December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Merry Christmas, You Punk-ass Mo'-fo's!
by Santa Claus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* * /|\ ///*\\\ * * * //\\ * //\\ * * * * * // \\ // \\ // \\ S A N T A * * * N O R T H P O L E | | \____/ Wherever you go, whatever you do, Remember that Santa is always with you. I live in your heart, I dance in your soul, I show you what love is, and good things to know. The Spirit of Christmas spreads all through the land, With joy and the giving of gifts you should have. But gifts are just one thing to give and to get -- We wish you much more, far more than that. My elves send you pride in whatever you do, My reindeer give strength on days you feel blue, My wife, Mrs. Claus, grants wisdom and grace, Belief in yourself and all you create. And me, what do I give? Is there much more? Plenty and plenty you won't find in stores. I give you the knowledge that you can do more Than you ever knew -- of that be quite sure. My sleigh's packed with toys, my list sweeps the floor, A cup of hot cocoa and I'm out the door. Just gaze high in the sky where Peace always soars, And you live in my heart as I live in yours. * * * * * * M e r r y C h r i s t m a s * * S a n t a C l a u s --------- This santa poem was sent to you from a person who visited the ReplyNet site (www.reply.net) and entered your name and address on our Santa page. Your e-mail address is NOT being collected.

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In Defense of Anecdotal Evidence
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:09 AM 12/12/1996, E. Allen Smith wrote: >From: IN%"mjmiski(a)execpc.com" "Matthew J. Miszewski" 11-DEC-1996 19:43:51.88 >>If I wanted to I could repeatedly issue heart-wrenching stories of >>poverty in America (similar, of course, to politicians using "real >>world examples" in speeches). You seem to assume that this would be >>"wrong". > > As did Ronald Reagan in talking about "welfare queens"... as >could I in discussing how my grandparents got out of poverty and have >two children with MDs and one with a PhD. Statistics are preferable >to anecdotal evidence for just this reason; I've seen that over and >over again in science. Anecdotes are for lawyers talking to juries >and demagogic politicians talking to the masses. Statistics are a useful tool, but they have their problems. Their accuracy is often in doubt. Most scientific data comes with an error analysis so you can tell what the figure means. For some reason statisticians never do this so we cannot tell whether their numbers are accurate to within 0.1%, 1.0%, 10%, or even worse. There are many other problems. For instance, users of statistics assume they have a random sample, even in cases where that is far from clear. Social statistics are a black art. There was a study awhile back which claimed gun ownership reduced violent crime. That is a surprising result. It was apparently obtained by subtracting out all the other factors that could explain the differences in the areas studied. This process must involve some real stretches statistically. I can't imagine how cultural differences are determined and subtracted - I assume it is a subjective process. Another problem with statistics is that they are difficult to verify. We may wish to verify the information in cases of deception - sometimes well meaning - but also for cases of statistical incompetence. It is also hard to explore the details of the study if the authors are unavailable. The advantage of first hand experience is that it is primary evidence. You know it's true because you were there and saw it. The advantage of anecdotal evidence (in the sense we have been using it) is that the person who is telling you the anecdote was there and saw it. You can cross-examine them and get a full understanding of the evidence provided. Specific examples, that is anecdotal evidence, also provide a nice framework for discussing our abstract beliefs about what is morally right or wrong, or what various parties should be expected to do or say in particular situations. Specific examples also make it possible for the participants in the conversation to deepen their own understanding of their experiences. You might have seen something and interpreted it in a particular way. Somebody else might be able to show you how you misinterpreted what you saw. Red Rackham

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Re: "Bigotry" and related topics...a brief comment
by E. Allen Smith 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"tcmay(a)got.net" "Timothy C. May" 11-DEC-1996 18:12:33.87 >If anyone has well-formed questions about how redlining and "bigotry" is >affected by strong cryptography and crypto anarchy, fire away. Just don't >bury them deep in a long diatribe about the evils of "prejudice" and >"discrimination." Yes... an analysis of the ways in which an insurance or credit company could keep its disallowed data in secret, with sufficient incentives for the individuals with knowledge of it not to disclose this practice, is an interesting topic. One of the more obvious ways is to subcontract the risk analysis to businesses operating in countries without such limits, leaving the main insurance or credit company with just the claims process, reserves management, and paperwork. Unfortunately, as shown by the EU's attempts to make multinationals doing business there keep data inside EU borders and under EU privacy laws, countries are likely to clamp down on this process. >difficult. The racial and ethnic groups which are most into "victimology" >are the least successful--which is _cause_ and which is _effect_ may be >debatable to many of you, but the correlation is very clear....maybe it's >time they try something different, like getting their culture to embrace >learning, reading, science, math, and business success, instead of >glorifying victimization, crack cocaine, basketball stars, and pimps.) While I would fully agree with you that such cultural factors are a considerable amount of the problem, I'd have to call attributing all of the problem to them an oversimplification. I'd also point out the cultural factors caused by the development of cultures under uncivilized (in the sense of lacking cities) and unindustrial conditions, something that is not helped by the current PC multiculturalist wish to bring such cultures back. (The reasons for African cultures not developing in this route are an interesting debate; I find Sowell's argument of lack of navigable rivers and the presence of various diseases such as malaria reasonably convincing.) Other factors include the lack of parental education and nutrition resulting in lower parental IQs resulting in lower child IQs; interracial adoption, while opposed by the PC types, is one way to solve this problem. Another factor is lingering racism, which is regretably still present in subsections of the country. Hopefully, as various factors promoting large, noncompetitive corporations (and unions) disappear, the resulting companies will be forced to be sufficiently competitive to ignore such prejudices. -Allen

