However, it does provide EVIDENCE against the hypothesis.
Given some prior probability A that you have for believing that people do in fact respond in a racist way to the picture as long as his result is less probable if not A is true than if A is true Bayes theorem requires that your probability for A conditioned on his result be lower than your prior probability.
In other words he ruled out something that you would have been more likely to predict if A were true that if ~A were so that fact must, at least a little, decrease your belief that A is true.
Except cows udders aren't larger than you would expect given evolutionary pressures ignoring mate selection. Breasts and the depth of male voice and 1,000 other things are no different than a peacock's tail. The result of selective pressure purely on the basis of their ability to attract sexual mates despite the inherent uselessness or even harm to survival and physical reproduction they provide.
I mean evolution selects for those who get the best mates. What the hell *wouldn't* be sexual? I bet even bad teenage poetry has a biological basis in sex selection for mates with greater intelligence/wordplay. It's useless but a good signal of a desirable trait.
Umm, so why would an otherwise disadvantageous feature like enlarged breasts (bad for balance, backs etc..) be selected for to such a degree that it was universal among human females. Other than sexual display you got nothing.
Any display that functions as a valid signal of sexual fitness that can be picked up by evolution will picked up by evolution and used in mate selection. Why would breasts be so different? Do you doubt that women are attracted to deep male voices or larger shoulders and men have evolved to overemphasize these traits as a result?
You might say, "showing breasts isn't biologically determined to convey a sexual invitation." This is no doubt true. Then again so little of human behavior isn't so modulated by culture that anything short of penetration isn't determined by biology to be a sexual invitation with high probability. In our culture It's not at all absurd to think a girl might merely be a friend despite the fact that she bent down, spread her legs and rubbed her ass up against your cock if she was dancing with you at a club. Even more can be done in special contexts like movies or film without conveying an actual sexual invitation. On the other hand showing an uncovered face, in other cultures, can convey sexual invitation.
Sorry, but there just isn't a nice line to be drawn. Nearly everything humans do is partly sexual, even the most innocent play in childhood mimes and explores behavior that will later be used to attract mates and nothing short of sex is necessarily conveys sexual intent.
Ignore the idiots obsessed with the connection to reproduction. It doesn't even make sense to connect what biologically follows from child birth to sexual behavior. Screaming in pain is biologically caused by child birth yet is the farthest thing possible from openly sexual.
First, "large" is relative. It's sure as hell larger than pure function requires. And no it's not "some" women. Go look at an ape sometime and let me know what women raised with good food and health you know of who have a similarly unobtrusive breasts. Even sub A cups put the animals to shame.
Secondly, the fact that women, given adequate nutrition health etc.., are disposed to evolve larger breasts *proves* that breast size is a good advertisement for underlying sexual fitness. In other words, since those women with good health who had plenty of food would have had larger breasts in the evolutionary environment it would be super surprising if men in that environment weren't selected to respond to a true signal of reproductive fitness like this.
I mean your post itself basically admits that breasts function like a peacock's tail. They are disposed, when nutrition and health allow, to grow substantially larger than needed despite the inherent reduction in fitness that larger breasts pose (backs, running speed etc.. etc..).
Sure, there is nothing special about breasts. They are like men's shoulders or voices or women's hips. They are constrained by certain functional requirements but serve as an indicator of sexual fitness as well and tend to draw interest of the opposite sex.
This is clearly false as a matter of evolutionary biology.
Breasts need only be very small to serve the function of feeding a nursing child. Many types of apes have very tiny breasts and are perfectly able to nurse their offspring. Human breasts are much larger than any purely functional explanation would predict.
So why do female humans have such large breasts, despite the problems that large breasts can cause? Sex-selective pressure. The same reason peacocks have such giant useless tails. Human breasts are inherently secondary sexual markers and, as such, like a peacock's tail will be subject to selective pressure in that capacity. As women's breasts evolved to be larger to exaggerate the secondary sexual characteristic this display would, in itself, be evidence of sexual fitness and good genes and thus men would experience selective pressure to prefer larger than needed female breasts.
So, umm, no. They are an inherent sexual advertisement. Then again so are lots of things. Women's hips and men's shoulders and voices are also secondary sexual characteristics and the other sex has almost surely experienced sexual pressure to respond to such things (among a great many others...don't say it isn't true just because you don't like them...all I need to prove is that these features attract mates in every society more often than a random non gender specific feature).
Perhaps what you mean to say is that breasts aren't inherently pornographic? Maybe, but that's an implicitly moral and cultural judgement and clearly goes further than you want to claim. Perhaps you mean something like "showing your breasts isn't an intrinsically an indication of sexual intent" but then again neither is anything short of behavior biologically probable to lead to pregnancy (fucking...or even deliberate mutual sexual stimulation which tends to make people fuck). What conveys intent is always the fact that the other person *knows* you realize they would be inclined to interpret the action in that fashion and that you choose to do so in that knowledge. Society could decide that:-) meant you want to fuck and that would make sending a smiley face openly sexual since that's what everyone understands it to mean.
Umm, he gave you enough information to do the significance test yourself under standard polling assumptions.
No, he didn't use a particularly large sample size. But the way the sampling distribution works means that you pretty quickly reach the level of diminishing returns so his survey is a pretty good guide to whether there is a substantial difference in reactions.
Are his respondents trully selected at random from the population under examination (as all the statistical tools assume). Well no, not really. But neither are academic studies (either is a telephone/internet poll or undergraduates at fancy universities) nor traditional telephone polling. The fact that Pew calls up 10,000 people (or whatever to get the appropriate number of responses) can't change the fact that the people who take the time to answer telephone surveys differ substantially from the population at large. However, unless there is some particular reason to think that the group polled (undergrads, mechanical turk workers etc..) will have a different take on the question at large (undergrads probably aren't the right people to ask "Is a college education a useful investment") we still take the results to have substantial persuasive value.
