Slashdot Mirror
Delivering an Earth-Shattering Discovery?
An anonymous reader asks: "Just for fun... suppose you've made an Earth-shattering discovery that, when revealed, will cause massive social upheaval. Maybe you've discovered a new energy source or weapon, or figured out how to factor large primes in
seconds, or learned how to time travel back in time and affect the present. Being a nice guy, you decide to warn the world now and give
everybody a few years to prepare before revealing the discovery. How can you absolutely encrypt or otherwise protect your discovery, but guarantee its revealing at a certain future date even if you and everybody you know is long gone? For example, could you bounce an electromagnetic signal describing the discovery off a celestial body several light-years away?"
Hell, I can already do that.
int factorLargePrime( int largePrime ) {
return largePrime;
}
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
Write it down using my handwriting, it'll take them centuries to decipher that...
Encode it with Rot13 and pray.
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
On the other hand, if you are the guy in his own backyard or garage who has just made a startling discovery about nanotechnology or cold fusion....well, thats not going to happen so don't worry too much about it.
Send it through an AOL mail gateway!
if it was time travel then you could just travel forward and reveal it then. IMHO it would be a bad idea to wait more than a week or two, odds are somebody else is fairly close to coming up with the same thing.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
why? What have you done now? Why are you asking such an interesting question whilst chosing to remain anonymous?
Feel that power? That's mah MOUSING FINGER
...that if the signal comes back, it doesn't come back too late to do any good (are humans still around, and if not, could your breakthrough have helped humanity survive?)
...that your 'breakthrough' isn't independantly discovered between when you send the message and when it bounces back.
...that whatever you bounce the signal from doesn't have intelligent life on it that may possibly suffer from the same social upheaval that you are protecting this society from.
:)
Any others?
-Matt
Milhouse: We gotta spread this stuff around. Let's put it on the internet!
Bart: No! We have to reach people whose opinions actually matter! And I think I know how.
"All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde
... they're still doing those encryption-breaking projects!
that is a really stupid idea. do not, i repeat, do not give the information to an alien race first.
The Segway has already been revealed!
Didn't this happen already with the discovery of cloning?
The problem solved itself because once the ground-breaking discovery was made, the process of engineering it into a relevant technique that had any practical application took enough years for the discussion and social adjustment required to take place. Not that we're finished with that discussion, and not everyone likes it, but I think we've gotten over the 'future shock' on that one.
--LP
Being a nice guy, you decide to warn the world now and give everybody a few years to prepare before revealing the discovery.
This sounds suspiciously similar to "It".
Please, if you actually have something worthy of talking about just say what it is. People who come to me promising a revolution in the future but refuse to talk about what it actually is give me a bad Amway feeling.
Mmmm.. Donuts
If you wanted to "warn the world NOW" (emphasis added) without revealing the discovery until a few years later, would anyone take you seriously?
For example:
"I have discovered a source of energy that does not create light or heat, is infinitely renewable, and costs less per Joule than a stick of gum to produce. I can't tell you what it is for a few years, but I CAN tell you that it will throw everything into disarray (socially and economically)...you'd better start preparing."
The reaction of the world at large could be summed up in a single word: "Crackpot".
Nobody would take you seriously until you revealed the device (and thus "proved" your crackpot theory) -- then all hell would break loose as the energy mogul equivalent of the RIAA tried you keep people from sharing this cheap energy source with heavy political donations and an "energy bandit" media campaign.
Uhmm, somebody posted a paper on testing primality in polynomial time on the 6th... and the world didn't end.
on the other hand, perhaps that's a bad idea...
Just put all of your findings in a U.S. citizenship application, then send it to the INS for processing. With what's going on at the INS right now, it'll take YEARS before that application ever sees the light of day again.
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
For example, if what you discovered was time travel, simply send the damn machine, or better yet, millions of the machine into the future 2 years from now.
If you discover a new energy source, use that energy source to power a device that will reveal that energy source in X amount of time.
(I won't touch discovering a weapon. A weapon is not a discovery, it's an implementation.)
Meanwhile, the very act of warning the world, seriously increases the odds that someone else will duplicate your discovery long before your time is up. After all, the materials you used are all there, the knowledge is all there, what the heck makes you think you're so unique that you're the only person working on the problem or capable of coming up with an answer. Historicly, any discovery is usually a horse race, with multiple groups likely to arrive at the same answer in rapid succession.
No Zen is good zen
You made an implicit assumption that you should reveal this discovery. What about ethics? If your discovery truly will shatter society, should you reveal it and go down in history in infamy, or should you keep your mouth shut and avoid the history books altogether? As wonderful as it is to be famous (or infamous) for a revolutionary new idea, do you really want to be responsible for widespread havoc?
Someone else will eventually have the same idea. Maybe even next week -- see Newton and Leibniz. Perhaps other discoverers, too, will have the good sense to keep their mouths shut. But when eventually one blabs, you will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you were not the one who destroyed society.
BTW: Asimov once wrote a story called The Dead Past that explores this theme.
I have an earth-shattering discovery that I will reveal in ten seconds. Get ready.
10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...
It's a slow news day on Slashdot.
Of course, this is likely to be a moot point. In order to warn people, you've got be to able to convince them that your accomplishment is real. Unfortunately, history shows that once a desirable result is known to be possible, it doesn't take very long for other people to duplicate that result.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
... "can anyone locate an ask slashdot question lamer than this one?"
I think the answer to this question is "no" but I eargerly await a counterexample.
You could submit it to slashdot. They would proceed to ignore the article in favor of questions about "discovering weapons", "factoring large primes", and other silliness. It would be likely that they would publish the article immediately after it was too late, such as discussing upcoming confrences after they start or the difference in LOTR DVDs after the first one had been released. (And a month after the differences had been announced).
