December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: Redlining
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

E. Allen Smith wrote: > From: IN%"dthorn(a)gte.net" "Dale Thorn" 13-DEC-1996 00:55:54.44 > >It is possible to understand intelligence as "pattern matching" skills, > >without having to have attendant math and statistics to define it more > >precisely or clinically. This understanding (if you have it) is the key > >to knowing that Black persons do *not* have less IQ than White persons, > >regardless of the standardized tests. Something I know about, as I've > >scored in the top 1/1000 of one percent, etc. > Umm... so have I, and I've also done some extensive reading on > the subject. The IQ tests in question do a good job (better than any > other tests - to study & compare you've got to have some sort of test, > and an IQ test doesn't see what color you are) at correlating with > things such as job performance, educational success (e.g., GPA), > likelihood even within given racial groups of being in poverty, etcetera. I have not associated closely with any Black persons since 1981-1983, but at that time, when I had worked with several such persons in Los Angeles, in close quarters (me being the only White person), I was profoundly impressed with the diversity and complexity of the issue (I was curious about the issue due to my circumstances, although I certainly did not mention it) in dealing with real people. My experience tells me that persons who administer intelligence tests and other related tests, or persons who subscribe to study of such things, should get up close to (for example) Black persons for an extended period of time, and I think they (the White persons) would then seriously question any test results which showed a consistent superiority for Whites. > >Nice that you have good intuition on this point, however, the big question > >in your paragraph is not wherefore the genetic determinant, rather, it is > >the understanding of intelligence in its overall context, which I dare say > >most researchers in that field are probably ill-equipped to grasp. > Actually, my conclusions re: genetic differences are an educated > guess... just one that isn't currently testable. My guess comes from such > factors as that some groups that, to all appearances, have high IQs are > actually pretty closely related to some groups that have low IQs; take > hispanics (mixed caucasian and (via American Indian) asian ancestry). > The debates over what is intelligence, etcetera are quite > thoroughly ongoing in the field in question; multiple books have been > written on the subject. I have recently (Oct. 1996) more-or-less inherited three half-Navajo children, upon the death of their father (mother died 1993). The kids are 9, 11, and 13. I have described to various people (schoolteachers, parents, computer programmers, and so on) that raising kids of this age, at this point in my life, is no more difficult than just living my own life without them. Getting past the emotional weaknesses that can hobble you as a parent or guardian is paramount, and once you do that, the rest is a cakewalk. But what I really wanted to say was that my experience with these children now (whom I didn't know until mid-1996) has convinced me more than ever that intelligence is not only not primarily genetic, but may also be recoverable to a large extent up to the beginning of the teen years, if not beyond that. I would guess that children from most any background, young enough and lacking actual physical brain damage or extremely severe psychological trauma, can probably be brought up to the point where they can perform on an equal level with the best our society has to offer. The main and overwhelming factor in developing children who can accomplish at a superior level is the personal attention of a caregiver, and what that attention consists of. There are some things you can read about in a book and guess what they mean, and there are some things you can know when you're staring them in the face...

1 0

[Meeting] Cypherpunks wanking club.
by nobody＠replay.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There will be a meeting at my place for all cypherpunks so we can pull each other dicks about how clever we are and bag all those non-entities who aren't. All gun lovers are of course welcome and we can exhibit our manhood paranoia by seeing who has the biggest calibre weapon. Having a deadly weapon after all proves we are grown up, right kiddies. Sufferin' Sam

1 0

Re: Laptops and TEMPEST
by Dave Del Torto 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 2:18 pm -0800 12/5/96, Joel McNamara wrote: >Thinking that LCD screens reduce the risks of emanation monitoring is a >dangerous misconception [elided] the gotcha with current laptops is their >backlighting. Electric and magnetic fields are considerably higher >compared with a low-res/contrast device. [elided] An interesting point, but the fluorescent is mostly a constant signal, really, but Hugh pointed out that most laptops have a video chip radiating far more useful data than the flourescent backlight. Just a thought. dave ____________________________________________________________________________ "I mixed this myself. (holds up glass of water) Two parts "H," one part "O." I don't trust _anybody_!" --Steven Wright

1 0

Why PICS is the wrong approach
by Timothy C. May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

