Misplaced Pages

#232767

38-404: The oldest classical British and Latin writings had little or no space between words and could be written in boustrophedon (alternating directions). Over time, text direction (left to right) became standardized. Word dividers and terminal punctuation became common. The first way to divide sentences into groups was the original paragraphos , similar to an underscore at the beginning of

76-408: A cryptosystem by letting an attacker bypass the cryptography altogether. Plaintext is vulnerable in use and in storage, whether in electronic or paper format. Physical security means the securing of information and its storage media from physical, attack—for instance by someone entering a building to access papers, storage media, or computers. Discarded material, if not disposed of securely, may be

114-586: A boustrophedon script. The Atlantean language created by Marc Okrand for Disney's 2001 film Atlantis: The Lost Empire is written in boustrophedon to recreate the feeling of flowing water. The code language used in The Montmaray Journals , Kernetin, is written boustrophedonically. It is a combination of Cornish and Latin and is used for secret communication. In late writings, J.R.R. Tolkien states many elves were ambidextrous and as such, would write left-to-right or right-to-left as needed. In

152-414: A boustrophedonic script called Rongorongo , which remains undeciphered. In Rongorongo, the text in alternate lines was rotated 180 degrees rather than mirrored; this is termed reverse boustrophedon. The reader begins at the bottom left-hand corner of a tablet, reads a line from left to right, then rotates the tablet 180 degrees to continue on the next line from left to right again. When reading one line,

190-585: A boustrophedonic sequence in the American Universal Numbering System . In art history Marilyn Aronberg Lavin adopted the term to describe a type of narrative direction a mural painting cycle may take: "The boustrophedon is found on the surface of single walls [ linear ] as well on one or more opposing walls [ aerial ] of a given sanctuary. The narrative reads on several tiers, first from left to right, then reversing from right to left, or vice versa." The constructed language Ithkuil uses

228-477: A cleaning person) could easily conceal one, and even swallow it if necessary. Discarded computers , disk drives and media are also a potential source of plaintexts. Most operating systems do not actually erase anything— they simply mark the disk space occupied by a deleted file as 'available for use', and remove its entry from the file system directory . The information in a file deleted in this way remains fully present until overwritten at some later time when

266-477: A computer, useful (as opposed to handwaving ) security must be physical (e.g., against burglary , brazen removal under cover of supposed repair, installation of covert monitoring devices, etc.), as well as virtual (e.g., operating system modification, illicit network access, Trojan programs). Wide availability of keydrives , which can plug into most modern computers and store large quantities of data, poses another severe security headache. A spy (perhaps posing as

304-446: A paragraph break, although this is typically not done in prose . HTML 's <br /> tag produces a line break without ending the paragraph; the W3C recommends using it only to separate lines of verse (where each "paragraph" is a stanza ), or in a street address . Paragraphs are commonly numbered using the decimal system , where (in books) the integral part of the decimal represents

342-473: A paragraph container. In plaintext files, there are two common formats. The pre-formatted text will have a newline at the end of every physical line, and two newlines at the end of a paragraph, creating a blank line. An alternative is to only put newlines at the end of each paragraph, and leave word wrapping up to the application that displays or processes the text. A line break that is inserted manually, and preserved when re-flowing, may still be distinct from

380-474: A pause, setting the paragraph apart from what precedes it. If a paragraph is preceded by a title or subhead, the indent is superfluous and can therefore be omitted. The Elements of Typographic Style states that "at least one en [space] " should be used to indent paragraphs after the first, noting that that is the "practical minimum". An em space is the most commonly used paragraph indent. Miles Tinker , in his book Legibility of Print , concluded that indenting

418-416: A security risk. Even shredded documents and erased magnetic media might be reconstructed with sufficient effort. If plaintext is stored in a computer file , the storage media, the computer and its components, and all backups must be secure. Sensitive data is sometimes processed on computers whose mass storage is removable, in which case physical security of the removed disk is vital. In the case of securing

SECTION 10

#1733105120233

456-409: Is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the left. The original term comes from Ancient Greek : βουστροφηδόν , boustrophēdón , a composite of βοῦς , bous , "ox"; στροφή , strophḗ , "turn"; and

494-599: Is another book using this scheme since its third edition in 1951. Many published books use a device to separate certain paragraphs further when there is a change of scene or time. This extra space, especially when co-occurring at a page or section break, may contain a special symbol known as a dinkus , a fleuron , or a stylistic dingbat . The crafting of clear, coherent paragraphs is the subject of considerable stylistic debate. The form varies among different types of writing. For example, newspapers, scientific journals, and fictional essays have somewhat different conventions for

