HUMOR: Sternlight on the CPSR Clipper Petition

[Timothy C. May]

Cypherpunks, 

And now for some humor amidst my rants.

This is a post I did that makes light of David Sternlight's bizarre
assertion that the anti-Clipper petition of the CPSR contains few
valid signatures because he, David Sternlight, asked those who signed
the petition to send him e-mail....and he only got 35 responses! QED,
the CPSR either faked the signatures or others forged messages.

(Sternlight even cites "cypherpunks" as likely culprits, noting that
they are skilled at creating phantom identities....I guess Detweiler
was listened to by at least one kindred soul.)

The methodological flaws in Sternlight's line of reasoning are too
obvious to go into here, and Sternlight has sunk to a new low in terms
of respect. His claims that he was recently a senior government policy
advisor give me new insights into why the government is as screwed up
as it is.

Finally, I've avoided flaming Sterno in public, and I had some qualms
about kicking him while he's so much of a fool over this issue, but my
satirical urges got the best of me. Here it is:


Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk,alt.privacy.clipper,alt.security.pgp,talk.politics.crypto,alt.security.ripem,alt.fan.david-sternlight
From: tcmay at netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: CPSR Clipper Petition test results
Message-ID: <tcmayCM320o.6I0 at netcom.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 1994 09:50:47 GMT


Matt Austern (matt at physics2.berkeley.edu) wrote:

: The US government claims that over 100 million people voted in the
: 1992 Presidential election.  Fewer than 50 people, however, personally
: told me that they voted in that election.

: It won't play, fellas.  50 people out of 100 million?  Clearly, this
: supposed "election" didn't really happen.

This effect is far more widespread than you suspect. Several days ago
I posted a request in rec.skate for people to send me e-mail if in
fact they watched the Olympics--any or all of it.

While the pundits at CPSR (Central Polling for Sports Research) would
have us belief that _more than_ 100 million Americans (which is "many"
but not "most") watched some or all of the Olympics, I received a
paltry 3 responses, and one of these was a string of moronic insults,
so I really only count 2 valid response.

Could 100 million Americans have watched the Olympics if I only
received 2 valid responses to my poll? My many years advising the
government in senior policy postions, and my Ph.D in statistics tells
me "Not on your life."

Applying the Black-Scholes significance test (with a quartile scatter
factor normalized to the Kolmogorov constant), I have concluded that
the actual number of Olympics watchers was 135 plus or minus 7.32. I
thus conclude that CBS, the Olympic Committee, the Tonya Harding
Kneecapping Club, and the ever-treacherous CPSR are all lying to us!

I will, however, not discuss this matter any further!

(At least not until I do.)

--Tim May


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