Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 As with any MS project, one must start with the use cases. If you don't start with your use cases, then you'll end up wandering around, mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing. As they say if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. Hussein's story implies a use case, except it's got too many mechanistic details. You want the use case to be phenomenal, not mechanistic. So, the second (implied) story works better: How can we undo it? What would you _do_ with this model? Can you perform any experiments (in vitro upon a room full of participants - or in vivo on an actual government) against which to validate? If so, what would those experiments look like and what data would they generate? Those are the questions you have to ask first, before you get all mechanical on each other. ;-) Worst case, if you don't ask these questions _first_, you'll inscribe your conclusions into the model. You'll create a model that's nothing more than a justificationist tautology. You'll probably _still_ commit inscription error even if you do start with the use cases, depending on the complicatedness of the experiments or type of validation; but your inscription be easier to spot and correct as you go along. Hussein Abbass wrote circa 11-05-08 06:36 PM: Let me put this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof. Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group. Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the members of the Faculty of Idiots’ right for dissemination of information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings, people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report. There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy, everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all is indeed Clever! [...] The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered as above? - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFNyCMGpVJZMHoGoM8RAm/ZAJ4icZ3Ylbs2yoQokOs3wOSMWl3RQgCcDsp5 NdUELcufvpKuZKncjbWb4XY= =lr0D -END PGP SIGNATURE- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
Looking all the way back to Mohammed's original question which was nicely concise: /Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as/ /stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there/ /emerges decision masking structures emerge that actively obfuscate/ /the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their/ /ends?/ I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with /Use Case Scenarios/ that would help move us toward even the simplest of toy models. So far, our brainstorming has yield some very interesting ideas/observations: We've already begun discussing possible parts of a model: 1) Hussein has proposed at least part of a model, which I believe is an attempt to model specific agents who are actively seeking to cause Isolation and Localization for their own purposes. 2) Ivan has proposed ( I think?) that we consider modeling simple motivations (emotions) of (at least) two classes of Agents (Prof. Clevers and Gullibles)? He also has proposed (I think?) building on top of models of unconscious narration generation and fitting (like overfitting a model to data?). 3) Eric has outlined an intuitive set of features for an Agent Model: You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules. 4) Mohammed contributed (along with the original question) the idea that an intermediate mechanism of Information Hiding might be at play. 5) Jan Hauser (lost to the list but included in one of my missives) contributed the possibility that Ken Arrow's Impossibility Theorem may have a play here. From Wikipedia: /In social choice theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_choice_theory, *Arrow’s impossibility theorem*, the *General Possibility Theorem*, or *Arrow’s paradox*, states that, when voters have three or more distinct alternatives (options), no voting system can convert the *ranked preferences* of individuals into a community-wide (complete and transitive) ranking while also meeting a certain set of criteria. These criteria are called //unrestricted domain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrestricted_domain, //non-dictatorship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-dictatorship, //Pareto efficiency http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_efficiency, and //independence of irrelevant alternatives http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_of_irrelevant_alternatives./ I'm not sure it is responsive to Mohammed's original question as stated, but may be very important in a more general question implied. I may have missed some other contributions in this discussion so far, but I hope this summary helps if some of us are interested in actually pulling a simple model or partial answer together. I'm all for idle speculation, I spend most of my waking hours (and some of my sleeping ones) in that state, but I heard here what felt like some momentum. Glen seems the most formal of us in his approach to model building, perhaps he can continue to lead us out of the morass we often find ourselves in (I can only think of the mythical character of Sambo (apologies for the use of a possibly inappropriate racial slur from the late 19th century) arranging for Tigers chasing eachother around a tree until they turn to butter). Carry on! - Steve Glen - I think your point is well articulated. And I think if we are trying to build (or even discover) such a model, your arguments for starting with use cases are valid. But I think Hussein's Story contains his belief about the mechanisms of how a particular institutional dynamic works. I believe Hussein already *has* a model of this phenomenon and he just (tried to?) explain it to us through the basic requirements: (Isolation and Localization) and an anecdotal explanation of mechanisms that could give rise to them. Unfortunately, I don't hear us proposing to build a model we can use (much less verify) and therefore I don't see us building use cases anytime soon. Who would use this model? I suggest (without negative judgment) that this is why a lot of our (FRIAM) discussions fit this description to a tee: /then you'll end up wandering around, mixing things up and forgetting what you're doing. As they say if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there./ Among those of us who have been roughly discussing this, I'd like to raise your challenge and ask the question... what do we want to do with such a model if we can build it (or discover it)? 1. Provide it to powerful decision makers so they can make better decisions (or make
