Computer keyboards have LEDs on them that are essentially kind of useless: one to tell you when NUM LOCK is on, one for CAPS LOCK, and a third one whose purpose

Computer keyboards have LEDs on them that are essentially kind of useless: one to tell you when NUM LOCK is on, one for CAPS LOCK, and a third one whose purpose Randy can't even remember. And for no reason other than the general belief that every aspect of a computer should be under the control of hackers, someone, some where, wrote some library routines called XLEDS that make it possible for programmers to turn these things on and off at will. And for a month, Randy's been writing a little program that makes use of these routines to output the contents of a text file in Morse code, by flashing one of those LEDs. And while all kinds of useless crap has been scrolling across the screen of his computer as camouflage, Randy's been hunched over gazing into the subliminal channel of that blinking LED, reading the contents of the decrypted Arethusa intercepts. -- Neal Stephenson's http://www.cryptonomicon.com/text.html http://www.cryptonomicon.com/text.html (2009, as what's left of its custom website shows!). $9 Kindle edition: https://amzn.com/dp/B000FC11A6 https://amzn.com/dp/B000FC11A6 Apparently he has a new novel out next week.