No Zen is good zen
Why do you want to leave the world in suspense? How the heck are people going to "prepare" for something when you won't even tell them what it is. Your scenereo sounds something like this:
You make a news annoucement saying "I've discovered a terrible secret, but I won't tell you what it is for 20 years!"
Then 20 years later you finally announce your discovery to people who have forgotten about you.
The reason entire world has forgotten about you is because you sound just like another crackpot trumpeting hidden vauge doom.
Are people going to be "better prepared" in 20 years? Why? I'd say get the truth out in the open when you discover the problem and let society work it out. That or just never ever release your secret if you fear that humanity would not survive (hint: people are pretty resourceful, they're good at suriving).
If you just don't want to be around when people discover your secret, put it in your safe deposit box and forget about it. When you die your heirs will go through the box and be faced with the same dilemma you have. Note: this is the cowards way out.
I read the internet for the articles.
I seriously don't think there's much outside of a major war or the impending destruction of the planet that would really cause massive social upheaval. We lived through 9/11 and in reality, despite the destuction, the fear and the subsequent massive loss of privacy and civil rights, things continue to tick on much the same as always. Despite cries that everything has changed, in reality very little has changed. If we finally were visited by aliens, or if someone finally did catch bigfoot or the lochness monster it'd be news for a few days, and then we'd be back to our everyday concerns. Never underestimate the people's propensity for self-centeredness.
Before you "warn" everyone, you need to include in your warning an example of a working exploit. Otherwise it is dismissed as just a "theoretical" vulnerability.
Example announcement:
Look, I've just discovered how to build a <time machine / weapon that destroys the sun / plastic decder ring that cracks any code>. Click here for detailed plans on how to build one in your own garage.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
To be on the safe side, I would recommend writing it down using MS Powerpoint and emailing it as an attachment to yourself through a MS Exchange server.
You can be assured that the document will vanish for the foreseeable future. Of course, there is a good change that it will never be found again...
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
I'm not sure about the bouncing off of some celestial body thing (?), but you can usually pay a lawyer to hang on to a letter or some such for a certain period of time, and then send it for you. If you did this with say 10 lawyers or so through out the country/globe, I think the chances of your discovery getting out would be pretty good, regardless of your future good health, etc.
:-)
Although I guess its funner to say, encase your discovery in a meteor, and then send it in to a decaying orbit, to crash land on the White House lawn in a year or something, but I think the more regular and mundane ways are probably better.
If I had no sense of humor, I would long ago have committed suicide. -Ghandi
I know what his secret is. He found a way to end SPAM. It involves Lasers, GPS, and Traceroute. He uses traceroute to find where the SPAM came from then uses a laser with GPS to destroy the whole city. He wants to warn people that if they live next to a SPAMmer then they will be in danger of being vaporized.
Thats what this whole thing is about.
The above is not worth reading.
Leak your information to society's lowest common denominator. Go to middle-of-nowhere-town in Arizona and enlighten some toothless trailer park people about it. Spread the news around the various crankpot ogranizations out there. Nobody credible will believe them or you, but the idea will probably be serialized into bad sci-fi TV shows. Eventually, over half of the population will believe in the idea even though the reputible scientific comunity will refute it. At that point, you'll have given the government long enough for its secret organizations to have established the correct safety nets to handle the problem.
Someone you trust is one of us.
first of all -- nice question.
One thing I want to say is that there are theory abound that important discoveries are always discoverable within a relatively short timeframe of eachother. IIRC the phenomenon is called the critical mass of knowledge or somesuch.
It basically says that when the society (body of knowledge) reaches a certain point -- *IF* one body does not discover this thing, another surely will within a short time. This example is beautifully illustrated with Bell and his telephone -- the fact that two inventors, almost simultaneously thought up the idea.
Some sociologists argue that this is true for even important discoveries -- i.e. if Eienstein really did become a clockmaker, somebody else would probabbly still thought up the theory of relativity anyway. now - admittantly, there is no way to prove this for obvious reasons. However there are compelling reasons to believe this is a phenomenon that does occur in our world (Bell's phone is not the only one. I can't come up with any other solid examples right now -- cuz its Sat morning -- but if you look through the history of science, this actually happens quite a bit).
It is possible that it is due to the speed at which science is advancing today. science advance fast = new discovery are made in short time between eachother. and since often these things need to be found consecutively (tech-tree style), it almost guarantees the *necessity* of a certain technology's discovery at a certain time.
A ancedotal evidence that would prove interesting, just for fun -- is that China had paper money (paper in general!) / printing / fireworks long before europe; somewhat refuting this theory but also may indicate that it does not work so well for societies that are completely different and far apart with no communication. but it is very possible that paper making, say, arrived in two ancient china-man/woman's head within a couple years of eachother.
how does this apply to the ask-slashdot in question? well if it is not obvious by now -- it means that you might as well just release it now before Dr. Evil's scientists find out about it. (or, use it to take over the world yourself. whatever)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
What makes you think that revealing the information at a later date won't cause social choas? How would you know, you would be long dead. There's no guarentee that societly later on will be able to cope with the discovery.
Also note that by releasing the information at a later date, you risk someone else making the same discovery and releasing their findings. If you can do it, you can be sure someone else can do it too, it's only a matter of time
IMHO, you are a coward & too irresponsible to handle such information if you choose to release your discovery at a later date because you do not want be held responsible for the social upheval. At least while you are alive you have some control over the information, but waiting until your dead only means that you've passed the responsiblity to someone else.
an Earth-Shattering Discovery
Look, it's the Vogons, isn't it?
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
If you password protect it on an NT 4.0 server running IIS and don't publish what the server is, well, give it a few months and someone will discover it.