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
Vlad (what internal narrative of mine has me repeatedly saluting you as Ivan?) - I understand your point about Narrative better now with this post. As I understand your point, the obfuscation in a group is like the narrative in an individual. Some collective set of actions occurs over time which we may or may not have complete knowledge of but which are presumably in the interest of one or two general sets of goals (political agendas, war on terror, etc.) which are themselves characterized as narratives. These actions as observed (usually through reporting by others) taken as a whole yield some consonance and some dissonance. The narrative-keepers (political parties, etc.) then craft a new narrative which matches the impedance of those observables with their own preferred (evolving) narratives. This may include denying or treating as disinformation some of the observables (see Creationism v. Evolution). Mohammed's original question assumes that decision masking structures emerge. I think (as I mentioned once before) that this modeling problem is a meta-modeling problem. We are, in fact, modeling how people model things intuitively and how those models play together in the context of a (more) formal model (system of rules or laws). The rabbit hole gets deeper. Once again, I appeal to those with more formal theories of modeling to keep us from falling down it too fast. - Steve The outline Steve has provided is very helpful. Much of Eric’s ideas governing a group of agents is what I imagine happens within a single agent. The Narrative then is constructed to eliminate the memory of discord. The winning subagent ( perhaps Hussein’s Dr.Clever) rewrites the experience to mollify other internals (maintaining his rank). I think this can be extended to explain Mohammed’s view of obfuscation. If my view is correct what we see as atrocious behaviour between people seems also to occur within individuals. These crimes are simply exported to the real world. Threat and fear seem important for internal decisions and so it is natural to assume they would continue to be employed externally. Gullibility is like an open window letting in Narratives that can distort all the internal workings of the individual. So intelligent individuals always need to be unguard against gullibility. Which seems always to appeal to particular emotions. Pamela’s dismay with Chomsky suggests, that she assumes that his criticism of US policy should be reflected by a particular world view. I think Chomsky may be an honest observer but in his dispassionate honesty he is less than a good drinking partner. Honesty and collegiality are not necessarily linked. Vlad, *From:*friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith *Sent:* May-09-11 2:17 PM *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group *Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits) Looking all the way back to Mohammed's original question which was nicely concise: /Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as/ /stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there/ /emerges decision masking structures emerge that actively obfuscate/ /the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their/ /ends?/ I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with /Use Case Scenarios/ that would help move us toward even the simplest of toy models. So far, our brainstorming has yield some very interesting ideas/observations: We've already begun discussing possible parts of a model: 1) Hussein has proposed at least part of a model, which I believe is an attempt to model specific agents who are actively seeking to cause Isolation and Localization for their own purposes. 2) Ivan has proposed ( I think?) that we consider modeling simple motivations (emotions) of (at least) two classes of Agents (Prof. Clevers and Gullibles)? He also has proposed (I think?) building on top of models of unconscious narration generation and fitting (like overfitting a model to data?). 3) Eric has outlined an intuitive set of features for an Agent Model: You need 1) agents with different agendas, 2) the ability to assess and usurp rules created by other agents, 3) the ability to force other agents to adopt your rules. Note, also, that in this particular case, the corruption is accomplished by stacking contradictory rules on top of each other. Thus you need 4) an ability to implement contradictory rules, or at least choose between so-called rules. 4) Mohammed contributed (along with the original question) the idea that an intermediate mechanism of Information Hiding might be at play. 5) Jan Hauser (lost to the list but included in one of my missives) contributed the possibility that Ken Arrow's Impossibility Theorem may have a play here. From Wikipedia: /In social choice theory http