Having said this I do think there is good reason to be skeptical of the studies conclusions. This study put the picture in a formal professional context. I don't care if your *employer* calls them fun pictures of people in our division/department everyone realizes you don't submit actually fun pictures but ones that reflect workplace norms. Even though employers often look at facebook pages it doesn't make them an employer webpage and while few employers would post a picture of someone good naturedly giving the photographer the finger or of a woman who had participated in a wet T-shirt contest many years ago in college few would care if they were published on a non-executives employee' facebook page. Worse, the question asked about an employee chosen picture.
So who would SUGGEST it was appropriate to submit a breast feeding picture to your employers webpage? Unlike actually breast-feeding in public which, while you know it may make some people uncomfortable, can often be the only way to feed your child while going about your professional business, the only reason to submit a picture of you breastfeeding is to make a point about the matter. Also this is very unlike breast-feeding on your facebook page (you aren't trying to force the image on purely professional contacts only "friends") which is theoretically aimed at friends. So I tend to suspect the only people who will find that an appropriate thing to do on an employers webpage are those who thoroughly support the point being made. Anyone who has a view somewhere in the middle, e.g., it seems unprofessional to them and makes them feel awkward but understands that there isn't really another option for mothers in many contexts and if that's the picture you share on facebook they don't have to look, is stripped out by the language suggesting this is self-selected for the employers webpage. Since it is those who are on the fence which are probably most influenced by supposedly extraneous factors like the person's race this language tends to particularly avoid.
Personally, this is the problem I have with the MANNER some women choose to breast feed in public. The fact that certain people feel uncomfortable about it isn't a good reason for mothers to endure substantial hardship feeding their children. Just as the fact that working with someone who privately has strong views about a controversial topic (religion, atheism etc..) isn't a good reason to try and clamp down on personal bloggers or *private* political conversations between friends overhead in the office. However, in both cases there is a reasonable duty to exercise this freedom with reasonable respect in the office place. You and the guy down the hall and three other guys at work might bond over Jesus and maybe that sometimes makes the loan muslim feel a bit
Sorry, but wires will always have substantially greater bandwidth. If for no other reason than you can run one (or even several) wires into each structure and get at least as much bandwidth as is shared over a wide area by the plane.
Since bandwidth use will no doubt continue to increase by the time we have these giant broadband stationary planes everyone will want too much bandwidth to make them a reasonable competitor for fiber (and multiplexing will move down market into the home eventually).
Obviously the current system in which individuals with ideological axes to grind can negatively impact communities where people don't go by their legal names. However, it's not obvious what the right rule should be. Of course I think you should be able to use psuedonyms, nicknames, stage names etc.. etc.. on facebook but how do you deal with facebook identity theft.
So I have Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I go create a facebook account pretending to be her and, if she isn't a huge celebrity, it wouldn't be too hard to convince a large number of people (probably anyone not already friends with the real individual) that I'm really Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I can then use that account to make her look like a racist, ruin relationships with coworkers and potential employers etc.. etc... unless my fake account can be suspended quit quickly. Alright how can facebook do this.
1) A real names policy. True, this has all the bad consequences above but it allows them to immediately suspend accounts but isn't vulnerable to serious DOS type attacks since a since credit card transaction or the like can quickly confirm someone's legal name and prevent any false impersonation accusation from ever causing another suspension. Given the low probability that someone with the same name wants to engage in the impersonation facebook has enough human hours to evaluate these rare situations in reasonable detail.
But this undermines an essential purpose of facebook. To let people present themselves online to the same people they know offline meaning stage names, nicknames etc.. etc..
2) A no impersonation rule. Alright now someone asserts the account Jennifer Doe is impersonating her. What can facebook do? If the suspend the existing account things are even worse since instead of creating a fake account someone with ill-intent asserts that the current account holder is an imposter gets their account suspended and now controls the only account representing itself to be Jennifer Doe's. Given the size of facebook they simply can't stop anyone from creating any new account with that name and the impersonator could create an account Jen Doe.
The very fact that people are allowed to use names other than their legal names means there is no good heuristic to see who is likely the deliberate imposter. After all Jennifer Doe might be the name she goes by in school but the name on her birth certificate could well be Bertha Jennifer Doe and Jennifer might not even appear on things like credit cards meaning facebook doesn't even have a good guess as to the imposter.
Also this creates the possibility of a DOS attack against any account (keep claiming it is an imposter account from accounts). If facebook eventually stops viewing such imposter accusations as real then any imposter who gets their before the real user can simply launch a bunch of accusations of imposterization at themselves until they insulate themselves against any accusation from the person they are actually impostering (after all they can be a perfectly legit Jennifer Doe account then change their picture and other details later to impersonate a target).
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What they should do is basically implement a web of trust style infrastructure. Facebook can start occasionally asking people who frequently message or are listed as close friends whether the person they talked to or the person with that email address really went to school such and such. Also friend requests should include a couple of selected bits of public info (like email address and the like) which, would hopefully make impersonization more difficult.
Ultimately, however, facebook needs to have a attestation system akin to key signing. You get your close friends to attest that the person whose picture and details appear in the facebook account really controls the account. Details will be a pain in the ass but it's the only plausible way since impersonization is a matter of details like schools, pictures etc.. etc.. not real names and facebook just can't check those themselv
IT's hardly a novel or even fringe idea. Hawking proposed this solution as well and those who don't accept this solution have equally weird views about firewalls blocking information loss.
