Obsidian Wings

Something Completely Different

by Michael Cain
(submitted by request)

A recent comment thread headed off into a discussion of the attractions of games and puzzles that involve combinatorial search, like Wordle or Sudoku or Freecell. Here's an example of a combinatorial puzzle. My daughter brought this home from math class when she was in eighth grade (long ago).

On the way home from work I stopped at the corner convenience store to pick up four items. The checkout clerk did things on the register and told me "$7.11, please."
"That seems too much. How did you calculate that?" I asked.
"I multiplied the four prices together."
"Aren't you supposed to add the prices?"
"Oh, right." After a moment he said, "Still $7.11."

What were the prices of the four items?

She told me the math teacher was explaining a technique he called guess and check: guess at the answer and check to see if it's correct. She thought it was stupid and clearly expected me to think the same. She was surprised when I said, "Cool! There's a whole bunch of neat math in there!" We talked about problems where you had to choose from a set of possibilities and had to find the right combination to solve the problem. That you often needed to find a clever strategy so you could find the right combination in a reasonable amount of time. We played around with this particular problem some, but didn't guess the right answer before it got tiresome. (No one else in the class guessed the right answer either.)

Some years after that I was working at an applied research lab that did lunch-time technical talks. I was asked to do one that had some math, some entertainment value, and that most of the staff would be able to follow. My recollection of the talk about the 7-11 problem is reproduced below the fold.

Oh, and open thread, because why not?

do as I say, not as I do

by fiddler

(not an April Fool's post, despite the date)

Richard A. Clarke, former counter-terrorism czar for both the Clinton and Bush administrations, had some strong words about the US Chamber of Commerce's aborted plans for discrediting its critics, which included spying on families, using malware to steal information, faking documents to embarrass its liberal opponents, and creating and using 'sock puppet' personas to infiltrate their targets.*

Clarke said of the US Chamber's plans to hack, impersonate, spy upon and steal from its perceived opponents:

"I think it’s a violation of 10USC. I think it’s a felony, and I think they should go to jail. You call them a large trade association, I call them a large political action group that took foreign money in the last election. But be that as it may, if you in the United States, if any American citizen anywhere in the world, because this is an extraterritorial law, so don’t think you can go to Bermuda and do it, if any American citizen anywhere in the world engages in unauthorized penetration, or identity theft, accessing a number through identity theft purposes, that’s a felony and if the Chamber of Commerce wants to try that, that’s fine with me because the FBI will be on their doorstep in a matter of hours."

till the landslide brings it down

by fiddler

Following up on previous posts (here, here, here, here, and here):

HBGary Federal, Team Themis, Hunton & Williams and the US Chamber of Commerce:

• Aaron Barr, HBGary Federal CEO, who spearheaded the company's attempts to discover the identity of members of Anonymous and whose emails were exposed by Anonymous in return, resigned on Feb. 28. Barr said he wanted to spend more time with his family and recover his reputation. The article linked also points out poor security practices within the company, including a general disregard of the importance of using distinct and complex passwords -- perhaps something else Barr could work on in his spare time, now.

Newton's Third Law #4, the continuing story, with update

by fiddler

(Previous Newton's Third Law posts are here, here and here.)

Benjamin Spock de Vries says he is not Commander X, one of the 'leaders' of Anonymous whom Aaron Barr of HBGary supposedly found online. Apparently, Barr wrote several memos in which he connected Commander X's identity to de Vries, all of which are included among the memos leaked by Anonymous. This mistaken identification led to an oddly amusing exchange, when Barr contacted him during the attack on HBGary by Anonymous:

what do you do when the grand jury wants your tweets? (Updated)

by fiddler

What do an Icelandic parliamentarian, a US computer researcher and a Dutch businessman have in common? They're challenging the US government's right to get Twitter to disclose their private information under sealed court order.

A hearing on this took place Tuesday in a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, but no decision was reached; the judge is to issue a written opinion later.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation and the ACLU are representing Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of the Parliament of Iceland. Dutch entrepreneur and hacker Rop Gonggrijp, and U.S. computer programmer Jacob Appelbaum are represented by private law firms as well as local counsel in Virginia.

From the Washington Post article written before the hearing, which did not name the defendants:

The dispute cuts to the core of the question of whether WikiLeaks allies are part of a criminal conspiracy or a political discussion. It also challenges the Obama administration's argument that it can demand to see computer data and read months' worth of private messages, even if they have nothing to do with WikiLeaks.

The international implications haven't been ignored:

Iceland's foreign ministry last month summoned the US ambassador in Reykjavik to express "serious concern" about the bid to obtain personal information about Jonsdottir, the Icelandic MP.

Jonsdottir, an early WikiLeaks supporter who distanced herself from the site a few months ago, is an active promoter of freedom of information and a member of the Icelandic parliament's foreign affairs committee.

Newton's Third Law #1, 2nd UPDATE , 5:30 p.m. EST

by fiddler

Last Saturday, an article in the Financial Times featured Aaron Barr of cybersecurity firm HB Gary Federal, boasting that he had discovered the identities of key members of the hacking collective that calls itself Anonymous.