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Steve Smith wrote circa 11-05-09 12:16 PM: I challenge us (at Glen's urging) to come up with /Use Case Scenarios/ I _hate_ that word: scenarios. It's jargonal and off-putting to me, which perhaps relates to the accusation that I have more formal methods at hand. ;-) I think it's best to focus on what/how we could measure what we care about. To model is very closely related to to measure ... and in my formality, if you can't measure something, you can't model it. So, the real question goes back to those of us who were stimulated by Mohammed's question. We'll have to formulate some measures for openness, participation, and obfuscation. Now, before Vlad hits me again with his argument that circumscription begets conclusion, I can mitigate it by saying that the measures should be parallax. There have to be _enough_ variation in the measures so that the interested parties can champion at least one of them as their own. For example, when I brought up the initiative process, that is a form of participation. If we included that mechanism in our democracy, I'd be forced to say that it is participatory, even if Obama had inherited the throne, all the legislators were cronies, and the court were kangaroo. But the initiative process isn't the only participatory mechanism. And a measure that ... measures that type of participation would be fundamentally different from a measure of representativeness of, say, the electoral system, the parliamentary system, etc. Similarly, we should come up with a suite of measures for openness. Obama's execution of bin Laden, interviews on 60 minutes, and keeping the pictures secret is a good example. We should pick measures that evaluate Obama's disclosure as closed and some as open. In the end, what we have is a opportunity for abduction. We have at least 3 predicates (open/closed, [non]participatory, and transparent/opaque). Ideally, we have several predicates in each category. The number of solutions that satisfy those predicates should be infinite and explorable. We should then be able to come up with several mechanisms, including the families implied by the stories outlined by Eric, Mohammed, Hussein, and Vlad. In the end, a model capable of instantiating even _some_ of those satisficing mechanisms should help us be more open-minded about how obfuscation arises in democracy. - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFNyFjZpVJZMHoGoM8RAgKsAJsH4BF8gFLpmS5ea0pci4LeBIrNGACdGqXC A19hw9ZuONMFJK8dJiPkrrk= =vr1R -END PGP SIGNATURE- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 glen e. p. ropella wrote circa 11-05-09 02:12 PM: Similarly, we should come up with a suite of measures for openness. Obama's execution of bin Laden, interviews on 60 minutes, and keeping the pictures secret is a good example. We should pick measures that evaluate Obama's disclosure as closed and some as open. I just had the thought that FOIA responses might be one measure of openness: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a788007182 http://www.flickr.com/photos/xepera/5705434466/in/photostream I'm sure others could be derived from places like the OECD: http://www.oecd.org/ Of course, if we wanted to capture the co-evolution of obfuscation for individual _privacy_ in response to intrusive devices like credit card databases or traffic cameras, we'd have to examine something like the rates of spoofed registration/login data or light scattering license plate covers in relation to the rates of usage for the intrusive tech. I'm sure the EFF and white hacker sites could help there: http://www.eff.org/ - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iD8DBQFNyIIWpVJZMHoGoM8RAnAQAJ4kvCaonjSqVhZzCeYl3golIzvu4QCfUGuS 7G/T4g/rojm0aqxDGAMoz4E= =Qt9H -END PGP SIGNATURE- FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
Eric, Thats an interesting way of looking at it. As complex game of information hiding. I was thinking along the line of of having a schema for rule creation. The schema here is like a constitution, and players can generate new rules based on that schema to promote their self interest. For rules to become laws they have to be the choice on the majority (or subject to some other social choice mechanism), this system allows for group formation and coalition building to get the new rules passed into laws. The interesting bit is how the drive for self interest amongst some of those groups and their coalitions can give rise to rules renders the original schema and/or the social choice mechanism ineffective. By ineffective, I mean that they yield results and behavior that run counter to the purpose for which they were originally designed. What do you think? Cheers, Mohammed On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES e...@psu.edu wrote: I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate Mohammed, Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two critter encounters (I'm thinking evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything, though, looking at distributed information hiding. The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could get into (or already are into, or have already moved past). Eric On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, *Mohammed El-Beltagy moham...@computer.org * wrote: I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard: Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there emerges decision masking structures emerge that actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their ends? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- http://perfectionatic.blogspot.com/ http://twitter.com/#!/perfectionatic FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
Eric, Mohammed, et al.: Alex Poddiakov, in Moscow, has done work that seems to me like it *might* be related to this question; for instance, on what he calls Trojan horse learning. I refer you to his website, where various manuscripts (some in Russian, some in Russglish) are available and others are at least pointed to. http://epee.hse.ru/Poddiakov Lee Rudolph I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate Mohammed, Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two critter encounters (I'm thinking evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything, though, looking at distributed information hiding. The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could get into (or already are into, or have already moved past). Eric On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy moham...@computer.org wrote: I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard: Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there emerges decision masking structures emerge that actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their ends? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
