Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Prison Break Puzzles

Recently, I was again watching an episode of Prison Break and couldn't help but think about the cryptology aspect of the happenings in the show. In this particular episode, a team is assigned to collect data on 6 cards hidden in different locations. One of the team members has a device that decrypts information on anything electronic within a certain distance, so the team merely has to be within a certain range of the cards to get the data off of it. They follow a card-holder into a casino in LasVegas and the device picks up the information on all of the machines in the room, so he knows exactly which machine is about to win.

Although this show is fiction (and sometimes referred to as Prison Fake), this episode made me wonder if such a device truly does exist, and if it does how threatening that would be to our personal privacy and security. The device was convenient for the team in the show, but it would be quite an inconvenience for ordinary people walking the streets with a phone or laptop!

2 comments:

  1. Sometimes tv shows have technology that seems like science fiction. But sometimes what we are actually capable of surprises many. Maybe if someone actually tried to develop this technology, it might actually be possible.

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  2. I would be very unhappy if people used this type of device to spy on me and take my information.

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