Suppose you had to pick a very small set of character strings that you, and only you, could identify without hesitation in a particular way. What would you choose? How small a set could you choose and still be unique? For example, SOBGTR OCCC AILD FUNEX? is a set of strings that I think would uniquely identify me. (My interpretation is below.) I’m pretty sure that almost any subset of 3 of them would suffice. Coming up with a set of two wouldn’t be hard, I don’t think – but it feels risky.
There are 7 billion people on the planet. So if you just pick 3 reasonably obscure acronyms, e.g., things that only 1 person in 2000 would recognize, you’re heading in the right direction (since 2000 cubed is 8 billion). But that’s only if the obscurity of the things you pick is independent. For example, it’s less good to pick 3 computer acronyms from the 1960s than to choose just one of them plus some things from very different areas of your knowledge.
- Each of your strings with its meaning to you must be findable on Google.
- To match with you, another person must interpret all your strings the way you do.
Rule 1 prevents you from choosing something like your bank PIN number, that only you could possibly know. Without this rule, everyone could trivially choose a set of one string. The rule makes thinking up a uniquely identifying set for yourself like a game. Given that all your strings and their interpretations are on Google, each of your strings will likely be recognized by someone in the way you recognize it, so your set will probably have at least 2 strings. You need to choose a set of strings whose set of interpretations, taken as a whole, make you unique (Rule 2).
Why is this interesting?
I find this interesting for many reasons. It seems clear that uniquely identifying sets are fairly easy to construct for people and they’re very small. Certainly small enough to fit in a tweet. Although it’s easy to make a set for yourself, it’s hard to make one for someone else – you might even argue that by definition it’s not possible. If someone else makes one, you can’t produce their set of interpretations without spending time on Google, and even then you’d probably have to know the person pretty well.
Is there a new authentication scheme here somewhere? It’s tempting to think yes, but there probably isn’t. This is less secure than asking people for a set of secrets that are not each findable in Google, so anything you come up with is almost certain to be less secure than the same thing based on a set of actual secrets. It’s more of a fun thought exercise (or Twitter game). It’s not hard to imagine some form of authentication. For example, identify which of a set of symbols are special to you (avoiding others chosen randomly from, say, the set of all acronyms), and their correct interpretations for you, and do it rapidly. Or if a clone shows up one day, claiming to be you, and you’ve thoughtfully put a sealed set of unique symbol strings in your safe, you should be able to convince people that you’re the real you :-)
Here’s my unhesitating interpretation of the set of 4 strings above:
- SOBGTR: Subtract one and branch if greater than zero. You probably have to have written VAX assembly language code or a compiler targetting the VAX in the 1970s or 80s to get that one. More info here.
- OCCC: The Old Cranbrookians Cricket Club, of course.
- AILD: A widely-used (in very small circles) acronym for William Faulkner’s book, As I Lay Dying.
- FUNEX? – “Have you any eggs?” From a 1974 Two Ronnies episode Swedish Made Simple.
Remember, to be me you have to get them all. It’s not enough to get a couple, or even three of them.