Any cybersecurity firm worth its salt should realize that this action would result in a reaction, and should create protocols and take precautions to avoid them.

Hmm. Apparently not.

In short order, Anonymous hacked them, printed "Fail" across Barr's photo, wrote him a scathing letter to accompany it, and released a compilation of 40,000+ of the company's files and memos to the public. Some of these concerned a presentation prepared for Bank of America last December on how the bank could protect itself against Wikileaks.

One of HB Gary Federal's bright ideas? Target Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald, who is also a New York Times best-selling author and attorney. Why? On the grounds that because Greenwald wants to make sure Bradley Manning isn't being mistreated and Manning is accused of leaking files to Anonymous, Greenwald therefore must be part of Anonymous.

Wrong.

 

 

Speak To The Kitty At The Old Address! We're Just That Indecisive: Another Open Thread!

by Gary Farber

The  "Email Me" link under the kitty at the top left of this blog is now open for business and listening again.  That's obsidianinfo at yahoo dot com.

If you wrote to obsidianinfo at yahoo dot com in recent years, and received no answers, which has happened to many of you -- in fact, there was nothing personal about it, I assure you -- you weren't being singled out to be ignored.

Honest. It wasn't you. It's me.

I apologize. Blame me.

Speak To The Kitty: NEW OBWI EMAIL ADDRESS And Open Thread

by Gary Farber

Longtime and valued commenter Uncle Kvetch asked an extremely important question here.

[...] While it was nice seeing a united front of commenters taking on avedis' all-too-familiar mix of dick-waving bravado and abject sexual terror, I do find myself wondering just what constitutes "beyond the pale" when it comes to homophobic remarks around here. I'm not referring to ban-worthy offenses, as the posting rules are clear enough. But I have to say that when the inevitable necrophilia/bestiality comparisons were dragged out and numerous commenters just kept on presuming good faith on avedis' part...well, it makes me wonder.

The answer is that the "New Banning Rules" were last updated, as you can see, by longtime front-pager Edward at 10:25 AM on January 26, 2005.

They include this:

One writer (but only one) from the other side of the fence must agree to the ban for it to move forward (Von can vote as either side of the fence as he wishes). For the record, currently Charles Bird, Andrew, and Sebastian Holsclaw are on the right; Von is in the center; and Hilzoy is on the left.;-) Yes, that's unbalanced...we're working on it.*

This has been discussed many many many times in comments since 2005, by various people.  Many emails to the kitty address have been sent since 2005.

The "New Banning Rules" remain as posted until someone with the ability and authority to post new rules does so.  Wording has been suggested. 

The Posting Rules were last updated 1/19/2007, with a further undated update by an unknown to me user of "SuperUser."  I can guess, but so can you.

Again, much email has been sent to the kitty address since then, and there have been various discussions in comments about this since that time.

The Posting Rules remain as posted until someone with the ability and authority to post new rules does so.

None of this will change until the co-bloggers communicate with each other about it, and appropriate action taken by the appropriate parties with the ability to do so.  As has always been the case. 

As of Wednesday, December 29th, the address to email the kitty has been: ObWings At gmail Dot com

Send Obsidian Wings related email there.

Rectification Of Names

by hilzoy

It has been brought to my attention that I have never 'made it clear' that I would rather be known, on blogs, as hilzoy, and not by my actual name. I had always imagined that signing my posts 'hilzoy' was a clear enough indication of how I would like to be known on blogs; however, to preclude any further misunderstanding, I thought I should state this explicitly.

I realize that my identity is not much of a secret, though I myself have never given permission for my name to be used in connection with my blog posts in print. Moreover, unlike other pseudonymous bloggers whose jobs or relationships might be at risk were their identities known, my reasons for using a pseudonym are not particularly dramatic. They are, however, mine, and I do not think that anyone else ought to take it upon him- or herself to disregard them, especially if s/he does not know what they are.

It has also been brought to my attention that Slate's policy is that once an article has been published, it cannot be changed unless it is in error. Since my actual identity was published in Slate, and the article in which it is published is not in error, their policy precludes their replacing it with my pseudonym. This does not matter that much in my own case, but for what it's worth, I think this policy is misguided. Suppose that Slate had published (accurately) my home address and phone number, or entries from my journal, or anything else that most people would think that I ought to be able to keep private, and that its editors had not known (as they did not in this case) that I had not agreed to the publication of those things. Would their policy prevent them from deleting that information? I hope not.

In any case, once more for the record: on blogs, I would rather be known as hilzoy. Thanks.

Pick That Template

by publius

In case you haven't noticed, we've been having some trouble with Typepad lately. No one likes the paginated comments, and there are clearly a lot of bugs in the new editor.

Anyway, we've decided that it's time to move to WordPress. It's not 100% official, but it's close. This is where you come in. We'd like to get your input and suggestions on possible templates for our new location. You can browse through them here.

We may of course keep the new template as close to this one as possible, but we'd love to get your input on this and the potential move more generally. Thanks. (And we're obviously keeping the kitty).