From: SilverYou know, you may all think I'm retarded, but seriously: if somebody discovers a totally new way of compressing data that no one knows about, of course you think "impossible, retarded". Because if you didn't, you'd be the one working on that code.
I could tell you how it works from what I've read, but I doubt I could explain it well.
The question why industry heads would get behind this was raised, and the answer's simple: when supposedly new technology comes around, you get behind it as quickly as possible. These industry heads had a tech demo, a crackpot explanation to work off of, and nothing more. By investing a relatively small amount on an unproven, yet potentially revolution idea, they're safeguarding their own interests. If the idea fails, whoops. If it does, you're in the money. If a revolutionary product presents itself, it's a good idea to be in on it--even if it fails, you aren't much worse off.
Right. One thing I didn't tell you is that Pieper quit (his multi-million dollar a year position) at Philips to head up Fifth Force.
Compression is the result of mapping the contents of one set of data to the contents of another, smaller set of data. As others have eloquently pointed out, the level of compression being claimed is utterly absurd.
Point taken. Now read up on how Sloot's technology worked, then come back to criticize.
For the record: Pieper gained complete control of Fifth Force, Inc. and the company still exists today, because the real code still hasn't been found. Sloot claimed that it was somewhere in a vault, but no one knows. Sloot was also a heart patient. He was not murdered. He was under pressure, had just travelled through the US with Pieper and died at a bad time. Still, if his story was bullshit... talk about going out with a bang.