To extend the length of time, put it on a more obscure network. Maybe put it on IPv6 with no IPv4 address...
At any rate, in a few days of discovery, script kiddies around the world will be working hard to show their talents on your machine. A few weeks later a PDF version will show up on alt.binaries.e-books.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. - G.B. Shaw
(Note: I ramble for a while, but only answer the question fully in the last paragraph) Believe it or not, I've been grinding my brain over this issue many times. For example, let's say you had an ability to put an invisible camera at any arbitrarily chosen point in space and watch what is happening. Not only that, but you could then choose to arbitrarily switch the contents of some space with the contents of another. You could instantly kill murderers and evil-doers world wide. But then, the question is, who should have control over this technology? Should you be the one to own it. Be the benevolent dictator who believes that you somehow will stick to some absolute pure moral ground that wouldn't corrupt your ways? I'm always tempted to think that way, but them I'm reminded by all these examples, mostly in literature, where some single person with ungodly power becomes corrupted automatically. Is this true? I mean, you could pull a Superman and have your little ice palace and help the world in secret. The only other option, then, is to just give it to the public and open up the technology. I think the best options then are only two: horde it completely to yourself or give it up to the world. Even if you horde it and you're being selfish, at least you're not letting it fall into the hands of groups or what not who could do crazy things with it. I think the inventor is one you have the least to worry about. The one with the brains to make the invention and to know exactly what it's about and what it's for, i feel is less likely to mis-use it. Now, if you want to release something with a 2-3 year time-delay, maybe release only a partial solution to the problem and base it on findings that you expect won't be discovered until 2-3 years from now. For example, a while back, you might have figured that sometime, within the next 10-15 years somebody would have figured out how to determine primality in p-time, and then when they did, your solution would be complete. I'm sure there are other theorems that were discovered today that have likely follow-up theorems that will be discovered in two years. I hope this is not another "IT" machine. Sheesh. If it is, just release the damn thing.
Philosophistry
> For example, could you bounce an electromagnetic
> signal describing the discovery off a celestial
> body several light-years away?
Based on the example presented, I think we can guess that the secret doesn't have anything to do with long distance signal transmissions!
Ron Rivest (The "R" in RSA) wrote a paper on time locked crypto, which sounds like what you want. But really, what are the chances you have an earth shattering discovery to reveal if you can't even use Google?
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Let's say that you come up with the first true religion, an attitude so perfect towards the Powers that they grace your every gaze and gesture with convenient miracles. Well, first off, tell folks in your home town - none of them will believe you except for maybe your mom. Then go find some hooker to convert to your truth - she or he will probably be grateful enough for the attention to go along, but hardly in a position to convert the world. Okay, then go out and find about 12 guys for MLM. Generate some pyrotechnics by getting the Powers to help in some evictions of Lesser Powers from their human fan clubs. Throw some wine and bread parties. Perform stupid animal tricks with a jackass. Progress perhaps, but still not much danger of your word really getting out. Then take it to the point of self-righteous paranoia, accuse your closest aids of being ready to betray you, show the Powers that you really aren't cool enough to present the true religion after all, and see how they then justify all your paranoia by setting you up to be a human sacrifice in a very public way. The News at Six picks it up. Shazamm, your word gets out!
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The last line in the Movie "The Matrix"
Besides, despite what the Amway and "Ginger" people think, theres no social upheaval from either of these things...
No sig for the moment.
Build a gigantic secret base under an island somewhere. Equip with bad 70's decor, absurd super-weapons, henchmen, girls in swimsuits that inexplicably produce large caliber handguns when required, speed boats, hilicopters, and so forth. Put security cameras everywhere, and pay a midget or a guy with claws or something to monitor them. Obtain an absurd exotic pet, like a singing tapir or a farting oscilot. Train said pet to run errands about the island. Develop some mildly disturbing hobby, interest or passtime, such as bobbing for bat guano or hunting opera singers with a crossbow. The secret plans themselves, of course, should be encoded somehow in a fantastically ugly peice of fo-futurostic art. Where else?
In spite of the suggestions and all the tests that I have made, I have not cavato a spider from the hole.
I actually thought about this, for a few minutes, while reading about quantum computation.
What if somebody discovers how to implement the Shor's quantum factoring algorithm, say, in their microwave oven, or with a cheap laser. Or not QC, just some teenager figures out how to factor numbers. Or there's a huge backdoor in Microsoft XYZ and 90% of the world's computers can be accessed at the push of a button (I'm talking even easier than you can hack windows now :-).
Well, as the poster says, maybe he'd just announce his discovery (maybe through a trusted Bruce Schneier type person in the case of crypto), and give everybody time to plan.
But would that be a good idea? Cracking crypto would be a pretty big deal. Like, foreign governments would assassinate you in two seconds to get that information. YOUR OWN government would probably not think twice about calling you a terrorist and shipping you to Cuba for "interrogation". And/or they'd discredit you and make you look like a fool to keep the information from coming out.
You'd probably be hunted for this information. It would be a huge discovery that would allow whoever had to gain quite a bit of power.
So my conclusion was, if you ever discover something like this, forget it. Destroy the machine, erase the notes. Let humanity find it on its own, go back to your day job.
Maybe you could come up with some way to prove you thought of it first, once someone else thinks of it, so you can take credit, but I sure wouldn't want to announce it up front.
In fact, it's possible something like this has already happened. Who knows?
Give it to the gov to debate and regulate. It will take them at least two years to finish.