Of course you can have as many master secrets as you want with each controlled by a different entity but those master public keys need to be distributed somehow. However, if you try and allow any master secret to work with any email you have exactly the system we have with ssl certs and we know that won't work for things like email. After all if any master secret can generate a private key for any email that means that if any master key is compromised so is the whole system. I believe it also requires that anyone encrypting messages needs information about all the master keys so it really is like certs, you trust all the root certs in the list that comes with your software.
On the other hand if each email address can specify the master key to use with it we are back to the problem of key distribution as the choice of master public key for your email address functions just like a public key (to send you encrypted messages the sender needs to know it and if they are tricked into using the wrong one you get a MITM attack).
Obviously, I use email to stand in for whatever identifier one has in mind.
As any such identity based encryption requires a master secret (or secrets) that is used to generate the private keys (if not anyone who knows your email can generate a private key for that public key and thus read anything encrypted to you) you might as well just be using gmail and counting on google not to get hacked. After all, you can't compromise every gmail account by gaining access to a few servers but anyone who hacks the server with the master secret brings down the whole system in IBE. And gmail also provides transport security and tls for your web connections so why even bother with IBE unless your correspondent doesn't have transport level security.
MAYBE you could create some kind of large distributed infrastructure for storing the master key but at that point it seems easier just to distribute standard public keys directly.
Any application I can think of for this can already be better served by the amazing technology of microphones and speakers plus sound absorbent materials. You know, like we already use in interogation rooms etc..
It will only work for data that is so well characterized you can find the information theoretic optimal representation for it, i.e., you can bijectively map each message onto the integers mod n so that each integer is equally likely to be seen.
Other than CCNs I can't think of much which satisfies this condition.
The only cases in which this approach can work are those where the distribution of plaintext is known in advance.
Since the algorithms used to generate CCN are largely public one can map the class of apparently valid CCNs (suppose it has n members) bijectively into the integers mod n and assuming the CCNs are uniformly distributed over the apparently valid CCNs (likely) their images in the integers mod n are uniformly distributed. Assume that ENC_k is any standard encryption function (public or private) with key k operating on inputs from the integers mod z >= n-1 (usually a power of 2 for a symmetric encryption function). Given a CCN c map it to a value c' in mod n arithmetic and generate a random value 0 = r z. We can now encrypt our CCN as the pair r + c' mod n, ENC_k(r).
This will ensure that no statistical test will be able to distinguish a correct choice of the key from an incorrect one.
This is useless, however, for data like english text or names which don't have an easily describable distribution. The construction above relied on our ability to select an information theoretic optimal compression function for CCNs, i.e., one which bijectively maps the message into a uniform distribution on the integers mod n for some n. This is impossible for things like proper names or english text.
If paypal was neither negligent with his data nor violated any privacy laws the fact that in an ideal world they shouldn't have allowed this information to become available is irrelevant.
I mean the law has to have a single answer for whether companies need to keep last four digit info on their super secure system because access to that information would allow affected users to sue or not.
This was a thing of substantial value and his own willingness to trade it for his custom domains is a compelling argument they too are worth a similar amount.
Thus, if he can prove negligence or some other cause of action against payal or godaddy he should be able to receive at least 50k damages. Personally, I suspect paypal is the better target as various privacy laws may have been violated. Of course a real lawyer would have a better idea of whether he has a case.
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Frankly, it's hard to see what could have made this trade a worthwhile deal. I mean, either the hacker already had control of his email through a dns change or he didn't. If the hacker didn't what about the trade would make the extortion victim believe the hacker would behave differently if he turned over the domain than if he didn't? I mean he could presumably still decide to be a dick and use his access to delete the data.
And why not simply pretend not to be at his computer? He could have called godaddy and the like to lock down all the domains.
I understand that religion is detrimental for modern humans,
False, most assuredly. Detrimental? I'm unconvinced.
Sure, if the alternative was for everyone to read CSICOP and become skeptical scientifically minded individuals then sure religion would be harmful to society. However, that's not the alternative. You undermine religiosity and people remain just as `spiritual' and seek out more harmful, less stable forms of mystical thought, e.g., homeopathy, belief in spirits, medium etc...
The failure of any major world culture to exist without substantial religious, spiritual or otherwise mystical beliefs (even a semi-mystical view of the benefits of great literature or the wisdom to be found in meditation) casts doubt on your claim that religion itself is detrimental. Perhaps the harm done by religion is balanced by the comfort it gives to many people who can't or won't find the truth comforting. Perhaps religion is merely the least bad outcome of underlying psychological tendencies we all share pushing us to interpret the world as `speaking' to us and to inject emotion into our evaluation of claims. In the long run with appropriate genetic engineering it might be desirable to phase our religion but for the moment it may be better than things like homeopathy, talk about Chakras and other spiritual interests that aren't religion.
that teaching religion to children is a form of abuse, and therefore indoctrinating anyone under 18 should be illegal.
This is a very very different claim. Sure, in the long run weaning humans off of religion may be desirable but now the question is what will that child be best served by?
As much as I feel that religious indoctrination before adulthood is brainwashing people into holding certain extremely implausible beliefs in most cases it is probably beneficial for the child. Most of America is highly religious and if you deny them that cultural belonging religion provides in these area you hurt them far worse than the harm done from carrying around comforting but incorrect beliefs for their lives. Just make sure there are ample opportunities for them to consider the question later and reach a more informed decision when they are capable.
