Rename hint.txt and hint.text to README.md

2012/grothe/README.md

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+# Most conspiratorial
+
+Aaron Grothe  
+2205 South 51st Street  
+Omaha, NE 68106  
+US  
+<ajgrothe@yahoo.com>  
+
+David Madore  
+<http://www.madore.org/~david/>  
+
+
+## Judges' comments:
+### To build:
+
+    make grothe
+
+### To run:
+
+    # To create a shared secret shared among M people with N+1 needed to reconstruct
+    ./grothe -secret 1-/dev/urandom 2-/dev/urandom ... N-/dev/urandom \
+    1+shared1 2+shared2 ... M+sharedM
+
+    # To reconstruct the original (an arbitrary combination of N+1 or
+    # more shared files with their proper numbers)
+    ./grothe I-sharedI J-sharedJ K-sharedK ... +reconstructed
+
+### Try:
+
+    ./grothe -grothe.c 1+grothe.c.1 2+grothe.c.2
+
+    ./grothe -cookie_recipe.txt 1-/dev/urandom 2-/dev/urandom \
+    1+cookie_piece1.dat 2+cookie_piece2.dat 3+cookie_piece3.dat 4+cookie_piece4.dat
+
+    ./grothe 1-cookie_piece1.dat 2-cookie_piece2.dat 4-cookie_piece4.dat
+    +cookie_recipe_restore.txt
+
+### Selected Judges Remarks:
+
+Also known as Best abuse of the judging process.
+
+The IOCCC 2012 submission page didn't enforce the 2048 meaningful
+character limit.  This entry, as submitted, weighed in at 2222 chars
+but was, luckily for it, extremely easy to bring down below the
+limit.  There were a number of strings that when concatenated allowed
+the program to slide under the limit.
+
+It was clear to the judges that the extra size was an entry
+beautification step.  Had it not, this entry would have been
+rejected in round 0.
+
+The judges also took some liberty obfuscating this entry a litte more.
+
+How does this entry work? The only place multiplication is used is
+to perform the atoi conversion.
+
+
+## Author's comments:
+**Description**
+
+This program implements a version of Shamir's Secret Sharing.  Shamir's Secret
+Sharing allows you to encrypt a file into N parts where it will take M parts to
+recreate the original file.  E.g. you can split the secret recipe for Crystal Pepsi
+into 3 parts and require two of them be available to extract the original recipe.
+
+Actually surprisingly useful for an IOCCC entry :-)
+
+**Usage**
+
+To share a secret
+
+E.g.
+
+file to be shared - cookie\_recipe.txt
+number of pieces - 2 + file to be shared
+total number of pieces created by program 4
+pieces needed to reassemble recipe 3 or greater
+
+**example usage**
+
+\# to share secret into 4 pieces of which at least 3 will be needed to get back the recipe
+
+    ./grothe \
+        -cookie_recipe.txt 
+        1-/dev/urandom 2-/dev/urandom 
+        1+cookie_piece1.dat 2+cookie_piece2.dat 3+cookie_piece3.dat 4+cookie_piece4.dat
+
+\# put recipe back together using 1, 2 and 4th piece
+
+    ./grothe \
+        1-cookie_piece1.dat 2-cookie_piece2.dat 4-cookie_piece4.dat
+        +cookie_recipe_restore.txt
+
+**Limitations**
+
+* program is limited to 256 input and output files and will slow down dramatically when you get past 20-50 inputs and outputs
+
+**Obfuscations**
+
+* nothing is done consistently throughout the program E.g i+=1, i=i+1, i++ and ++i are all used in the program.  The mark of true code buggery. - "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
+* uses the most powerful obfuscation of all "Math".  "Any sufficiently advanced cryptography is indistinguasble from magic" - Apologies to Arthur C. Clarke
+* shadows variables by using brackets in main program to create local copies of variables that are the same as global scope variables.  -Wshadow should probably be a part of -Wall in gcc
+* uses array\_index[array\_name] instead of array\_name[array\_index] in several places.  Still don't know why C continues to allow this
+( error strings are encoded with offsets that are also used to select them in the case statement.  All strings are located in one function for easy localization
+* liberal use of octal numbers, hexadecimal numbers and regular decimal numbers throughout program
+* variables and function names are semi-random and upper and lower case characters are used
+* use of #defines from stdio.h, stdlib.h for values \_STDIO\_H and EXIT\_SUCCESS used to represent 1 and 0 respectively in the program
+* arrays only need to be 256x256 most are set to greater values than they need to be so trying to figure it out can be a bit tough
+
+**References**
+
+* Shamir's Secret Sharing - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamir%27s_Secret_Sharing</a>
+* David Madore's implementation of Shamir's Secret Sharing - <a href="http://www.madore.org/~david/programs/programs-1.36.html">http://www.madore.org/~david/programs/programs-1.36.html</a>
+* Steve's Recipe Database - source for the $25k Cookie Recipe - <a href="http://recipes.stevex.net/">http://recipes.stevex.net/</a>
+
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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