Table-ized A.I.
algorithm = blowfish; hard to optimize in hardware, nothing better than brute force known
b = number of key bits for which average brute-force time is "short" (12-168 hours), assuming a large distributed effort
t = average brute-force time for b bits
T = delay until message should be revealed
N = T / t
choose b, t, N so that 50 <= N <= 200
smaller N means smaller final message
larger N means less variation of delay
inner_msg = cleartext
for i = 1 to N publish final outer_msg, scheme, parameters, cracking program
Even if most people don't take it seriously, a few will. Of course then it'll take much longer. For T over a few years, factor in Moore's law.
If you do it today, tomorrow nobody will believe you. If your idea really is that earth-shaking, three years from now you'll be labeled a rabble-rouser, ten years from now you'll be labeled a revolutionary, and a hundred years from now you'll be labeled a genius or a prophet. Maybe both.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Some discoveries are best kept to yourself, especially when you know the world cant handle it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
If you discover time travel for example why tell the world? They'd only use it to destroy themselves with.
Theres no point in releasing earth shattering discoveries, the world isnt even ready for computers and nuclear technology.
Everything we invent, they use to destroy the world.
Why invent anything? Every invention brings us one step closer to self destruction.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The "anonymous reader" went and broke the final seal on mighty Cthulhu's undersea prison, and is now stressing out over how to break the news to the world.
On one hand, he could tell us now so we can slowly go insane over the course of the next 10 years, watching that unfathomable horror get out of bed, brush his teeth, read the paper, etc.
On the other hand, he could just wait and let us find out the hard way as Cthulhu emerges in 10 years. We'll instantly go insane, frozen in terror as that ageless beast proceeds to devour us all.
Surely you can see the bind he's in. Please, give him a little respect and take the topic seriously -- none of this "+1 Funny" business.
Hi, remember paper? Remember that it can be stored for very long periods of time without much degredation. And remember that there is something called a safe deposit box at banks? You lock up the documentation for your discovery, then when it is "time" to release it, open it up again. Problem solved. Worst case scenario, you are not around anymore, just bury the key into this wacky invention called a "time capsule".
today is spelling optional day.
All they have to do now is say "lets take earth" Then use our DNA to come to earth in human form and slowly take over from within witohut us ever knowing.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Too bad that does not work (yet). We could bounce radar waves off of the nearest star systems to see what is there as far as planets. However, the round trip is about 10 years.
Then again, that is about how long it takes to plan a space probe until its encounter or touchdown.
Table-ized A.I.
Put it on an FTP server in the goatse.cx domain. No one's gonna look at that thing for years to come.
Any discovery which you dont believe humanity can handle, dont reveal it. Keep it to yourself, or store it on a secure format and hide it in a save under the ground somewhere.
I'm sure the people who discovered nuclear technology are sorry now, considering how it was used.
Look every good technology gets in the hands of bad people, and its used for bad reasons, even computers.
Why release technology thats too advanced for the worst of our species to handle? If bin laden could use it to destroy the world, you dont release it.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
I hope this doesn't go over the length limit, because the truly interesting bits are at the end. :-)
I'd like to clarify the question a bit. Who would we be protecting the data from? Presumably, it would be governments, criminal organizations, large corporations. Groups that have tremendous means at their disposal. In other words, you would need to be protecting your own person just as much as (if not more than) your secret.
If you have the means to protect yourself for the requisite amount of time (let's call it the "quiet period"), then you'd be able to use those same means to protect your secret.
So, let's assume that you're not entirely convinced of your ability to protect your own person, but you're willing to endure any amount of torture, or even death, to protect your data before the quiet period is up. Let's also assume that, nevertheless, you're filthy rich and can do anything that is possible with currently available technology.
The question is one of balancing between guaranteeing the protection of the secret during the quiet period, and guaranteeing the disclosure of the secret afterwards. This is made difficult because of your intention, at the beginning of the quiet period, to announce to the world that you have this secret. Whatever security you might have had from obscurity would be utterly lost. So...
Standard encryption is not much of a solution, because once you've announced the existence of your secret, you'd have to protect your encryption key just the same way you'd need to protect the secret itself. You're not gaining anything in terms of the guarantee of protection. On the other hand, if you keep the key in your head, it would die with you when you're tortured to death, and you'd lose your guarantee of disclosure.
Bouncing your secret in a data signal off a distant celestial body is not bad, but I suspect that there would be too much of a possibility of signal loss, compromising the guarantee of disclosure. You could back it up by bouncing multiple signals off several celestial bodies, and this might be as good a solution as I can think of.
My best proposal however, would be a variation on the celestial body proposal: pack the information into a capsule, and launch it into a trajectory that will bring it back to the earth after the quiet period is over. A back-up capsule with a different trajectory could better guarantee disclosure. I have no idea how much these projects would cost, but I suspect the capsule plan would cost less than the celestial body plan.
Really, the best form of protection is probably one in which it's not in people's interests to try to breach it in the first place. Some contraption in which any tampering guarantees destruction of the data will probably work best. Possibly something combining quantum encryption with radioactive decay as a timer...? I'm not well-versed enough to go beyond idle speculation here.
In this case, you'd have to play your political cards right, because somebody might decide that if they can't get their hands on it, then nobody should be allowed to.
In the end, however, your biggest challenge might be to get everyone to take you seriously when you announce that you have the plans for a breakthrough technology that will change the world in five years.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Since this is just for fun, let's do some calculations. It's been a while for me, so forgive me if my math goes astray.
Let's suppose there were a convenient target, MirrorWorld, roughly 1 light-year away. We send our message by pulsing a high-powered laser toward the spot where MirrorWorld will be one year from now.
Ideally laser beams are tightly collimated, but even the best ones spread a bit. Let's suppose that the beam we use starts out about a millimeter wide, with a spread of 1 nanometer (10E-9 meters) for every meter of travel.
Now a beam of light travels about 9.5E15 meters/year, so by the time our beam hits MirrorWorld, it will be 9.5E6 meters (plus one millimeter) wide. That's not so bad - only about 75% the width of the planet earth.
Now, of course all our calculations were perfect, our execution flawless, and nothing unexpected happened to distort the curvature of space, so our beam will hit MirrorWorld dead center. Also, MirrorWorld is, a perfectly flat, perfectly reflecting surface, perfectly oriented to reflect all of the incident energy of our laser back to the position where the earth will be two years after we fired the beam without any loss and without increasing the rate of spread.
Of course, the beam continues to spread at it's original rate. After 2 years total travel, the energy in the orignal pulses would be spread across a beam about 1.9E+7 meters across. That works out to about 1.1E15 square meters of surface area by the time the beam hits the lens/antenna that we placed just outside the atmosphere (to avoid losses). If the lens is a perfect collector of energy, 1 square meter in size, we will receive 8.8E-16 joules for every joule transmitted in the original pulses.
Now, a table found here suggests that a ton of Uranium-235, used as fuel, contains about 7.4E16 joules. So if you burned a ton of U-235 per pulse, and your reactor and laser were 100% efficent, you could received 65.12 joules per pulse per square meter of receiving lens/antenna.
Maybe you don't need a ton of U-235 per pulse. Maybe your lens can be very large and your receiver very sensitive. Still, it's worth noting that, according to this site the total combined production of U-235 by the US and USSR was only 1950 tons. That's 1950 bits of information or less, depending on your coding... so try not to be too wordy.
The above discussion took the long way around, just for fun, but you can dismiss this idea more quickly and easily by simply asking "where in the sky do I look to see a heavenly body (outside of this solar system) reflecting the light from the Sun?". If the answer is "nowhere", then there probably isn't any way for you to reflect a signal either.
I think I'll post this anonymously, in case I did something really stupid. Enjoy!
I'm sory, but i fail to see a case where it would make sense to go to great lengths to keep information hidden until a specific date:
My main point is, that it's hard to announce (and why delay the revelation unless you inform at least someone who can do something in the meantime?) a discovery without revealing the identity of the person (or even worse: group) that discovered it. If he/they visibily go through a lot of trouble to hide the information, then someone will consider the information worthy enough to reproduce it. He has many options:
- ask/bribe/torture the person who discovered (whatever) to reproduce the information, or give out enough details that someone else can reproduce it.
- find out what the line of work of that person was and invest heavily in that direction (virtually noone can make an important discovery today without at least working with someone or refer to other's works (oops all that queries in a scientific database may reveal a pattern))
- find a way to get at the information anyway (maybe it resided on some harddisk that wasn't overwritten 10 times, maybe the method of keeping it secret is flawed)
Also, does it make sense to reveal that information at a fixed date in the future (e.g. bouncing it of a celestial body)? How can you know now what revealing the information might do at that date, and why do you think mankind will then be "ready" for it? revealing information at a fixed date in the future makes only sense for astronomical events (an asteroid will hit earth at it's next pass near the sun (maybe 80 years from now) and you think it's better to spare mankind the upheaval for the next 70 years (but how can you know, maybe we could do something about the asteroid in 40 years from now if only we knew, maybe shooting at it with a strong laser, so gas emissions will alter the course ever so slightly).
For other discoveries it makes even less sense to hide them for a fixed time, since it's impossible to guess, how fast (and whereto) society will evolve, when scientific discoveries will provide us with a good replacement for some technology or other, and, generally speaking, when the time is 'just right'. In that case it'd probably be better to involve some kind of human intervention/judgement to determine when to reveal the discovery.
One way to do that would be to build a (not necessarily secret, depends on the discovery) "society" to guard the information. maybe politicians from different countries, people from international organisations or even corporations. Technically you could give each member (or different groups of members) part of the information which makes only sense when it's all (or a significant number of information pieces) are put together (there are codes that do that for you: e.g. give one part a oneway pad, the other the encrypted information). But that still leaves the problem, that the information might be discovered independantly, somehow cajoled out of the original discoverers, or just 'rediscovered' (it's easier to get funding for a project if you know you will discover something).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
Basics set of action constants for Autocoding and general automation by end users
And be sure to understand what preparation means Cornering the Autocoding market
The best place to hide something is right out in the open.
Pick two different law firms guaranteed to be around in 5 years, which shouldn't be too hard. Have them each keep a copy of all pertinent papers in a 2 separate firesafes in 2 separate buildings, preferably in two separate states of low import. For example, North Dakota and Alaska. Then just pay the lawyers to hire a pr firm in 5 years and pimp the product.
Your question implies two things: 1) a very short time span. "A few years," you say. 2) Civilization as we know it today will still be around in those 2 years. In other words, you don't seem to be worried about making sure the survivors of a nuclear war will be able to make use of your discovery. You just seem to want to make sure that someone will be around in you disappear off the face of the earth.
Ah, I have it. You've discovered a cheap, non-polluting, renewable substitute for oil. It can both power vehicles with no emissions and produce biodegradable plastics. No wonder you're scared. You're lucky you aren't under arrest for being a terrorist.
Well I'm coming very late to this discussion but it's something I've thought about before. Many posters have pointed out that any breakthrough discovery is unlikely to be 10 or 20 years away from the rest of the scientific community, especially if you give a credible clue that the discovery exists to be made.
However one exception to this rule occurs to me. If you were to somehow develop advanced Artificial Intelligence that was thousands of times more intelligent than a human you could use this to solve a huge number of technical and scientific problems. If you could control the AI completely and safely (big if) it would be possible to develop technologies that would supress discovery of the same technique anywhere else in the world. How? One way would be development of advanced self-replicant nanotechnology that would allow you to surveil the entire Earth and subtly divert research efforts getting too close to your crucial discovery. Computers would mysteriously fail here and there, experiments would fail, etc. No one could detect your actions because, by definition, they don't have the detection technology.
