How can you have a "FAQ" on something that just happened?
FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. How can you have frequently questions for something that *just happened* or was *just announced*. Easy, you think up the questions beforehand and spin them the way you want.
When you control the questions, you don't have to worry about the answers.
Linux isn't, and shouldn't be built on the size or profit margins of the companies that distribute it. It is, or rather should be built on the strength of it's code--it's reliability and security.
I personally am getting less and less happy with what I see coming out of the Linux *companies*. Not the Linux *community*, but those companies who are trying to make *bucks* off linux.
It is not the distributers that make linux what it is. To grandstand and cheer for them is like cheering for microsoft. As a *business* they will do whatever they think they need to to keep the *business* going.
That doesn't mean that they will make the best choices for *me*. Already I am catching shit from my boss who only wants to use Redhat. Why? Because it is the largest. Because "all the vendors support it".
Same reason many Pointyhairs give for buying Microsoft or IBM.
The best thing for Linux, and for Open Source is lots of small companies focusing on what they do best. Unfortunately, when you go public, and need to start putting gas in that new Ferrari Roadster, or pay the taxes on the new home, you start to think in terms of what is best for the *business* as opposed to what is best for the *technology*. Gygnus used to do what was best for the technology. They, like the Gents at Redhat got caught up in the IPO Fever (it's seductive, I'm fighting in right now. My company is planning to go public next year, do I stay at a job I am coming to dislike, for a boss I cannot respect because I might make a metric buttload of cash, or do I start doing something else I may like more?), and from now own they have new bosses--the shareholders. These people don't (largely) care about Linux, they care about profits.
I want my technology provider to be concerned about technology more than profit. I don't see Redhat doing that. I see slick packaging. I see useless manuals. I see a tech support system that doesn't answer it's emails is a timely fashion.
Technology doesn't change morality and basic values. For example, you can kill someone by running over them with a horse, a car, an airplane, or a space shuttle. The technology of the transportation doesn't affect the underlying morality of using it to kill in this case.
Technology DOES change morality. It changes how we see the world, and how we relate to the world. It changes what we value and why. These values are our moral base.
In your example you state several different technologies that can be used to "run over someone" stating that it doesn't matter which one you use, it doesn't change the underlying morality. In fact, technology has changed our (societies) opnions of when, where, who, and how it is ok to kill people. Look at how the nature of war--largely through technology--has changed in the last 200 years. In the past it was simply a war between assigned combatants with the cities as prizes--civilians were largely safe during the fighting, it was afterwards, if their side lost that things got nasty.
Today--because of the highly technical nature of war, just about any target (other than Hospitals and Schools) can be legitimized as "denying the enemy production" or "weakening the infrastructure".
It has also changed the nature of who we are allowed to kill--it is almost inconceivable to many people that we might go to war with the more modern contries in Europe, both because we are--through technology--so interdependent on them, and because technology lets us enteract with them on a much closer basis. However this same technology shows us how different the little brown and yellow people are, so 38 days of heavy bombing is OK, since they aren't like us, and besides, we need their oil.
Technology doesn't really change the basic nature of people, most are lazy, greedy and stupid. It does change how they, in their sloth and self indulgence, relate to the world and what they value in it.
But neither will I give up and admit that those aspects of the preindustrial past that were better (cleaner air, less noise, starry skies, etc.) are no longer attainable. I suspect our best hope to regain them is not through abandoning technology (if that were even possible), but through pursuing better technology.
I think that if you actually looked at the facts of the matter--rather than the popular conception of preindustrial societies, you'll find for the most part that while the skies are starrier, and the noise is a bit less, the air really isn't any less polluted (smoke from cooking fires, the smells of bodily effluents etc.) than our own, it's just different--and in some ways worse.
Much of the pollution we have today--car exhausts etc. lead to long term health problems, cancers etc. The pollutions of previous times lead to more immediate problems of a bacteriological nature. I'd rather get a cancer at 65 than collera at 7, 18, 22 and 30 before dying of bubonic plague at 33.
Evidence of Lead Pollution from the lead smelting operations in Rome during the Roman Empire has been found in Polar Ice.
You have to go so far back in time before you get rid of pollution that by the time you've done it, you get rid of society.
First off, I don't claim to be a "competent NT Administrator", I admit up front I hate the bloody thing.
That being said:
Not to mention that I couldn't get NT to use more than 4GB for a partition. This would be caused by what is known in the industry as a 'chair to keyboard interface error' or a 'keyboard driver error'. NT supports larger than 4G partitions, just not in the first partition due to BIOS limitations on x86 boxes.
I have not found a way--on initial install--to get NT to recognize a partition larger than 4 gig, or a drive larger than 8. This is with the stock Windows NT Workstation CD, and with the latest MSDN developer CDs of NT Server 4.0.
Now, maybe you have a different distrubition of NT than either I do, or the original poster. That ISN'T a Pebcak error, it's lousy coding on Microsoft's part. There were disks larger than 4 gig when NT4.0 hit the street, and there is no excuse for Microsoft NOT including that in their product.
As to BIOS limitations, explain to my why Linux can get around that. Oh, I forgot, linux uses the Bios simply to get lilo up, and then proceeds to ignore those silly limitations.
As to
A typical NT workstation install by a competent admin takes about half an hour.
If he gets *very* lucky
Linux is ready for the server rooms of the Enterprise. The OPERATING SYSTEM is ready. Applications? That isn't the fault of the OS. Linux--installed by a competent administrator (with Linux, I do consider myself competent, I've been using it since.99p5) is fast and stable. It's cheap to aquire and run (far cheaper than NT), and it can provide most of the services (file, print, email, intranet etc) stuff that the Enterprise needs at a much lower cost than NT.
There are still many products that are not supported, or not well supported on Linux--this is true. For many of them there are alternative products--which is often a hard sell to manglement. This is not a technical issue. Manglers often don't care about techical issues, they want Exchange (well, they usually want Outlook, but we know what they mean) on the swervers because they their buddies claim to be running the same thing.
Well, maybe running is a bit of an exaggeration when it comes to exchange, but I'm trying not to bag on NT too hard.Let's leave the swerver room for a bit though, and wander around your typical Corprat orifice. What business functions does Sammy The Secretary need? Email (Nutscrape can do this, so can a half a dozen other applications). Calendaring (Again Nutscrape, as well as one or two others, or web based) Word Processing (Star Orifice, Turd Prefect, Applixwart. Sure, only the first is MS word combatible, but the *Enterprise* doesn't need Word compatibility, they just need a common file format, and the balls to tell outsiders that "No, we Do Not Accept word files". That is what RTF and six or 8 other file formats are for. What else does Sammy need? Syncing with the Palm Pilot? Got it. Spread Sheets? Star Orifice, Applixwart, Wingz. Presentations? Star Orifice, Applixwart.
What does Sammy spend most of the day doing?
Solitare. Tetris. Got it.
Eliane the Executive (notice how wonderfully PC I'm being, the Secretary is a Male, the Executive is a Female) needs pretty much the same things, only (often) less of them. She plays a LOT more Solitare or downloading Porn off the internet. (you ever wonder what that strange buzzing noise is in here office? And that twinkle in her eye afterwards? Hey Buddy...)
Yeah, linux can handle the Enterprise desktop--the ENTERPRISE desktop where you pay specific people to do maintain the machines, where the end user doesn't have to have a clue. You just give them the Icons to the applications, and away they sit there an read/. all day...Ok, probably not (hopefully not)/.. They refresh CNN every 20 minutes, the wander through www.playboy.com (Hi Guys), they read the dilbert zone. Fine, Linux can do that very well, and on a lot less hardware than NT.
In short, Linux can handle the enterprise as well and NT. Soon it'll do it better. It is *not* a great all purpose OS, it's not for everybody. I would *really* heistate to recommend it to your average home user (I've worked the Hell Desk at an ISP, and my wife is currently doing something similar:twitch:twitch:twitch: there are some truly stupid people out there, and I really *don't* want Linux catering to them) who doesn't want to deal with the details of their machine--then again, I wouldn't recommend NT either. That is what we have Macs for. They are *real* good at simple, and for the home, simple is good.
