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Astazha comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, February 2015, chapter 108 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: b_sen 20 February 2015 09:53PM

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Comment author: Astazha 23 February 2015 07:19:47PM 1 point [-]

Indeed. And how did the Ministry even key the time-turner to Harry? He wasn't physically present and "magic" seems to think his name is Tom Riddle.

Comment author: Nornagest 23 February 2015 07:39:28PM *  2 points [-]

You could ask the same question of the Hogwarts letter.

The simplest explanation seems to be that the Marauders' Map is keying off of something different than the other person-specific magic we know about. Perhaps the Ministry's running something like a magical Social Security database that associates names with bodies at birth, and the Map (and, by extension, the Hogwarts security system) is taking MD5 hashes of people's souls and associating them with names on admission.

Which raises the interesting question of whether Harry counts as a professor where the wards are concerned.

Comment author: Lumifer 23 February 2015 07:44:21PM 0 points [-]

is taking MD5 hashes of people's souls or something.

And given that MD5 is broken that could lead to interesting consequences... :-D

Comment author: Nornagest 23 February 2015 07:47:55PM *  0 points [-]

Well, that's a collision attack; I don't think we've seen a way to create an arbitrary pair of souls, and if we had it'd probably be obvious on their admission. Though I'd read the story of someone breaking preimage resistance on the Hogwarts wards and using that to, say, get a toad credentialed as the Muggle Studies professor. It'd probably do a better job...

...actually, I kind of want to write that now.