Sounds crazy, I know. But all the rules go out the window if you assume the existance of a loyal machine that can think thousands or millions of times faster than we can. We'd all like to think it would be us to discover this first in our basements or something. In reality it's far more likely to be the NSA. Scary.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Like this!
Our fiction (especially science fiction) allows us to get our minds around "earth shattering" concepts before we have to really deal with them. I would launch a TV series about the discovery, treating it as fiction, of course.
You'll benefit from the "It's like Star Trek" effect- nowadays, any high-tech discovery is invariably compared to something on Star Trek, like the recent experiments in which a photon is "teleported."
Thanks to Star Trek and other science fiction, when we make contact with an alien race, the worldwide reaction won't be "Impossible!"-- rather, it will be "Finally!"
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
You can do anything at Zombocom, so I would assume that you would be able to do something like this with a secret you were holding.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I have discovered a truly marvelous method, which the margin of this Slashdot posting is too narrow to contain.
-- Terry
Ask SlashDot has been rather lax lately, with many, well...STUPID questions. Over the last week, however, the questions have been fresh and interesting. Is this a new trend?
It's simple, just use my earth-shatttering invention. I call it the 'Earth-shattering Discovery Revealer'. You'll hear about it gradually...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
This is what I'd do: Create a program which must be continuously running on a close machine, and who's only output is a simple monitor. Make sure to encrypt all data with the strongest encryption you can use, then have a timer which more or less on the given date spits out the big secret on the monitor, repeating it over and over again so that people can use optical-character recognition technology to read its display. Note that you will need a damn good power suply source, rock-solid hardware, and reliable power source for the clock (in case the machine loses power and then wakes up), and extremmelly good (gold?) connections for the external monitor.
For example, if what you discovered was time travel, simply send the damn machine, or better yet, millions of the machine into the future 2 years from now.
Funny you shouild mention that. That's exactly what you're going to do in 5 years when you do invent time travel. Except then I will wait two years, take one of the machines back, steal your prototype, and bring it back to me last week, at which point I will announce that I have just invented it...
You're not going to file several mysterious patents and claim social upheaval via self balancing motor scooter are you? Really, we don't need any more of those world shattering discoveries.
You have NO absolutely secure method of getting said info "to the future" without somebody keeping an eye on it or knowing about it. And any method I can think of (besides burying it in a capsule and having lawfirms release it on said date or UPS deliver it's location somewhere) requires some serious money. I wouldn't go with the net, cuz who knows what it'll look like in a few years. I wouldn't go with electronic media in general for fear of an EMP event of some sort. Too dicey for a lot of reasons (formats, decay, etc). Ultimately, cash will help guarantee your discovery will get into the right hands intact.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Take it down to your local western union, and tell them to deliver it to Marty McFly, during a thunderstorm on a deserted stretch of road about 60 years from now.
The usual problem with key escrow is that you want to make it possible-but-difficult to obtain your key, but impossible to do so secretly. You do this by making up N-1 random numbers and XORing them all with your key to produce an Nth number. Burn the copy of the key and distribute the N numbers to N different left-wing civil liberties organizations and newspapers. Nobody can get your key secretly unless they can sneak all the pieces out of all the different organizations.
The same thing could be done for time-release key escrow: use N organizations that all agree to your schedule for releasing the key. The use of many organizations mitigates the risk of premature disclosure by any single organization. The problem is that no organization is entirely immune to espionage, and neither is any combination of organizations.
So hide some pieces of your key using engineering solutions. Build timer-driven gadgets that hide underground, or at the bottoms of lakes, and announce themselves after three years. Find places like Stonehenge or the Pyramids, where a sunbeam enters a cave only on one day of the year, and build something clever in the cave.
An interesting service (but one for which I cannot figure out a revenue model) would be to generate public/private key pairs for various dates. Publish the public keys and corresponding dates immediately, and publish private keys on the dates in question. Eventually the service would end up getting used to protect some information that was really valuable, and then the service provider would be subject to rubber-hose cryptanalysis, so this isn't a great career choice.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
****Hypnotize Women into Bed****
Fat Bald Ugly Insecure Broke?
Guys!
Did you know you can learn to hypnotize women into bed?
Come on, dude - you can't tell me you don't need a little extra edge
when it comes to scoring. It's FUN, and it will CHANGE YOUR LIFE!
--err, I betting the same people that will respond to your SPAM message are the easiest to convince. Once you have that group sold, the rest is easy.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
If it's not for fun... it would take two years:
... (commonwealth?)
to secure the rights
get the financing
pull together a company
to turn the discovery
into a profitable business model
If you don't... someone will.
Earth shattering discoveries are like that...
they create wealth
Bell Telepone,
Edison Electric,
Ford Motors
Linux
Sig: gotta light?
Write in the margin of your lab book, "I have discovered an ingenious proof of *insert Earth shattering idea here*, but alas it will not fit in this small space."
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Unfortunately, your counter-point overlooks one very large fact- Just because you can't think of a reason on why he should keep a specific date doesn't mean he can't or doesn't already have one. It doesn't have to be logical or make sense to you. The person in question obviously has one, be it factually sound or a figment of his imagination.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
A devastating security hole in Microsoft Windows that leaves the system wide open to any attacker.
In order to ensure the security of machines running Windows and to give Microsoft adaquate time to properly patch the bug I will not disclose details of the exploit for 20 years.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
history proves optimistic viewpoints usually dont tell the truth.
The Native Americans were Optimistic when meating Europeans.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
What about a disease or -- hey, why not -- an ASTEROID that threatens to wipe out Earth. Surely telling everyone would induce mass panic, possibly injuring more people than the original antagonist.
