OOTS #1218 - The Discussion Thread

[bunsen_h]

I had a friend in college who decided to try to trip by drinking so much water it threw off his sodium and mineral balance. Not sure if he ever succeeded.

I once worked with a chemistry Ph.D. who insisted that drinking distilled water instead of tap water was dangerous because it would deplete our bodies' mineral resources. She was and is my best example of how having a Ph.D. didn't mean having a lick of common sense or understanding of one's nominal area of expertise. In this respect, there isn't any meaningful difference between the mineral contents of normal tap water and of distilled water in most urban places. (A few urban places, and more rural places, have higher mineral content in their water supplies.) One would have to drink a lot of distilled water to disturb one's body chemistry unless one had an underlying medical condition.

My belief was that milk was stored in sheep/cow stomachs like waterskins, and the rennet curdled the milk. However, I also know of a grosser method where calves were killed for the half-digested milk in their intestines (I can't remember the name of it, and Italy has way too many cheeses to check) that may have been around in Roman times.

I suspect that the first cheese was a matter of opening the stomach/intestines of a calf that had been slaughtered, and discovering the curd inside. And then trying to reproduce it.

[Riftwolf]

I often wonder about the first person who tried to eat kidney beans.
Day 1: ate raw beans. Was ill.
Day 2: boiled beans. Was ill.
Day 3: boiled beans all day. Was ill.
Day 4: boiled beans all day, changing the water twice. Wasn't ill.
Day 5: caught rabbit. Ate rabbit. Will never speak of beans again.
Day 6: couldn't find rabbit. Could find beans. Wept openly.

[Peelee]

I once worked with a chemistry Ph.D. who insisted that drinking distilled water instead of tap water was dangerous because it would deplete our bodies' mineral resources. She was and is my best example of how having a Ph.D. didn't mean having a lick of common sense or understanding of one's nominal area of expertise. In this respect, there isn't any meaningful difference between the mineral contents of normal tap water and of distilled water in most urban places. (A few urban places, and more rural places, have higher mineral content in their water supplies.) One would have to drink a lot of distilled water to disturb one's body chemistry unless one had an underlying medical condition.

Maybe you just vastly underestimated the amount of water she drank.

[arimareiji]

Maybe you just vastly underestimated the amount of water she drank.

My girl wants to
Potty all the time
Potty all the time
Potty all the tiiiiiiime

[bunsen_h]

Maybe you just vastly underestimated the amount of water she drank.

Since she was also my housemate for a few months, I'm fairly sure that that wasn't the case. And we in the lab saw her screw up in so many, many other ways.

She was a very poor cook, which is quite unusual in lab chemists. It's pretty much the same skill set. But she was a very poor lab chemist too. She seemed to have very little intuition or understanding about chemical processes.

[Malacandra]

I often wonder about the first person who tried to eat kidney beans.
Day 1: ate raw beans. Was ill.
Day 2: boiled beans. Was ill.
Day 3: boiled beans all day. Was ill.
Day 4: boiled beans all day, changing the water twice. Wasn't ill.
Day 5: caught rabbit. Ate rabbit. Will never speak of beans again.
Day 6: couldn't find rabbit. Could find beans. Wept openly.

Well, you can also make yourself very ill by eating too much rabbit (or at any rate, not enough of anything else). Rabbit meat is so lean that you can either starve because you're not eating enough calories, or poison yourself because you can't digest that amount of protein. See "Rabbit Starvation".

[spruce56]

So...what's the probability that the randomly selected door they hide behind is actually THE door?

[Peelee]

So...what's the probability that the randomly selected door they hide behind is actually THE door?

1/n, where n is the total number of doors.

[spruce56]

1/n, where n is the total number of doors.

Well, yes, if you consult actual probability, but what about narrative suspense and payoff?

[dancrilis]

Well, yes, if you consult actual probability, but what about narrative suspense and payoff?

Roughly equal to the chances that Durkon and Minrah brought Xykon and Redcloak to the correct door.

[Dion]

1/n, where n is the total number of doors.