532-526: Is known as the Schaffer paragraph . Topic sentences are largely a phenomenon of school-based writing, and the convention does not necessarily obtain in other contexts. This advice is also culturally specific, for example, it differs from stock advice for the construction of paragraphs in Japanese (translated as danraku 段落). Boustrophedon Boustrophedon ( / ˌ b uː s t r ə ˈ f iː d ən / )

570-518: Is likely to be more difficult than it was when Gutmann wrote. Modern hard drives automatically remap failing sectors, moving data to good sectors. This process makes information on those failing, excluded sectors invisible to the file system and normal applications. Special software, however, can still extract information from them. Some government agencies (e.g., US NSA ) require that personnel physically pulverize discarded disk drives and, in some cases, treat them with chemical corrosives. This practice

608-420: Is not widespread outside government, however. Garfinkel and Shelat (2003) analyzed 158 second-hand hard drives they acquired at garage sales and the like, and found that less than 10% had been sufficiently sanitized. The others contained a wide variety of readable personal and confidential information. See data remanence . Physical loss is a serious problem. The US State Department , Department of Defense , and

646-502: Is reached in the southeast corner. Canada's Dominion Land Survey also uses boustrophedonic numbering, but starts at the southeast corner. Following a similar scheme, street numbering in the United Kingdom sometimes proceeds serially in one direction then turns back in the other (the same numbering method is used in some mainland European cities). This is in contrast to the more common method of odd and even numbers on opposite sides of

684-413: Is read in boustrophedon style (most of the language was written down in cuneiform ). Hieroglyphic Luwian is read boustrophedonically, with the direction of any individual line pointing into the front of the animals or body parts constituting certain hieroglyphs. However, unlike Egyptian hieroglyphs with their numerous ideograms and logograms , which show an easy directionality, the lineal direction of

722-405: Is transmitted or stored unencrypted. With the advent of computing , the term plaintext expanded beyond human-readable documents to mean any data, including binary files, in a form that can be viewed or used without requiring a key or other decryption device. Information—a message, document, file, etc.—if to be communicated or stored in an unencrypted form is referred to as plaintext. Plaintext

760-438: Is used as input to an encryption algorithm ; the output is usually termed ciphertext , particularly when the algorithm is a cipher . Codetext is less often used, and almost always only when the algorithm involved is actually a code . Some systems use multiple layers of encryption , with the output of one encryption algorithm becoming "plaintext" input for the next. Insecure handling of plaintext can introduce weaknesses into

798-514: Is very common in electronic formats, such as on the World Wide Web and email . Misplaced Pages itself employs this format. Professionally printed material in English typically does not indent the first paragraph, but indents those that follow. For example, Robert Bringhurst states that we should "Set opening paragraphs flush left." Bringhurst explains as follows: The function of a paragraph is to mark

SECTION 20

#1733105120233

836-792: The Green Star novels by Lin Carter , the script of the Laonese people is written in boustrophedon style. To make it easier to read from one musical staff to another, and avoid "jumping the eye," Jean-Jacques Rousseau envisioned a "boustrophedon" notation. This required the writer to write the second staff from right to left, then the one after from left to right, etc. As for the words, they were reversed, every second line. Plaintext In cryptography , plaintext usually means unencrypted information pending input into cryptographic algorithms , usually encryption algorithms. This usually refers to data that

874-577: The British Secret Service have all had laptops with secret information, including in plaintext, lost or stolen. Appropriate disk encryption techniques can safeguard data on misappropriated computers or media. On occasion, even when data on host systems is encrypted, media that personnel use to transfer data between systems is plaintext because of poorly designed data policy. For example, in October 2007, HM Revenue and Customs lost CDs that contained

912-407: The soft return at the end of a line internal to a paragraph. This distinction allows word wrap to automatically re-flow text as it is edited, without losing paragraph breaks. The software may apply vertical white space or indenting at paragraph breaks, depending on the selected style. How such documents are actually stored depends on the file format . For example, HTML uses the <p> tag as

950-470: The Hungarian rovás-sticks of Old Hungarian script were made by shepherds. A notcher would hold the wooden stick in their left hand, cutting the letters with their right hand from right to left. When the first side was complete, they would flip the stick over vertically and start to notch the opposite side in the same manner. When unfolded horizontally (as in the case of the stone-cut boustrophedon inscriptions),

988-565: The adverbial suffix - δόν , - dón , "like, in the manner of" – that is, "like the ox turns [while plowing]". It is mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions . It was a common way of writing on stone in ancient Greece , becoming less and less popular throughout the Hellenistic period . Many ancient scripts, such as Etruscan , Safaitic , and Sabaean , were frequently or even typically written boustrophedon. The wooden boards and other incised artefacts of Rapa Nui also bear