But maybe, if you find some way to warm people to the idea that they could all die soon from some unknown force, several years in advance, when the shit hits the fan they could be more prepared psychologically to deal with it.
Likewise, a new energy source would be a revolutionary product, but the oil companies would squash it like a fly. Maybe you could introduce the idea of amazing new energy to people, show a few, and gauge their reaction. Then, when the time comes to release your amazing invention, YOU can be prepared with the right sort of marketing campaign, or publicity, etc. Maybe you need to wait anyway, for the right time, the right situation (or the right major crises) where you can make the most out of it all (ie: Sept. 11 and the flag companies).
Now, don't raise your eyebrows, we all know that there was capitalization on that crisis, and there will be on every other crisis to come. Of course, the most guilty party is the media. But anyway, just trying to make a point.
There ARE reasons maybe you should prepare society or yourself for the right time and to be in the right mindset for the release of an idea. Be it for profit OR safety.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I didn't want to get so far off the topic, but I needed to point out that there actually are some in power who can be trusted.
(I'm specifically thinking of G. W. Bush, here)
These two statements are mutually contradictory.
Just encrypt the discovery with an algorithm that you estimate will take 5 years to brute-force (of course, this won't be exact, but you can base it on reasonable estimates about progress in processing power).
If it is something you think governments or other people might like to suppress but that you think is still worthwhile publishing (maybe cryptography), use steganography, publish it via a public network, then reveal some of the keys later.
If it is something that really is harmful ("how to build a nuclear device in your basement", "how to make a killer virus from cheese", etc.) just don't publish it and don't tell anybody about it. Most of the time, if people know something is possible, they can easily recreate it even if you don't tell them how.
Ahem... while I have a hard time coming up with any discovery that is likely in nature to require such safeguards, I would point out that a rather sensible way of ensuring the secret does exist.
Many of you are probably aware of the Voyager spacecrafts, and the laserdisks of information that were burned and then attached to them. Put your information on a CD (preferably more than one to reduce the risk of media failure), and attach to a probe that you send to an outer planet with a return orbit.
Basically the cost is in the CD (minimal) and the alteration to a ship that was going to go one way to be captured in a slingshot manuever and come back around in the appropriate timeframe.
There was an old British law written many years ago when the automobile was first becoming popular. Horseless carriage manufacturers pressured law makers to create a law that required all automobiles to have a person CARRY a flag ahead of the automobile! This was done under the guise of public safety.
Disruptive technologies are the key to progress in a technologically advanced society. When a disruptive technology is introduced it is typically fought by the "old guard"...companies that have built their very existence around old technology, and will use every means to keep that existence.
Let's say you develop a "transporter" technology that could reliably and safely move objects to anywhere in an instant. Would you wait to release the technology? Your invention would cause global turmoil...over-night your device would destroy the shipping business, the automotive industry, the oil industry, the airline companies, most businesses that service those industries and many others.
But think of the benefits...lower pollution, eliminate traffic accidents and deaths, more free time for people who travel alot...etc. It would be unethical and irresponsible to not release this technology.
-ted
I don't wanna seem like a dick, but I think I've got a good idea for the next 'Ask Slashdot' question:
How the fuck do you guys pick the 'Ask Slashdot' questions?
Seriously, I've submitted at least two questions that were so much more worthwhile than this one it's not even funny. I've asked questions about the anti-virus industry and whatnot, and some nutball wanting to warn us that he's figured out how to cast spells gets the front page. Sheesh.
It's really easy. Put it in a manilla envelope, write "TPS Reports 08/2002" on the outside. Create another envelope, label it "TPS Reports 10/2002". Seal 'em, put them both on your desk. When you die, someone will have to look at those TPS Reports. Unlike your swingline stapler and the printer, noone will bother it, so you can safely leave it on your desk, but in the event of your death, someone will open the October TPS Reports wondering WTF Octobers reports were already done for, and find a reference the August TPS Reports which should have already been filed. Then, the cats out of the bag.
What did you discover that is this important? Did you get a couple of weeks of supercomputer time somewhere and calculate the actual meaning of life, the universe, and everything? Are you worried about revealing to us the information because it isn't 42?
At least for the geek community, that could be the single most crushing realization in history. Except possibly the discovery that Bill Gates and Linus Torvalds are really long lost twins separated at birth. That could be pretty heart wrenching.
By the way, I'm just kidding.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
Write a science fiction story, start an urban legend, or create an e-mail hoax that foreshadows the discovery.
This way, when it is revealed, they will have at least thought about it, and some crackpot organizations will be prepared.
The trip to the moon, Larry Niven's "organlegging," and the "Good Times Virus Hoax" come to mind (foreshadowed Melissa in 1994)
Launch a spacecraft with the information away from Earth. Inform the world of what you've done when the spacecraft is far enough away to be irretrievable with current technology. As technology advances, humans develop ability to retrieve spacecraft. There are two problems:
There is no solution to the first problem. To solve the second, you need to leave convincing evidence that retrieving the spacecraft will be worthwhile. Whether this is possible depends on your invention.
They have been proven as the most effective way to keep important discoveries from the public for at least 20 years.
The ______ Agenda
this article sucks. use the god damn us mail.... that should give you enough leeway.
I have an invention that really isn't going to get noticed unless I get millions of dollars worth of free marketing. Can you tell me how to get millions of people interested in my idea?
Donate background CPU time to fight cancer.
You don't even have to assume that, just that all instances of time travel are pre-destined due to the laws of physics and everything that you will do in the past has already happened. Now, since we don't see people and time machines popping up all over the place, we can assume that time travel, is at the very least not common, if not necessarily nonexistant.
So here are my attempts.