If only there were a million doors!

[Jacky720]

Well, yes, if you consult actual probability, but what about narrative suspense and payoff?

Probably about the same. It would fast-forward the process of reaching the gate in an in-universe improbable* way, and bypass the Chekhov's Gun of the mismarked doors. And Elan says that we aren't ready for that yet, at any rate.

* Although if you have to be pure of heart** or something and any of the doors work, or some twist of that sort, it would mitigate this issue.

** This is a very bad example that I'm sure*** Serini wouldn't use.

*** Moderately sure, we don't know her that well.****

**** Footnotes are fun.

[Riftwolf]

1/n, where n is the total number of doors.

That's a bit high. My guess would be zero. Because I'm sure there's more to the Dungeon than brute forcing and guesswork.

[Fyraltari]

Well, yes, if you consult actual probability, but what about narrative suspense and payoff?

N% where N is an integer equal to either 100 or 0 but whose value is only known to The Giant.

[Goblin_Priest]

If Sirini knows anything about passwords and bruteforcing, then she knows that the proper defense would require not just one correct guess, but the correct sequence of guesses, with some entered at night and others by day, with the proper number of party members.

[InvisibleBison]

If Sirini knows anything about passwords and bruteforcing, then she knows that the proper defense would require not just one correct guess, but the correct sequence of guesses, with some entered at night and others by day, with the proper number of party members.

I don't think Serini would have set up any way to bypass the gate's defenses, for the simple reason that it would have been a very bad idea. The only purpose of such a bypass would be to allow Serini to easily access the gate, but that's not something she would ever need to do. The gate doesn't need maintenance (and she couldn't perform it even if it did), she's not studying it like Dorukan was his, and unlike the other Scribblers she's not personally involved in the defense of the gate (as far as we know, anyway). Leaving a safe access method of any sort is simply inviting a clever or lucky villain to find said access method and bypass all of the gate's defenses.

[Goblin_Priest]

I don't think Serini would have set up any way to bypass the gate's defenses, for the simple reason that it would have been a very bad idea. The only purpose of such a bypass would be to allow Serini to easily access the gate, but that's not something she would ever need to do. The gate doesn't need maintenance (and she couldn't perform it even if it did), she's not studying it like Dorukan was his, and unlike the other Scribblers she's not personally involved in the defense of the gate (as far as we know, anyway). Leaving a safe access method of any sort is simply inviting a clever or lucky villain to find said access method and bypass all of the gate's defenses.

Right, who on earth would leave a bypass into a gate's defenses? (hint: Girard)

That said, right now, as far as we know, the defense is simply choosing the right door.

Now I was kind of jesting, but that's essentially a single character password, simple to brute-force. You just need to try every single option once, and you'll eventually get it. Sure, there are more doors than there are alphanumerical characters on the keyboard, but still.

The joke is that there's more to a proper defense then just the number of inputs possible. Choosing a long word such as "unconstitutional" might be a better password than, say, "password", but:

1. it's a dictionary word
2. there are no upper cases
3. there are no special characters

It's an analogue to "just pick the right door".

In contrast, if you complicate "pick the right door" by adding variables such as "pick the right doors in the right order" and others such as "pick the right doors in the right order at the right times in the right way", then you just made the gate impossible to brute-force. That'd be an analogue to choosing "unc0nS+Itutional" as a password instead, which is practically impossible to brute-force. For reference, the time needed to crack this specific password would be:

Time Required to Exhaustively Search this Password's Space:
Online Attack Scenario:
(Assuming one thousand guesses per second) 14.14 million trillion centuries
Offline Fast Attack Scenario:
(Assuming one hundred billion guesses per second) 1.41 hundred billion centuries
Massive Cracking Array Scenario:
(Assuming one hundred trillion guesses per second) 1.41 hundred million centuries

[InvisibleBison]

Right, who on earth would leave a bypass into a gate's defenses? (hint: Girard)

As I said before, Girard and the other Scribblers left bypasses in the defenses around their gates because they intended to be actively participating in the defense of their gates, and thus might need to quickly get through the defenses to fight an enemy who has broken through and gotten to the gate. Since Serini is (as far as we know) not actively participating in the defense of her gate, there is no reason for her to leave a method to bypass the defenses of the gate.