To Mohammed, I have similar thoughts but rather than a system of Rules I thought of a system of interacting self preoccupied emotions. The agent has a roulette wheel of options with weights assigned randomly to make some choices more common than others, no fixed rules a priori. Let us assume the wheel starts out fair. But emotions add weights without public revelation. For instance if a choice requires effort it is less likely to be implemented. If a choice requires the sacrifice of resources then again less likely. If a choice requires some one else's effort such as an army it is more likely to be implemented. The agent explores emotions and options before making a decision. It seems that the wheel has numbers for public interest but something extraordinary must happen to unweight such options before an agent sacrifices something. Selfishness does appear to follow some rules but it is unclear how they are arranged. For instance in a panic situation women with babies are assumed to have a priority but unaccompanied children and women get trampled to death. So the act of sacrifice for children seems suspect. The assumption that women with children have priority suggests that society has such a preference but the way it is selectively implemented is curious. The scoundrel must be aware that others will make sacrifices that he or she is unwilling to make. Models have been built for simulating panic scenarios perhaps there lies a starting point. I see a programming difficulty where the outcome of some event must iterated through each agent to get a single outcome. Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2 Canada (204) 2548321 Land (204) 8016064 Cell From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Mohammed El-Beltagy Sent: May-08-11 5:56 AM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits) Eric, Thats an interesting way of looking at it. As complex game of information hiding. I was thinking along the line of of having a schema for rule creation. The schema here is like a constitution, and players can generate new rules based on that schema to promote their self interest. For rules to become laws they have to be the choice on the majority (or subject to some other social choice mechanism), this system allows for group formation and coalition building to get the new rules passed into laws. The interesting bit is how the drive for self interest amongst some of those groups and their coalitions can give rise to rules renders the original schema and/or the social choice mechanism ineffective. By ineffective, I mean that they yield results and behavior that run counter to the purpose for which they were originally designed. What do you think? Cheers, Mohammed On Sun, May 8, 2011 at 2:44 AM, ERIC P. CHARLES e...@psu.edu wrote: I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate Mohammed, Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two critter encounters (I'm thinking evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything, though, looking at distributed information hiding. The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could get into (or already are into, or have already moved past). Eric On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy moham...@computer.org wrote: I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard: Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there emerges decision masking structures emerge that actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their ends? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- http://perfectionatic.blogspot.com/ http://twitter.com/#!/perfectionatic FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
Eric and Mohammed, I don’t think anyone can be Off base at this point in sketching out a scenario. But you might be trying to tackle Goliath in the first round! Firstly I assume human beings are not very bright, They seem to use extremely simple rules of self satisfaction, though the emotions might be more complicated. It is not widely accepted but dogs can figure things out as quickly as humans on occasion and there is no wearisome Narrative. I look at it from the point of view that agents are simple but Stupid . This gave me a headache until I realized that many human beings actually do not know why they did something in particular, then and only then do they invent the Narrative. They are not actually attempting to deceive anyone but simply wish to convince me that they did something for a Good reason. They avoid acknowledging the fact that they did not think.They then drop into the socially acceptable lexicon to explain everything. Often I have remarked that the act of speaking out loud convinces others as well as most importantly the speaker himself.. So the speaker is lying to himself first and then accepts this as his story and probably could pass a lie detector test afterwards. The fact that narratives are spun is a red herring. They did not know how they made the decision. That frightened the hell out of me in complex engineering projects. I had no way to anticipate human error of this sort. People actually can construct insane scenarios to motivate themselves and then totally forget them. This form of misperception is internal to the brain. I have watched audiences fall for magicians tricks so completely that I have been stunned into disbelief. Yet it is so repeatable. I have seen some references to hidden Blind spots in reason explored by neurologists. Generally I think Biology was too cheap and lazy to give us a completely functional brain. I will be the first to admit to having difficulty with my brain at times. To cope we have a pervasive belief that we are intelligent in spite of many serious flaws. As a scientist I consider determining the extent of thinking important. I am forced by language to say what I Think for lack of an alternative. I repeat the phrase for more than half a century but still do not understand what it actually means, nor do the philosophers directly address the act. Seems they were more preoccupied by passion in contradiction. We say Man is a learning animal which implies it progresses somewhat. But I suspect culturally we have found many insidious means to prevent learning. Why ? Is it unconscious. Somewhat like the vexed mother fed up answering questions about the color of the sky and butterflies and moths. Ignorant people are easier to control, suggests history but why? Let’s build something Stupid (Whimsical and arrogant)rather than Intelligent. If we have no idea what one is how can we answer what the opposite actually entails. An agent should have more than one choice of action and some of those should be utterly insane. Your institutional Review boards you describe sound as nasty as a Byzantine Palace Intrigue. So let’s start much simpler. For the present the agent should not know what is in his best interest , that is only to be determined by which emotion dominates at any moment. He can make up stories afterwards. I often consider the role of Historians that of making reasonable explanations out of stupid events. The conspiracy theorist will hate this if it bears out. As for the gains first we waste time looking for reasons where there are none. Next we can find some way of warning individuals not to encourage group think. With near to 7 Billion on this planet maybe it is time to alert ourselves to the flaws in our own brains.; Fear, Gullibility, Conformity, short sighted self interest emotional reasoning. In the early stages I would limit the agents to simply responding and not have them try to become operators of other agents, but that seems to be the goal. Jochen forwarded an interesting article to the group on the ecology of the mind, I have yet to study the material but it looks intriguing . It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets. Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD mailto:vbur...@shaw.ca vbur...@shaw.ca 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2 Canada (204) 2548321 Land (204) 8016064 Cell From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of ERIC P. CHARLES Sent: May-08-11 4:00 PM To: Mohammed El-Beltagy Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits) I think I know what you are talking about, but I'm not sure what the best way to model it would be, or what we would gain from the modeling exercise. Are you talking about something like this? Institutional review
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 06:17:04PM -0500, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote: It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets. Having grown up on a sheep farm, I can say this definitely applies to sheep. An individual sheep is quite difficult to control, and I have a lot of respect for its intelligence. Sheep in mobs, on the other hand, are gobsmackingly stupid, and it only requires a man and his dog to control a mob of a hundred animals... -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
Vladimyr, I agree with you that my situation was too complex, that was part of my point (i.e., that if that is what Mohammed is thinking about, it is awfully complex). But he wants to model systems with rules, in which rules made for purpose A can be corrupted so they do not serve A, and rather serve some other agent's goal B. I'm not sure what the simplest simulation would be that allow such phenomenon. Still seems like it would need to be oddly complicated. Such ideas connect strongly with the notion of exaptation in evolutionary biology, and with simulation work on the evolution of deceptive signaling. Alas, I'm not sure they connect strongly to your notion of modeling emotion, or my notion of modeling distributed information hiding. Eric P.S. While I agree with you about the nature of most people, I try to never to underestimate people's amazing ability to make very simple situaitons into very complicated situations, especially when in groups. Take the US tax code for example. On Sun, May 8, 2011 08:35 PM, Vladimyr Burachynsky vbur...@shaw.ca wrote: Perhaps Gullibility is an advantage in small societies but it strikes me as very hard to explain in one as large as ours. Gulibility and conformity have been stumbling blocks with regards to evolution at least for me. I can understand that Human Beings directed sheep evolution for our benefit but our own seems so alike Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky PhD vbur...@shaw.ca Sky Drive Site http://cid-14a5cdb09aee4237.photos.live.com/self.aspx/CSA/Braiding%20Simulat ions/ExperStruct.wmv 120-1053 Beaverhill Blvd. Winnipeg,Manitoba, R2J3R2 Canada (204) 2548321 Land (204) 8016064 Cell -Original Message- From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Russell Standish Sent: May-08-11 7:26 PM To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits) On Sun, May 08, 2011 at 06:17:04PM -0500, Vladimyr Burachynsky wrote: It is an old joke , but the more people in the room the dumber it gets. Having grown up on a sheep farm, I can say this definitely applies to sheep. An individual sheep is quite difficult to control, and I have a lot of respect for its intelligence. Sheep in mobs, on the other hand, are gobsmackingly stupid, and it only requires a man and his dog to control a mob of a hundred animals... -- Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Principal, High Performance Coders Visiting Professor of Mathematics hpco...@hpcoders.com.au University of New South Wales http://www.hpcoders.com.au FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Eric Charles Professional Student and Assistant Professor of Psychology Penn State University Altoona, PA 16601 FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
