Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watnot!watmath!clyde!rutgers!husc6!seismo!mimsy!dave
From: dave@mimsy.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: analysis of unknown data
Message-ID: <5776@mimsy.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Mar-87 16:47:26 EST
Article-I.D.: mimsy.5776
Posted: Thu Mar 12 16:47:26 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Mar-87 21:47:13 EST
References: <5681@mimsy.UUCP> <564@franka.mntgfx.MENTOR.COM>
Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742
Lines: 29
Keywords: statistics; pattern recognition; signal processing; content analysis

In article <564@franka.mntgfx.MENTOR.COM>, franka@mntgfx.MENTOR.COM (Frank A. Adrian) writes:
> Actually, there are several ways to approach this problem.  It is a statement
> of finding out what is happenning inside a classical "black box".  You can
> start by monitoring all requests and replies from the file, searching for
> patterns based on location of access and length of access.  You can examine
> the bytes returning from the device to try to detect patterns.  You can use
> a traffic analysis approach by find out what types of programs access this
> file at which times for a given purpose.  
    the "file" of 156MB is not exactly a black box.  The traditional
black box problem describes functions whose structure is not known.
The "file" is data, not procedure.  An unknown number of procedures
may have participated in creation of the data.  The "file" is
sitting on my machine after being read off of a tape which an
archeologist(sp?) dug up.  What is the data?  Maybe it is one logical
file, maybe hundreds.  If hundreds, maybe each one is a different
type.  Maybe the bytes on the tape are not ordered as logical files,
but as physical blocks from some disk pak.  Put it back together,
so you can tell the archeologist  what information is on the
tape, so he learns something about the civilization which left it.

       Dave Stoffel (703) 790-5357
       seismo!mimsy!dave
       dave@Mimsy.umd.edu
       Amber Research Group, Inc.
-- 
       Dave Stoffel (703) 790-5357
       seismo!mimsy!dave
       dave@Mimsy.umd.edu
       Amber Research Group, Inc.