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TobyBartels comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 6 - Less Wrong Discussion

6 Post author: Unnamed 27 November 2010 08:25AM

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Comment author: TobyBartels 28 November 2010 03:19:14AM 2 points [-]

Good point! Since Harry's ruse seems to have succeeded, this looks like an oversight on Eliezer's part.

Next time maybe let's not be so lazy with doing a few Caesar shifts, eh?

Which reminds me: While this cypher may be the kid-brother type, it used to be the major-governments type. So for unEnlightened Wizards, maybe it still is enough to fool major governments!

Comment author: [deleted] 28 November 2010 06:00:00AM 4 points [-]

In Order of the Phoenix, Sirius Black seems to know that codes exist, at least. Although he dismisses them as "breakable" and decides to communicate over a floo network connection instead (which makes me wonder if wizards know about one-time pads, and if there are any spells which can break them).

Comment author: AdShea 01 December 2010 12:17:48AM 2 points [-]

Given that the magical community didn't seem to get into mathematics much, and provably strong crypto needs a ton of math, I could see how they never went beyond Caesar Ciphers.