What is most important is to make sure atheist views, socialization etc... become widely distributed so it's viewed as just another kind of belief. Furthermore, tackling the very hard problem of providing community unity and socialization without any masses is important..
Atheists visibly taking roles in community service programs would be much more useful than viewing religious indoctrination (as are most lessons from parents) would be much more useful.
And people inferring what you do from your public behaviors is slavery how?
This only seems so awful because we imagine continuing to apply the same social standards in place now to a new world of massive transparency and data mining. These technologies will shift our social norms so it's considered impolite to condemn others for personal choices and we'll view it as rude to use data about someone's personal life to affect the hiring process or how you treat them professionally.
And if google doesn't do this what do you forsee happening in the future?
High res cameras not only will get cheap but by the miracles of integrated circuit fabrication (and the high cost of running multiple processes/designs) eventually it will be cheaper to buy the standard high-res camera rather than the uncommon low-res camera. It's only a matter of time before all security and ATM cameras are high-res and the price of storage falls so low that they keep all that data in digital form online.
Now is every storeowner, photographer and bank going to use their own security camera management system? Save the images all themselves? Of course not, they will pick some company to manage it for them and that will centralize a great deal of this video information.
There is an inescapable collusion in the works between our expectations of anonymity and our write to free speech. Even if no one goes out and creates a central repository all it takes is many internet accessible public sites hosting this information and anyone with sufficient computer hardware can data mine your life.
Most professional cameramen (including artists who want to capture scenes of city life) have their cameras set to take pictures at quite a high rate. What number of FPS is too much? 1? 5? 30? When does taking lots of photos become taking video? I don't think that is a line you can reasonably draw.
Hell, the better data mining gets the easier it is to infer actions in between photos so even if you insist that photography be capped at once every minute or 15seconds eventually the same info will get out.
There is every difference between respecting the usual social norms of looking away from private business, not staring at people etc... and recording what you see and sticking a camera in everyone's face and deliberately invading conversations, behavior and interactions obviously not meant to include you. The content captured may not be much different but the social reaction will be.
The reaction to google glass will be "Cool what's that thing" as long as those wearing it don't bring it into sensitive areas (lockerrooms) and don't shove it into other's buisness.
It is that the users will be granting privileged access to pervasive surveillance to a small number of corporations and a large number of government agencies, that most who will be doing it do not understand the consequences, and that they have not given most of their subjects the opportunity of informed consent.
Knowing that your picture might get taken is not a cause for concern any more than is getting bumped into on the sidewalk. Getting elbowed repeatedly everywhere you go, or having pervasive surveillance footage of you uploaded to a privately owned and government accessible database, is.
And that is different than now how? Right now ATM photo footage and security cam footage are probably accessible by a few large banks and security firms who have a cozy relationship with the government.
I'd much rather have an internet company with explicit privacy policy and public acknowledgement of any data shared with the government than the shady system that now governs the cameras that watch us in public.
Umm, so given that facial recognition is out of the bottle what is your preference. That everyone sees the big database or the government maintains it in secret using it's greater ability to make deals to amalgamate many small sources of info and tendency never to let any info go once it has it?
Even if they weren't uploaded to a big online database as long as people can post the photos they take of their own neighborhood somewhere better search technology will inevitably mean that is no different than one big online database.
>"The author points out, rightly, that surveillance cameras are already everywhere"
Typical "justification". So because there are already cameras in many places, there is nothing wrong with having them everywhere, all the time, possibly recording and sharing everything, including audio.... even at your restaurant table.
No, the argument is that when you walk down the street you are already being recorded and you've already lost any privacy you might have in that situation so there is no reason to get upset about individual citizens recording you in addition to the stores and banks
Presumably, the author's point is entirely compatible with believing that private establishments may want to bar all cameras to keep what occurs on their premises private.
>"that sticks in people's craws and makes them go irrationally berserk."
Typical again. So anyone that could possibly have a problem could only react by being "irrational" about it?
No, point is that either you should have a problem with all the forms of camera that monitor us wherever we walk or not have a problem with google glass. Maybe you have a compelling argument that distinguishes the two. If so present it. He is making an argument, you respond by giving a counterargument not being upset that someone disagrees with you.
>"However, he also seems happy to trade privacy for security,"
Could it get even more typical? Seems all the rage for a long time now to not give a damn about privacy or freedom. The vast majority of people are quick to trade privacy and freedom for convenience and the illusion of safety.
Alright? So? That is a sociological fact you have to accept. Give an alternative that is compatible with preserving our rights to free speech and to take photos in public without demanding that society reorganize in a psychologically implausible fashion.
Difficult times are coming. Technology is never bad/evil, but what people DO with it can be. I hope people who are eager to strap on something like Google Glass think about how it might affect others around them. There are a lot of unanswered questions about moving into a world where everyone (and every company/government) knows everything about everyone at all times.
I disagree. Look to societies, like that of Holland, where people have been pushed together into very small spaces for hundreds of years. They develop ways to deal with the leakage of information that results. Society remains healthy and fine despite the fact that your neighbor probably hears everything from you taking a dump to your affair with a coworker. Such societies tend to develop a deep tolerance for individual differences and the behaviors they engage in on their own time,
I look forward to a time not far in the future where everyone has stupid pics of their college years up on the internet. Where no one gets fired for that topless pic on spring break because their boss has something equally embarrassing online. Where everyone is trashed in old online archives by their ex-lovers so we all know not to take such talk (offered in the heat of passion) too seriously. Where there is a video of the president doing drugs so the hypocrisy of the drug war is plane for all to see.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't contradict it.
However, it does provide EVIDENCE against the hypothesis.
Given some prior probability A that you have for believing that people do in fact respond in a racist way to the picture as long as his result is less probable if not A is true than if A is true Bayes theorem requires that your probability for A conditioned on his result be lower than your prior probability.
In other words he ruled out something that you would have been more likely to predict if A were true that if ~A were so that fact must, at least a little, decrease your belief that A is true.
Except cows udders aren't larger than you would expect given evolutionary pressures ignoring mate selection. Breasts and the depth of male voice and 1,000 other things are no different than a peacock's tail. The result of selective pressure purely on the basis of their ability to attract sexual mates despite the inherent uselessness or even harm to survival and physical reproduction they provide.
I mean evolution selects for those who get the best mates. What the hell *wouldn't* be sexual? I bet even bad teenage poetry has a biological basis in sex selection for mates with greater intelligence/wordplay. It's useless but a good signal of a desirable trait.
Umm, so why would an otherwise disadvantageous feature like enlarged breasts (bad for balance, backs etc..) be selected for to such a degree that it was universal among human females. Other than sexual display you got nothing.
Any display that functions as a valid signal of sexual fitness that can be picked up by evolution will picked up by evolution and used in mate selection. Why would breasts be so different? Do you doubt that women are attracted to deep male voices or larger shoulders and men have evolved to overemphasize these traits as a result?
You might say, "showing breasts isn't biologically determined to convey a sexual invitation." This is no doubt true. Then again so little of human behavior isn't so modulated by culture that anything short of penetration isn't determined by biology to be a sexual invitation with high probability. In our culture It's not at all absurd to think a girl might merely be a friend despite the fact that she bent down, spread her legs and rubbed her ass up against your cock if she was dancing with you at a club. Even more can be done in special contexts like movies or film without conveying an actual sexual invitation. On the other hand showing an uncovered face, in other cultures, can convey sexual invitation.
Sorry, but there just isn't a nice line to be drawn. Nearly everything humans do is partly sexual, even the most innocent play in childhood mimes and explores behavior that will later be used to attract mates and nothing short of sex is necessarily conveys sexual intent.
Ignore the idiots obsessed with the connection to reproduction. It doesn't even make sense to connect what biologically follows from child birth to sexual behavior. Screaming in pain is biologically caused by child birth yet is the farthest thing possible from openly sexual.
Your argument defeats itself.
First, "large" is relative. It's sure as hell larger than pure function requires. And no it's not "some" women. Go look at an ape sometime and let me know what women raised with good food and health you know of who have a similarly unobtrusive breasts. Even sub A cups put the animals to shame.
Secondly, the fact that women, given adequate nutrition health etc.., are disposed to evolve larger breasts *proves* that breast size is a good advertisement for underlying sexual fitness. In other words, since those women with good health who had plenty of food would have had larger breasts in the evolutionary environment it would be super surprising if men in that environment weren't selected to respond to a true signal of reproductive fitness like this.
I mean your post itself basically admits that breasts function like a peacock's tail. They are disposed, when nutrition and health allow, to grow substantially larger than needed despite the inherent reduction in fitness that larger breasts pose (backs, running speed etc.. etc..).
Sure, there is nothing special about breasts. They are like men's shoulders or voices or women's hips. They are constrained by certain functional requirements but serve as an indicator of sexual fitness as well and tend to draw interest of the opposite sex.
This is clearly false as a matter of evolutionary biology.
Breasts need only be very small to serve the function of feeding a nursing child. Many types of apes have very tiny breasts and are perfectly able to nurse their offspring. Human breasts are much larger than any purely functional explanation would predict.
So why do female humans have such large breasts, despite the problems that large breasts can cause? Sex-selective pressure. The same reason peacocks have such giant useless tails. Human breasts are inherently secondary sexual markers and, as such, like a peacock's tail will be subject to selective pressure in that capacity. As women's breasts evolved to be larger to exaggerate the secondary sexual characteristic this display would, in itself, be evidence of sexual fitness and good genes and thus men would experience selective pressure to prefer larger than needed female breasts.
So, umm, no. They are an inherent sexual advertisement. Then again so are lots of things. Women's hips and men's shoulders and voices are also secondary sexual characteristics and the other sex has almost surely experienced sexual pressure to respond to such things (among a great many others...don't say it isn't true just because you don't like them...all I need to prove is that these features attract mates in every society more often than a random non gender specific feature).
Perhaps what you mean to say is that breasts aren't inherently pornographic? Maybe, but that's an implicitly moral and cultural judgement and clearly goes further than you want to claim. Perhaps you mean something like "showing your breasts isn't an intrinsically an indication of sexual intent" but then again neither is anything short of behavior biologically probable to lead to pregnancy (fucking...or even deliberate mutual sexual stimulation which tends to make people fuck). What conveys intent is always the fact that the other person *knows* you realize they would be inclined to interpret the action in that fashion and that you choose to do so in that knowledge. Society could decide that :-) meant you want to fuck and that would make sending a smiley face openly sexual since that's what everyone understands it to mean.
Umm, he gave you enough information to do the significance test yourself under standard polling assumptions.
No, he didn't use a particularly large sample size. But the way the sampling distribution works means that you pretty quickly reach the level of diminishing returns so his survey is a pretty good guide to whether there is a substantial difference in reactions.
Are his respondents trully selected at random from the population under examination (as all the statistical tools assume). Well no, not really. But neither are academic studies (either is a telephone/internet poll or undergraduates at fancy universities) nor traditional telephone polling. The fact that Pew calls up 10,000 people (or whatever to get the appropriate number of responses) can't change the fact that the people who take the time to answer telephone surveys differ substantially from the population at large. However, unless there is some particular reason to think that the group polled (undergrads, mechanical turk workers etc..) will have a different take on the question at large (undergrads probably aren't the right people to ask "Is a college education a useful investment") we still take the results to have substantial persuasive value.
