June 2021 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

[ot] [wrong] [fiction] Gifts
by Karl 02 Jun '21

02 Jun '21

Sad friend receives an anonymous delivery. It is the severed head of somebody they knew. Next to the head is a message written in blood: "I do not want a hug." Friend is so sad! Picks up severed head, goes to police station. Delivers head to police officer with explanation and the message, "I'm only trying to support you. I don't need a hug if you don't want one. Can you hear that I want to give you what you need?" Returns to home to find it burned down. The ashes of all their belongings have been spread in another message: "You have no idea what it's like to be me." Friend had stored all their surveillance footage on a blockchain, reviews the blockchain and finds home was burned by people with similar gaits and frames to five others in their community. Visits one of these people to make friends with them, too. ...

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Ars Technica: Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors
by jim bell 02 Jun '21

02 Jun '21

Ars Technica: Amazon devices will soon automatically share your Internet with neighbors. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/amazon-devices-will-soon-automatica… Jim Bell's comment:I've long believed that something like this could be good...if it is "done right" Unfortunately, I cannot tell what "done right" entails.

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Hackaday: Satellite Communications Hack Chat
by jim bell 02 Jun '21

02 Jun '21

Hackaday: Satellite Communications Hack Chat. https://hackaday.com/2021/06/01/satellite-communications-hack-chat/

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[ot] [wrong] personal project probstats notes
by Karl 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

Noting that the input data to my histogram block is not necessarily a population, it may just be sampled from one. In that case the expression I wrote earlier is not strictly true. When you sample from something, the distribution described by the different samplings is normal. So the probability of the true population measure being any particular thing, is the same as the probability of a normal distribution having a particular mean, given one of its values and it's standard deviation. Finding that answer means knowing the distribution of possible probability distributions, without regard to the sample. I think if we assume a uniform distribution of actual histograms possible in all reality, then the distribution of values of a single bin would be a function of that uniform distribution of histograms, and which bin it is ... that's not quite uniform, as the number of options the rest of a histogram has changes depending on the density used by a bin, but it's probably some drivable algebraic expression. Simulating is always good to test things.

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agent grarpamp 'predicts' the poronga virus PSYOP
by Punk-BatSoup-Stasi 2.0 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

https://lists.cpunks.org/pipermail/cypherpunks/2018-October/073195.html me: I originally was wondering about the NEXT false flag attack or inside job grarpamp: A good one would be a redux of the Anthrax mail game, but this time say some deadly bio agent in the water supply killing 10k+ from drinking but without transmitting further. Folks at US Fort Detrick and RU VECTOR certainly have that tech on standby, and the meme has been available to independants for a couple decades now. ------------ And then we have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Detrick "In August 2019, its deadly germ research operations were abruptly shutdown following serious safety violation" In reality, and contrary to grarpamps current bullshit-pentagon-propaganda regarding china, the false flag attack is purely 'psychological'. Still, it's quite telling that a pretty dubious character like grarpamp made a correct guess in 2018 and now switched to parroting pentagon propaganda for right wing trash(like him).

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TechRadar: Exclusive: Seagate 'exploring' possible new line of crypto-specific hard drives
by jim bell 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

TechRadar: Exclusive: Seagate 'exploring' possible new line of crypto-specific hard drives. https://www.techradar.com/news/exclusive-seagate-exploring-possible-new-lin…

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The Gentleperson's Guide To Forum Spies (spooks, feds, etc.)
by Greg Newby 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