1) Searching for a decision analysis tool on the Web, you find a review in which the reviewer raves about a particular product. You buy the product and discover it just doesn't work. You desire to prevent this person's ravings from harming anyone else--and you desire to prevent the product from disappointing anyone else. First rule of the net. Never trust the word of any single unknown person. Do place some trust in the majority of several dozen opinions underthe (usually correct) assumption that most people are not (a) loons or (b) marketroids for the product you're asking about.
In the 1700's, it was the opnion of experts that bleeding you dry (of blood) was a good way to cure what ails you. Regardless of what ailed you.
The correct answer to prevent this problem would have been either a bonding agent (performance bond) or an escrow agent and Digital Cash
After the fact you use that Unforgable pseudonymous identity and Capability Based blah blah to publically announce your dissatisfaction with their product.
2) A product you buy based on a rave review opens your email address book, grabs your entire list of friends, sends itself to them, and sends your password files to a mysterious IP address. It's too late now, but which features would you install before ever touching your computer again?
Again, Capibility based Security. Someone has to be the first, and with proper security (far beyond what is in either NT or Unix) it doesn't matter.
3) A product is advertised on the Web. It sounds good, but the offerer has no Web reputation. What arrangement would you consider adequate to go ahead and procure the product (Note: there are several possible answers; give 2 entirely separate solutions, and that is considered answering 2 questions). It's the same question massaged over a bit. See (1) and (2) above.
No, it's a different question--go back and reread the instructions.
In this case there are at least 2 different ways of doing things--both (of course) using digital cash. Either use a bonging agent for a performance bond, or a mix of Escrow agents with Capability Based Security.
4) You start receiving thousands of emails from organizations you don't know, all hawking their wares. You want it to stop, just stop! Just have procmail route it to/dev/null or bounce it back to the sender. If you have no control over incoming mail, you're using the wrong ISP. Even better, set up your own domain on your own box on a DSL/cablemodem and stuff like this becomes ever so easy to deal with. Never tell spammers to stop spamming you. That just tells them your address is valid and read by a person which results in more spam.
Of course it's easy to deal with, the QUESTION was what technology--HOWto deal with it. WHICH of the listed technologies would be best used to handle it.
Which does procmail fit in?
None--not as it is today.
The answer--within the provided framework--is a mix of Capability Based Security and Bidirectional, typed....
5) You wish to play poker with your friends. They live in Tampa Florida, you live in Kingman. This is illegal in the nation where you happen to be a citizen. You want to do it anyway. Look at the intent of the law. Gov't is worried about internet casinos and big $$$. Not you and a couple of buddies. You're not worth the effort, manpower, and $$$ to prosecute. Have a blast.
It's obvious you can read, it's also obvious you either don't bother or can't comprehend what you just read. Read it again, especially the part about: you live in Kingman. This is illegal in the nation where you happen to be a citizen.
Maybe where "you" lives (the country of kingman) the prohibition against gambling isn't revenue based, but rather that the Great God Of Us All has decreed that Thou Shalt Not Gamble, and the Government has set up monitors (software agents) to look for such behavior.
Now how do you get around it?
Digital Currency and Unforgeablepseudononymous identities
6) You hear a joke that someone, somewhere, would probably find offensive. You wish to tell your precocious 17-year-old daughter, who is a student at Yale. The Common Decency Act Version 2 has just passed; it is a $100,000 offense to send such material electronically to a minor. You want to send it anyway--it is a very funny joke. Again, look at intent. CDA was built as a tool to stop the XXX hardcore pr0n sites and to catch the pedo-kiddie trollers on the 'net. Who's going to be upset and complain? Sender or recipient? Neither, right? Send the mail.
Who's going to complain? Your daughters roommate, using her computer for a paper reads the email. The System Administrator of your daughters mail server, required by law to troll for CDA violations. The NSA when Echelon picks up your email, and they want an excuse to pressure you into revealing some information or spying on somone one.
