Surely if the authors found these useless keys, a bad guy could too, using the same publicly available lists of keys. Or am I missing something? Once the bad guys know which keys are bad, anything "secured" with those keys would be vulnerable. Sounds like "no security at all" is about right. Of course people who don't want to go through the few hours it took the authors to search the public keys would still not be able to access your transmissions, but those aren't the people for which the security is put into place.

Definitely a fair point. I would hope that a defense could be mounted on the grounds of ignorance in the JoeSchmoe case. That is, when someone is being accused of linking to infringing material, the state would have to prove intent to distribute as well -- and it appears that this guy was definitely trying to provide access to restricted material. And there should also be a distinction made between the links, "here is a page with an example of copyright infringement" and "here's a way for you to get the material without paying for it (he he)."

I think we would both agree that copyright laws (and many others as well) need to be updated for the digital age. And done so intelligently. A law that equates linking to and hosting whatever is no good. But also, I don't think we want to create a "linking loophole." After all, assuming you use some sort of shared host, whenever you post a file (infringing or not) aren't you really just providing a link to your hosting company's server?

The linked article, as well as everyone here, seems to think the problem is that he linked to copyrighted material? But isn't the real problem, and the reason anyone at DHS is paying attention, that he linked to linked to copyright infringed material? Compare: a site links to an Amazon page selling a particular DVD, vs a sit links to an illegitimate site selling a pirated version of the same DVD. In both cases the site links to a web store that sells copyrighted DVDs. But I think we can all agree there is a difference!

This is not to say that either instance should be a crime, or that there is a difference in the eyes of the law (I simply don't know). But in the interest of intellectual honesty, we must admit that there is a difference between linking to a youtube video and to a video in clear violation of copyright.

From the Terms and Conditions: "However, if we remove access to Prime instant videos as a Prime benefit and you cancel your Prime membership before you or your invitees have made any eligible purchases, we will give you a prorated refund of your membership fee (even if you have accessed a Prime instant video)."

I can tell you, it's not just distracting to the students. Of course I don't interrupt my lecture because I see a pretty screen saver but it is very frustrating to have to compete for the students' attention. I ask the class a question about what the next step in solving the problem is, or even just whether everyone is following me, and find that half the students were busy with something else. This lowers the quality of the lecture for everyone. Plus, in math at least, there is no advantage to the student to have a laptop out (have you ever tried taking notes in TeX?). I understand that it's the student's money and they should be allowed to squander it if they wish, but that only works with a completely detached lecturer. Many of us actually try to keep the class with us, and provide an engaging learning environment. Even if it is only the students with laptops being distracted, and not their neighbors, their lack of participation hinders the progression of the class.

I suppose then that you question my analogy. Doing math makes students smarter because solving hard problems improves problems solving ability. Thinking critically (which is necessary in advanced math) improves critical thinking skills. Just like lifting weights improves physical strengths. Admittedly, without practice these abilities, skills and strengths will atrophy, but that is all the more reason to continue one's math education.

You seem to think that the only reason to study advanced math is if you will use it directly. My point is that even if it is not directly applied, studying math will develop important thinking skills which can be applied to no-math problems. So even if "a majority of people quickly forget the information that they do not use" they will hopefully benefit from the learning process itself.

There is a good reason to require classes beyond what is needed for a desired profession: it makes the students smarter. Or at the very least, gives the students an opportunity to become smarter, since as you say, many end up just memorizing the information to pass exams and then forget it. By analogy, consider baseball players and weightlifting. Apparently, professional baseball players spend a good amount of time weightlifting. But surely this is a waste of time, right? Have you ever seen a set of barbells at second base that the runner must use? Wouldn't their time be better spend at batting practice, something they will actually need in their profession?

Of course this argument would be absurd. Baseball players lift weights because it makes them stronger athletes. Similarly, students take math because it makes them better thinkers, which in turn will make them better at whatever they decide to do professionally. The trick is to get the students to realize this. Otherwise they will be basically spending all their weightlifting time using the lightest possible weights.

The blank is better than an X because it prevents the student from following a recipe. The authors do not care whether students can solve the equation or not, they care whether the students know what the = sign means. As for your more general comment, it is true that to solve an equation, the algorithm we usually use should always work. But that is no help when you want to move on to the next related topic and you need to understand what exactly everything you were doing means. You say:

I have a hard time believing that you actually think that. Surely a computer can follow a recipe to solve an equation, but we would not claim that the computer has an "understanding" of what is going on. On a more practical note, there is a very good reason to not learn math by simply memorizing a number of recipes. If you forget one step, you are completely screwed. And without understanding, it will be impossible to fix the problem (if you can even realize a problem exists).

I think they are using the ( ) notation for the article, but in the study used __ or some other sort of "blank" notation. The point is that we don't want students to just solve for x using the procedure they were taught in school. Many students can do that. But they are just following a recipe. To test whether they understand what they are doing, you need to ask those questions in a different way.

Even more so, one of the main points of this study is that students solve problems by following procedures, instead of understanding the problems. If a student has already seen "solve for x" problems, they might know the procedure for solving it. This would not illustrate whether or not they understand the = sign, but rather whether they know how to solve that type of problem. Asking the student to solve a problem using foreign notation is a fine way to check whether they understand what is going on rather than have simply memorized the process.

However, if this was what happened, the vote data would still obey Benford's Law, which it (apparently) does not. Sure, there are some reasonable assertions as to why this guy won when he shouldn't have, but the analysis of the data is what suggests that the votes were tampered with. If people voted for him (for whatever reason) the data would look a certain way, which it doesn't. This suggests that the data was intentionally tampered with - because when data is fudged on purpose, the fudger tries to make the numbers look random, which is a mistake. Benford's Law says that certain (low) digits should appear more frequently than others.

That he won is suspicious and warrants further investigation. The further investigation (statistical analysis) is what shows us it is fraud

This might explain why he won when no one expected him to. But Benford's Law would still work in this case. That is the evidence of the fraud/mistake. If people really did just mark off the first name with a higher probability, then the data would look a certain way, which (assuming the analysis was done correctly) it does not.

The characters in the flash sideways. Yeah, some of them were still alive, but then the flash sideways was supposed to take place outside of time.

As for Smokey-as-Locke, I recall him answering someone's question along the lines of "I can be anyone who is dead, but I rather like this body."

Not to beat the ghost of a horse, but that seems to be in a slightly different story arc than the people in purgatory in the flash sideways: they for one did not appear on the island. Are you sure that Michael's appearance wasn't the smoke monster (as all the other dead people on the island were) or just part of Hugo's insanity?

That said, I agree that it is definitely time to move on.

Except that they made it very clear (both from the beginning and in the final episode) that the island was not purgatory. The flash sideways was purgatory (only revealed in the last episode).

I don't care whether the explanation is the most plausible or logical. All I'm saying is that the final episode asked people (especially people who do not believe in an afterlife) to take another huge leap in suspension of disbelief beyond what we had already accepted. Honestly, I would have been fine with that if they didn't make it so obvious, is if we should have all gone "oh, of course, why didn't we think of that." To posit an afterlife is a weighty claim, and it sits poorly with me when it is used as an explanation of less weighty mysteries.