- cypherpunks-legacy - lists.cpunks.org

Re: IQ and age
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Have we had an influx of fuzzy-thinking liberals lately? Not that this is a bad thing, it is hard to argue with people who agree with you on everything :-) At 06:49 AM 11/28/96 -0600, Lurker wrote: >>I would. If you look at who has the oppertunities to go college you will >note that those who are good at taking tests (SAT, ACT, or IQ) are those >who get to go. You will also note that money also breeds success, or can >someone give me an argument for the fact that there are more rich kids >going to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the like than poor kids. (These >schools almost gaurentee success.) The ability to spell helps to gaurentee success as well. Seriously, you ignore the correlation between performance in college and standardized test scores. There is a reason these are used in admissions - they are actually pretty good predictors of the ability to perform college level work. >If you want to find a correlation look for it in money not tests. And if >you are insistant on finding it in tests, ask why the scores are as they >are (was the test written to the advantage of one group over another or can >one group buy the "A" with special courses which teach the skills needed to >score high.) Oh, I forgot. Only certain racial/ethnic groups are capable of understanding basic mathematical concepts. Of course, caucasians are one of these groups (since they consistently are outperformed by immigrants from other countries). I know it makes you feel good to believe that all that is wrong is caused by conspiracies led by the EVIL RICH in this country. I happen to feel better believing in the potential for any individual in this country to succeed through hard work. Clay ******************************************************* Clay Olbon olbon(a)ix.netcom.com engineer, programmer, statistitian, etc. **********************************************tanstaafl

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Re: IQ and age
by Lurker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:47 PM 11/27/96 -0600, Igor Chudov @ home wrote: >Dale Thorn wrote: >> The biggest influence on IQ are the so-called "engrams" (fears, super- >> stitions, anxieties, etc.) planted in your brain early in life. >> >> Some of this can be overcome with mental exercise, and awareness of what >> negative influences are holding you back. Much easier said than done! >> >> IQ as they attempt to measure it can probably be most easily explained >> as pattern matching skills. Unfortunately for testing, and although you >> can be every bit as intelligent at 70 as at 10, your pattern-matching >> skills change and evolve over time, so any given tests will only apply >> (more or less) at the age group they are optimized for. >> > >Would you dismiss strong correlations between IQ and success in life >and academia as something irrelevant? > I would. If you look at who has the oppertunities to go college you will note that those who are good at taking tests (SAT, ACT, or IQ) are those who get to go. You will also note that money also breeds success, or can someone give me an argument for the fact that there are more rich kids going to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and the like than poor kids. (These schools almost gaurentee success.) If you want to find a correlation look for it in money not tests. And if you are insistant on finding it in tests, ask why the scores are as they are (was the test written to the advantage of one group over another or can one group buy the "A" with special courses which teach the skills needed to score high.)

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pseudonymous servers
by Bovine Remailer 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Which pseudonymous servers are currently active?

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Whitehouse Releases Blueprint...
by null＠void.gov 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Notably, the emphasis is on the needs of business, not "people." We are in an excellent position to observe and document the process whereby "business" -- that is, organizations motivated primarily, if not exclusively, by the desire for short-term profits accruing to vested interests -- comes to dominate and control a technology. The auto and television industries come to mind as two prior examples. We are about to see the net go the same way. Take notes. "I have to praise the administration and Ira for reaching out to the private sector for comments," Computers and Communication Industry Association President Ed Black said. "There's a great emphasis on the needs of business here." Even so, privacy activists remained disappointed with many of the document's features. "This isn't anything new," said David Banisar, counsel to the Electronic Privacy and Information Center. "The privacy stuff is terrible. They say it's market driven, but markets don't work with privacy. It's like what happened with P-Trak."

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Re: SAFEPASSAGE BRINGS STRONG CRYPTO TO WEB BROWSERS WORLDWIDE
by geeman＠best.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 07:12 AM 11/27/96 +0000, you wrote: .....etc Can you be more specific? What are the vulnerabilities you are aware of? >I've never seen a security review of SSLeay, and if anyone gave it a clean bill >of health, they didn't have their eye on the ball. Note, I'm not knocking >SSLeay here, it is a wonderful lump of code, but it hasn't been written with >security in mind (IMHO). > >Cheers, > >Ben. > >-- >Ben Laurie Phone: +44 (181) 994 6435 Email: ben(a)algroup.co.uk >Freelance Consultant and Fax: +44 (181) 994 6472 >Technical Director URL: http://www.algroup.co.uk/Apache-SSL >A.L. Digital Ltd, Apache Group member (http://www.apache.org) >London, England. Apache-SSL author > >

