Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality (fwd)

Forwarded message:

> Subject: Re: rant on the morality of confidentiality 
> Date: Thu, 08 Jan 98 16:42:43 -0800
> From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>

> every respondent to my post has missed the key points.

Not quite. Of course I don't agree with all of them either. There are two
rules you should consider:

 -  It's ok to have an open mind, just don't let it slosh out on the
    ground.

 -  Understanding a view is not equivalent to supporting a view.

You might also want to consider that two opposing views might very well
*both* be right...it depends on where you sit on the fence as to what the
tree looks like.

> >Scientists even in schools and foundations are often secretive, too.
> >
> >The notion that "science" is about blabbing one's latest discoveries or
> >theories is overly simplistic. Many scholars and scientists choose not to
> >publicize their work for years, or decades, or, even, never.
> 
> if so, they are not SCIENTISTS. a key aspect of SCIENCE is publishing
> results. science cannot advance without it. name me one scientist
> who did not publish an important result, or is considered a good
> scientists for doing so!

I must agree here. If a technologist (ie one who studies science for
profit, hence creating a technology) chooses not to publish their results
that is fine. However, a scientist is one who studies nature and its
interactions, profit is not and should not be a motive. Simplistic or not;
in fact some things are better understood when simplified (ala the
scientific principle). A scientist has an obligation to discuss and publish
their results for other scientists (and even technologist) when they are
reasonably sure their results will stand up to indipendant verification (a
critical issue in science, not in technology however).

Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a technologist at
heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control *not*
curiosity.

> >Consider Andrew Wiles, Princeton math professor, and the prover of Fermat's
> >Last Theorem. He labored in secrecy for many years, only going public when
> >he felt his results were complete. (As it turned out, they were not, and he
> >needed another year or two to fill in some gaps.)
> 
> but he PUBLISHED his results, he gave a LECTURE on his findings. I am
> not saying that secrecy and science are mutually exclusive in this way.
> secrecy is a useful tool, I am not in general against secrecy. but
> secrecy can be ABUSED, and our government is ABUSING it. 

Further, the *reason* he was so secretive was because of the history of
failed attempts and early 'proofs' that later failed. He was motivated by
getting it right and ruining his reputation; not because he thought proving
Fermat's Last Theorem would provide him riches and laurels for the remainder
of his mortal coil.

> have you
> been following that Clinton was just fined $286,00 for lying to
> a judge?

Which means, per the Constitution, that he should be removed from office.
He broke a public trust and that means he looses any public station he
currently has and is barred from future office.

>  I could give
> >dozens of examples of where the open literature either did not exist or was
> >not used...and science still advanced.

Of course, this is a specious argument. If it was already in the literature
it wouldn't be science advancing (learning something that wasn't known
before). The whole point to science is to understand and explain what we see
and don't see that creates the cosmos we inhabit. Now if your point is that
Intel taking some trade secret only they are aware of and using this to make
quicker chips is science then you don't know a damn thing about science.

> but science eventually published the results.

It is *required* for doing 'science', it isn't for doing 'technology'. As a
matter of fact a little perusal of history demonstrates that science
requires open and unhindered dialog while technology requires closed
channels of communcication and mechanisms of control. A perfect current
example is the move to cloan humans. The guy, Creed?, is right "you can't
stop science"; you can however stop technology and businesses do every day.
Until that oocyte goes viable it's science, from that point on it's
technology.

> human endeavor. how can you argue with something so obvious?

You don't know Timmy very well do you...

> all this is uninteresting to me-- I was making a moral point in an
> essay that is obviously unintelligable to most people here. its my
> big mistake in this world, to pretent that morality plays a role.

Actualy your mistake is assuming that there is *one* morality. Don't fret
though. Just about everyone wants to jam everyone else into their nice
little easily understood molds. It makes it much easier to justify their
actions to themselves and potentialy to others if they get them to swallow
even once.

> of how things should be? things ARE, PERIOD. good lord, no wonder 
> Ayn Rand is so uninfluential.

Reasonable men don't change the world. If we aren't motivated by our ethics
and belief that our actions can change the world into the way it 'should be'
then what is the motive? Money? Even that is a veiled mechanism to make the
world the way we think it should be (ie we have more money or social station
than currently endowed with). Changing the world is what *makes* life worth
living. The question *is* why do you want to change the world and *who* gets
to profit by it?



    ____________________________________________________________________
   |                                                                    |
   |      Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make       |
   |      violent revolution inevitable.                                |
   |                                                                    |
   |                                          John F. Kennedy           |
   |                                                                    |
   |                                                                    | 
   |            _____                             The Armadillo Group   |
   |         ,::////;::-.                           Austin, Tx. USA     |
   |        /:'///// ``::>/|/                     http://www.ssz.com/   |
   |      .',  ||||    `/( e\                                           |
   |  -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-                         Jim Choate       |
   |                                                 ravage@ssz.com     |
   |                                                  512-451-7087      |
   |____________________________________________________________________|

At 6:01 PM -0800 1/8/98, Jim Choate wrote:

>Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a technologist at
>heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control *not*
>curiosity.
....
>You don't know Timmy very well do you...

Add Choate to the list of dimbulbs who think calling me "Timmy" (or Timy)
is some kind of witty insult. On this list, Detweiler and Vulis seem to
favor this usage.

Next he'll be putting out ASCII art

Jeez, and I don't even recall insulting Choate. Perhaps he got his nose out
of joint when I challenged his "all snipers use .223" piece of
misinformation.

Back in my killfile he goes. Incredible that he is even connected with one
of the Cypherpunks distribution points.