Having said this I do think there is good reason to be skeptical of the studies conclusions. This study put the picture in a formal professional context. I don't care if your *employer* calls them fun pictures of people in our division/department everyone realizes you don't submit actually fun pictures but ones that reflect workplace norms. Even though employers often look at facebook pages it doesn't make them an employer webpage and while few employers would post a picture of someone good naturedly giving the photographer the finger or of a woman who had participated in a wet T-shirt contest many years ago in college few would care if they were published on a non-executives employee' facebook page. Worse, the question asked about an employee chosen picture.
So who would SUGGEST it was appropriate to submit a breast feeding picture to your employers webpage? Unlike actually breast-feeding in public which, while you know it may make some people uncomfortable, can often be the only way to feed your child while going about your professional business, the only reason to submit a picture of you breastfeeding is to make a point about the matter. Also this is very unlike breast-feeding on your facebook page (you aren't trying to force the image on purely professional contacts only "friends") which is theoretically aimed at friends. So I tend to suspect the only people who will find that an appropriate thing to do on an employers webpage are those who thoroughly support the point being made. Anyone who has a view somewhere in the middle, e.g., it seems unprofessional to them and makes them feel awkward but understands that there isn't really another option for mothers in many contexts and if that's the picture you share on facebook they don't have to look, is stripped out by the language suggesting this is self-selected for the employers webpage. Since it is those who are on the fence which are probably most influenced by supposedly extraneous factors like the person's race this language tends to particularly avoid.
Personally, this is the problem I have with the MANNER some women choose to breast feed in public. The fact that certain people feel uncomfortable about it isn't a good reason for mothers to endure substantial hardship feeding their children. Just as the fact that working with someone who privately has strong views about a controversial topic (religion, atheism etc..) isn't a good reason to try and clamp down on personal bloggers or *private* political conversations between friends overhead in the office. However, in both cases there is a reasonable duty to exercise this freedom with reasonable respect in the office place. You and the guy down the hall and three other guys at work might bond over Jesus and maybe that sometimes makes the loan muslim feel a bit
Sorry, but wires will always have substantially greater bandwidth. If for no other reason than you can run one (or even several) wires into each structure and get at least as much bandwidth as is shared over a wide area by the plane.
Since bandwidth use will no doubt continue to increase by the time we have these giant broadband stationary planes everyone will want too much bandwidth to make them a reasonable competitor for fiber (and multiplexing will move down market into the home eventually).
Obviously the current system in which individuals with ideological axes to grind can negatively impact communities where people don't go by their legal names. However, it's not obvious what the right rule should be. Of course I think you should be able to use psuedonyms, nicknames, stage names etc.. etc.. on facebook but how do you deal with facebook identity theft.
So I have Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I go create a facebook account pretending to be her and, if she isn't a huge celebrity, it wouldn't be too hard to convince a large number of people (probably anyone not already friends with the real individual) that I'm really Jane Mary Tyler Doe. I can then use that account to make her look like a racist, ruin relationships with coworkers and potential employers etc.. etc... unless my fake account can be suspended quit quickly. Alright how can facebook do this.
1) A real names policy. True, this has all the bad consequences above but it allows them to immediately suspend accounts but isn't vulnerable to serious DOS type attacks since a since credit card transaction or the like can quickly confirm someone's legal name and prevent any false impersonation accusation from ever causing another suspension. Given the low probability that someone with the same name wants to engage in the impersonation facebook has enough human hours to evaluate these rare situations in reasonable detail.
But this undermines an essential purpose of facebook. To let people present themselves online to the same people they know offline meaning stage names, nicknames etc.. etc..
2) A no impersonation rule. Alright now someone asserts the account Jennifer Doe is impersonating her. What can facebook do? If the suspend the existing account things are even worse since instead of creating a fake account someone with ill-intent asserts that the current account holder is an imposter gets their account suspended and now controls the only account representing itself to be Jennifer Doe's. Given the size of facebook they simply can't stop anyone from creating any new account with that name and the impersonator could create an account Jen Doe.
The very fact that people are allowed to use names other than their legal names means there is no good heuristic to see who is likely the deliberate imposter. After all Jennifer Doe might be the name she goes by in school but the name on her birth certificate could well be Bertha Jennifer Doe and Jennifer might not even appear on things like credit cards meaning facebook doesn't even have a good guess as to the imposter.
Also this creates the possibility of a DOS attack against any account (keep claiming it is an imposter account from accounts). If facebook eventually stops viewing such imposter accusations as real then any imposter who gets their before the real user can simply launch a bunch of accusations of imposterization at themselves until they insulate themselves against any accusation from the person they are actually impostering (after all they can be a perfectly legit Jennifer Doe account then change their picture and other details later to impersonate a target).
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What they should do is basically implement a web of trust style infrastructure. Facebook can start occasionally asking people who frequently message or are listed as close friends whether the person they talked to or the person with that email address really went to school such and such. Also friend requests should include a couple of selected bits of public info (like email address and the like) which, would hopefully make impersonization more difficult.
Ultimately, however, facebook needs to have a attestation system akin to key signing. You get your close friends to attest that the person whose picture and details appear in the facebook account really controls the account. Details will be a pain in the ass but it's the only plausible way since impersonization is a matter of details like schools, pictures etc.. etc.. not real names and facebook just can't check those themselv
IT's hardly a novel or even fringe idea. Hawking proposed this solution as well and those who don't accept this solution have equally weird views about firewalls blocking information loss.
