From: "James A. Donald" <jamesd@echeque.com> Sent: Oct 16, 2004 7:01 PM To: cypherpunks@al-qaeda.net Subject: RE: Airport insanity
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On 15 Oct 2004 at 16:32, Tyler Durden wrote:
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He might have looked odd from the photo you saw circulated in the press, but I'd bet a lot of money no one would have picked him as looking like a terrorist.
But the people sitting beside him did pick him as looking like a terrorist.
What's the false positive rate? It's one thing if you see some guy lighting a fuse sticking out of his shoe, and quite another if you say "You look kinda terroristy; I'm sending you off the plane." This works as a reasonable strategy only if: a. The probability ratios don't work out so that the overwhelming majority of people you throw off planes are innocent. (They almost certainly will, just because terrorists are so rare.) b. The terrorists can't figure out how to make themselves look less threatening.
--digsig James A. Donald
--John
-- John Kelsey
It's one thing if you see some guy lighting a fuse sticking out of his shoe, and quite another if you say "You look kinda terroristy; I'm sending you off the plane." This works as a reasonable strategy only if:
a. The probability ratios don't work out so that the overwhelming majority of people you throw off planes are innocent.
Provided the number of people you throw off planes is rather small, I don't see the problem. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG jppN6hyI9eo1ip7n6mKRd1QNRbKAQeKb06J6pxY2 4NqUTiLGU0XOpAJ3Rm5yFmdrm/+4BWSzcv6y9YT/U
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
a. The probability ratios don't work out so that the overwhelming majority of people you throw off planes are innocent.
Provided the number of people you throw off planes is rather small, I don't see the problem.
It isn't a problem for you until it happens to you. Who knows when being interested in anon e-cash will become a ground to blacklist *you*. Do you propose a way to appeal the decision? Will the flight (and associated losses, eg. lost contract due to a missed meeting, etc.) reimbursed?
-- Thomas Shaddack:
a. The probability ratios don't work out so that the overwhelming majority of people you throw off planes are innocent.
James A. Donald:
Provided the number of people you throw off planes is rather small, I don't see the problem.
Thomas Shaddack wrote:
It isn't a problem for you until it happens to you. Who knows when being interested in anon e-cash will become a ground to blacklist *you*.
I know when it will happen. It will happen when people interested in anon ecash go on suicide missions. :-) People who are, for the most part, not like us are trying to kill people like us. Let us chuck all those people not-like-us off those planes where most of the passengers are people like us. This really is not rocket science. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG KbVFhnyRmgiunG9XxU98lrDIIf2ZSXYFmkT7Dfe 4TIi2Ou/RGdPMFC3/LaIxWHM688e/B3FsA3jjPjK0
I think you need to read this remake of the "First they came for the commies" poem. Short translation - whenever anyone's rights are being trampled upon, whether it affects you or not, you should protest. Goes along with one of the unsaid credos about cypherpunks: "I absolutely disagree with what she said, but I'll defend to the death her right to say it." which along with "Cypherpunks write code" fell quite short of its goal. http://buffaloreport.com/021123rohde.html Here I'll save you the trouble. - - - They came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up... By Stephen Rohde (Author's Note: The USA Patriot Act became law a little over one year ago.) First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim. Then they came for the immigrants, detaining them indefinitely solely on the certification of the attorney general, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant. Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect. Then they came to prosecute noncitizens before secret military commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a noncitizen. Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peak" searches, and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide. Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups, and I didn't speak up because I no longer participated in any groups. Then they came to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without any charges and without access to lawyers, and I didn't speak up because I would never be arrested. Then they came to institute TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) recruiting citizens to spy on other citizens and I didn't speak up because I was afraid. Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it only aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies, and I didn't speak up ... because I didn't speak up. Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up. Forum Column (from the Daily Journal, 11/20/02). Stephen Rohde is an attorney. He edited American Words of Freedom and was was president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. Does Rohde's text seem familiar? It should. He based it on one of the web's most widely-circulated texts about silence in the face of evil: In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me. ----------------------Kaos-Keraunos-Kybernetos--------------------------- + ^ + :"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. /|\ \|/ :They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country /\|/\ <--*-->:and our people, and neither do we." -G. W. Bush, 2004.08.05 \/|\/ /|\ : \|/ + v + : War is Peace, freedom is slavery, Bush is President. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
I know when it will happen. It will happen when people interested in anon ecash go on suicide missions. :-)
People who are, for the most part, not like us are trying to kill people like us. Let us chuck all those people not-like-us off those planes where most of the passengers are people like us. This really is not rocket science.