Strong encryption solves this problem.
7) Someone claiming to be you starts roaming the Web making wild claims. You want to make sure people know it isn't really you. This one is a bit harder to solve without some cooperation by others.
This is the easiest of all to solve--the tools already exist, and are already deployed. PGP.
This is the "Unforgeable pseudonymous identity bit.
The rest of your suggestions:
(A) Complain to their abuse dept at the forger's site. Failing that (maybe he is his own domain), go one ISP level up. Repeat until solved or you get to the point where they say "we don't care". (B) Ignore him. He probably gets off upsetting you and laughs as you frantically chase his every newspost or whatever to discredit him. Ignore him and he'll get bored and move on to his next inane diversion. besides, who are you worrying about him confusing? Smart net people can easily recognize forgeries. They'll know it's not you.
Assume that there is a site you can complain to. What if the "forger" is using the remailer network so there is no site for you to complain to? What if this person is making claims that could come back to haunt you (aka comments in alt.nambla or some such)?
8, 9, and 10 can all be solved using a combination of arbitrage agents (for stock), escrow agents and bonding agents--the point of the test was to think in terms of existing/new technologies, not in terms of using authority and The Man to sort things out.
As for 11, if you toss the device aside, both of you (you and your daughter) are dead. If you *use* the device to call for help, to "expose" what is happening to you, then you might get help (especially if you can use some of the other technologies on the list). Your daughter still might die, but you might be able to keep someone elses daugher from doing so.
Warez manufacturers can be beaten with Unforgeable pseudonymous identities and Capability Based Security with Strong Encryption--in fact a lot of things (virii etc) can be dealt with with the latter.
Spammers can automatically be dealt with by strong filtering measuers (create a set of filters for everyone you already talk to, put (in your signature and on your web site etc.) a specific word or subject that will filter to a specific file/directory all *new* people you wish to talk to. Occasionally go through your unfiltered mail looking for people who missed that information. Simple.
Goverment can't solve the problems--it can't move fast enough--and when it does move fast enough, it often misses badly.
I am assuming that in this context a bonding agent would be an agent (either software or human) to which two parties could go to in order to set up performance/security bonds.
This could be anything from an instance where, for instance, you wanted [x] done, and I (fully anonymously) offered to do the work. You don't know me, I don't (or might not) know you. I don't want to reveal my identity, but I want to ensure I get paid. You want to ensure that the work gets done. I take out a "performance bond", you take out a "payment bond". In this case, it's similar to an escrow agent, but a bonding agent would be a more general case of escrow agent.
I don't know enough about arbitrage to answer that question--take the course?
I don't know about everyone else, but I thought this was pretty lame. I thought the questions totally uninteresting and not thought provoking in the slightest.
Was it uninteresting because you've already dealt with these issues, or uninteresting because you don't think these issues matter?
If it was the former--that you've already thought this stuff through, then yeah, this link and story was probably wasted on you.
If it is the latter--that these issues just don't matter to you, I have a link you might like. They will help you get what you want.
The issues that this "exam" brings up are very important ones. Issues of personal security, of the ability to speak ones mind without fear of retribution, and of the ability to communicate and do business freely. It is not directed at the Cypherpunks of the world--"we" are already there, "we" are writing the code, deploying the code, and talking up the code--which includes articles like this one--bringing the Mathmatical Munitions to the Masses, and trying to explain the why's and hows in terms that they can understand.
I do have one bone to pick with the author of the exam. In the case of the Korean, I don't think a solar powered wireles portable is what they need--information is indeed a powerful tool, but it works over generations, it takes time to bring it's might to bear--like a glacier scraping clean a valley, or the wind and water gradually wearing down the rocks. What I would want would be a rain of AKs and ammunition.
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How can you have a "FAQ" on something that just happened?
FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. How can you have frequently questions for something that *just happened* or was *just announced*. Easy, you think up the questions beforehand and spin them the way you want.