BTW, nowhere in my piece did I refer to myself as a "scientist." I spoke of
Wiles, and then of Gauss, Fermat, and Darwin.

--Tim May

The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^2,976,221   | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

Timmy May <tcmay@got.net> demonstrated his ignorance and stupidity by writing:

>
> At 6:01 PM -0800 1/8/98, Jim Choate wrote:
>
> >Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a technologist at
> >heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control *not
> >curiosity.
> ....
> >You don't know Timmy very well do you...
>
> Add Choate to the list of dimbulbs who think calling me "Timmy" (or Timy)
> is some kind of witty insult. On this list, Detweiler and Vulis seem to
> favor this usage.

I like to call Timmy "Timmy" necause it's fun to watch Timmy twitch.

> Next he'll be putting out ASCII art

     +-----#--+
     |  O #   |          Which one is Guy Polis
     |  |#__O |          and which one is Timmy May?
     |._#_> \ |
     +-#------+
     Stop AIDS!

> Back in my killfile he goes. Incredible that he is even connected with one
> of the Cypherpunks distribution points.

When Timmy claims to killfile someone, it really means that he's paying a
special obsessive-compulsive attention to anything that person writes.

Here, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy!

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps

At 12:42 AM 1/9/98 EST, Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM wrote:
>Timmy May <tcmay@got.net> demonstrated his ignorance and stupidity by
writing:
>
>>
>> At 6:01 PM -0800 1/8/98, Jim Choate wrote:
>>
>> >Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a
technologist at
>> >heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control
*not
>> >curiosity.
>> ....
>> >You don't know Timmy very well do you...
>>
>> Add Choate to the list of dimbulbs who think calling me "Timmy" (or Timy)
>> is some kind of witty insult. On this list, Detweiler and Vulis seem to
>> favor this usage.
>
>I like to call Timmy "Timmy" necause it's fun to watch Timmy twitch.

Didn't you have siblings to taunt as an adolescent?  Didn't your mother
tell you its not attractive?  Haven't you learned that jabs at ideas
are not the same at jabs at the person?







------------------------------------------------------------
      David Honig                   Orbit Technology
     honig@otc.net                  Intaanetto Jigyoubu

	"How do you know you are not being deceived?" 
	---A Compendium of Analytic TradeCraft Notes, 
	Directorate of Intelligence, CIA

>
>>Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a technologist at
>>heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control *not*
>>curiosity.
>....
>>You don't know Timmy very well do you...
>
>Add Choate to the list of dimbulbs who think calling me "Timmy" (or Timy)
>is some kind of witty insult. On this list, Detweiler and Vulis seem to
>favor this usage.

an insult? quite to the contrary, I have always considered it a term 
of endearment!!

Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com> writes:
The Nuriweiller wrote:
> > if so, they are not SCIENTISTS. a key aspect of SCIENCE is publishing
> > results. science cannot advance without it. name me one scientist
> > who did not publish an important result, or is considered a good
> > scientists for doing so!
>
> I must agree here. If a technologist (ie one who studies science for
> profit, hence creating a technology) chooses not to publish their results
> that is fine. However, a scientist is one who studies nature and its
> interactions, profit is not and should not be a motive. Simplistic or not;
> in fact some things are better understood when simplified (ala the
> scientific principle). A scientist has an obligation to discuss and publish
> their results for other scientists (and even technologist) when they are
> reasonably sure their results will stand up to indipendant verification (a
> critical issue in science, not in technology however).
>
> Don't be confused by Timy's claim to be a scientist, he is a technologist at
> heart. Many of his views and beliefs are motivated by issues of control *not*
> curiosity.

That's a very interesting idea.

Consider Fischer Black, who passed away a couple of years ago. His most
important contribution to science was the basic Black-Sholes equation.
What were his direct economic rewards for having come up with it? Not much,
really. He was already a tenured full professor at MIT. However as the
result of his discovery he got hired away by Goldman Sachs as a VP, and
later became a full partner. He did quite a bit of work at GS; none of it
as spectacular as the Black-Scholes equation; almost none of it published
in the open literature. Can we say that the bulk of his $50 million was for
the research he did while at MIT and not at Goldman (and which benefited
everyone in the industry, not just Goldman)? Did Goldman bet that Black
would deliver results comparable in importance to the B-S equation, which
Goldman would keep proprietary? Did Goldman win this bet (meaning, we
wouldn't really know if they did)?

I know another guy whom I won't name because he's still alive. He too is a
tenured professor and has published numerous papers in refereed journals.
His results are used by many people in the financial industry to make money.
A few years ago he made an interesting discovery in statistics. Instead of
publishing it, he and his coauthor took it to some investors and showed them
how to make lots of money trading on these results. The investors then said,
basically: yes we signed a nondisclosure agreement, but now that we know
what this is about, we're going to use it and we won't pay you a penny and
you don't have the money to sue us. Which is precisely what happened; the
result is still not published, but is slowly circulating through the quant
investing community.

The same guy informed me later that he discovered a closed-form solution to
some very interesting problems 9related to Black-Scholes) which according to
the open literature either can't be done accurately at all, or require
incredible amounts of cpu time for monte carlo simulations. he doesn't
wish tio publish it (although it would make him quite a celebrity) and
now he's going crazy trying to figure out a way to sell it in such a way
that he can't get screwed again. How would crypto help if at all?

Oh and by the way I suspect that a few minor crypto ideas in my PhD thesis
were known to certain British cryptographers in the 30s but never published
in the open literature.

---

Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM
Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps