The "Future" Fallacy

[Duncan Frissell]

At 01:10 AM 12/6/95 -0800, Timothy C. May wrote:

>I found nothing wrong or incorrect with the quote Duncan attributed to Bill
>Gates (I haven't read Gates' book).
>
>I couldn't understand Duncan's koan, shrugged, and moved on.
>
>--Tim May

>From my reply to someone called billg at microsoft.com:

>>"Soon any child old enough to use a computer will be able to transmit coded
>>messages that no government on earth will find easy to decipher."
>>
>>DCF

The two "errors" in the sentence are:

1) The use of the future tense.  There are a host of encryption products
available today that are very strong.  Unless you were talking about ease of
use.  Newt Gingrich -- in a similar statement -- was speaking generally
rather than about children and that's where I noticed the error before.  It
is a present not a future capability.

2)  And no government on earth will find easy to decipher is an
understatement.  As I'm sure you know, properly deployed modern cryptography
(or even the 100-year-old technology of one-time-pads) is mathematically
infeasible to break.  Though of course attacks other decryption remain possible.

Both of these are really quibbles rather than substantial criticisms.

DCF

"Who wonders if this is the real BG or one of the 90% of forged messages
mentioned in the National Press Club speech."