Talk:The world wonders

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Was the security padding "the world wonders" or "the whole world wonders". The Second World War by John Keegan, had "the whole world wonders", but on the web "the world wonders" is preferred. It would be nice to cite a reliable source. Gdr 14:17, 2004 Oct 25 (UTC) (P.S. I note that another famous signal survives in two versions: England expects that every man will do his duty.)

"The world wonders", according to Thomas Cutler's 1994 book, which has three pages on this message (bought it but haven't read it yet). I've heard of Keegan being dinged for errors, maybe this is one of them. Stan 16:22, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Spector's Eagle Against The Sun (1984) has "The world wonders" but the complete message is considerably longer than the one quoted in this article. Geoff/Gsl 21:13, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Can you type it in? The message in the article is exactly as Cutler reports; curious that the various writers don't agree. Stan 21:27, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
TURKEY TROTS TO WATER RR FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS Geoff/Gsl 21:32, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted material

I deleted the detailed description of this incident from Padding (cryptography), preferring to refer to here. If there's any information in the section I removed that belongs in this article then restoring it here would be great! The last edit before my delete was this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Padding_%28cryptography%29&oldid=22909855#A_famous_example

thanks! — ciphergoth 09:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Correct double consonants at front?

My source says that the double consonants at the front after 'TURKEY TROTS TO WATER' were GG, not RR. RR were the ones at the end. Any other references to this?147.240.236.9 22:38, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another theory on why the phrase was kept in

I remember seeing another theory on why the phrase 'The world wonders' was kept in the message. I can't remember the source (it was quite a while ago), but I discussed this in a speech that I gave in October 1994. The theory went like this:

Double consonants are inserted into a message to separate the padding from the message itself. But what happens when words that are in the message contain double consonants? Anything after that might be struck out as padding. In many cases during this time frame, the messages were sent 'continuous wave'; essentially morse code with no breaks between words. It was up to the receiver to put in the word breaks. The solution was: if a word contained double consonants, then the sender would put in a third letter, which would tell the receiver that double consonants were was intended to be part of the message, and the following is not padding.

For example: the word 'bigger' would be sent as 'biggger'; 'little' would be sent as 'litttle'. The receiver would strike out the third identical consonant, and continue on.

In this message, the end of the message is '... THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS'. There are 3 R's in a row. This would indicate to the receiver that double consonants were intentional, and the message continues, and the following is not padding. So the receiver would write down '... THIRTY FOURR THE WORLD WONDERS' - incomplete message because of no 'end of message' notation.

If the double consonants at the end had been anything other than RR or TT, the padding would have been stricken out, and THE WORLD WONDERS would not have been included in the message given to Admiral Halsey. 147.240.236.9 22:51, 19 January 2006 (UTC)