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Re: Re: Trust question (fwd)
On Fri, 20 Mar 1998, Hal Finney wrote:
>I don't know where to reply to Ed, since he is posting this widely.
Here is fine, Hal. You can choose your turf ;-)
>
>Ed Gerck, <egerck@laser.cps.softex.br>, writes:
>> That said, supose you have a Turing [1] machine for each statement.
>> The three machines have fully independent initial states.
>[snip]
>
>I can't make heads or tails out of this TM business. I don't know if
>Ed means to be taken literally or if this is meant to be a metaphor
>or approximation.
>
If you cant't make heads or tails then perhaps it is not for you. As
Church has conjectured, any problem human minds can think of can be
described in terms of a Turing machine and, probably, not in a
unique way either -- so, what is your point: you believe Church has
finally been proven wrong?
>> Then, you see that the problem IS determinate. The fact that one may
>> not have its solution now that does not mean that a solution does not
>> exit of course. Does not mean that one cannot calculate it in closed
>> form either.
>
>I and others complained to Ed on sci.crypt about his use of a quasi
>mathematical notation to represent trust relationships.
I did not know you represent others .... or is this just a flame
bait?
Let me quote here one section of the e-mail YOU sent me just
recently, instead, to clear some issues, since that e-mail was not
confidential and shows what you think on this:
Ed - The problem I had with your earlier message re the lion and the
lamb is that it did not shed much light on the issue of more than
two actors. We were discussing the (A*B)*C notation, and so we
would have to bring a third party into the story.
First point: here, you complain that you need three actors (as I had
given earlier, anyway)
Perhaps C could be the lion's mate. The lion assures the lamb that
he is not hungry, and the lamb trusts him in this matter, so he
agrees to spend the night in the lion's cave. However, the lion's
mate has not eaten for days, so he goes to her and tells her about
the lamb, and she comes and eats him.
Second: here you make me believe that *in your understanding* trust
is hearsay -- which is what you affirm when you say "The lion assures
the lamb that he is not hungry, and the lamb trusts him". Well,
either you are SERIOUSLY mistaken about what trust is or everyone in
the world is wrong ... and we need no certification anymore ... I
just assure you that X is true and you trust that X is true as a
matter-of-fact.. of course, because I said so!
This list and everyone else can just go home. From now on, we follow
Finney's model and we will all trust X because it has been so assured
to us by the very person we have to trust... couldn't be better, no
CAs, no TTPs, no work...
(BTW, this is even funnier then when you tried to contradict Church's
hypothesis. Maybe you were just talking metaphorically in reverse...)
>I have to make
>the same complaint here about this attempt to use the theory of Turing
>machines to draw some conclusions about trust. It does not appear
>to be using standard terminology, there is fuzziness about conditions
>and connections, and the whole discussion doesn't end up communicating
>anything when you look at it in detail.
>
Well, I have no complaints about what you were trying to communicate.
You were equally wrong when you defended that trust is hearsay as now
when you defend that Turing machines cannot be used to calculate
trust expressions.
However, I sure hope that you may in the future look at this with
open eyes and follow the arguments. If the proof of the pudding is on
the eating then you may evaluate it by the conclusions -- if you want
to skip the gory details.
For example, can you answer and provide your point of view on the
three trust propositions I sent to this forum? Perhaps we can start
from there and deal with objective estimates without resorting to
sayings such as "I and others complained to Ed...". I know that lots
of people complain and may even more will because these issues are
starting to be calculated and cannot be shoved under the carpet any
more.
So, could you please provide your analysis on the three propositions?
They have three actors and are complex enough to allow different
worldviews to be tested. You can also propose further trust
questions, and that would be fair enough. Then we can agree on
assumptions and discuss results... without complaints ;-)
Cheers,
Ed
______________________________________________________________________
Dr.rer.nat. E. Gerck egerck@novaware.cps.softex.br
http://novaware.cps.softex.br
--- Meta-Certificate Group member, http://www.mcg.org.br ---
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