PICS is the wrong approach becuase it oversimplifies the ratings of content, because it places the ratings made by the author in the payload itself, and because third-party ratings systems are cut out of the loop (effectively). One computerish way to think of this is that the "binding" is too early. At the time of distribution, say, I mark my work something with some PICS label, based upon my best understanding of the PICS labels, ratings, agencies, and laws. But once set, the "binding" has been made. Later reviews or reviews by other entities cannot affect the binding, at least not for this distributed instance. And of course it is quite likely that things important to others in their ratings are not as important to me. I might even ignore certain points, not even seeing the need to point out things in the work. This is inevitable, as there is no uniform view of truth, no uniform set of values and priorities, and no hope there ever can be such a monistic view. Consider the recent example of AOL's lists of banned words, even words in "harmless situations" (e.g, the example someone cited of "tits" being banned, despite being the name of a bird...would an animal-lovers Web page or posting with "Tits and Asses!!!" prominently in the title be PICS labelled as obscene? Some would surely think so.). A much better solution is to let the unique ID block of an article--the Usenet article ID, or some hash of the headers, whatever--be a pointer that other ratings servies could then use to provide for their customers or clients as a filtering mechanism. This would allow as many ratings services to exist as clients would be willing to support. Sure, there are _time delays_ in the evaluation process, as, for example, the Catholic Index reviews Web pages and Usenet posts, but all evaluation causes delay. This puts the burden on those proposing to filter content. More importantly, the "payload" does not carry some particular set of fairly-arbitrary PICS evluations. Binding by the censors instead of by the originator, which is as it should be. --Tim May Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside" We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^1398269 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

3 4

Re: Redlining
by Dale Thorn 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

E. Allen Smith wrote: > From: IN%"dthorn(a)gte.net" "Dale Thorn" 13-DEC-1996 01:53:17.65[snip] > >the rest is a cakewalk. But what I really wanted to say was that my > >experience with these children now (whom I didn't know until mid-1996) > >has convinced me more than ever that intelligence is not only not > >primarily genetic, but may also be recoverable to a large extent up to > >the beginning of the teen years, if not beyond that. > Actually, IQ tests in childhood up until about age 12 aren't > particularly well correlated with adult IQ; they would thus agree with > you on that environment can heavily influence IQ until that point. Again, as a statistical exercise, this might be OK, but, quite a bit of what you would see in the exceptional areas of the curve in childhood would be rather obvious in adulthood as well. The fact that this doesn't seem so obvious across the statistical curve is only evidence of poor granularity in the data. > It is possible to raise IQs somewhat with various environmental > interventions; the question is how much. Research such as that > discussed in Herman Spitz's "Raising Intelligence" (_not_ a conservative > or racist by any means) appears to show that such does, unfortunately, > have some points at which one gets to diminishing returns; see below > for more discussion. A typical researcher or team of same would not be proper candidates to lead an interventionist study such as this. You'd need people with proven track records. As I keep telling my wife again and again, when we go into a book store and she picks up some book on a "health" topic: What's the author's track record, not only for him/herself, but in leading others? > Regarding the "physical brain damage," I have earlier mentioned > prenatal traumas such as lead; other instances would be inadequate > maternal nutrition and the intake of alcohol (signifigantly more harmful > to a child than crack). These are among the factors, other than racism, > making studies showing differences in IQ between black adoptees and > white adoptees difficult to interpret; cultural influences (racism, > white adoptive parents trying to hard to raise black children in their > "own" culture, etcetera) are another major group of factors. > In other words, we don't know yet. > >The main and overwhelming factor in developing children who can accomplish > >at a superior level is the personal attention of a caregiver, and what > >that attention consists of. There are some things you can read about > >in a book and guess what they mean, and there are some things you can > >know when you're staring them in the face... > > Certainly, extremely intensive care can help children who do not > have physical brain problems. This does not mean that genetics does not > play a considerable role; neither I nor (so far as I know) Mr. Chudov > are claiming that genetics sets an unoverridable barrier. It is more a > matter of that it will take a lot more to get a genetically unintelligent > child to a given level than it will a genetically intelligent child. It's just that in my personal experience, I've found that the vast majority of children fall into the category of "exceptional potential". I guess what I'm saying is that the accomplishment/test norms for most children are far enough below where I could get them to with personal attention, that 1) The norms are useful (to me) only as a stasticical exercise, and 2) The differences between typical children and typical children performing at or near their potential obscures the differences found amongst the norms. > In the larger, societal context, it is not possible to have > intelligent parents with ample resources taking care of every child > unless the number of children is considerably reduced. Quite simply, > resources are limited (otherwise we would have no need for an > economic system); money, time, etcetera spent on less intelligent > children is not being spent on other pursuits (such as raising > more intelligent children, who will be able to accomplish more in > later life with the same investment of resources). This is, I believe, what I and others feared from studies which provide material for books such as the Bell Curve. Knowing that the potential of an allegedly unintelligent (or less-than-average) child might be so great that that child (if lucky enough to get the opportunity) could actually develop to be a significantly better performer than another child with 40 more IQ points, even if the child with the higher IQ has a reasonably good environment to develop in. Those kinds of possibilities are (I think) near and dear to what some of our more enlightened founding fathers in the USA had in mind when they wrote what they did, way back when. I value the writings of all philosophers, BTW, but I reject the notions of any that I or any other autonomous individual (a human is more-or-less autonomous by definition, yes?) could be defined, limited, or otherwise constrained by studies such as we've discussed. I say constrained since these studies do not happen in a vaccuum, and there is always going to be some kind of fallout.