Of course you can have as many master secrets as you want with each controlled by a different entity but those master public keys need to be distributed somehow. However, if you try and allow any master secret to work with any email you have exactly the system we have with ssl certs and we know that won't work for things like email. After all if any master secret can generate a private key for any email that means that if any master key is compromised so is the whole system. I believe it also requires that anyone encrypting messages needs information about all the master keys so it really is like certs, you trust all the root certs in the list that comes with your software.
On the other hand if each email address can specify the master key to use with it we are back to the problem of key distribution as the choice of master public key for your email address functions just like a public key (to send you encrypted messages the sender needs to know it and if they are tricked into using the wrong one you get a MITM attack).
Obviously, I use email to stand in for whatever identifier one has in mind.
As any such identity based encryption requires a master secret (or secrets) that is used to generate the private keys (if not anyone who knows your email can generate a private key for that public key and thus read anything encrypted to you) you might as well just be using gmail and counting on google not to get hacked. After all, you can't compromise every gmail account by gaining access to a few servers but anyone who hacks the server with the master secret brings down the whole system in IBE. And gmail also provides transport security and tls for your web connections so why even bother with IBE unless your correspondent doesn't have transport level security.
MAYBE you could create some kind of large distributed infrastructure for storing the master key but at that point it seems easier just to distribute standard public keys directly.
Any application I can think of for this can already be better served by the amazing technology of microphones and speakers plus sound absorbent materials. You know, like we already use in interogation rooms etc..
It will only work for data that is so well characterized you can find the information theoretic optimal representation for it, i.e., you can bijectively map each message onto the integers mod n so that each integer is equally likely to be seen.
Other than CCNs I can't think of much which satisfies this condition.
The only cases in which this approach can work are those where the distribution of plaintext is known in advance.
Since the algorithms used to generate CCN are largely public one can map the class of apparently valid CCNs (suppose it has n members) bijectively into the integers mod n and assuming the CCNs are uniformly distributed over the apparently valid CCNs (likely) their images in the integers mod n are uniformly distributed. Assume that ENC_k is any standard encryption function (public or private) with key k operating on inputs from the integers mod z >= n-1 (usually a power of 2 for a symmetric encryption function). Given a CCN c map it to a value c' in mod n arithmetic and generate a random value 0 = r z. We can now encrypt our CCN as the pair r + c' mod n, ENC_k(r).
This will ensure that no statistical test will be able to distinguish a correct choice of the key from an incorrect one.
This is useless, however, for data like english text or names which don't have an easily describable distribution. The construction above relied on our ability to select an information theoretic optimal compression function for CCNs, i.e., one which bijectively maps the message into a uniform distribution on the integers mod n for some n. This is impossible for things like proper names or english text.
No, this is irrelevant.
If paypal was neither negligent with his data nor violated any privacy laws the fact that in an ideal world they shouldn't have allowed this information to become available is irrelevant.
I mean the law has to have a single answer for whether companies need to keep last four digit info on their super secure system because access to that information would allow affected users to sue or not.
This was a thing of substantial value and his own willingness to trade it for his custom domains is a compelling argument they too are worth a similar amount.
Thus, if he can prove negligence or some other cause of action against payal or godaddy he should be able to receive at least 50k damages. Personally, I suspect paypal is the better target as various privacy laws may have been violated. Of course a real lawyer would have a better idea of whether he has a case.
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Frankly, it's hard to see what could have made this trade a worthwhile deal. I mean, either the hacker already had control of his email through a dns change or he didn't. If the hacker didn't what about the trade would make the extortion victim believe the hacker would behave differently if he turned over the domain than if he didn't? I mean he could presumably still decide to be a dick and use his access to delete the data.
And why not simply pretend not to be at his computer? He could have called godaddy and the like to lock down all the domains.
I understand that religion is detrimental for modern humans,
False, most assuredly. Detrimental? I'm unconvinced.
Sure, if the alternative was for everyone to read CSICOP and become skeptical scientifically minded individuals then sure religion would be harmful to society. However, that's not the alternative. You undermine religiosity and people remain just as `spiritual' and seek out more harmful, less stable forms of mystical thought, e.g., homeopathy, belief in spirits, medium etc...
The failure of any major world culture to exist without substantial religious, spiritual or otherwise mystical beliefs (even a semi-mystical view of the benefits of great literature or the wisdom to be found in meditation) casts doubt on your claim that religion itself is detrimental. Perhaps the harm done by religion is balanced by the comfort it gives to many people who can't or won't find the truth comforting. Perhaps religion is merely the least bad outcome of underlying psychological tendencies we all share pushing us to interpret the world as `speaking' to us and to inject emotion into our evaluation of claims. In the long run with appropriate genetic engineering it might be desirable to phase our religion but for the moment it may be better than things like homeopathy, talk about Chakras and other spiritual interests that aren't religion.
that teaching religion to children is a form of abuse, and therefore indoctrinating anyone under 18 should be illegal.
This is a very very different claim. Sure, in the long run weaning humans off of religion may be desirable but now the question is what will that child be best served by?
As much as I feel that religious indoctrination before adulthood is brainwashing people into holding certain extremely implausible beliefs in most cases it is probably beneficial for the child. Most of America is highly religious and if you deny them that cultural belonging religion provides in these area you hurt them far worse than the harm done from carrying around comforting but incorrect beliefs for their lives. Just make sure there are ample opportunities for them to consider the question later and reach a more informed decision when they are capable.
