
What the Count of Monte Cristo Can Teach Us About Cybersecurity - charlysl
https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/what-the-count-of-monte-cristo-can-teach-us-about-cybersecurity
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charlysl
If you haven't read this masterpiece yet, I strongly recommend that you do. An
adventure if there ever was one, and possibly the classic of revenge. The
prison bit is particularly memorable. Who cares if Dumas didn't write the
whole thing.

~~~
pmoriarty
The Count of Monte Cristo is a truly magnificent accomplishment, but I found
the prison part to be the weakest and slowest part of the book. It's also
really cliche by now.

The book only really takes off after the prison part is over.

~~~
charlysl
It's when the mother of all revenges develops, for sure.

Maybe it's become cliche because of its very brilliance, I don't know. Thing
is I wasn't all that familiar with the plot before I read it, hadn't seen any
of the cartoons or movies, so I was sort of "unpolluted", maybe that made me
enjoy it more.

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charlysl
_... between Paris and Lille, a distance of 230 kilometres (about 143 miles)
... The first symbol of a message to Lille would pass through 15 stations in
only nine minutes. The speed of the line varied with the weather, but the line
to Lille typically transferred 36 symbols, a complete message, in about 32
minutes ..._ [1]

So a short message could be sent at around 450km/h, like two orders of
magnitude faster than the postal service it partially replaced, or, I guess
that more likely for that kind of communication, still more than on order of
magnitude faster than messenger pigeons. Then again, snail mail obviously
still had vastly greater throughput.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_line)

~~~
charlysl
... and _bad weather_ of course meant "no connection".

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charlysl
It is also worth mentioning that this novel, and many others at the time, were
published as wildly anticipated serials, not that different from the currently
so popular series. You can tell from the cliffhangers at the end of many
chapters.

~~~
5555624
A year ago, that was how I last read it. I would read just one chapter, each
night, before I went to sleep. There were many nights where I would want to
read the next chapter. (I recall reading it was not released a chapter at a
time; but, that was the easiest way to break it up.)

~~~
charlysl
You are more disciplined than me, I binge read it during a holiday.

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dmoo
Can I recommend the mini-series with Gerard Depardieu

[http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0167565/](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0167565/)

~~~
charlysl
Thanks, it's in the pipeline now!

