TheRaven64's Journal: Decrypting the OpenBSD Theme Song

OpenBSD has just released the theme song for the 4.2 release. The song title is 100001 1010101. What does that mean?

Converting them to decimal, we get:

100001 = 32 + 1 = 33
1010101 = 64 + 16 + 4 + 1 = 85

As ASCII codes, these are ! and U. Not particularly meaningful, but it gives us a hint. Considering the song's subject some connection to money could be a good guess. Considering OpenBSD's focus on cryptography, it seems like it might be encrypted in some way, but presumably some way that's known to be insecure enough that someone with only two characters and a knowledge of the context can decrypt it. A Caesar Cypher is an obvious bet. Since it's in binary, a power of two seems like a nice bet for an easy-to-guess key. We want one that leaves both characters in the letters region of the character set (65-90, 97-122). Picking 32, we get:

1000001 = 64 + 1 = 65
1110101 = 64 + 32 + 16 + 4 + 1 = 117

This corresponds to the letters A and u. Since Au is the chemical element for gold, this is probably the answer.

Of course, with only a two-letter cyphertext and no knowledge of the algorithm or key, we can't be sure, and the 'real' decryption could be anything, but it seems likely that the correct answer is gold considering the subject of the song. Assuming it is a Caesar Cypher, we know that the distance between the two characters must be 52, so we can write a simple program that will output them all:

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
for(int i=0 ; i<128 ; i++)
{
printf("%d: %c%c\n", i - 33, (char)i, (char)(i + 52) & 127);
}
return 0;
}

The only results where both are in the letter range are:

32: Au
33: Bv
34: Cw
35: Dx
36: Ey
37: Fz

Of these, only Au is an atomic symbol. The others might have some other meaning, but Au still seems like the best bet. No other powers of two give us a value in the letter range, although 16 gives 1e, which might mean something to someone (decimal 30? ASCII code for record separator?).

In summary, the title for the new OpenBSD theme song could be anything, but is probably Gold. Also, I am definitely a geek.

decoded...

[th3professor]

Perhaps: Regarding "...these are ! and U..." As in "not equal to proprietary" (UNIX vs unix/unix-like) Or in other words, "free"

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Could be, but considering the fact that GNU's Not UNIX, and the song is fairly anti-GNU in places, I'd guess not. Especially since OpenBSD is UNIX, it just isn't UNIX(TM).

Re:

[th3professor]

Okay... I didn't know OpenBSD was UNIX. I thought OpenBSD was Unix; and that UNIX was a registered trademark of The Open Group, with systems like "UNIX 98" and "UNIX 03". My bad. The "GNU's Not Unix" GNU bit makes sense, though I was simply referring to the difference between $ and free. I was under the impression that UNIX regarded $ and Unix = free. Oh well, no biggy. :-p

Re:

[TheRaven64]

UNIX was an operating system released by AT&T in the late '70s. Some guys at Berkeley added a load of stuff to it, and called their version the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Since it was based on the AT&T code, you needed a license from AT&T to use it. They gradually replaced the AT&T code with their own, and in 4.2BSD-lite, there was no AT&T code, allowing the whole system to be distributed for free (and Free). OpenBSD is based on 4.2BSD-lite, and so contains no original UNI

Re:

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Actually when ATT tried to sue UCB, it turned out that there was more UCB code in ATT's Unix than vice verca. This is one of the reasons the law suit failed and UCB retained all the rights to distribute BSD. It wasn't so much that BSD was stuff on top of ATT code, as it was that UCB helped ATT to develop unix.