I like balanced trinary too. But you've got to sell it better:
Binary digIT=BIT Trinary digIT=TIT
This will help et people interested in your project, and they may even subscribe to your newsletter.
<smile>
Yes, this is a fruitful suggestion for the short term.
However, there being no such newsletter, such people would soon discover that there is nothing which interests them in the rather geeky project which has no nipples, and they would move on to other breasts. Better to stay with the industry-standard term for the smallest particle of ternary calculation: "trit." This ensures that people who participate are serious about what they're doing.
Nevertheless, you raise a good point. So here is something that WILL get people interested, once they get over the "No way, that's impossible" barrier:
Remember the fictional little black box in the mid-90s Robert Redford movie "Sneakers" which could decrypt any encrypted system? Remember SETEC ASTRONOMY and TOO MANY SECRETS? Remember how goofy they made it look on the screen (i.e. instantly decrypting graphical data in real-time with a Beta version of the code), but nevertheless such a black box is theoretically possible?
It is indeed possible. After nine years of working on this as a theory, I can finally prove that it is possible.
Listen carefully now, because I'm talking about a complete shift of paradigm, so it is normal to think "that's impossible" although admittedly: this is somewhat of a limiting starting point.
The software running inside that "impossible" black box is ternary, and uses pattern-based analysis to decrypt. Instead of decrypting a small string by using hundreds of thousands of password strings, each varying by a single character until you stumble upon the correct one, you decrypt by studying the layers of _patterns_ generated by any encryption process. Once you open the first layer, the others become successively easier, because each layer gives clues to the next.
In other words, you do not need a key. In the new paradigm, "The data is the key," no matter how encrypted it appears to be. If you really need a password, you could generate the key by looking through the layers of patterns which exist in encrypted data until you find one which is _meaningful_. And then you begin to add layers of meaning until you have the entire dataset, unencrypted. From there, it's fairly trivial to generate a key.
But what about that little meaningful seed, the first layer? Won't it be hard to find in the great big pattern of encrypted data?
That is a useful question if you're used to looking for needles in haystacks: Stop looking for the needle; look at the hay. Any one of _thousands_ of seeds will be available, so it's not difficult. This is much more elegant than brute-force decryption. You're able to open up the data directly, without using a key. In other words, the key is entirely useless, except maybe as a historical timestamp.
Now here's the part that will catch your attention:
The only way to prevent such pattern-based analysis from cracking open any binarily-encrypted clump of data, or even a packet stream, is to generate TRULY RANDOM keys, which can only be created ... you guessed it ... within a ternary pattern-based algorithm. You already know that binary algorithms can NEVER create true randomnness, but can only emulate it with ever-increasingly fine precision. Like approaching infinity; you are always approaching it, but never quite get there.
Fortunately, the most basic supporting evidence for this kind of pattern analysis is already in the public domain, but if you are skeptical, you would not believe if it were put right in front of you. So be at least curious, as a good starting point. Note that like everything else based in binary logic, the supporting evidence is rudimentary, only two-dimensional compared to the mature version which is 3-D. If you are curious, here's an encrypted hint: "Babble code is for babies."
(I'm intentionally giving away enough information so that anyone who wants to can build such a system on their own. I am poor and do not have the hardware resources to begin building the system, and it seems silly to let this be a reason to impede research.)
:-)
Nevertheless, it is obvious that this is not the place or time to go into full details. Rather than give away a secret which drives millions of dollars of R&D every year at the highest levels of all high security organizations... I think I'll just wait a little bit, until someone who is looking, and stumbles upon these posts via a Google search someday decides that there really is something useful to the ternary angle. Such a person probably already knows there is something here, and is merely researching for a little prior art, and will be delighted to see this letter.
Or perhaps, I should say, I think I'll just wait a little trit.
For that's when the very interesting conversation will begin. Until then, I'm content with tit versus trit, and happy that this conversation is now archived where all can see. And only slightly off topic.
Of course, there is also the possibility that someone on this list may be intrigued and want to start experimenting with FPGAs...
-Jared