{"id":641,"date":"2012-03-05T04:08:26","date_gmt":"2012-03-05T04:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/?p=641"},"modified":"2024-12-13T19:58:08","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T19:58:08","slug":"4-bit-xor-cipher-towers-in-minecraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/?p=641","title":{"rendered":"4-Bit XOR Cipher Towers in Minecraft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fun with Logic Gates and Ciphers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\nI know what you must be thinking- 4-bit? XOR? Cipher? Towers? o_O<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First four images are Tower 1 and last four are of Tower 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s break it down:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

4-bit denotes how many values we can have. Since our values are only, tower light on or tower light off (binary<\/a>), we\u2019re working with a total of 16 combinations (2^4).
To keep it simple there are only 4 place holders\/levels in the tower I created, hence 4 bits.I created a code table which states what each of the 16 possible combinations represent: <\/p>\n\n\n

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Xor and Logic Gates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

OK, we\u2019ve got the code, now how to mask its value so that only you and I know what it means? Well the engine that does this is a XOR(exclusive OR) logic gate. To create a XOR (Exclusive OR logic gate), I started by breaking it down into components (note: I usually use a note block or piston as the output block in the pictures<\/em>):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A simple NOT Gate (inverts the selection) and Input\/Output Gate (turns on or off depending if the switch is on or off)<\/p>\n\n\n

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A NOR Gate(Not OR Gate) and an OR Gate(turns on if either or both are on)

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XOR(composed of 3 NOR Gates and 1 OR Gate) and a XNOR(inverse of XOR Gate) for the heck of it.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Xor Cipher Tower<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So the question is how to send a message using XOR Gates? For each gate, there are 2 inputs and 1 output. One input we denote as the key and the other is a value in your plain text message. The XOR gate functions as our encryption (and decryption) algorithm\/method to encipher the message we want to send (and to review, a XOR gate basically outputs 1 if they are different when comparing values[1,0] and [0,1], and outputs 0 if they are the same [1,1] and [0,0]<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Caption: Wooden Plank says \u201cRight:Key\u201d and \u201cLeft:Text\u201d

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We are using 4 XOR gates (a total of 8 inputs and 4 outputs) stacked on top of each other. You have to set each value of key\/text pair to and the output will be the encrypted message that can be seen from afar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So for instance if I wanted to send the message: 1101 (or \u2018Hello\u2019 when we look at our code table) using the key:1100, I would go to the first level(bottom) and input 1 for the text input and input 0 for the key (the output would be light on or 1). I would then go to the second level and input 0 for the text value and 0 for the key(the output would be light off or 0). (Note: I set reading the tower top to bottom as the same as reading it left to right<\/em>). I would then repeat this process for every level of the tower (4 levels in this case\/hence 4-bit).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The encrypted message should read 0001<\/p>\n\n\n

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Towers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I created 2 towers so that I could send messages to my friends on neighboring island :) View gallery above.
One interesting feature\/bug is that the towers can also decrypt your message, but if you decrypt it in the tower the opposite island can figure out your key! So I recommend just doing it in your head (remember a XOR gate basically outputs 1 if they are different when comparing values[1,0] [0,1], and outputs 0 if they are the same [1,1] and [0,0]<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well The sun has set, and it\u2019s time to say: Encrypted Text:0111 Key:1001<\/p>\n\n\n

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References and Links<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Binary. (2011, September 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:41, September 10, 2011, from link<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hyde, Randall. \u201cChapter Three Data Representation.\u201d Art of Assemby. UCR, 11 Sept. 2002. Web. 09 Sept. 2011. link<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

XOR cipher. (2011, May 10). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:05, September 9, 2011, from XOR Cipher<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Java Tool to Create Logic Gates from components: link<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fun with Logic Gates and Ciphers . I know what you must be thinking- 4-bit? XOR? Cipher? Towers? o_O...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,221,9,10,231],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-art","category-cryptography","category-games","category-programming","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1337,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/1337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkcolorful.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}