this in a simple story. Prof. Clever is the dean of Faculty of Idiots. Prof Clever would like to be a dictator in a democratic society. He appoints 3 other Professors to form a strategy committee. He believes in separating strategy from execution, thanks to all the wonderful literature in management on that topic. Prof. Clever cancelled most Faculty public meetings and created many committees. These committees seek people opinion to have a truly democratic environment. He told the people we are a civilized society. We should not confront each other in public. Issues can be solved smoothly in a better environment and within a small group. Public meetings are now to simply give presentations that no controversial issue is discussed; their information content is 0 to anyone attending them. But they demonstrate democracy and support the members of the Faculty of Idiots’ right for dissemination of information. Prof. Clever promotes good values. Important values that Prof. Clever is promoting are trust and confidentiality. In meetings, people need to trust each other to facilitate exchange of information. But this requires confidentiality; otherwise problems will emerge. Obviously, meetings are called by management, members of the meetings are engineered by management, the whole social network is well-engineered such that different type of information do not get crossed from one sub-graph to another. The faculty of Idiots is the happiest faculty on earth. No public confrontation means no fights, a well-engineered civilized society. Small group meetings are dominated with Prof. Clever or simply take place to tick a box in a report. There is only one person in the Faculty of Idiots who knows everything, Prof. Clever. No one else knows more than anyone else to the extent that everyone simply knows nothing. But everyone is happy, everyone feels important because he/she is trusted and everyone feels they are well-informed of the task they are performing! Prof. Clever eliminated competition, no leader can emerge in this social system that he does not approve. Prof. Clever is the nice guy that everyone loves and respect. He listens, he is socially friendly, and after all is indeed Clever! So! we can get obfuscation to emerge. There are so many old political tools to do so; take political propaganda as a powerful one among many others! There are many different variations to do it, not just the above model. The harder question for me is, how can we undo it if it is engineered as above? Why is it hard to break it? Because the two principles representing the sufficient conditions for its emergence rely on social values! Any attempt to break it, will be met with resistance in a part of the population and will be called unethical, if not illegal! It is a robust self-regulating strategy. Another hard question is how can we get the social network to recognize obfuscation in the previous setup? If they can’t recognise it, they can’t do anything about it! Finally, notice what I defined above as obfuscation and framed it as a bad thing is indeed a form of democracy!! Cheers Hussein From: friam-boun...@redfish.com [mailto:friam-boun...@redfish.com] On Behalf Of Vladimyr Burachynsky Sent: Monday, 9 May 2011 9:17 AM To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits) Eric and Mohammed, I don’t think anyone can be Off base at this point in sketching out a scenario. But you might be trying to tackle Goliath in the first round! Firstly I assume human beings are not very bright, They seem to use extremely simple rules of self satisfaction, though the emotions might be more complicated. It is not widely accepted but dogs can figure things out as quickly as humans on occasion and there is no wearisome Narrative. I look at it from the point of view that agents are simple but Stupid . This gave me a headache until I realized that many human beings actually do not know why they did something in particular, then and only then do they invent the Narrative. They are not actually attempting to deceive anyone but simply wish to convince me that they did something for a Good reason. They avoid acknowledging the fact that they did not think.They then drop into the socially acceptable lexicon to explain everything. Often I have remarked that the act of speaking out loud convinces others as well as most importantly the speaker himself.. So the speaker is lying to himself first and then accepts this as his story and probably could pass a lie detector test afterwards. The fact that narratives are spun is a red herring. They did not know how
[FRIAM] Modeling obfuscation (was - Terrorosity and it's Fruits)
I can't see that this posted, sorry if it is a duplicate Mohammed, Being totally unqualified to help you with this problem... it seems interesting to me because most models I know of this sort (social systems models) are about information acquisition and deployment. That is, the modeled critters try to find out stuff, and then they do actions dependent upon what they find. If we are modeling active obfuscation, then we would be doing the opposite - we would be modeling an information-hiding game. Of course, there is lots of game theory work on information hiding in two critter encounters (I'm thinking evolutionary-game-theory-looking-at-deception). I haven't seen anything, though, looking at distributed information hiding. The idea that you could create a system full of autonomous agents in which information ends up hidden, but no particular individuals have done the hiding, is kind of cool. Seems like the type of thing encryption guys could get into (or already are into, or have already moved past). Eric On Fri, May 6, 2011 10:05 PM, Mohammed El-Beltagy moham...@computer.org wrote: I have a question I would like to pose to the group in that regard: Can we model/simulate how in a democracy that is inherently open (as stated in the constitution: for the people, by the people etc..) there emerges decision masking structures emerge that actively obfuscate the participatory nature of the democratic decision making for their ends? FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