When you control the questions, you don't have to worry about the answers.
Linux isn't, and shouldn't be built on the size or profit margins of the companies that distribute it. It is, or rather should be built on the strength of it's code--it's reliability and security.
I personally am getting less and less happy with what I see coming out of the Linux *companies*. Not the Linux *community*, but those companies who are trying to make *bucks* off linux.
It is not the distributers that make linux what it is. To grandstand and cheer for them is like cheering for microsoft. As a *business* they will do whatever they think they need to to keep the *business* going.
That doesn't mean that they will make the best choices for *me*. Already I am catching shit from my boss who only wants to use Redhat. Why? Because it is the largest. Because "all the vendors support it".
Same reason many Pointyhairs give for buying Microsoft or IBM.
The best thing for Linux, and for Open Source is lots of small companies focusing on what they do best. Unfortunately, when you go public, and need to start putting gas in that new Ferrari Roadster, or pay the taxes on the new home, you start to think in terms of what is best for the *business* as opposed to what is best for the *technology*. Gygnus used to do what was best for the technology. They, like the Gents at Redhat got caught up in the IPO Fever (it's seductive, I'm fighting in right now. My company is planning to go public next year, do I stay at a job I am coming to dislike, for a boss I cannot respect because I might make a metric buttload of cash, or do I start doing something else I may like more?), and from now own they have new bosses--the shareholders. These people don't (largely) care about Linux, they care about profits.
I want my technology provider to be concerned about technology more than profit. I don't see Redhat doing that. I see slick packaging. I see useless manuals. I see a tech support system that doesn't answer it's emails is a timely fashion.
I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not holding my breath.
Technology DOES change morality. It changes how we see the world, and how we relate to the world. It changes what we value and why. These values are our moral base.
In your example you state several different technologies that can be used to "run over someone" stating that it doesn't matter which one you use, it doesn't change the underlying morality. In fact, technology has changed our (societies) opnions of when, where, who, and how it is ok to kill people. Look at how the nature of war--largely through technology--has changed in the last 200 years. In the past it was simply a war between assigned combatants with the cities as prizes--civilians were largely safe during the fighting, it was afterwards, if their side lost that things got nasty.
Today--because of the highly technical nature of war, just about any target (other than Hospitals and Schools) can be legitimized as "denying the enemy production" or "weakening the infrastructure".
It has also changed the nature of who we are allowed to kill--it is almost inconceivable to many people that we might go to war with the more modern contries in Europe, both because we are--through technology--so interdependent on them, and because technology lets us enteract with them on a much closer basis. However this same technology shows us how different the little brown and yellow people are, so 38 days of heavy bombing is OK, since they aren't like us, and besides, we need their oil.
Technology doesn't really change the basic nature of people, most are lazy, greedy and stupid. It does change how they, in their sloth and self indulgence, relate to the world and what they value in it.
I think that if you actually looked at the facts of the matter--rather than the popular conception of preindustrial societies, you'll find for the most part that while the skies are starrier, and the noise is a bit less, the air really isn't any less polluted (smoke from cooking fires, the smells of bodily effluents etc.) than our own, it's just different--and in some ways worse.
Much of the pollution we have today--car exhausts etc. lead to long term health problems, cancers etc. The pollutions of previous times lead to more immediate problems of a bacteriological nature. I'd rather get a cancer at 65 than collera at 7, 18, 22 and 30 before dying of bubonic plague at 33.
Evidence of Lead Pollution from the lead smelting operations in Rome during the Roman Empire has been found in Polar Ice.
You have to go so far back in time before you get rid of pollution that by the time you've done it, you get rid of society.
First off, I don't claim to be a "competent NT Administrator", I admit up front I hate the bloody thing.
That being said:
I have not found a way--on initial install--to get NT to recognize a partition larger than 4 gig, or a drive larger than 8. This is with the stock Windows NT Workstation CD, and with the latest MSDN developer CDs of NT Server 4.0.