What is most important is to make sure atheist views, socialization etc... become widely distributed so it's viewed as just another kind of belief. Furthermore, tackling the very hard problem of providing community unity and socialization without any masses is important..
Atheists visibly taking roles in community service programs would be much more useful than viewing religious indoctrination (as are most lessons from parents) would be much more useful.
And people inferring what you do from your public behaviors is slavery how?
This only seems so awful because we imagine continuing to apply the same social standards in place now to a new world of massive transparency and data mining. These technologies will shift our social norms so it's considered impolite to condemn others for personal choices and we'll view it as rude to use data about someone's personal life to affect the hiring process or how you treat them professionally.
And if google doesn't do this what do you forsee happening in the future?
High res cameras not only will get cheap but by the miracles of integrated circuit fabrication (and the high cost of running multiple processes/designs) eventually it will be cheaper to buy the standard high-res camera rather than the uncommon low-res camera. It's only a matter of time before all security and ATM cameras are high-res and the price of storage falls so low that they keep all that data in digital form online.
Now is every storeowner, photographer and bank going to use their own security camera management system? Save the images all themselves? Of course not, they will pick some company to manage it for them and that will centralize a great deal of this video information.
There is an inescapable collusion in the works between our expectations of anonymity and our write to free speech. Even if no one goes out and creates a central repository all it takes is many internet accessible public sites hosting this information and anyone with sufficient computer hardware can data mine your life.
Most professional cameramen (including artists who want to capture scenes of city life) have their cameras set to take pictures at quite a high rate. What number of FPS is too much? 1? 5? 30? When does taking lots of photos become taking video? I don't think that is a line you can reasonably draw.
Hell, the better data mining gets the easier it is to infer actions in between photos so even if you insist that photography be capped at once every minute or 15seconds eventually the same info will get out.
I doubt it.
There is every difference between respecting the usual social norms of looking away from private business, not staring at people etc... and recording what you see and sticking a camera in everyone's face and deliberately invading conversations, behavior and interactions obviously not meant to include you. The content captured may not be much different but the social reaction will be.
The reaction to google glass will be "Cool what's that thing" as long as those wearing it don't bring it into sensitive areas (lockerrooms) and don't shove it into other's buisness.
YES!! Finally, sanity!
If it occurs in public by definition it isn't private information!
It is that the users will be granting privileged access to pervasive surveillance to a small number of corporations and a large number of government agencies, that most who will be doing it do not understand the consequences, and that they have not given most of their subjects the opportunity of informed consent.
Knowing that your picture might get taken is not a cause for concern any more than is getting bumped into on the sidewalk. Getting elbowed repeatedly everywhere you go, or having pervasive surveillance footage of you uploaded to a privately owned and government accessible database, is.
And that is different than now how? Right now ATM photo footage and security cam footage are probably accessible by a few large banks and security firms who have a cozy relationship with the government.
I'd much rather have an internet company with explicit privacy policy and public acknowledgement of any data shared with the government than the shady system that now governs the cameras that watch us in public.
Umm, so given that facial recognition is out of the bottle what is your preference. That everyone sees the big database or the government maintains it in secret using it's greater ability to make deals to amalgamate many small sources of info and tendency never to let any info go once it has it?
Even if they weren't uploaded to a big online database as long as people can post the photos they take of their own neighborhood somewhere better search technology will inevitably mean that is no different than one big online database.
>"The author points out, rightly, that surveillance cameras are already everywhere"
Typical "justification". So because there are already cameras in many places, there is nothing wrong with having them everywhere, all the time, possibly recording and sharing everything, including audio.... even at your restaurant table.
No, the argument is that when you walk down the street you are already being recorded and you've already lost any privacy you might have in that situation so there is no reason to get upset about individual citizens recording you in addition to the stores and banks
Presumably, the author's point is entirely compatible with believing that private establishments may want to bar all cameras to keep what occurs on their premises private.
>"that sticks in people's craws and makes them go irrationally berserk."
Typical again. So anyone that could possibly have a problem could only react by being "irrational" about it?
No, point is that either you should have a problem with all the forms of camera that monitor us wherever we walk or not have a problem with google glass. Maybe you have a compelling argument that distinguishes the two. If so present it. He is making an argument, you respond by giving a counterargument not being upset that someone disagrees with you.
>"However, he also seems happy to trade privacy for security,"
Could it get even more typical? Seems all the rage for a long time now to not give a damn about privacy or freedom. The vast majority of people are quick to trade privacy and freedom for convenience and the illusion of safety.
Alright? So? That is a sociological fact you have to accept. Give an alternative that is compatible with preserving our rights to free speech and to take photos in public without demanding that society reorganize in a psychologically implausible fashion.
Difficult times are coming. Technology is never bad/evil, but what people DO with it can be. I hope people who are eager to strap on something like Google Glass think about how it might affect others around them. There are a lot of unanswered questions about moving into a world where everyone (and every company/government) knows everything about everyone at all times.
I disagree. Look to societies, like that of Holland, where people have been pushed together into very small spaces for hundreds of years. They develop ways to deal with the leakage of information that results. Society remains healthy and fine despite the fact that your neighbor probably hears everything from you taking a dump to your affair with a coworker. Such societies tend to develop a deep tolerance for individual differences and the behaviors they engage in on their own time,
I look forward to a time not far in the future where everyone has stupid pics of their college years up on the internet. Where no one gets fired for that topless pic on spring break because their boss has something equally embarrassing online. Where everyone is trashed in old online archives by their ex-lovers so we all know not to take such talk (offered in the heat of passion) too seriously. Where there is a video of the president doing drugs so the hypocrisy of the drug war is plane for all to see.