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
Thomas Shaddack wrote:
It isn't a problem for you until it happens to you. Who knows when being interested in anon e-cash will become a ground to blacklist *you*.
I know when it will happen. It will happen when people interested in anon ecash go on suicide missions. :-)
Never underestimate the power of the combination of the People With Agendas with Classified Computerized Profiling Algorithms. :) Be vigilant.
People who are, for the most part, not like us are trying to kill people like us. Let us chuck all those people not-like-us off those planes where most of the passengers are people like us.
Define "us"?
This really is not rocket science.
Personally, as a relatively frequent flyer, I worry much more about things like cutting corners of fuselage and engine maintenance and quality of fuel (and, perhaps even more, the quality of onboard coffee) than about bombers on board. (On the other hand, local states grew out of their imperial-lust phase couple decades/centuries ago, which makes their people less disliked. Somehow lesser tendency to trigger-happy gung-ho a-ramboin' seems to be helpful too.) Seeing things in perspective sometimes helps.
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
People who are, for the most part, not like us are trying to kill people like us. Let us chuck all those people not-like-us off those planes where most of the passengers are people like us.
Thomas Shaddack
Define "us"?
Easier to define "them" "Us" is those people who do not much resemble them.
At 12:07 PM -0700 10/18/04, James A. Donald wrote:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, James A. Donald wrote:
People who are, for the most part, not like us are trying to kill people like us. Let us chuck all those people not-like-us off those planes where most of the passengers are people like us.
Thomas Shaddack
Define "us"?
Easier to define "them"
"Us" is those people who do not much resemble them.
Here's *my* current definition of "us": <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?tag=philodox-20&path=tg%2Fdetail%2F-%2F0385720386%2Fqid%3D1098128506%2Fsr%3D8-1%2Fref%3Dpd_csp_1%3Fv%3Dglance%26s%3Dbooks%26n%3D507846> A great book. The world's greatest business plan. Cheers, RAH -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
James is wired to be unempathetic about victims, as was McVeigh, as are fearless military and criminal killers, as are national leaders of a yellow stripe who never taste the bitter end of their exculpatory spin. What makes the wire work is that they do not believe that what they do unto others will be done to them. This is their faith, blind, cross-eyedly focussed vision which sees a right safe path down the thinnest of righteous tunnels of imagined invulnerability. Call it the armor of cowards. Call it fundamentalism, or patriotism, or pinheads up their tiny assholes. Been there: saw the vision, sniffed the odor, licked the sides of the honey-dripping tunnel, gagged, muttered what the shit is this stuff I've been preached is myrhh out of the backdoors of virgins, yelled, hey, sarge, get me out of my hole. Sarge was long gone, preaching and laughing like the devil. AIDS of the mind is hard to cure.
-- On 18 Oct 2004 at 13:35, John Young wrote:
James is wired to be unempathetic about victims, as was McVeigh, as are fearless military and criminal killers, as are national leaders of a yellow stripe who never taste the bitter end of their exculpatory spin.
What makes the wire work is that they do not believe that what they do unto others will be done to them.
So you think our enemies should try to be even more savage and cruel than they already are? That would be difficult. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG 8jFPc5YyznRSoFsz/euu3E71jE/C2JzYp7OIfB5b 4xNxnhSKG4pS9CinRKGV1bL4JQv8SATqhIxtUwoyy
participants (6)
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James A. Donald -
John Kelsey -
John Young -
R.A. Hettinga -
Sunder -
Thomas Shaddack