Question

A company provides network encryption for secure data transfer. The data string is encrypted prior to transmission and gets decrypted at the receiving end. But due to some technical error, the encrypted data is lost and the received string is different from the original string by 1 character. Arnold, a network administrator, is tasked with finding the character that got last in the network so that the bug does not harm other data that is being transferred through the network.

Write an algorithm to help Arnold find the character that was missing at the receiving end but present at the sending end.

Answer 1

Arnold can find the missing character by comparing the sent and received encrypted data strings character by character, identifying the position where they differ. The missing character will be the additional character in the longer string.

Step-by-step explanation:

To assist Arnold in finding the missing character from the original string after a network encryption error, an algorithm can be derived based on a transposition cipher mechanism similar to what was used in the Zimmerman Telegram. To detect the missing character, Arnold can compare the encrypted data string sent with the one received character by character.

One method to write the algorithm involves going through each character of the original string and the received string in parallel. As Arnold finds a mismatch in character positioning between the two strings, he can identify the character that was lost during transmission.

If the encrypted string is longer by one character, implying the received string is shorter because it is missing a character, then Arnold can infer the additional character in the encrypted string is the missing one. This approach ensures that any bug affecting data transfer is promptly addressed, preventing similar issues in future transmissions.