1 0

Re: Redlining
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"ichudov(a)algebra.com" 11-DEC-1996 23:46:57.12 >I would appreciate if some attorney on this list shed some light on the >legal definition of discrimination. I am not an attorney by any means, but I have looked over the Griggs vs Power decision (which effectively outlawed the use of most standardized tests, such as IQ tests, for employment purposes). A means of deciding on employment is discriminatory if the following are both true: A. Under it, members of a protected minority do worse; B. It has not been shown to be _specifically_ relevant to a job. Please note the second one; this means, effectively, that if you haven't done a full study of people who have done the job and correlated their performance with their scores on the test, it may be discriminatory. You can't use the simple information that an IQ test score is correlated with essentially all job performance measures yet done on any jobs not intended for the mentally retarded. Obviously, this task can't be done by anyone but the largest employers, and they are generally hindered in doing so by: A. Being governments or government contractors, and thus susceptible to political pressure; B. Having unions which object to any job performance measures. I'd appreciate any lawyerly comments that contradict me, particularly in view of some later (and saner) Supreme Court rulings on the matter. -Allen P.S. Please note that we cannot yet tell if the racial differences in IQ are environmental or a mixture of environmental and genetic; I believe they are purely environmental, but there is about as much evidence for this belief as there is for God's existence (something I also believe in).

7 12

[ADMINISTRATIVIUM] Zero-knowledge interactive proofs
by mixmaster＠remail.obscura.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a jerk-off competition Tim Mayhem finishes second, third and fifth. \\\|||/// ======= | O O | Tim Mayhem \`___'/ _| |_

1 0

Re: Elliptic curves
by Jill014＠aol.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In a message dated 96-12-12 23:47:15 EST, nobody(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu (Anonymous) writes: > Subj: Re: Elliptic curves > Date: 96-12-12 23:47:15 EST > From: nobody(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu (Anonymous) > Sender: owner-cypherpunks(a)toad.com > To: cypherpunks(a)toad.com > > Admin(a)bexcol.demon.co.uk writes: > > > You are all a bunch of faggots. Faggot cannot be allowed on usenet as > > dictated by the great dr. Grubor. > > Does dr. Grubor read this list? I never see any postings from him here. Just who is this anonymous poster; does anyone know or have any idea? > > Fuck you all. > > 1. Cypherpunks is not on usenet. > > 2. Faggots created and run Usenet, and there's nothing a pathetic, > powerless little boy like you can do about it. > This is strange. I mean, how do you know who is a faggot? And is this why you all are so sexist? Are all of the faggots so sexist? Just what is it about these queers that makes them hate women so much anyway? Are they jealous of us sexy women because their boyfriends may want us? I have been watching this for a long time here, and this is a very perplexing situation. Just who are these faggots who "created and run Usenet?" Can you give me a list of names? > 3. I enjoy your pathetic little displays of despair about not having > any control over usenet. Please keep whining to the mailing lists > to remind us all of what a pitiful little loser you are. > Yes, but just who is he? Do you know who he really is? With all of you guys always posting through these "nobody" addresses, you can not tell who is who? I mean, how do you know that the anonymous poster is in "despair about not having any control over usenet?" Maybe he does have control. Just who has all of the Usenet control now anyway? Please tell the faggots to stop being so sexist. Jill

2 1

!! Point 'n Crypt -- Win95 Privacy for Everyone !!
by Walt Armour 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

A Windows 95 extension for encrypting files is now available from SoundCode, Inc. Just right-mouse click on any file, provide a passphrase, and it's done. Point 'n Crypt visually indicates that a file is encrypted, and optionally provides the encryptor's name for easy passphrase lookup. Point 'n Crypt is FREE during the beta period (through 12/31/1996) and will list for $19.95. Point 'n Crypt uses 40-bit DES-CBC (exportable), salted SHA passphrases, and conforms to PKCS #5 and PKCS #7. For more info, check out www.soundcode.com/pointNcrypt.htm

2 1

Re: Neural Nets
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This comes up once in a while --- it appears an inappropriate approach, they say, since the solution space for the problem consists of exactly one spike, in the vast sea of all possible solutions ... there is no smooth contour over which to minimize the net's error function, and finding the one spike which is the correct result is no more efficient in such a case than any other exhaustive search. This argument would break down if there were detectable biases in the crypto algorithm that you could exploit. But then whether a nn would be the tool of choice in such a case may be uncertain. At 01:00 PM 12/12/96 GMT, you wrote: >Hi Folkd > >Just sat through a lecture on an itroduction to Neural Nets. > >Thought. Does anybody know of any tools that use Neural Nets to break >ciphers? > >Cheers > >Ste > >

2 1