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LPC for speech (fwd)
by jerry＠terminus.dell.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Forwarded message:

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Privacy as a Commodity
by Michael Edward Marotta 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

SOME OBSERVATIONS AND THOUGHTS ON PRIVACY AS A COMMODITY by Michael E. Marotta <mercury(a)well.sf.ca.us> About a year ago, maybe less, Kevin Kelly suggested that privacy is or could be a commodity. It was on The Well in the EFF Conference on another topic entirely. He just dropped this bomb. I suggested a Loompanics article and he said he didn't have time but that I was welcome to develop the idea. So I proposed "Privacy as a Commodity" to Computers Privacy and Freedom (CPF94) in Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright said that privacy is the hallmark of civilization. He built his houses to ensure the privacy of the occupants. He pointed to the village as an environment without privacy. Today we say that we live in a global village. Therefore, the expectation of privacy is inappropriate. However, there is a lot of history between the first permanent settlement today's worldwide community. Merchant princes graced several ages. Metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities developed new patterns of interaction. Quite likely, the demand for privacy is relatively recent. There is a quote from Leonardo da Vinci: "When you are alone you are all your own." A brief look the pre-Socratics (ed., Honderich) reveals no discussions even remotely approaching "natural rights" from which privacy would be deduced or infered. Plato's "Republic" is well known. Tonight, discussing the ancient world with another numismatist, he pointed out that accumulations of wealth were virtually impossible before Roman Law. The Athenians (and others) would ostracize anyone simply for being personally successful and therefore a potential threat. Neither of us could identify the general who defeated the Persians and was rewarded with exile. In such an environment, a plea for privacy would be ludicrous or even lunatic. We have the saying in English: "A man's home is his castle." The Magna Carta (1215) had many provisions limiting the power of the crown and upholding the rights of free people (somewhat different for men than woman). Typical of them is this: "No free man shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or outlawed or exiled or in any way ruined, nor will we go or send against him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land." That sentiment continues today. However, force of arms is not the appropriate medium for securing your expectations of privacy. The Magna Carta limited the power of the state. It did not address problems of peer review and peer pressure. The best arrangements we have that work among equals are agoric. The marketplace depends on voluntary agreements for personal profit. The successful merchant doesn't argue religion with the client. ("Religion" of course includes art, politics, sports and anything else not proximate to supply, demand and price.) In this sense, privacy is inherent in the market. Today, however, we buy and sell information about people. If you buy a new automobile, you are a potential client for insurance, if not for a Caribbean vacation. Since the problem is agoric, the solution must be agoric: you will have to invest in objects or processes that show their return in increased privacy for you. It is possible that there is another set of solutions. There may be something beyond politics and the market. For instance, it is possible that a philosophical revolution will cause us to freely give information we now hide if we choose to merge with the Great All. No doubt still other paths exist. Be that as it may, for now, market solutions seem the best way to address problems in privacy.

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Re: Digital cash announced today by UK bank.
by cypher01＠eternity.demon.co.uk 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In message <199312091906.TAA22687(a)an-teallach.com> gtoal(a)an-teallach.com writes: > Apparently the Natwest Bank (or some spoonerism thereof) announced > today that they were releasing digital cash in the form of some > sort of smartcard. I have no more details - does anyone else? > I saw this a few days ago in the Guardian. Big front page splash, and lots of radio coverage. The system is called "Mondex". I'm looking into it, myself, as I know about as much as you do. Midlands Bank is cooperating in the scheme, which is not surprising, as they already have shared-ATM agreements. > Primarily I'm interested in knowing if it's *anonymous* digital > cash - knowing our govt, I suspect it's unlikely to be. Any new > opportunities to track the masses are always gratefully received > by the powers that be... > Interestingly, none of the press coverage even mentioned the *issue* of privacy. I've told Tom Burroughes at the East Anglian Daily Times (tom(a)reptile.demon.co.uk) he's deputy chief reporter there, and was a speaker at ECFP '93. He's looking into it now; if you wish to speak to him, call 0473-230-023 and ask for him in the newsroom. He may be out, as he's also chief court and legal reporter, but he always calls back. I'll be calling Australia in a few minutes to see if I can raise Simon Davies, who's out there on business. Simon (davies(a)privint.demon.co.uk) is director of Privacy International, and was another ECFP speaker... the most well-connected privacy advocate I've ever met. > G > > -- Russell Earl Whitaker whitaker(a)eternity.demon.co.uk Communications Editor AMiX: RWhitaker EXTROPY: The Journal of Transhumanist Thought Board member, Extropy Institute (ExI) Co-organizer, 2nd European Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, London, October 1994

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Please unsubscribe from mailing list
by Paul Rushizky 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Please unsubscribe me from your mailing list. Thanks.

