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1+++ 2title = "Treachery of Representation" 3date = 2020-04-27 4lastmod = 2020-04-27T13:06:26+02:00 5description = """ 6Representation is not data - something that developers (and not only them) 7often forgot when working with different data.""" 8 9[taxonomies] 10tags = [ 11 "culture" 12] 13+++ 14 15![Treachery of Images](/img/treachery-of-images.jpg) 16 17I had that discussion on different chats few times already, but it is always 18troublesome for people (not just programmers): 19 20> **Representation is not data** 21 22And this concept is confused **a lot**. 23 24Almost any of you know that you can do `ping 1.1.1.1`, however did you know that 25you can also do `ping 16843009` and the result will be the same? Magic? Not 26really. What we commonly treat as an IPv4 address `1.1.1.1` is only textual 27representation of the IPv4 which in reality is single 32-bit number which is 28represented as dot separated 8-bit values just out of convenience. The same 29applies to SHA-1 hashes, UUIDs, etc. 30 31We people are great in finding patterns and simplifications, so when one sees 32something like: 33 34``` 35-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- 36 37mQINBFd1CwMBEADTJG+QszZ9JK6G+IZpvK/g8mJicqKVTV1OmI1toIml5c/5r/70 38dBc1FuASTM58PPZYJoKkbIh489QIvTm+8UdYu9zNRkT33el7pW1lEe5A6sq2bvoY 39GE8DioHTewdoSDPf7KIaZQeRcIY4n93rUOwA6GEtNpyYGP6ss5Y7BGk4ltSioe7N 40o+4ZmWoQZwZzRon3t1eWVVP9tRMG5nLzL3XA5FK8TqoYuuIOR0Kw9+yK/CIJi6EV 41NGXidQEhRX/e6cDcqmo6LQuQluuhpwKjD3rVIq5P55kDcyUXHkcr9/RBIY1GCw0m 42r03H053xYhPib4S3fkcGMz1zrvgPR8M6T8VYXERZDjKzQbkkjKx2umP+MQb57N/m 43Ndr+vks5PoPOPTGS9DYPaWf0fTVWQz/Wr6SuqKYWOObw2Ql1fOFS9dlQ26VHqtdP 44CjCS/+kxTWP0SNIlvmICj68JNq0Elti8DNF+8K4U/zjqphqLUOMYo+bfxF3Xudlx 45… 46X5tXXRd2Jx3rkquLhlOaIfwx5ZKkc0jFvFq6L6iQ8M3w2osTTQ8wzLVrKcA/1E37 47vzFw0eLlAHxqKKx8AGXhlG+bu4z9 48=HbWE 49-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- 50``` 51 52Then they will automatically say that this is PGP public key, however it is not! 53This is only armored (textual) representation of such. We can find infinite 54amount of ways to represent this in different formats that will suit our needs. 55We can use binary format, we can post it as huge integer: 56 57``` 581657454081776872747238013876359322713234391537499703933766980145269184386317049 598330933605635736383746482612365150874768089262930090931944711968773749521913699 607027071169368463413472374786860753667060249108643195012586135134901393013828317 611125513524511702912188470760919764295140961468869648430645347829208242125220011 623151968877120814976862830922750002170809783899223077039784557147675345249970781 635464553976008128226157133495317638249211710007765696991167161819945117066390428 643919051957061561015867974004807638646034325543036054946820462087690124141551114 659854678368254378572150652196681912690617688434615368858186497935662439355552496 664729580502224487557084501045154245589928832642849687361389957940229955065758222 676366651257907657297666835432894495612402178521246832570964915000759172307812244 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2369831545895899997311194908866099892662200438185858903893802349550297108232343975 2377063807807 238``` 239 240Before you ask - yes, this is my PGP public key as a single decimal integer. 241 242Next time you will see someone asking for "shorter UUID" you can point them 243there and say - just pick shorter representation. 244 245[so-uuid]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2117523/1017941