- Someone else suggested something like this, but I'll state my version... use a cryptographic scheme which produces a number of keys, some or all of which must be used in combination to retrieve the original message. Probably just some of them would be best. Give the keys to a number of high-profile parties in a very public way, making sure to choose people for whom it would be a publicity disaster to divulge ahead of time. I was thinking of religious leaders, but the other poster suggested civil liberties organizations, which is another good idea. Anyway, a critical aspect of this scheme would be to make sure the public would react negatively to early news-breaking. If it was a free-energy scheme or something, there would be too much outcry and your trusted parties would be pressured to divulge instead of the other way around. Of course, you could always lie about the contents of the message -- once it was revealed (on time rather than early), if it was important enough nobody would blame you for lying.
- A variation on the EM-bounce idea. Launch a spacecraft (did I mention this is kind of an expensive option?) and have it fly away from Earth in a straight line, then broadcast the message at the appropriate time. This would only fail due to interference (someone overtakes your spacecraft and extracts the data or destroys it), mechanical failure of the craft, or failure to receive it. I think mechanical failure is the biggest problem here. You could generate enough publicity to guarantee someone would be listening when the time came, and you could give your spacecraft a difficult-to-predict course so that a pursuer (even with more advanced tech) would have a hard time catching it.
- Others have suggested time-lock encryption schemes, which seem like a good idea. My variation on that, which would take some ingenuity but is a cool idea anyway: fashion a computer program which constantly alters its own code, and which will (given enough time, as determined by Moore's law) eventually output the secret. Care would have to be exercised to make sure that inspection of the program would not make it possible to guess the output without running it. But from what I know of Turing machines, I think this might be theoretically possible. The main problem is that it might take as long or longer to design the program as it would to run it, which may or may not be a problem depending on your scenario.
- Obscurity. Place the secret somewhere publicly accessible but obscure. Bury it in a hole. Put it on a web page, add that page to Google's cache, and then delete the original page. Something like that. The problem here is retrieval. Nothing is suggesting itself to me, so I guess this is at best a partial solution.
- Find a healthy person and gain their trust. Give them a copy of the secret (or the key to unlock it, or whatever), but don't let them know what it is. Have them place it in a safe deposit box, to be opened in case of their death. Arrange with a reliable hit man to kill that person at a particular time in the future. Or implant a subdermal time-bomb at the base of their skull or something. You get the idea here. The main thing is to make sure there's no connection to you.
- Find some way to include the secret, or its key, in a set of sealed government records which are to be unveiled at some particular future time. Kind of like the JFK assassination case files or something.
- Revisiting some of the above ideas, you could simply hide a broadcast device in an undisclosed location, and set it to begin broadcasting the secret at the specified time. If you could figure out how to stick it on the moon or something that would be even better.
Eh, running out of ideas and nobody's gonna read this anyway, so I guess I'm done.My deviantArt site
the three sea shells?
Um, I wasn't talking about AI as a storage medium man. Don't think you read the comment you're replying to ;)
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
99% of people would milk it, get rich rule the world or whatever until someone noticed, then your discovery would be out
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
One new revolution in thinking a year, at least.
If the world of our children is even slightly recognizable, we need to do more.
No, I'm not kidding and this is not a troll or flamebait. Get all the whacky tech out there and into production, if it really exists. Crush all existing dominant systems, and then in a year or so, crush the new ones that arose.
The more challenging the world is, the greater the expectations we place on ourselves, the higher our performance.
Stability is for evolutionary dead ends.
"Avast! Prepare for the rodgering!" THWACK! "Arrr.. me nards.."
If you're going to test it on another planet, it'd better be a planet in another star system. We all know from TWOK what happens when a nearby planet blows up...
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
There's meant to be an earth-shattering 'KABOOM'.
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Before you pre-announce, create a device that can transmit your discovery. Perhaps a cellular-enabled computer in a rugged enclosure. Bury it. Not just anywhere, mind you. Find a place where erosion is predictable. The marshlands of Louisiana come to mind, but drilling into an iceburg would work well too. The device should be designed to float to the surface and transmit the data when it is freed.
Another option is to release some silly Outlook trojan that has the data encoded within. Set it to go active when the time on time.windows.com matches some pre-set time. (This avoids incorrectly set clocks, and is the sort of network query one would expect from a windows box.)
Get a programmer with a wireless phone manufacturer on your side. Hide the code in the firmware for a wireless phone. The phone will transmit your data to both the owner and anyone else in the phone book. To avoid an overload, the phone should wait a unique time, perhaps based on a number derived from the owner's calling habits.
Hide it in a mass-produced media product. Many films and albums have used a password based web component for extra hype. (Swordfish and Wu-Tang Forever come to mind) Why can't the next Brittney CD have an ECD with several hidden features, each unlocked with a password... Including your little innovation.
Have Steve Jobs announce it at MacWorld. Oh wait nevermind.
Sounds like this discovery is sure to threaten the status quo. I wouldn't give the wealthy bastards who rule the world's so-called democracies the lead time they need to suppress, control or destroy the thing before it can do them any harm.
You might want to hire some patent folks before making the anouncement.
The current state of IP indicates that no matter how new and earth shattering your discovery, there is a good chance that HP or Unisys has a vague patent that covers it.
Just a word of caution, do the smart thing... Keep it under your hat and for Pete's sake GPL the thing.
Bill Gates himself is submitting stories to slashdot!
(For those of you who haven't read his The Road Ahead, the earlier prints contained a phrase about a "breakthough in factoring large primes" making current encryption obsolete.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Encode it into the "garbage" bits in your own DNA. Then, assuming you have decendents (unlikely, if you are a regular /. reader) the information will always be around. Remember, according to scientists, about 85% of the data in your DNA serves no usefull purpose -- maybe there are ALREADY messages in there!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney