Instead, the Spiral algorithm performs many operations to disguise the relationship between the numbers. In the example given above, the new number, which I call the “Algorithm ID” or AID, would be something like 34,674. No one looking at the SBOEID or CID numbers attached to the AID would have any way of knowing what the AID is without knowing the algorithm.
What is AID? I call it an ID number because that’s what it looks like to me. However, I would need more information to know for sure what it is. The AID is a serial number that represents all transformations performed by the Spiral algorithm. It allows, in short, to completely reverse the manipulations of the Spiral. I added the number to the file so I wouldn’t lose track of what the algorithm was doing. Then I realized that there was a clear relationship between the type of numbers used by the spiral and the fixed values built into the AID. This made it look like the AID should be the numbers I assigned, and not others. If they were different in any way, they would be incompatible with the Spiral. It is therefore plausible that the creation of the AID is at least part of the spiral’s intended purpose.
How does the spiral work? I discuss this in more detail in my SubStack (here is a sample), but the simple version is this:
- The number space used by SBOEID numbers, consisting of the numbers 1-99,999,999, is divided into three bands. There is no way to discover the limits of these bands without extensive manual effort
- Within the three partitions, the middle one, “In-Range” is subdivided into 67 partitions. One for each of New York’s 62 counties and 5 “buffers”. There is no easy way to discover the boundaries of these partitions without extensive manual effort.
- A decimal point is added to the left of all CID numbers, after separating the alpha components (such as the letters C, M, and N). After adding the decimal point, the numbers are sorted in ascending order. The effect of this is to completely alter the order of the CID numbers. This is because the number 55 comes before 56, but the number 550 comes after 56. When decimalized, 550 becomes .550 and 56 is .560, thus reversing their natural order.
- The spiral performs a very complex series of mathematical operations on the list of numbers within the range of each county. You can read the Journal of Information Warfare article or my SubStack for more information.
- The ordered list of decimal CID numbers is cut into strips. Each of these strips is cut again and the numbers from the beginning are moved to the end.
- The encoded list of CID numbers is mapped to the encoded list of SBOEID numbers.
- The decimal point is removed from all CID numbers, thus hiding the fact that it was ever there.
The AID is based on the final position of the numbers after the Spiral has done its work. This is no small obfuscation.
Spiral does not protect any personal data of voters. All census records are public, except for social security numbers and driver’s license numbers. Instead of being encrypted, they are removed from publicly available data in their entirety. To protect public data, relationships between voter names, addresses, dates of birth, and voter history (among other things) should be masked. None of these are masked. None of the relationships are obscured in any way. SBOEID and CID numbers are also not masked. If they were, an SBOEID would look something like this: XXX,XXX,324, where the X replaces the masked numbers.
Spiral does not protect non-public information. He can not. The SSN and driver’s license data are likely available somewhere for people with authority to access them. This data, however, is no better hidden or protected than it is by adding a third identifier to what is already attached to voter records.
Databases are usually optimized for faster search and retrieval. A common method is called “B-Tree”. A simple way to describe it is this: suppose you want record number 47 out of 100 records. What is the fastest way to find it? In the past, a search might have started with the number 1, and then continued upwards until it reached 47. That is, 47 separate checks of the database to find the record. A B-Tree asks, “Is the record in the first half or the second half of the database? Is it in the first 50 records, so the last 50 are now removed from consideration. It now asks, is it in the first half or the second half of the remaining records? Is it in the second half, so records 1-25 are removed. It keeps going until, after 5 steps, it has found the record. Now this “tree” it is stored in an index which makes it easier to find later.
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