Now, maybe you have a different distrubition of NT than either I do, or the original poster. That ISN'T a Pebcak error, it's lousy coding on Microsoft's part. There were disks larger than 4 gig when NT4.0 hit the street, and there is no excuse for Microsoft NOT including that in their product.
As to BIOS limitations, explain to my why Linux can get around that. Oh, I forgot, linux uses the Bios simply to get lilo up, and then proceeds to ignore those silly limitations.
As to
If he gets *very* lucky
Linux is ready for the server rooms of the Enterprise. The OPERATING SYSTEM is ready. Applications? That isn't the fault of the OS. Linux--installed by a competent administrator (with Linux, I do consider myself competent, I've been using it since .99p5) is fast and stable. It's cheap to aquire and run (far cheaper than NT), and it can provide most of the services (file, print, email, intranet etc) stuff that the Enterprise needs at a much lower cost than NT.
There are still many products that are not supported, or not well supported on Linux--this is true. For many of them there are alternative products--which is often a hard sell to manglement. This is not a technical issue. Manglers often don't care about techical issues, they want Exchange (well, they usually want Outlook, but we know what they mean) on the swervers because they their buddies claim to be running the same thing.
Well, maybe running is a bit of an exaggeration when it comes to exchange, but I'm trying not to bag on NT too hard.Let's leave the swerver room for a bit though, and wander around your typical Corprat orifice. What business functions does Sammy The Secretary need? Email (Nutscrape can do this, so can a half a dozen other applications). Calendaring (Again Nutscrape, as well as one or two others, or web based) Word Processing (Star Orifice, Turd Prefect, Applixwart. Sure, only the first is MS word combatible, but the *Enterprise* doesn't need Word compatibility, they just need a common file format, and the balls to tell outsiders that "No, we Do Not Accept word files". That is what RTF and six or 8 other file formats are for. What else does Sammy need? Syncing with the Palm Pilot? Got it. Spread Sheets? Star Orifice, Applixwart, Wingz. Presentations? Star Orifice, Applixwart.
What does Sammy spend most of the day doing?
Solitare. Tetris. Got it.
Eliane the Executive (notice how wonderfully PC I'm being, the Secretary is a Male, the Executive is a Female) needs pretty much the same things, only (often) less of them. She plays a LOT more Solitare or downloading Porn off the internet. (you ever wonder what that strange buzzing noise is in here office? And that twinkle in her eye afterwards? Hey Buddy...)
Yeah, linux can handle the Enterprise desktop--the ENTERPRISE desktop where you pay specific people to do maintain the machines, where the end user doesn't have to have a clue. You just give them the Icons to the applications, and away they sit there an read /. all day...Ok, probably not (hopefully not) /.. They refresh CNN every 20 minutes, the wander through www.playboy.com (Hi Guys), they read the dilbert zone. Fine, Linux can do that very well, and on a lot less hardware than NT.
In short, Linux can handle the enterprise as well and NT. Soon it'll do it better. It is *not* a great all purpose OS, it's not for everybody. I would *really* heistate to recommend it to your average home user (I've worked the Hell Desk at an ISP, and my wife is currently doing something similar :twitch:twitch:twitch: there are some truly stupid people out there, and I really *don't* want Linux catering to them) who doesn't want to deal with the details of their machine--then again, I wouldn't recommend NT either. That is what we have Macs for. They are *real* good at simple, and for the home, simple is good.
In the 1700's, it was the opnion of experts that bleeding you dry (of blood) was a good way to cure what ails you. Regardless of what ailed you.
The correct answer to prevent this problem would have been either a bonding agent (performance bond) or an escrow agent and Digital Cash
After the fact you use that Unforgable pseudonymous identity and Capability Based blah blah to publically announce your dissatisfaction with their product.
Again, Capibility based Security. Someone has to be the first, and with proper security (far beyond what is in either NT or Unix) it doesn't matter.
No, it's a different question--go back and reread the instructions.
In this case there are at least 2 different ways of doing things--both (of course) using digital cash. Either use a bonging agent for a performance bond, or a mix of Escrow agents with Capability Based Security.
