Code that helped end Apartheid

Access & further reading

• Multiple commenters share archive links to bypass the paywall.
• A longer technical/political write‑up and original Vula materials are linked (PDF and archival sites).

Vintage crypto & code preservation

• Many express enthusiasm for the story and the survival of working 1980s crypto code.
• Some are inspired by the idea of code as a “historical document” and discuss code archaeology as a hobby.
• The 8088 machine is debated as “8‑bit vs 16‑bit,” with consensus that culturally it belongs to the 16‑bit era.

Cracking the ZIP & technical details

• Commenters discuss attempts to recover the old ZIP password using bkcrack and hashcat; it wasn’t found.
• Reported search suggests the password is fairly long (>13 characters, with some constraints for character types).
• The ability to attack PKZIP versus the enduring theoretical strength of the original one‑time pad is highlighted.
• People note how ZIP headers and embedded ZIPs enable known‑plaintext attacks.

One-time pads, randomness, and PRNG debates

• OTPs are recognized as information‑theoretically secure if used correctly, but hard to manage operationally.
• Several analyze the BASIC code’s random generation, noting it uses time‑seeded PRNGs and re‑seeding with checksums.
• There is debate over whether this was “good enough” against South Africa’s security services then, and whether shipping raw pad data vs seeds would effectively turn it into a stream cipher.

Terminology: “encipher” vs “encrypt”

• The archaic term “encipher” sparks a linguistics thread.
• Commenters compare historical usage (books, standards, X.509 fields), note the web era cemented “encrypt,” and discuss parallel terms in other languages.

How apartheid ended: tech vs politics

• Some emphasize symbolic moments and personal encounters; others call that over‑simplified.
• A substantial subthread argues the decisive factors were international (especially Anglo‑American) political pressure, sanctions debates, and the white government’s fear of civil war.
• There is disagreement on how much wealth redistribution occurred, the role of affirmative action and race‑based laws post‑1994, and whether the settlement preserved apartheid‑era economic hierarchies.
• Views differ sharply on current South African inequality: some blame lack of redistribution, others corruption, crime, and education failures.

Modern analogies and controversies

• Several commenters draw comparisons between apartheid South Africa and contemporary Israel/Palestine; others strongly reject the analogy.
• Human-rights‑organization reports labeling Israel an apartheid system are cited, but other commenters insist dictionary definitions do not apply; this remains unresolved and contentious in the thread.