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Re: Credentials without Identity--Race Bits
by nobody＠huge.cajones.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:38 PM 12/11/1996, Timothy C. May wrote: By the way, on this >oftentimes off-topic issue of "bigotry" and "racism," here's a zinger >some of you may not have thought much about. And it's certainly >related to the themes of Chaumian "credentials without identity," >which is very much on-topic. > >While it has been claimed by some that "crypto anarchy" means that >race won't matter, that cyberspace interactions will be color-blind, >this is misleading. > >While many--probably most--users will care only for cyberspace >personna issues, and not meatspace personna issues of race, color, >height, weight, etc., this is not something built in to anonymous >transactions. > >Consider a "race credential" offered by some entity. Perhaps one goes >down to the local Aryan Nations office and gets one's genetic >heritage stamped, or down to the Kwanzaa Youth Center to be similarly >stamped.... > >(Why some groups might want this is left as an exercise for the >reader. Perhaps a less-inflammatory example (to some of the >sensitive amongst you) might be that some women want to interact in >"women only" forums--a clear case of discrimination, no?--and may >want a "gender bit" avaiable to display as a credential.) Tim May is to be commended for making this fine point. I simply had not thought of this possibility. This is also empirical evidence of the worth of a wide ranging discussion. If Matt and I hadn't pursued our discussion, this excellent point would not have been made. As Tim has pointed out, it is time to reconsider our beliefs regarding the morality of discrimination. The fact is, sometimes we like to spend time with people who have a lot in common with ourselves. This often supports a higher level of communication because the parties involved really understand where the other is coming from. This is true of men in the locker room, women, Albanians, or whomever. And what is occuring is not even a bad thing. It's good for people to spend time with people they like and respect or at least know well. ("No man is a hero to his valet.") The "politically correct" fully recognize this. That is why they see gay groups, feminist groups, etc. as worthwhile. It is only people perceived as successful or powerful who are not supposed to associate with each other. Instead, they are expected to volunteer their time and personalities for everyone else's benefit. Somehow we never hear what they are supposed to receive in return for this, but I am guessing they are supposed to lovingly accept rudeness, abuse, and guilt for their services. Tim said in another message that there are times when discrimination is rational. I have no doubt this is true. How often do we look at a degree from MIT on a resume and hire? The degree to which we fear cryptoanarchy is the degree to which we fear leaving people alone to run their lives as they see fit. I do not greatly fear cryptoanarchy. Red Rackham

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Re: Redlining
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

M. Miszewski wrote: >Actually, my assertion was that the basic motivation was racism and >ignorance. My example of student loan default rates should clear that up. >College graduates generally live outside of redlines and yet are regularly >offered credit. And yet default rates on student loans are outrageous (the >government backing of these loans is irrelevant to individual >creditworthiness). Whoa! How 'bout backin' out minority-oriented "beauty" and other phony trade "schools" from your assertions? Looka-here: the moment that you exclude merit from scholastic and credit decisons, the more that you get into unfortunate decisons for society.

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Re: Redlining
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Matt Miszewski wrote: (snip) > I wish I lived where you did where racism hurts nobody. Just >give me a general location and Ill start to move my clients there ;-|. A general location? Hee hee!

