Binary Q- urgent!

[DigitalContact]

[/COLOR]Hey i hot this section of binary on its own in an e-mail and am dying to know wat it means

00000000
00001000
00000111
00000111
00001001
00000101
00000111
00000101
00000101
00001001
Help much appreciated, also a reccomendation on a binary guide text wud b nice tho not ness as i reas up on the nature of no.s

[TheCotMan]

Hey i hot this section of binary on its own in an e-mail and am dying to know wat it means

00000000
00001000
00000111
00000111
00001001
00000101
00000111
00000101
00000101
00001001[/COLOR]

Binary is a collection of1's and 0'. The exact meaning of what each string of bits means is something that can't really be understood without the context. 8 bits of binary could be characters, or on 8 bit machines, an integer, or on larger machines can be part of an integer, long, string, float, double, other ADT etc. Even if you know it is a character of some type, you won't know what character set or symbol code exchange/format it is using. If Unicode, then you would need multiple 8-bit chars together, if ASCII, 7 of the 8 bits...

Binary can also be used to represent executable code, octets in an IP address, addresses, and many more things and even if it is known to be part of an instruction, you would need to know the architecture, the boundary for which bits are the begin and end for each instruction.

So. I will answer your Q:
The above includes data or it does not.
The above includes instructions or it does not.

This question is much like the posts you see in crypto groups where someone posts some "encrypted text" and says, "can anyone figure out what this means?"

[Fixed spelling mistakes, content added below, changed quoted text color to drop the lame "black on grey", improved layout]

Help much appreciated, also a reccomendation on a binary guide text wud b nice tho not ness as i reas up on the nature of no.s

Um. You can't know how to interprit a string of bit without context. You can convert the value of a string of bits into a decimal value (assuming unsigned), or octal, or hex, but these won't help you to understand what they mean unless you have context.

The easiest metaphor I can consider to describe this is as follows:
You see a gangster pull up in a car. He flashes his lights once each second, then pauses 2 seconds and flashes again for one second. What does that mean? Unless you know what table the ganster was using for translating the bits, you do not know if it is data (I have the money) or an instruction (send the money over.)

[pc-0x90]

Solution

0 people have been here before ye
8 miles from the coast of cuba
7 yards deep, you'll find
7 seashells, one for each colour of ye olde raynebow
9 chains point away from the shells like spokes of a wagon wheel
5 chains clockwise from north will be the correct chain
7 miles, as the shark swims, you'll come to a series of caverns
5 contain certain death
5 more contain uncertain death
9 from the left contains me treasure


Yarr, it be a hacker pirate map

[Siviak]

Yarr, it be a hacker pirate map

uuummm... don't you mean it's a Software Pirate map? :D

[bascule]

Yarr, it be a hacker pirate map

Quality...

[skroo]

Yarr, it be a hacker pirate map

You did double-check the endianness on that, right? ;)

[TheCotMan]

You did double-check the endianness on that, right? ;)

Ok. Fine. I'll play too.

Obviously, it would have to be "Big-Endian" since we know that a Pirate treasure is often called "Booty" and if the treasure is big, it would be Big Booty, and what is another way to refer to someone with a Big Bootie? Big-End-ian...

/me runs and ducks for cover.

[converge]

Obviously, it would have to be "Big-Endian" since we know ...

fool! everyone knows all the 1337x0r pirates use win32 (and dectionary.com) rrrr

[dataworm]

[/COLOR]Hey i hot this section of binary on its own in an e-mail and am dying to know wat it means

00000000
00001000
00000111
00000111
00001001
00000101
00000111
00000101
00000101
00001001
Help much appreciated, also a reccomendation on a binary guide text wud b nice tho not ness as i reas up on the nature of no.s

It's Obvious

It's a PENIS ENLARGEMENT AD for geek

[LosT]

I'll pay you a compliment, just to confuse matters:

00000000
00001000
00000111
00000111
00001001
00000101
00000111
00000101
00000101
00001001

Help much appreciated, also a reccomendation on a binary guide text wud b nice tho not ness as i reas up on the nature of no.s

Just to really confuse things, how about I pay you a compliment (twice as nice)? You know, while you "reas up on the nature of no.s"...

00000000 while I carry you out,
11111000
11111001
11111001
11110111
11111011
11111001
11111011
11111011
11110111

LosT

[TheCotMan]

Just to really confuse things, how about I pay you a compliment (twice as nice)? You know, while you "reas up on the nature of no.s"...

00000000 while I carry you out,
11111000
11111001
11111001
11110111
11111011
11111001
11111011
11111011
11110111

LosT

Subtle. Very clever. Very nice. Witty.
I like this reply very much. :-)

[Edit: added content below]
Of course some might say you were being a bit negative. ;-)

[DigitalContact]

hey what does that un mean , even if it is mean i want to learn what i have to learn to understand it. if it is sarcastic THANKS I REALLY MERITED A FLAMING (in disguise) if not ,sorry.

[TheCotMan]

hey what does that un mean , even if it is mean i want to learn what i have to learn to understand it. if it is sarcastic THANKS I REALLY MERITED A FLAMING (in disguise) if not ,sorry.

If the above were an answer to me, I would not take it as a flame. I would take it as a joke, and the only way it makes fun of you is if you don't work to understand it. If you take the time to learn about binary and how it can be used, you will eventually come across something to help you understand the above post from LosT.

Almost any time a joke is explained, it's charm and entertainment is destroyed. It would be a disservice to this joke to explain it, and I won't do it.

A number of papers exist out there to explain different things that can be done with binary. Use google to find these, and you will be on your way.

[LosT]

But there's no minus sign in binary >:)

If the above were an answer to me, I would not take it as a flame. I would take it as a joke, and the only way it makes fun of you is if you don't work to understand it. If you take the time to learn about binary and how it can be used, you will eventually come across something to help you understand the above post from LosT.

I *was* going to make some reference to being negative, but I thought it might already be over his head ;)

Anyone who wants to learn about binary should start by learning about number bases. Learn to convert between bases BY HAND. Base 8 (Octal, for the slow kids), Base 16 (Hex, for the even slower kids: "Hey how much is $FF in American dollars?!?!") and finally base 2 (binary: "Isn't %1100100 more than 100%?") Really neat things can be done in code where you play with shifting bits (you can save lots of code space *and* speed up some executions).

And I *have* to say this in reply to digi's last post:

Ralph Wiggum: "Me fail English? That's un-possible."

If you really want to understand my post, try adding it to yours. You'll see that we get nowhere. ;)

LosT

[ndex]

beer penalty! 10 yards closer to pool 3!!

fool! everyone knows all the 1337x0r pirates use win32 (and dectionary.com) rrrr

You have earned a beer penalty. You owe me a beer for making me read that and you must move 10 yards closer to pool 3.