John, On Tue, May 25, 2021 at 07:30:06PM -0400, John Young wrote: > Greg, these complaints seem to fit the disruptive practices of attackers described here: > > https://cryptome.org/2012/07/gent-forum-spies.htm > > Maybe coincidental but not the first to aim at messing with the list. Other lists have been wiped out with endless bitches, accusations, demand for attention. Of possible interest, here is an extract from a WWII-era field manual on sabotage. It highlights a variety of mechanisms to monkey-wrench organizations: Techniques for General Interference with Organizations and Production. Extracted from Project Gutenberg's eBook #26184 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/26184) SIMPLE SABOTAGE FIELD MANUAL STRATEGIC SERVICES FIELD MANUAL No. 3 (11) General Interference with Organizations and Production (a) Organizations and Conferences (1) Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions. (2) Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate "patriotic" comments. (3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration." Attempt to make the committees as large as possible -- never less than five. (4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible. (5) Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions. (6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision. (7) Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on. (8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision -- raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon. (b) Managers and Supervisors (1) Demand written orders. (2) "Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can. (3) Do everything possible to delay the delivery of orders. Even though parts of an order may be ready beforehand, don't deliver it until it is completely ready. (4) Don't order new working materials until your current stocks have been virtually exhausted, so that the slightest delay in filling your order will mean a shutdown. (5) Order high-quality materials which are hard to get. If you don't get them argue about it. Warn that inferior materials will mean inferior work. (6) In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines. (7) Insist on perfect work in relatively unimportant products; send back for refinishing those which have the least flaw. Approve other defective parts whose flaws are not visible to the naked eye. (8) Make mistakes in routing so that parts and materials will be sent to the wrong place in the plant. (9) When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions. (10) To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work. (11) Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done. (12) Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files. (13) Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do. (14) Apply all regulations to the last letter. (c) Office Workers (1) Make mistakes in quantities of material when you are copying orders. Confuse similar names. Use wrong addresses. (2) Prolong correspondence with government bureaus. (3) Misfile essential documents. (4) In making carbon copies, make one too few, so that an extra copying job will have to be done. (5) Tell important callers the boss is busy or talking on another telephone. (6) Hold up mail until the next collection. (7) Spread disturbing rumors that sound like inside dope. (d) Employees (1) Work slowly. Think out ways to increase the number of movements necessary on your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one, try to make a small wrench do when a big one is necessary, use little force where considerable force is needed, and so on. (2) Contrive as many interruptions to your work as you can: when changing the material on which you are working, as you would on a lathe or punch, take needless time to do it. If you are cutting, shaping or doing other measured work, measure dimensions twice as often as you need to. When you go to the lavatory, spend a longer time there than is necessary. Forget tools so that you will have to go back after them. (3) Even if you understand the language, pretend not to understand instructions in a foreign tongue. (4) Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions. (5) Do your work poorly and blame it on bad tools, machinery, or equipment. Complain that these things are preventing you from doing your job right. (6) Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker. (7) Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms. (8) If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on. (9) Misroute materials. (10) Mix good parts with unusable scrap and rejected parts. (12) General Devices for Lowering Morale and Creating Confusion (a) Give lengthy and incomprehensible explanations when questioned. (b) Report imaginary spies or danger to the Gestapo or police. (c) Act stupid. (d) Be as irritable and quarrelsome as possible without getting yourself into trouble. (e) Misunderstand all sorts of regulations concerning such matters as rationing, transportation, traffic regulations. (f) Complain against ersatz materials. (g) In public treat axis nationals or quislings coldly. (h) Stop all conversation when axis nationals or quislings enter a caf�. (i) Cry and sob hysterically at every occasion, especially when confronted by government clerks. (j) Boycott all movies, entertainments, concerts, newspapers which are in any way connected with the quisling authorities. (k) Do not cooperate in salvage schemes.

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[ot] [gmail] [log] [wrong] was Re: agent grarpamp 'predicts' the poronga virus PSYOP
by Karl 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

My personal experience is of just hitting "reply" on my phone. Sometimes the emails come from gmkarl, sometimes from 0xloem. I think i'm actually subscribed to the list under both emails. But I'm using my gmkarl account. I have gmail configured to reply with the address the email was sent to (it puts the account address in a header when it does this). I guess gmail must be picking using some implementation quirk, whether to reply as gmkarl or xloem, to emails sent to one or the other. I try to pick gmkarl instead of xloem when I remember on this list, so I can try to act less crazy when speaking as xloem, which is one of the email I addresses that i have more software development history as.

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Population estimates from samples
by Greg Newby 01 Jun '21

01 Jun '21

Karl had been asking about how to estimate population statistics from a sample. I came across a fascinating approach to this, called bootstrapping or the bootstrap method. I learned about this an EdX data science course offered by Berkeley. The method is described in the course's free online textbook: https://inferentialthinking.com/chapters/13/2/Bootstrap.html This method makes some assumptions, including that your sample is reasonably large, and that the population distribution is approximately normal. The basic approach is to take your sample, and then randomly re-sample from the sample. This lets you build up a probability distribution of samples which, in turn, is representative of the population. The text includes some worked examples. The course uses Python (Jupyter notebooks) and a computational framework based on Pandas. The course sequence: https://www.edx.org/professional-certificate/berkeleyx-foundations-of-data-… It's the second course, "Inferential thinking through simulations," which introduces and builds on the bootstrap concept. Lots of the materials are free - including the computational framework and examples. I'm not sure whether you can audit the (self-paced) course for free. I found the bootstrap method to be very interesting. It is not something that came up in my many grad and undergrad statistics courses or other research methods (maybe it emerged since I was a university student). I hope this helps. Greg

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