Of course it's easy to deal with, the QUESTION was what technology--HOWto deal with it. WHICH of the listed technologies would be best used to handle it.
Which does procmail fit in?
None--not as it is today.
The answer--within the provided framework--is a mix of Capability Based Security and Bidirectional, typed....
It's obvious you can read, it's also obvious you either don't bother or can't comprehend what you just read. Read it again, especially the part about:
you live in Kingman. This is illegal in the nation where you happen to be a citizen.
Maybe where "you" lives (the country of kingman) the prohibition against gambling isn't revenue based, but rather that the Great God Of Us All has decreed that Thou Shalt Not Gamble, and the Government has set up monitors (software agents) to look for such behavior.
Now how do you get around it?
Digital Currency and Unforgeablepseudononymous identities
Who's going to complain? Your daughters roommate, using her computer for a paper reads the email. The System Administrator of your daughters mail server, required by law to troll for CDA violations. The NSA when Echelon picks up your email, and they want an excuse to pressure you into revealing some information or spying on somone one.
Strong encryption solves this problem.
This is the easiest of all to solve--the tools already exist, and are already deployed. PGP.
This is the "Unforgeable pseudonymous identity bit.
The rest of your suggestions:
Assume that there is a site you can complain to. What if the "forger" is using the remailer network so there is no site for you to complain to? What if this person is making claims that could come back to haunt you (aka comments in alt.nambla or some such)?
8, 9, and 10 can all be solved using a combination of arbitrage agents (for stock), escrow agents and bonding agents--the point of the test was to think in terms of existing/new technologies, not in terms of using authority and The Man to sort things out.
As for 11, if you toss the device aside, both of you (you and your daughter) are dead. If you *use* the device to call for help, to "expose" what is happening to you, then you might get help (especially if you can use some of the other technologies on the list). Your daughter still might die, but you might be able to keep someone elses daugher from doing so.
He gave you the answers to those questions.
Warez manufacturers can be beaten with Unforgeable pseudonymous identities and Capability Based Security with Strong Encryption--in fact a lot of things (virii etc) can be dealt with with the latter.
Spammers can automatically be dealt with by strong filtering measuers (create a set of filters for everyone you already talk to, put (in your signature and on your web site etc.) a specific word or subject that will filter to a specific file/directory all *new* people you wish to talk to. Occasionally go through your unfiltered mail looking for people who missed that information. Simple.
Goverment can't solve the problems--it can't move fast enough--and when it does move fast enough, it often misses badly.
I am assuming that in this context a bonding agent would be an agent (either software or human) to which two parties could go to in order to set up performance/security bonds.
This could be anything from an instance where, for instance, you wanted [x] done, and I (fully anonymously) offered to do the work. You don't know me, I don't (or might not) know you. I don't want to reveal my identity, but I want to ensure I get paid. You want to ensure that the work gets done. I take out a "performance bond", you take out a "payment bond". In this case, it's similar to an escrow agent, but a bonding agent would be a more general case of escrow agent.
I don't know enough about arbitrage to answer that question--take the course?
Was it uninteresting because you've already dealt with these issues, or uninteresting because you don't think these issues matter?
If it was the former--that you've already thought this stuff through, then yeah, this link and story was probably wasted on you.
If it is the latter--that these issues just don't matter to you, I have a link you might like. They will help you get what you want.
The issues that this "exam" brings up are very important ones. Issues of personal security, of the ability to speak ones mind without fear of retribution, and of the ability to communicate and do business freely. It is not directed at the Cypherpunks of the world--"we" are already there, "we" are writing the code, deploying the code, and talking up the code--which includes articles like this one--bringing the Mathmatical Munitions to the Masses, and trying to explain the why's and hows in terms that they can understand.
I do have one bone to pick with the author of the exam. In the case of the Korean, I don't think a solar powered wireles portable is what they need--information is indeed a powerful tool, but it works over generations, it takes time to bring it's might to bear--like a glacier scraping clean a valley, or the wind and water gradually wearing down the rocks. What I would want would be a rain of AKs and ammunition.
That's just me though