[Kornaki]

In contrast, if you complicate "pick the right door" by adding variables such as "pick the right doors in the right order" and others such as "pick the right doors in the right order at the right times in the right way", then you just made the gate impossible to brute-force. That'd be an analogue to choosing "unc0nS+Itutional" as a password instead, which is practically impossible to brute-force. For reference, the time needed to crack this specific password would be:

A little off topic, but the real space to search here is dictionary words where you replace some letters with other characters. The argument this is much safer than a dictionary word because that list is so finite and once you replace an o with a 0 they have to search every random string containing any random set of characters seems wrong to me.

[Goblin_Priest]

As I said before, Girard and the other Scribblers left bypasses in the defenses around their gates because they intended to be actively participating in the defense of their gates, and thus might need to quickly get through the defenses to fight an enemy who has broken through and gotten to the gate. Since Serini is (as far as we know) not actively participating in the defense of her gate, there is no reason for her to leave a method to bypass the defenses of the gate.

You are completely missing my point, though, in that I never talked about a bypass in the first place, but a method to make the gate considerably more secure than it is assumed to be.

A little off topic, but the real space to search here is dictionary words where you replace some letters with other characters. The argument this is much safer than a dictionary word because that list is so finite and once you replace an o with a 0 they have to search every random string containing any random set of characters seems wrong to me.

In the example I gave, I put two symbols, and a capital letter. Preferably, I'd have added an extra something truly random, such as a dot to begin the password.

Sure, if it's a mere o=0 substitution, then someone could try running "all dictionary words, but with "o"s replaced with "0"s. Still more secure than otherwise. The person still needs to actively search these variations. The same can be done with other symbol-similar letters. Each time, the search time increases. Then there's the random upper case, THIS forces it to make a whole lot more trials, because suddenly you've got all of the dictionary words, with all potential symbol for letter substitutions, and with all possible upper cap permutations.

Could someone happen to make an algorithm that cracks this password quicker than trying every possible random set of characters? Sure, but he still has to 1) be lucky to look for the right things), and mostly 2) it'll still take a whole lot of time to crack, in this given case.

To be clear, I'm not saying "P@ssword" is a great password, even if it has a capital letter and a symbol, and drastically better than "password". "!p@sswUrd" would probably be a very hard one to crack, though. Or "!+!+!...Password...!+!+!" would also work great.

[InvisibleBison]

You are completely missing my point, though, in that I never talked about a bypass in the first place, but a method to make the gate considerably more secure than it is assumed to be.

And you're missing my point, which is that no matter how strong a lock you put on it, a door is less secure than a wall. You're saying that there could be a very convoluted way to get to the gate, which would be much harder for intruders to figure out than simply guessing the right door. I'm saying that there really should be no way to get to the gate, as there's no need for any of the defenders to ever do so, and having the gate be completely inaccessible makes it much, much harder for intruders to access than a gate that can be accessed, no matter how complicated the access method.

[Jacky720]

Compare:

correcthorsebatterystaple: 2048*2048*2048*2048 = 2^44, assuming a known 2018-word dictionary and a dictionary attack.

constitutuonal: 2048 = 2^11

c0n5+iTutioNal: 2048 *2 (assuming an average of one "o" per word) *2 (same for "s") *2 (and "t") *2^10 (assuming an average of a ten-letter word) *8 (lumping together other unused substitutions). A much looser estimate of = 2^27, heavily variable on the dictionary used and substitutions available.

[random 10-character alphanumeric string]: 64 (this is compatible with base 2) ^10 = 2^60

[random 20-character ASCII string]: 256^20 = 2^160

[random 256-character ASCII string]: 256^256 = what a friend of mine thinks is the appropriate security level to send a boot command to his Discord bot when it's down (2^2048)

ETA: At any rate, the fact that "entering a character of the password" requires clearing a near-epic dungeon in the analogy helps. Also, remember that each +1 in the exponent (of two) doubles the probability space, so even a three-door code is equivalent to cubing the door count.

