third of the truth.

"As for why the Prince?" Edward smiled kindly, his question meant to disarm. "Who would not wish to speak with our Prince?"

[Mable Wood]

Mable could understand being distracted... but she hadn't asked why the prince and Edward was too intelligent to misconstrue her question. She gave him a skeptical look but let it go. "Just remember in the future please or next time there will be severe consequences."

"So, work? Do you want to talk about it?"

[Edward Heinrich]

"Of course, Keeper Wood. I am grateful for being forgiven once; it would be beyond uncouth to expect the gift twice." and likely deadly.

"My work! It's rather dull, I must confess, but I have a penchant for enjoying boredom." He laughed easily, and then dived in: "I request your patience if you've heard parts of this story before, to avoid assumption I will tell it in whole. Computers want to talk to each other, often what they have to say has to remain secret. One can ensure no others can eavesdrop, but that can make it very difficult to send messages at all, necessity demanded invention. The solution is to encrypt the messages, just like the Enigma Machine. The computer that receives the message knows how to extract the message from what looks like garbled nonsense to others. That process of hiding and revealing the information is what I'm working on. I have an intuition that there's something deeply wrong about a proposed method, a stream cipher of Keccak. My nights are spent pouring over math and cybersecurity papers, taking notes, and running tests. Thus far, I am empty-handed!" Edward laughed again, "but I expected nothing less. It is the work of years. I tend to my many gardens hoping that one will bear the sweet fruit of discovery."

[Mable Wood]

Mable listened with interest. Which would probably surprise many, but listening to people who were passionate about what they did interested her greatly.

"I did know you did something with computer security but that is a huge undertaking. And quite interesting. I myself am interesting in security but really know nothing much more than how to do searches on my computer. My security thoughts run more with keeping nature safe and the domain safe."

"I did watch a movie recently about the Enigma machine so I kinda get that whole concept. But what is a stream cipher of cupcake? Sorry not sure what that word was." Mable thought his addition of tending gardens was sweet and was probably his way of making her feel more included.

[Edward Heinrich]

Edward nods, "we each man our own posts. I'm happy to hear about your interest in security, always easier to explain a concept to a like-mind." He did note her admission of relative unfamiliarity with computers, no technical details then.

A good-natured smile curled Edward's lips upon hearing 'cupcake.' "I'm almost certainly saying it wrong myself. If memory serves, it is a Dutch word. I have heard it said 'Kek-Chak'" He made sure to enunciate clearly.

"It is a strategy that has emerged out of a long war between brilliant minds. It is endowed by its dense history with all the technical nuance such a war suggests. One could imagine walking in on a game of one-upmanship that had begun a thousand years earlier. Determining how the current discussion relates to the original argument can be quite the task."

"Stream ciphers are intuitive, no need to slog through boring technical details. Let us suppose you associated every letter with a two-digit number, 'a' is zero-one, 'b' is zero-two, all the way to 'z,' which would be two-six. One of the oldest cipher's used is called the Caesar cipher, it functions by adding some number to every single letter. If we had a Caesar cipher of one, every 'a' in the message would become a 'b.' It is called a stream because each letter flows through one at a time. " There a lot of precision had been sacrificed for accessibility, but Edward felt it more important to be understood then to be correct.

"Just as a Caesar cipher can be applied to a stream of letters, Keccak can be applied to a stream of numbers. Those numbers, like with the Caesar cipher, can be associated with a message. In the past, Caesar ciphers were found to be easily breakable. I am trying my hand at being the one who discovers a problem with Keccak if there even is one. I have no doubt you keenly understand how critical it is to discover a flaw in security first."