Wouldn't it have been possible for the court to force the revelation of the blogger's identity to the other side for discovery purposes, but require them keep that identity secret under pain of concept of court?
To prove someone is female, you have to define what "female" means first.
Not really. I can't exactly define "chair", but I know that this is a chair. In the same way, being uniformly XX or XY is a sufficient but not necessary condition for being proven female or proven male. That is to say "XX -> female" but not "XX Only once she has been shown to not XX or XY, do things get fuzzy. Until that happens (and I've not seen any indication that it will), it would be inappropriate to use this woman's situation as a soap box for pushing political agendas.
Considering that there are plenty of creatures which can be hermaphrodites
We aren't talking about clown fish here. That would be a red herring. (Sorry couldn't resist the pun.)
there are rare genetic variations... this is a difficult point. Where do you draw the line?
An interesting question, but probably not relevant to this particular case. We know we want to draw the line between XX and XY. Test her. If she is XX, then female. If XY, then male. It only needs to be an issue if she turns up as XXY or XYY something else.
In any case, knowledge unverified by scientific experimentation is not knowledge at all.
Then I guess we don't really know that there infinite number of primes, or that that the one millionth digit of pi is 5, or that the American civil war happened, or that... well you get the point.
Knowledge comes in many forms. Experiment is only one way to obtain it. It is a very powerful way, but it does have its limits and it most certainly isn't the only way.
... you can easily find it, by generate-and-test if necessary.
If you think generate-and-test is an easy way to find it, then I've got some NP-complete problems for you to solve. While you're at it, I also have some public keys I'd like you to crack.
/sarcasm
(Not that I think fooling stylometry is hard, but generate-and-test is generally not useful for anything but the smallest problems.)
As I understand it[1] Digital Coin amounts to trading in unsecured[2] self-issued[3] credit/debt[4]. This sounds great until you consider the failure modes of the system.
The last credit crash that started our current recession was caused mainly by banks miss-valuing credit/debt they were trading (risks of default where higher than expected). If the banks with all their accountants can't figure out the true value of a credit/debt then what chance to you stand? It is just setting up for the exact same sort of crash to occur and after such a crash only those lucky enough to own "perpetual coin" would be able to trade.
An attractive part of the "digital coin" proposal is that it avoids the bootstrap problem a bit more elegantly than our current system. (There is precedent for systems similar to this spontaneously appearing in gold-rush towns[5].) Unfortunately this bootstrapping is still based on trust and thus such an economy would still be based on trust. A credit/debt only has as value in so far as you trust the debtor to pay it back. Banks examine your financials to establish this trust when you apply for a loan. The SEC requires companies to disclose detailed financial statements to provide an objective foundation for trust in their stocks. The "digital coin" proposal provides no means of establishing this trust.
[1] I have reviewed all the "Digital Coin" material but haven't yet reviewed the "Money as Debt II" material.
[2] There is no mention of collateral in the case of default.
[3] It is not completely self issued. You still have to convince the receiver of your self-issued credit to accept it. This actually resembles applying for a loan. And there is even interest on the loan since it can be redeemed at a higher value. The difference is that this credit must be redeemed upon demand of the creditor. With loans the credit is redeemed at mutually pre-agreed points in time.
[4] By definition issuance of credit incurs a debt to pay back that credit.
[5] What was issued is self-issued shares in a mine instead of credit.
This would actually be easy to test, just build bicycle with an extra set of spinning wheels that don't touch the ground. With those you could get a gyroscope effect but without having to move forward. Other experimental tweaks include adjusting the handle-bar axis so it is straight vertical instead of the usual back-tilt it has. There are probably even more variables in the design of a bicycle that I am not aware of that could be experimented with.
Out of curiosity how does a unicycle handle in a skid? As a bicyclist most of my crashes are due to unexpectedly loosing traction in the middle of a turn.
I said nothing about paper versus gold. Only that paper can inflate can inflate even when the amount of paper in the system remains constant.
But since you mentioned it, gold is also a form of fiat currency since it has no real utility other than looking pretty(*). It's value is entirely dependent on our society's belief that it has value just like any other form of fiat money.
(*) There are industrial uses but those have only a minor effect on the value of gold.
An interesting video but it is very wrong when it tries to draw a distinction between what is calls "debt money" (i.e. fiat money) and "value money" (i.e. gold backed money). It misses the fact that all money whether fiat or gold backed is actually debt.