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RE: IQ and age
by Clay Olbon II 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 12:40 PM 11/28/96 EST, jbugden(a)smtplink.alis.ca wrote: >Clay Olbon II <olbon(a)ix.netcom.com> wrote: >>Seriously, you ignore the correlation between performance in college and >standardized test scores. There is a reason these are used in admissions - they >are actually pretty good predictors of the ability to perform college level >work. < > >This is a commonly held fiction that is not supported by the evidence. As stated >in another message, the infomration given out by ETS, who administer the GMAT >and SAT, indicate that there is a low correlation between GMAT scores and >successful completion of even first year education programs. This also ignores >the issue of why other, better, widely available predictors are not used >instead. Apples and oranges. I was referring to the correlation of college GPA to SAT scores (which is higher than the correlation between high school GPA and college GPA). GPA measures the ability to do college-level work. As such, SAT scores are very relevant. As you said, <completion> of college probably does involve lots of other factors. I would not expect a high correlation between standardized test scores and completion rates. > >>Oh, I forgot. Only certain racial/ethnic groups are capable of understanding >basic mathematical concepts. < > >There was a good Scientific American article on cultural influences on learning >within the last year or two. It examined Asian groups noted achievements in >tests and the parental and cultural support for scholastic achievement. My point exactly. It is these cultural factors, not the amount of money the parents make, that is really the important aspect. It does seem unfortunate however that in many lower income families, there is less of an emphasis on scholastic achievement. >Another anecdotal example is in the opening chapters of "Surely You're Joking, >Mr. Feynman" by Richard Feynman, the late Caltech professor and general bon >vivant. He describes how his mother introduced a doctor, a general and a >professor with the same respectful tones indicating to him that a career in >academia was as highly valued as any other high position in society. > >>I happen to feel better believing in the potential for any individual in this >country to succeed through hard work. < > >I do to. But how good are your feelings as predictors of actual success? Anecdotal evidence, but I have known people at many levels of society. I have never met anyone who "works hard" that is in dire straits. Some have struggled for a time (I know I did!), but eventually the hard work paid off. Clay

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RE: IP address
by Internaut 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> Adamsc wrote: > > Igor wrote > > > On Sun, 1 Dec 1996 22:23:30 -0600, Internaut wrote: > > >What is the risk of publishing your dynamic IP address to a web page > > >while you are on line? How vulnerable is someone just connected to > > >the internet, w/o any server running? What attacks are feasable? --> >> Well, if you are running Win95 (all) or 3.1 (w/certain TCP/IP stacks) your >> machine can be locked up or rebooted at *any* time using just PING! >Isn't is Unix that is actually vulnerable? I tried pinging myself off and it didn't work; maby it has to be from a remote host.

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More anonymous hate mail from John Gilmore, Timmy May, and friends
by dlv＠bwalk.dm.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I've received the following e-mail from an anonymous coward. It didn't have any carriage returns (I added them). >Date: Thu, 28 Nov 1996 09:23:00 -0700 >Message-Id: <199611281623.JAA03709(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> >To: dlv(a)bwalk.dm.com >From: nobody(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu (Anonymous) >Comments: Please report misuse of this automated remailing service to <complaints(a)zifi.genetics.utah.edu> >Subject: Yo, Kook! Read this. > >... > >>"Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" <hallam(a)ai.mit.edu> writes: >>> Actually the opposite is the case, he is a notorious womanizer. >> >>Are _you gay, Phil? > >Look, Kook. Can you at least wait 24 hours after complaining about eliptic >curves being somehow off-topic (as I recall, it was 50k rants about Armenian >genocide that got your dumb ass booted) before posting your own off-topic >sewage? Who gives a flying fuck who is or isn't gay or perverted or whatever >in their private lives? What does it have to do with crypto, or proficiency >in programming, or anything that matters to most of the list? It seems to me >that you should try casting your "pearls" before the much more "noble" >animals of the freedom-knights, who (as opposed to me) _DO_ care who is or >isn't homosexual. Get back on your meds, it'll do you (and the list) good. > >me One of the meanings of "punk" is "young homosexual". There are a lot of them on the "cypherpunks" mailing list, trying to be social and to make friends. They think that the "cypher" part is "kewl" and even rant about it, without understanding the meanings of the technical terms they use (like the recurrent rant about brute-force attacks on one-time pads). But they don't know much about cryptography, so when someone, e.g., tries to talk about elliptic curves, the "punk" crowd screams that it's "off-topic". Today is Thanksgiving, so I hope you choke on your turkey (or whatever else ends up in your mouth :-). I'm thankful that I wasn't born in this country, because Americans are so stupid.

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[ANNOUNCEMENT] Sphere packings
by nobody＠zifi.genetics.utah.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim C. May's police record is many times longer than his prick (well, that's not hard). \|/ @ @ -oOO-(_)-OOo- Tim C. May

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Re: market for hardware RNG?
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 06:08 AM 11/26/96 -0800, Paul Pomes wrote: >There are some commercial products worth studying. See ><http://rainbow.rmi.net/~comscire/> for one. Thanks for the reference. However, I was very unimpressed with their price of $295 dollars. I don't doubt that there are certain organizations (banks?) which would have no problem affording them, but that's well out of the range of ordinary consumer items. I just bought a 10x CDROM drive for $100; somehow I think that a hardware RNG should cost less than that. Volume is a big issue, I suppose. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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