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Re: "Cipher"
by grand-central!amix!chip 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Arthur Chandler writes: > Neil Postman, in his *Technopoly*, asserts that the word "cipher" derives >ultimately from the Hindu word for void, and therefore "suggests the idea >of nothingness." (p 128) Does anyone else have info on the origin of this >word? Is Postman correct? Postman may be right about his etymology; I don't know, though I'm sure one of the many folks out there with an OED could answer this. However, arguing from etymology is one of the most irksome of the many bogus rhetorical techniques that the academic establishment has developed as part of its standard toolkit and really wish they would cut it out. The answer to the broader question, "Is Postman correct?", is "no".

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Re: One Time Pads $5000|Cheap
by freeman＠MasPar.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Since it is quite easy to make an electronic widget that creates random noise by amplifying up shot noise and counting detections across a threshold (varying the amplifier gain to adjust the rate), I suspect you are right. -- Jay Freeman

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Re: LPC for speech (fwd)
by Timothy Newsham 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> > >I'm not sure if a 486 can do the analysis in realtime. I'm sure ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ > >the 486 could do the analysis in real time. I have C code for ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > >LPC that will do synthesis to a file in realtime on a 486 machine. > >(The code is mostly generic C and will compile on most machines) > I'm not sure what you mean, it could or couldn't be done on a 486? > I think that you meant that the compression could not be done in > realtime but the expansion could? Or vice versa? Good one eh? Sorry for the confusion. I'm sure the 486 can do *synthesis* in real time. I'm not sure it can do *analysis* in real time. > Jeremy Porter ------------- Systems Engineering -------- > Dell Computer Corp. ------ jerry(a)terminus.us.dell.com ----

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Re: USENET on a tape, and future privacy
by jordan＠imsi.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From jerry(a)terminus.us.dell.com Sun Dec 12 00:06:31 1993 You are talking about thousands of dollars of cost to do such a search. Sorry, I do searches like that all the time for "serious" candidates. Takes me no more than 10 minutes to set up the criteria, and an hour or so on an airplane to browse the output. Granted, I don't search a year (hey, if a candidate is a jerk on the net, they'll show up more than a few times in just a month's worth ...), but your "it's in the noise" statement is naive. /jordan

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Re: USENET on a tape, and future privacy
by markh＠wimsey.bc.ca 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> I was just thinking. My roommate mentioned that he saw an ad for > a service available in europe. They send you an 8mm tape evey week > that has all the USENET traffic on it. I was thinking that a large There is also a company in Vancouver B.C. that will sell you a subscription to USENET on CDROM. Each CD contains about a week of traffic (the cost is something like US$20 per CD). They CDs don't include traffic from certain newsgroups (mostly the sex related ones. I guess they don't want to get busted for distributing obscene material). I can dig up contact information, if anyone is interested. I spoke with one of their representatives a while back, and they apparently have sold subscriptions to various government agencies in the U.S. and Canada. Mark -- Mark Henderson markh(a)wimsey.bc.ca (personal account) RIPEM and ViaCrypt PGP 2.4 keys available by key server/finger/E-mail RIPEM MD5OfPublicKey: F1F5F0C3984CBEAF3889ADAFA2437433 ViaCrypt PGP Key Fingerprint: 21 F6 AF 2B 6A 8A 0B E1 A1 2A 2A 06 4A D5 92 46

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No More Argh.
by frc＠bwnmr4.bwh.harvard.edu 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Those who responded: Thanks, and I'm working out transfer ... To Those who didn't: You don't have to now..... FRC -- #include <hdrs/disclaim.std> /* Neural Nets catch only dreaming fish. */

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