i have a question


granted, it has been a while since i have seen the film. but how exactly is that kid a security risk when all he can do is decode the encryption. It is not like he, or anyone that he gives the infomation to would have been able to work out what it was for. I mean, if you give someone information on how to decrypt something, but dont tell them what that something is, they probably wont be able to find it.

Also, couldnt they just change their encryptions. its not like anyone would believe that a kid, no matter what his skills, could have found out the identities of several undercover agents by solving a problem in a puzzle book.

then again, I could have missed or forgotten some major plot point in my confusion when i first watched this film.

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ur an idiot, dont bother posting again you nitwit

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What if what was encrypted, was the specific identities and locations of the overseas agents? Someone could ask him to read the encryption for them and discover who and where undercover agents are.

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you have legitmate question for a number of reasons -

If one person could crack the code another could are they going to kill all of them

Who would the kid tell? Are foreign spies and terrorists going to know this kid and his knowledge of the code. if he could even break it as the two code writers mentioned.

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I think that was the point in making Kudrow an unlikeable character.
The fact that he didn't have to kill the kid but decided to anyway.
The thing that bothered me was why put the code in the magazine in the first place?

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The reason they put the code in a magazine is to see if any geek can break it. The teacher who gave Simon the magazine is a geek, she probably went to Ivy league school and likes puzzle like most geeks do.

Spy agencies throughout the world use geeks to try to break codes. You wouldn't use someone who has a mental disease to do it. It's like any other business you will get the best and smartest to run the business and seek their advice. This code was created in a way so geeks wouldn't be able to break it. When it was created it was done so that no geek would be able to figure it out.

I remembered that in the early 1990s a group of people gave Nasa's smartest scientists the following puzzle OTTFFSSENT and they were allowed to give it to anyone to try to figure it out. Most likely went to friends in other fields. But none were able to figure it out after 5 days. The same puzzle was given to a 30 students from the second grade and 27 of them were able to figure it out within 30 seconds and the other 3 within 5 minutes. At the end it was first letter of the first ten numbers. One Two Three ....

If someone would have found out that he broke a code then this person could have sold the information on how to break it to other governments. All the secrets would have been out for anyone to find out.

Most codes are sent through radio frequency or internet now it days. The question is how to decrypt the code to make sense of it. That is how the Allies won World War II, they were able to decrypt the message the Germans were sending to their troops.

Sometimes the decryption can't be changed from the device you may have to change a chip or other hardware that hold the decryption. It's like you pc it has software that no matter you do to it you can't changed it or delete it without changing the hardware that holds it. So for them to change the decryption they would have probably needed all the devices all the spies were using and change it.

Decryption is a big business in the world. The Chinese and Russians pay a lot of money to those who can decode the decryption of US messages.

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"I remembered that in the early 1990s a group of people gave Nasa's smartest scientists the following puzzle OTTFFSSENT and they were allowed to give it to anyone to try to figure it out. Most likely went to friends in other fields. But none were able to figure it out after 5 days. The same puzzle was given to a 30 students from the second grade and 27 of them were able to figure it out within 30 seconds and the other 3 within 5 minutes. At the end it was first letter of the first ten numbers. One Two Three ...."

Yeah right that really happened sure uh-huh no it did for sure really.

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