[Cazero]

All you cryptography nerds are missing the important part of the defense.
When you type a password, an opening with a gatling gun shoots at you. You have to crawl through that under heavy fire to check if the password is right.
Guessing the password is the easy part. If you want access, the real test is to be bulletproof.

[ebarde]

The idea of a passcode is to make it so certain people can access whatever is being guarded, it's not a defense on to itself. A locked door with a password is less protected than that same locked door that isn't activated by anything.

[olafsinsight]

I didn't read every page in this thread so forgive me if somebody already covered this one but: Somebody like a dozen pages back mentioned that this Scribbler is a rogue like Haley, so I'm gonna put my money on the gate being in or under the statue or something and not even in one of the dungeons. Ball in a cup, see invasion of Azure City.

I think it'd be interesting because:
- Team evil is so sure of themselves they'd rather plow through a million dungeons than seriously search the surrounding area.
- Durkon's surprise meeting with Redcloak would have done more to lead Team Evil to the gate than anything else (now that the statue has been destroyed).
- The shadow monster technically would have been getting Team Evil closer to running out of doors and therefore looking into a plan B of some kind, advancing their plot by trying to slow or stop it.

But that's just my guess, or rather a direction I think would be cool. Sorry again if somebody else beat me to the conclusion, I'm pretty late to this strip xD

[Peelee]

The idea of a passcode is to make it so certain people can access whatever is being guarded, it's not a defense on to itself. A locked door with a password is less protected than that same locked door that isn't activated by anything.

...imean, the idea of a door is to make it so certain people can access whatever is being guarded, but it's still a defense. A walled-off room with a door is less protected than that same walled-off room that doesn't have a door. Doesn't mean the door isn't defensive (in that it can be locked).

[bunsen_h]

And you're missing my point, which is that no matter how strong a lock you put on it, a door is less secure than a wall. You're saying that there could be a very convoluted way to get to the gate, which would be much harder for intruders to figure out than simply guessing the right door. I'm saying that there really should be no way to get to the gate, as there's no need for any of the defenders to ever do so, and having the gate be completely inaccessible makes it much, much harder for intruders to access than a gate that can be accessed, no matter how complicated the access method.

We know that there are aspects of the Snarl and rifts that even the Stickworld gods don't know about. We don't know what Dorokan and Lirian learned in the course of their research, but they may have had good reason to want to leave access to the gates available on short notice to the right people under the right circumstances -- reasons which we don't know yet. It could be basic "keep your options open" stuff. They might have received a prophecy. They might have wanted to be able to distract the Snarl. [*shrug*]

[Yendor]

I didn't read every page in this thread so forgive me if somebody already covered this one but: Somebody like a dozen pages back mentioned that this Scribbler is a rogue like Haley, so I'm gonna put my money on the gate being in or under the statue or something and not even in one of the dungeons. Ball in a cup, see invasion of Azure City.

It's been suggested countless times, which is precisely why it's a bad idea. Everyone who thinks it's a shell game points to the big obvious marker, which makes it the worst possible hiding spot. And Haley has already specifically said she expects them to have checked the valley already because they were the ones who came up with the shell game.

[InvisibleBison]

It's been suggested countless times, which is precisely why it's a bad idea. Everyone who thinks it's a shell game points to the big obvious marker, which makes it the worst possible hiding spot. And Haley has already specifically said she expects them to have checked the valley already because they were the ones who came up with the shell game.

Not only this, but Serini made this dungeon in order to reflect Kraagor's belief in the power of physical might. Having the entire dungeon turn out to be a trick would go completely against that ethos.

[ebarde]

Haley seems to have an educated guess at what doors to go into, which makes me think she realized that some of them weren't drawn by the same person.

Edit: I forgot monster in the dark painted all the doors, so eh