From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 1996 05:00:22 +0800
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: p vs. np etc.
In-Reply-To: <ad0c14fb020210041a1c@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <199601012034.MAA28180@netcom2.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



TCM:
>There is no point in the back-and-forth of insults, "Dr. Fred is a loon,"
>"Alice is Detweiler," and other such nonsense. If you don't want to read
>the comments of Fred Cohen, Dimitri Vulis, Alice whatever,
>Vlad/Lance/Larry/Pablo, then just don't read them! Filter them out, delete
>them immediately, read them briefly, whatever.

this of course would be obvious to anyone without an ego. however because
this list is really "war of the egos", it escapes everyone here (and has
for the entire existence of the list). far more fun to yell at someone 
publicly, esp. through a pseudonym.

interesting too how some people who use pseudonyms still cannot avoid
defending themselves when attacked. it appears that pseudonyms do not
dissociate ego-based psychology from communication. in fact to the contrary
they appear to make it more prevalent.

this would be an interesting area to study. ripe with lots of seething,
semi-conscious feelings and attitudes deep within the psyche. Freud would
have a field day with flamewars, trolls, and pseudonyms.

> I'm not convinced there's much more about the
>_theory_ of viruses to "push forward," for various reasons. The theory was
>laid out, some Bulgarians and others are busily writing viruses, but
>there's not likely to be some whole reservoir of new theory to be worked
>on.

I object. this sounds like the 1890 patent worker who suggested the patent
office be shut down because, after all, all the important inventions had
already been invented. you are careful to attribute your opinion only
to yourself, but you must recognize how dangerous speculation about the
future is, if you wish to preserve your credibility in the long run. 
especially sentences that sound like, "there is not much more to be
uncovered in so-and-so area" tend to sound especially foolish from future
perspectives.

the Virus area is in fact ripe with study. Java is actually a language 
designed to prevent viruses. many have proposed operating systems for
computers that may work like the way computer viruses spread. I predict
that virus study is really going to blossom even more once Java or other
similar languages become more entrenched and "distributed computing"
really comes to the fore.

>(This is true of a lot of fields, where the work done decades ago
>basically was complete....look at how we all cite Garey and Johnson and how
>little has changed in the field of NP-completeness.)

whoa, you are way off here. NP vs. P is a field *ripe* with new studies.
what these pioneers did was map out the terrain. but there are still many
*unresolved* areas of research here. P vs. NP is *entirely* unresolved.
that doesn't mean that someone has come up with an answer and everyone
says, "the field is basically complete". what it means is that a bazillion
researchers are dying to know the answers to tough questions posed by
the pioneers decades ago. it is true there is little progress in some
key areas, but only because the problems are so insanely difficult.

 the work is only "complete" in the sense that
it has posed questions that have not required any modification-- they
are still the hardest in all of mathematics and computer science, and
still not solved.

are you aware of how critical the P vs. NP question is to cryptography?
theoretically public key cryptography and many other forms in common use
today would be "impossible" if P= NP. I've met some very good cryptographers
who don't understand this basic point of computer theory. they think one
can always just create more ingenious algorithms.

>Blasting Cohen because you don't think he carried his work far enough is
>clearly blasting wildly. Have you asked whether others on this list have
>carried the work they did in their early careers far enough? (Did I carry
>my work in the 1970s on alpha particle effects on chips far enough, or am I
>just a Cohen-like slacker because I moved on to other things?)

uhm, I have to side with PM on this one -- I vote for 40-something slacker. <g>

>So why don't I just do this? Well, I do have a filter file in my Eudora Pro
>mailer, and I use it. But I still see the crossfire on the list, the
>pointless flames and personal attacks. This angers and saddens me. Hence
>this message.

the noise is a periodic reoccurence because of the basic list architecture.
personally I enjoy it immensely. it's all the grandeur and muck of
seething human psychology in digital form.  no amount of continual 
concerned messages will ever change the basic fact that the list architecture
by design is highly conducive to noise. to complain about this is like
complaining that cars emit exhaust. well, yes, but that's the basic design.
you can't get rid of the exhaust until you experiment with a new design.

I'm actually not necessarily in favor of a new design here either, even
though I have suggested variations/alternatives frequently. as I say, I
enjoy it here a lot.

> The recent increase in "one-sentance
>repartee" is indicative of late-stage list meltdown. (Some of the posts
>here quote a couple of paragraphs, add one or two lines of insults, then
> have another screenful of PGP sigs, auto-signing sigs, anonymous IDs, and
>then a conventional sig. Jeesh!)

hee, hee. "meltdown". love that term. but again you mix big egos and
a totally open list (throw in a little cryptoanarchy for more explosive
force), and this is the inevitable result. there's nothing
perplexing or mystifying why this happens. its the basic conclusion 
reaffirmed zillions of times by many years of this list activity.

to complain about this reminds me of person who murdered his parents
and then pleads to the court that he was an orphan who deserves relief.
that is, this situation here is the creation of everyone who participates,
and those who suffer are precisely those that created it. cyberspatial
karma if you will.

>I'm hoping that this is just a Xmas vacation silly season.

well you can always post a exasperated message in which you declare you've
had it with the list, period, and are not going to hang out here any more.
there is a precedent for that kind of thing.