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

17 Dec '03

From: IN%"ichudov(a)algebra.com" 11-DEC-1996 18:34:46.50 >Thanks for an interesting reply. Quite welcome. Due to the links to my own field, I've been thinking about these issues for a bit. >It is the cross-section test that evidences discrimination: suppose >we have two large groups with the same credit-related parameters >(credit history, etc). If one group gets better treatment from a >bank, I see a discrimination. Is it the credit history that should be the same... or the outcomes? In other words, if two groups of different races are all granted credit and have equal credit histories, are the default rates greater for one group as opposed to the other? If so, then there _is_ a fiduciary responsibility by the bank's directors to not loan to the group that has greater default rates. Now, there's the problem in testing this that if a bank (or, more likely, some loan officers at the bank) is practicing discrimination, those of the discriminated-against races who do get credit evidently had _something_ that convinced the bank to still offer the people credit. This something may or may not be controlled for by the credit factors equalization I mentioned above. If it isn't controlled for, you'll get a bias in the outcome toward the discriminated-against race being _better_ credit risks than they actually are, on the average. This would remove any actual evidence of poor credit riskworthiness on the part of that race (such as for cultural reasons, to the (highly unfortunate) degree that race and culture are correlated). In other words, banks with prejudices (which I do fully admit are out there) will tend to make any actual differences much harder - close to impossible, in fact - to see. >The crucial question is: do we believe that the characteristic >that we are considering directly linked with future performance? As I point out above, studies on this topic are somewhat difficult, and are prone to being biased in favor of discriminated-against races. (This isn't even mentioning political biases...) You may or may not be able to say _why_ a given characteristic is linked with future performance; it's easy to come up with plausible explanations in most cases. >This is a valid concern. Quite... I seem to recall a story involving a "Handicapper General" - perhaps someone would recall the title and author? In it, those with higher IQs were forced to be less intelligent through distractions, those with greater beauty were forced to wear ugly masks, etcetera. >> The third topic is that one commonly applied idea used by the >> proponents of absolute equality is that found in Rawls' _Theory of >> Justice_, under which the just outcome is said to be found by a group >> of people who do not know what situation they will be in. (This is >> a vast oversimplification of the book(s) in question, which upon >> closer examination may realize the idea I am about to write down.) >> The simplistic conclusion is that everyone will want everything to be >> the same, since any individual might be in a bad or good situation. But >> if you have a choice between 49 dollars and a 50/50 chance of 0 or 100 >> dollars, you should take the latter. In other words, a situation in >Not necessarily. With the exception of needing <=49$ to live, under what conditions would the former choice be better than the latter choice? -Allen

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Merry Christmas, HipXmas-SantaSpam!
by Santa Claus 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

* * /|\ ///*\\\ * * * //\\ * //\\ * * * * * // \\ // \\ // \\ S A N T A * * * N O R T H P O L E | | \____/ Wherever you go, whatever you do, Remember that Santa is always with you. I live in your heart, I dance in your soul, I show you what love is, and good things to know. The Spirit of Christmas spreads all through the land, With joy and the giving of gifts you should have. But gifts are just one thing to give and to get -- We wish you much more, far more than that. My elves send you pride in whatever you do, My reindeer give strength on days you feel blue, My wife, Mrs. Claus, grants wisdom and grace, Belief in yourself and all you create. And me, what do I give? Is there much more? Plenty and plenty you won't find in stores. I give you the knowledge that you can do more Than you ever knew -- of that be quite sure. My sleigh's packed with toys, my list sweeps the floor, A cup of hot cocoa and I'm out the door. Just gaze high in the sky where Peace always soars, And you live in my heart as I live in yours. * * * * * * M e r r y C h r i s t m a s * * S a n t a C l a u s --------- This santa poem was sent to you from a person who visited the ReplyNet site (www.reply.net) and entered your name and address on our Santa page. Your e-mail address is NOT being collected.

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New export controls to include code signing applications
by Lucky Green 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

It has been speculated in the past that certain crypto schemes, such as proposed by Microsoft and Sun, using signed crypto plugins might be helpful to the cause for strong crypto if non-US branches of US software companies would certify foreign developed crypto software. According to the recent proposal by Commerce, this will not happen. It will be illegal to export the software required to sign the code. So much for the government's claim that they make no attempt to limit the export of signing-only software. >From http://www.steptoe.com/commerce.htm [Listing specific software prohibited from export] "c.2. "Software" to certify "software" controlled by 5D002.c.1; " And, btw, virus checkers are also prohibited from export. Makes you wonder. "c.3. "Software" designed or modified to protect against malicious computer damage, e.g., viruses;" -- Lucky Green <mailto:shamrock@netcom.com> PGP encrypted mail preferred Make your mark in the history of mathematics. Use the spare cycles of your PC/PPC/UNIX box to help find a new prime. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/justforfun/prime.htm

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Re: I am a stupid cocksucker
by drose＠AZStarNet.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Secret Squirrel wrote: >This Christmas Cypherpunks get a special discount: I will >suck you off for only $5. > >Red Rackham > >PS: I always sign my posts. I am so stupid. >PPS: Please killfile me. Mr Squirrel: As much as I may appreciate your response to Mr. Rackham's reaction to my post, in my sole opinion, Dr. Vulis-style epithets do not contribute to reasonable discourse on this list.

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