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Steve Reid <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> 
> This is not nearly as good as I had hoped. Does anyone have any
> suggestions for producing output that is more correct english? I'm
> wondering if maybe the lexicon I'm using isn't so good. Or maybe my
> knowledge of sentence structure hmm, with Yoda on par it is.

I tend to favor long passphrases with full meaning taken from real
works:
        "d God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God 
        saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light
        from the darkness. And God called the light Day, a"

Obviously, if you know it comes from a book you don't need to random
try for the key. But still, and if you don't take actual sentences,
you get a nice number of options (e.g. starting at any word and using
the next 20-40 ones you'd get ~[size-range] * [number-of-words-in-book
- - min-size-of-passphrase]). Using partial words would increase options
proportionately. That's still too little.

But, make it be a bigger number of books and you get a bigger number of
options. 

Use a thesaurus to substitute words by synonyms and increase it (just
think how many alternate versions of Murphy's law there are around).

        "...
        peered the light, that it was fine: & Deity parted the flame
        ..."

Makeing use of alternate (mis)spellings you may further increase 
uncertainty.

        "...
        peered the lit; that 'twas fin -- & deity parted the phlame
        ..."

Making its length have greater variability does so even more. Mixing 
various languages (if feasible) helps a bit more...

        "...
        vu la lumier; that 'twas fin -- & deity parted the phlame
        ..."

Yet, for automatic generation you are bounded by electronic books,
which are still relatively few. But there's the Internet with a 
source of electronic text in the form of web pages, e-mail, USENET 
news messages; and there are translation tools, and so on...

Oh, and don't forget acrostics: take the first (or second or...) 
letter/word from a poem and off you go.

So it would run something like

        pos = random number between 0 and collection-size
        go to pos in literary-collection
        size = random number between min-len and max-len
        phrase = fetch size characters/words starting at pos
        for every work in phrase
                randomly select synonym in thesaurus 
                        with probability p = f(x)
                randomly select equivalent in language Y 
                        with p = f(y)
                randomly select alternate (mis)spelling in 
                        degenerate thesaurus with p = f(z)
        for every symbol/character in phrase
                randomly select alternate equivalent with p = f(v)
        & so on...

Obviously too, after several transformations you may as well end up
with a nonsensical sentence. Note that repeating the steps more than
once will result in sensible meaning drifts (adding to the fun and the
entropy).

I may be wrong, but my impression is that increasing entropy may not 
be so difficult with long enough (>150 char) fragments.

It may also help producing the passphrase and showing the user the 
process used to develop it so s/he may learn to do it by him/herself. 

Just my 2c worth.

                                j


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