1026-426: The final result is writing which starts from right to left, and continues from left to right in the next row, with letters turned upside down. Sebestyén suggests that the ancient boustrophedon writings were copied from such wooden sticks with cut letters, applied for epigraphic inscriptions (not recognizing the real meaning of the original wooden type). The Luwian language had a version, Hieroglyphic Luwian , that

1064-430: The first line of paragraphs increases readability by 7%, on average. When referencing a paragraph, typographic symbol U+00A7 § SECTION SIGN ( &sect; ) may be used: "See § Background". In modern usage, paragraph initiation is typically indicated by one or more of a preceding blank line, indentation , an " Initial " ("drop cap") or other indication. Historically, the pilcrow symbol   ( ¶ )

1102-402: The inter-paragraph white space, or put in the indentation space. A second common modern English style is to use no indenting, but add vertical white space to create "block paragraphs." On a typewriter, a double carriage return produces a blank line for this purpose; professional typesetters (or word processing software) may put in an arbitrary vertical space by adjusting leading . This style

1140-559: The lines above and below it appear upside down. However, the writing continues onto the second side of the tablet at the point where it finishes off the first, so if the first side has an odd number of lines, the second will start at the upper left-hand corner, and the direction of writing shifts to top to bottom. Larger tablets and staves may have been read without turning, if the reader were able to read upside-down. The Hungarian folklorist Sebestyén Gyula  [ hu ] (1864–1946) writes that ancient boustrophedon writing resembles how

1178-465: The new group. The Greek parágraphos evolved into the pilcrow (¶), which in English manuscripts in the Middle Ages can be seen inserted inline between sentences. Ancient manuscripts also divided sentences into paragraphs with line breaks ( newline ) followed by an initial at the beginning of the next paragraph. An initial is an oversized capital letter, sometimes outdented beyond the margin of

Paragraph - Misplaced Pages Continue

1216-716: The number of the chapter and the fractional parts are arranged in each chapter in order of magnitude. Thus in Whittaker and Watson's 1921 A Course of Modern Analysis , chapter 9 is devoted to Fourier Series; within that chapter §9.6 introduces Riemann's theory, the following section §9.61 treats an associated function, following §9.62 some properties of that function, following §9.621 a related lemma, while §9.63 introduces Riemann's main theorem, and so on. Whittaker and Watson attribute this system of numbering to Giuseppe Peano on their "Contents" page, although this attribution does not seem to be widely credited elsewhere. Gradshteyn and Ryzhik

1254-572: The operating system reuses the disk space. With even low-end computers commonly sold with many gigabytes of disk space and rising monthly, this 'later time' may be months later, or never. Even overwriting the portion of a disk surface occupied by a deleted file is insufficient in many cases. Peter Gutmann of the University of Auckland wrote a celebrated 1996 paper on the recovery of overwritten information from magnetic disks; areal storage densities have gotten much higher since then, so this sort of recovery

1292-503: The placement of paragraph breaks. A common English usage misconception is that a paragraph has three to five sentences; single-word paragraphs can be seen in some professional writing, and journalists often use single-sentence paragraphs. English students are sometimes taught that a paragraph should have a topic sentence or "main idea", preferably first, and multiple "supporting" or "detail" sentences that explain or supply evidence. One technique of this type, intended for essay writing,

1330-594: The street both increasing in the same direction. The Avoiuli script used on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu is written boustrophedonically by design. Additionally, the Indus script , although still undeciphered, can be written boustrophedonically. Another example is the boustrophedon transform , known in mathematics . Sources also indicate that Linear A may have been written left-to-right, right-to-left, and in boustrophedon fashion. Permanent human teeth are numbered in

1368-482: The text in hieroglyphic Luwian is harder to see. A modern example of boustrophedonics is the numbering scheme of sections within survey townships in the United States and Canada . In both countries, survey townships are divided into a 6-by-6 grid of 36 sections. In the U.S. Public Land Survey System , Section 1 of a township is in the northeast corner, and the numbering proceeds boustrophedonically until Section 36

1406-421: The text. This style can be seen, for example, in the original Old English manuscript of Beowulf . Outdenting is still used in English typography, though not commonly. Modern English typography usually indicates a new paragraph by indenting the first line. This style can be seen in the (handwritten) United States Constitution from 1787. For additional ornamentation, a hedera leaf or other symbol can be added to

1444-474: Was used in Latin and western European languages. Other languages have their own marks with similar function . Widows and orphans occur when the first line of a paragraph is the last in a column or page, or when the last line of a paragraph is the first line of a new column or page. In word processing and desktop publishing , a hard return or paragraph break indicates a new paragraph, to be distinguished from

#232767