I had a similar discussion with a friend recently discussing security issues, so your post intrigued me.

I am neither a math major nor a therapist, but given the criteria you specified (i.e., that the code word was chosen at random), it would seem to me that in either the case of a sequential or a random search, you average testing half of the words before finding an answer. The random search in that case would also involve more overhead in maintaining track of those words tested thus far. I would also suspect you would not gain much from alternating words, as the middle of the listing would still occur near the end of your search.

The only possible improvement I could suggest, if any, would be that, if the length of time to try one word is proportional to its length (you did not say if this were the case, or if it was a constant time operation to test a word) to perhaps try ordering the list such that it is ordered first by word length, then alphabetically (e.g., qw(a i am an as at ax be bo...)), so as to progress through the simpler words first.

Perhaps future dreams will provide you more clues to help in unlocking your mystery.

Update: An explanation of my suggestion of ordering first by word length. If this door were meant to be opened, someone must remember the word. If they are security-minded, it will be a word they can recall easily, but should not be easily guessed by others knowing who has access. Recalling that the human mind (assumption: being with legal access is human) seems to work best with no more than 7 to 9 bits of information, it would seem a reasonable attack vector.

In reply to Re: Dreams of Probability by atcroft
in thread Dreams of Probability by Nitrox

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