Neither paper money nor gold money have direct utility to you as an individual. Their utility comes from the promise that they may be exchanged for goods with more direct utilities. Thus money is in essence a promise of future utility. "Promise of future utility" is another word for debt.
It's also funny that your post is just the sort of ad hominem that "religionists" complain about antagonistic and mean atheists using. (Here's hoping that me pointing that out isn't too mean.)
Anyway... according to the article the Catholic Church isn't calling for this law. You'll have to look elsewhere for someone to blame. (The article claims this is part of a trend in the Irish government's "micromanaging peopleâ(TM)s behaviour" along with a total ban on public smoking, a tax on plastic bags, a ban on incandescent lightbulbs and new government communication surveillance powers. However, I don't know enough about Irish politics to evaluate that claim.)
It would be more likely that the card company would require all transactions to go through a confirmation page that the card company sets up. Visa already does this.
As far as the math goes it is pretty simple. You have a secret key "k" and a publicly known function "f". The website sends you a challenge "c" that changes each time. You have to respond with a reply "r" that you compute by applying "f" to "k" and "c" (i.e. "f(k,c)"). This "r" is the "one time password" since it changes each time even though "k" stays the same. The advantage here is that (1) "k" is never sent across the wire (only "c" and "r" are) and (2) since "c" changes for each transaction, replay attacks don't work.
With PassWindow, the "k" is the pattern of lines in the window, "c" is the image the website sends you and "f" is the result of overlaying the two images and interpreting the resulting image as a number.
This sort of system is only strong if (1) there are a lot of "c" to choose from (so there are no repeats which would make replay attacks possible), (2) it is hard to fabricate "r" from "c" without knowing "k" (e.g. "f(k,c)=hash(k)+c" is bad) and (3) it is hard to figure out "k" even when you know lots of "c" and "r" pairs (e.g. "f(k,c)=k XOR c" is bad). The PassWindow system fails on part (3). I don't know how many pairs it would take to crack it but it shouldn't be that many.
It doesn't matter that the average is 1.0 copies sent per person. If one person sent 1,000,000 copies and 1,000,000 people received one copy each (e.g. through an HTTP server), that one person is still liable for the 1,000,000 copies sent.
I think it is less than 1.0. Imagine two users. One sends a complete copy to another user. Thus there is one upload but two users. Average uploads per users: 0.5.
Since it's vendor-driven, it's going to be exactly what the vendors can agree upon - no more, and no less.
That sounds pretty worthless.....
On the contrary, many if not most good standards are written this way.
Ideally a standards committee has an even mix of users and implementers and the resulting standard is a negotiated balance between what all sorts of different users want and what all sorts of different implementers are willing to implement. From the implementer's side this is important not only to encourage quick implementation but also to ensure the standard can be efficiently implemented From the user's side this is important not only to make the standard easy to use but also to ensure it covers all the important use-cases.
After reading about Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox, I am inclined to change my mind and agree with you that trademark shouldn't be able to be used as a back-door on copyright. However, I still think the rules governing use of someone's actual works (i.e. copyright) should be different than the rules governing use of someone's abstract works.
When dealing with abstract works the simple fact of using someone's work shouldn't be enough to constitute infringement as is the case with copyright. It should require some element of damage to the their artistic franchise (e.g. damaging the "Mickey Mouse" reputation). The concept of artistic "moral rights" (17 USC 106A) gets close but I'm don't think it's quite right. Maybe we need a new form of IP protection to be split off from copyright to handle these cases so they are handled under their own rules instead of copyright rules. (Though in practice, any new IP law would likely get messed up by the IP lobby.)
Artistic characters should only be protected by trademark. Artistic works which are covered by copyright should only include actual works (e.g. Steamboat Willie) and not abstractions of those works (e.g. the Mickey Mouse character). Somewhere in between there is a gray area between paraphrase (probably should be protected by copyright) and summary (shouldn't be restricted by copyright).
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Wouldn't it have been possible for the court to force the revelation of the blogger's identity to the other side for discovery purposes, but require them keep that identity secret under pain of concept of court?
To prove someone is female, you have to define what "female" means first.
Not really. I can't exactly define "chair", but I know that this is a chair. In the same way, being uniformly XX or XY is a sufficient but not necessary condition for being proven female or proven male. That is to say "XX -> female" but not "XX
Only once she has been shown to not XX or XY, do things get fuzzy. Until that happens (and I've not seen any indication that it will), it would be inappropriate to use this woman's situation as a soap box for pushing political agendas.
Considering that there are plenty of creatures which can be hermaphrodites
We aren't talking about clown fish here. That would be a red herring. (Sorry couldn't resist the pun.)
there are rare genetic variations ... this is a difficult point. Where do you draw the line?
An interesting question, but probably not relevant to this particular case. We know we want to draw the line between XX and XY. Test her. If she is XX, then female. If XY, then male. It only needs to be an issue if she turns up as XXY or XYY something else.
In any case, knowledge unverified by scientific experimentation is not knowledge at all.
Then I guess we don't really know that there infinite number of primes, or that that the one millionth digit of pi is 5, or that the American civil war happened, or that ... well you get the point.
Knowledge comes in many forms. Experiment is only one way to obtain it. It is a very powerful way, but it does have its limits and it most certainly isn't the only way.
... you can easily find it, by generate-and-test if necessary.
If you think generate-and-test is an easy way to find it, then I've got some NP-complete problems for you to solve. While you're at it, I also have some public keys I'd like you to crack.
(Not that I think fooling stylometry is hard, but generate-and-test is generally not useful for anything but the smallest problems.)
Rule 37: There is no 'overkill'. There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload'.
Why would the Los Angeles police department need a protocol? ... Oh, LDAP, not LAPD. Dyslexia strikes again.
While the retina processes in terms of three colors, the brain actually processes in terms of four colors (or six if you count black and white).
This is probably why a motion for manual counting automatically passes once moved and seconded in many parliamentary rules.
This is one of the few times I've wanted to mod past +5. That tidbit made my day.
Now excuse me while I go tell my broker to short stocks in the "Ski Channel".
As I understand it[1] Digital Coin amounts to trading in unsecured[2] self-issued[3] credit/debt[4]. This sounds great until you consider the failure modes of the system.
The last credit crash that started our current recession was caused mainly by banks miss-valuing credit/debt they were trading (risks of default where higher than expected). If the banks with all their accountants can't figure out the true value of a credit/debt then what chance to you stand? It is just setting up for the exact same sort of crash to occur and after such a crash only those lucky enough to own "perpetual coin" would be able to trade.
An attractive part of the "digital coin" proposal is that it avoids the bootstrap problem a bit more elegantly than our current system. (There is precedent for systems similar to this spontaneously appearing in gold-rush towns[5].) Unfortunately this bootstrapping is still based on trust and thus such an economy would still be based on trust. A credit/debt only has as value in so far as you trust the debtor to pay it back. Banks examine your financials to establish this trust when you apply for a loan. The SEC requires companies to disclose detailed financial statements to provide an objective foundation for trust in their stocks. The "digital coin" proposal provides no means of establishing this trust.
[1] I have reviewed all the "Digital Coin" material but haven't yet reviewed the "Money as Debt II" material.
[2] There is no mention of collateral in the case of default.
[3] It is not completely self issued. You still have to convince the receiver of your self-issued credit to accept it. This actually resembles applying for a loan. And there is even interest on the loan since it can be redeemed at a higher value. The difference is that this credit must be redeemed upon demand of the creditor. With loans the credit is redeemed at mutually pre-agreed points in time.
[4] By definition issuance of credit incurs a debt to pay back that credit.
[5] What was issued is self-issued shares in a mine instead of credit.
This would actually be easy to test, just build bicycle with an extra set of spinning wheels that don't touch the ground. With those you could get a gyroscope effect but without having to move forward. Other experimental tweaks include adjusting the handle-bar axis so it is straight vertical instead of the usual back-tilt it has. There are probably even more variables in the design of a bicycle that I am not aware of that could be experimented with.
Out of curiosity how does a unicycle handle in a skid? As a bicyclist most of my crashes are due to unexpectedly loosing traction in the middle of a turn.
I said nothing about paper versus gold. Only that paper can inflate can inflate even when the amount of paper in the system remains constant.
But since you mentioned it, gold is also a form of fiat currency since it has no real utility other than looking pretty(*). It's value is entirely dependent on our society's belief that it has value just like any other form of fiat money.
(*) There are industrial uses but those have only a minor effect on the value of gold.
Inflation happens even without printing of money. The money can be exchanged faster even if the total amount of printed money stays the same.
An interesting video but it is very wrong when it tries to draw a distinction between what is calls "debt money" (i.e. fiat money) and "value money" (i.e. gold backed money). It misses the fact that all money whether fiat or gold backed is actually debt.
Neither paper money nor gold money have direct utility to you as an individual. Their utility comes from the promise that they may be exchanged for goods with more direct utilities. Thus money is in essence a promise of future utility. "Promise of future utility" is another word for debt.
It's also funny that your post is just the sort of ad hominem that "religionists" complain about antagonistic and mean atheists using. (Here's hoping that me pointing that out isn't too mean.)
Anyway ... according to the article the Catholic Church isn't calling for this law. You'll have to look elsewhere for someone to blame. (The article claims this is part of a trend in the Irish government's "micromanaging peopleâ(TM)s behaviour" along with a total ban on public smoking, a tax on plastic bags, a ban on incandescent lightbulbs and new government communication surveillance powers. However, I don't know enough about Irish politics to evaluate that claim.)
It would be more likely that the card company would require all transactions to go through a confirmation page that the card company sets up. Visa already does this.
As far as the math goes it is pretty simple. You have a secret key "k" and a publicly known function "f". The website sends you a challenge "c" that changes each time. You have to respond with a reply "r" that you compute by applying "f" to "k" and "c" (i.e. "f(k,c)"). This "r" is the "one time password" since it changes each time even though "k" stays the same. The advantage here is that (1) "k" is never sent across the wire (only "c" and "r" are) and (2) since "c" changes for each transaction, replay attacks don't work.
With PassWindow, the "k" is the pattern of lines in the window, "c" is the image the website sends you and "f" is the result of overlaying the two images and interpreting the resulting image as a number.
This sort of system is only strong if (1) there are a lot of "c" to choose from (so there are no repeats which would make replay attacks possible), (2) it is hard to fabricate "r" from "c" without knowing "k" (e.g. "f(k,c)=hash(k)+c" is bad) and (3) it is hard to figure out "k" even when you know lots of "c" and "r" pairs (e.g. "f(k,c)=k XOR c" is bad). The PassWindow system fails on part (3). I don't know how many pairs it would take to crack it but it shouldn't be that many.
Identical twins have different fingerprints. The same principal probably applies to spots.
It doesn't matter that the average is 1.0 copies sent per person. If one person sent 1,000,000 copies and 1,000,000 people received one copy each (e.g. through an HTTP server), that one person is still liable for the 1,000,000 copies sent.
I think it is less than 1.0. Imagine two users. One sends a complete copy to another user. Thus there is one upload but two users. Average uploads per users: 0.5.
Providing a nice GUI on a DNS lookup fail is the job of the web browser not the DNS server. DNS is infrastructure not user interface.
Since it's vendor-driven, it's going to be exactly what the vendors can agree upon - no more, and no less.
That sounds pretty worthless.....
On the contrary, many if not most good standards are written this way.
Ideally a standards committee has an even mix of users and implementers and the resulting standard is a negotiated balance between what all sorts of different users want and what all sorts of different implementers are willing to implement. From the implementer's side this is important not only to encourage quick implementation but also to ensure the standard can be efficiently implemented From the user's side this is important not only to make the standard easy to use but also to ensure it covers all the important use-cases.
After reading about Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox, I am inclined to change my mind and agree with you that trademark shouldn't be able to be used as a back-door on copyright. However, I still think the rules governing use of someone's actual works (i.e. copyright) should be different than the rules governing use of someone's abstract works.
When dealing with abstract works the simple fact of using someone's work shouldn't be enough to constitute infringement as is the case with copyright. It should require some element of damage to the their artistic franchise (e.g. damaging the "Mickey Mouse" reputation). The concept of artistic "moral rights" (17 USC 106A) gets close but I'm don't think it's quite right. Maybe we need a new form of IP protection to be split off from copyright to handle these cases so they are handled under their own rules instead of copyright rules. (Though in practice, any new IP law would likely get messed up by the IP lobby.)
Artistic characters should only be protected by trademark. Artistic works which are covered by copyright should only include actual works (e.g. Steamboat Willie) and not abstractions of those works (e.g. the Mickey Mouse character). Somewhere in between there is a gray area between paraphrase (probably should be protected by copyright) and summary (shouldn't be restricted by copyright).