Editing 257: Code Talkers

{{comic
| number    = 257
| date      = May 4, 2007
| title     = Code Talkers
| image     = code_talkers.png
| titletext = As far as I can tell, Navajo doesn't have a common word for 'zero'. do-neh-lini means 'neutral'.
}}

==Explanation==
{{w|Code talker}}s are people who communicate using their native language not known by the enemies. The most well-known code talkers were the {{w|Navajo language|Navajo-speaking}} Marines serving during World War II.

This comic shows a {{w|Navajo people|Navajo}} code talker transmitting an encrypted binary file by speaking "one" and "zero" (actually "neutral," as explained in the title text) into a microphone. By using only two words, the code is easily cracked. Unlike the Navajo Marines, this process does not add security, because it easily can be decrypted and is also much slower than simply transmitting the file over a network.

Note that (probably unbeknownst to Randall) the actual code used by the Navajo code talkers was not so far removed from the depiction in the comics: The Navajos used a mostly alphabetic code, with Navajo word for each English letter. (This meant that even though the Axis captured at least one native Navajo speaker, he could not make any sense of what was said.) However, several important terms were given their own Navajo idioms, and many letters could be represented by multiple different words, so the entropy would be somewhat higher than depicted in the comic.

The title text is a disclaimer from [[Randall]] about using "neutral" instead of "zero" — Navajo has words for the concept of nothing, but not for the numeral zero. Most number systems are not {{w|positional notation|positional}}, and therefore may lack the number zero. The {{w|Arabic numerals|Arabic numeral system}} used in the West required the invention of the zero as a placeholder, so that numbers could retain their position when one column has nothing in it.

==Transcript==
:[A man is sitting on a chair in front of a computer monitor, which sits on a desk. He is speaking into a microphone. The microphone's wire goes to the left and the monitor's wire to the right; both reach a panel edge and presumably continue off-screen.]
:Code talker: A'la'ih, do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini, a'la'ih, a'la'ih, do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini, a'la'ih, a'la'ih, do'neh'lini, a'la'ih, do'neh'lini,do'neh'lini, do'neh'lini...
:[Two men are talking nearby.]
:Cueball: For added security, after we encrypt the data stream, we send it through our Navajo code talker.
:Friend: ...Is he just using Navajo words for "Zero" and "One"?
:Cueball: Whoa, hey, keep your voice down!

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]

[[Category:Binary]]
[[Category:Language]]