FC: ZeoSync offers improbable claim of compression breakthrough

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Like many other computer science students, I once wrote my own Huffman 
compression algorithm in C for a programming class. We figured out pretty 
quickly how lossless algorithms work (the type, used in .ZIP files, that 
allow you to reconstruct the exact compressed file), and we also learned 
that there are theoretical limits to compression. Physics has its laws of 
thermodynamics, and computer science has its own fundamental principles. 
This alleged discovery by ZeoSync violates them.

Unfortunately ZeoSync's marketingprflackdroids have made an implausible 
situation worse, even laughable, by larding up the press release with 
nonsense buzzwords and "TM" statements that convey nothing save confusion. 
That makes it impossible to evaluate their claims. See the press release:
http://www.zeosync.com/flash/pressrelease.htm

And an unusually intelligent Slashdot discussion (it's quite good, even 
with all the inside CS jokes):
http://slashdot.org/science/02/01/08/137246.shtml

There's even a FAQ on the topic, which recounts the sad history of 
hucksters trying to pass off vaporcompressionware as reality (the 
equivalent of joke crypto's snake oil salesmen):
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/compression-faq/part1/section-8.html
>  It is mathematically impossible to create a program compressing without loss
> *all* files by at least one bit (see below and also item 73 in part 2 of this
> FAQ). Yet from time to time some people claim to have invented a new algorithm
> for doing so.

Compare and contrast ZeoSync's assertions to these claims, almost as 
stunning but sober, peer-reviewed, and infintely more credible:
http://www.nature.com/nsu/020107/020107-2.html

-Declan

---

To: declan () well com
Subject: Compression
From: "James Bond" <s007 () hotmail com>
Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2002 16:49:41

This link was e-mailed to me by a friend.  I found the subject extremely 
fascinating and thought it might interest some of the more 
computer-inclined readers of Politech.  In any case, if any of this comes 
to fruition, it has extreme ramifications for the future of the 
telecommunications industry and the Internet in general.  Imagine 100:1 
lossless compression ratios commercially available by mid 2003.

http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=technologynews&StoryID=498720

---

   By Eric Auchard

   NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida research start-up working with a team
   of renowned mathematicians said on Monday it had achieved a
   breakthrough that overcomes the previously known limits of compression
   used to store and transmit data.

---




-------------------------------------------------------------------------
POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------