Cryptomni Version 1.1 Released

Changes in this release include improved source code quality, as well as the ability to encrypt/decrypt multiple files from a single key file.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/cryptomni/

Crossing the Rubicon

For the last two weeks I have been contemplating what I consider to be the most important decision of my life. I have been offered an internship position at Microsoft, as well as a summer research position here at UBC. Both of the positions are related to artificial intelligence, but the Microsoft position will probably be more focused on software development. The research position will involve working on a program called CIspace (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/labs/lci/CIspace) funded by a NSERC USRA (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Undergraduate Student Research Award).

To me this decision represents much more than just what I plan on doing this summer, but what I plan on doing for the rest of my life. On one hand I can do research on fascinating topics directly related to what I am interested in, but on the other I can start a career as a software developer with a much higher salary but work on something which I don't find as fulfilling. Choosing the Microsoft position would probably open many career opportunities within the software development industry, but I fear life as a code monkey will be stressful and unsatisfying. Today I was forced to choose between the two positions, and I have decided to go with CIspace. I really hope that I don't end up regretting this choice later in life.

FoxTrot

Windows Vista Business

Since I get a free copy of Windows Vista Business thanks to MSDNAA, I decided to install it on a partition this morning. I definitely think its an improvement over XP. The Aero interface looks awesome, and a lot of the features available in XP have been tweaked and improved. My only real complaint about it is the User Account Control, which displays an annoying dialog message requesting security permission way too often. I will continue to use Ubuntu as my main desktop environment, but may occasionally boot to Vista if I need to use software which doesn't run on Linux.

Cryptomni Version 1.0 Released

Cryptomni is a program which can encrypt and decrypt files using the one-time pad cipher. A key file is created using the cryptographically strong random number generator SecureRandom. If a key is truly random, kept secret, and never reused, this encryption algorithm can be proven to be unbreakable.

This project is hosted at SourceForge.net, and can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/cryptomni.