At 05:31 PM 4/26/2011, Jed Rothwell wrote:
McKubre is brilliant and he has 22 years of experience working with
flow calorimetry, but he could not devise a method of faking a
result with a flow calorimeter that I would not spot in the first
five minutes. I mean that.
I know you mean it, but I also am quite sure that he could, if he
wanted to. He doesn't, I'm sure. That's what protects you against
being fooled by him, not your brilliant, incisive, and completely
understanding of all possible frauds.
You've seen the digital oscilloscope displays showing all relevant
parameters, right? That is a computer display, and it could show
anything that a fraud wanted it to show. So could any kind of meter.
If the fraud has reasonably close control of the environment and what
is brought into a test, it could be done.
The whole point of a calorimeter is to lay bare all energy inputs
and output.
That's a real calorimeter, Jed. What if it isn't a real calorimeter,
but something carefully constructed to resemble one?
It is to simplify the equation and narrow down the possibilities so
that there can be no significant undetected source of heat. This is
done to make the results accurate, but it also has the effect of
making the machine very easy to check for legerdemain.
You say so. Proof? More to the point -- since flow calorimetry is
indeed pretty simple -- that most imagined "legerdemain" could be
easily seen, close up, this does not prove that all forms would be so.
A person could design a complex machine with many inputs and
outputs, and wires and hoses running every which direction. This
machine probably could fool me. It would take me a while to trace
down inputs and outputs. I doubt such a thing could fool McKubre or
E&K, but it could fool me. However, a flow calorimeter DOES NOT HAVE
wires and hoses running everywhere. It has ONE input and ONE output
and exactly 4 parameters. If there is another input, it stands out
like a sore thumb.
Tube concealed within a tube. You would not see it. Wires within
wires, carrying high voltage, that look like wires that could not
carry high power, because you assume the voltage is line voltage.
Etc. It may well be that any given fraud mechanism can be ruled out,
but, Jed, there is no limit to the number of possible mechanisms.
A calorimeter is as simple as an energy system can be.
You are assuming it's a calorimeter! Further, any temperature
measurement can be fooled. You tried to make these arguments, when
others advanced them, into an argument that thermometers did not
work! No, they work, but, first of all, is it really a thermometer,
and, second, what is it measuring. It might appear to be measuring
the outlet water temperature, but be, in fact, measuring a confined
stream, arranged to preferentially heat the thermometer.
Again, likely? No. My position rapidly become on this that this was
either real or it was a *very* sophisticated fraud. Not an error. All
the arguments you have given do, heavily, militate against "error."
That is the whole point of it. If they could make it even simpler,
and eliminate other possible sources of error (or fraud -- it
amounts to the same thing) they would make it simpler.
But nothing would be simpler than a fat payoff.
No one is so smart he knows a way to defeat industry standard
machines and techniques used worldwide for a century.
You assume these machines run themselves, that they produce the
results. Jed, that's naive.
You are probably right, in this case, i.e., this is very unlikely to
be fraud. But that's like someone who believes he can't lose, and the
proof is that he didn't lose in this or that case. You know, there is
this scheme for making money with roulette. You double your bet each
time, if you lose. People who believe this trick actually do make
money. Most of the time. A little money. Then they lose their shirts.
Maybe. It's unlikely enough that they might go on for a long time,
making a small amount of money. Then the amount they need to bet
turns out to be more than they can raise. Or if they raise it, they
lose it. The odds don't change.
Fraudulent accounting techniques allowed it to be listed as the
seventh largest company in the United States . . .
Accounting techniques and like cannot be compared to a machine such
as a calorimeter.
Jed, you are completely missing the point. Machines don't set up
measurements and report them, people do. Fool or corrupt the people,
you can report anything. People believed that a fraud on the scale of
Enron was impossible, surely it would be noticed, how could the
numbers in accounting reports be wrong, surely someone would blow the whistle?
Machines must obey the laws of physics.
that's what they said about cold fusion.
An accounting system can have any value stuffed into memory by the
programmer at any stage in the process. For this reason, a
computerized voting system is permanently suspect. There is no such
thing, even in principle, as a computerized voting system that
cannot be corrupted.
Well, this would be my point, it could be made very difficult. You
make it difficult with multiple redundancy, independent validations.
And that, Jed, is what we are waiting for. The more independent
validations, the lower the possibility of fraud.
(Granted, some are a lot easier to corrupt than others. They used to
make voting systems with Data General Nova computers, which I used
to program. They had zero security. Any programmer who read the
manual would know how to sign on via modem, find, and change any
number or ASCII value in the 64 KB memory without leaving a trace.
They now make them with Microsoft Win-CE, a.k.a. "wince," which is
like constructing a maximum security prison with nothing more than
three feet of chickenwire fencing around the perimeter.)
I've worked with voting system experts for years, this is a long-term
interest of mine. My proposal for voting validation I've called PBI,
Public Ballot Imaging. It's already legal in some states for anyone
to photograph ballots.
So, you use paper ballots, machine readable (why not? Op-Sense is very old).
The ballot box is constantly observed during the voting process. When
the polls close, the ballot box is opened by an officer and the
officer, in view of many observers (there are present laws allowing
observers to this process, generally), the ballots are laid out on a
table. A label is affixed to each ballot that is unique. (This is
repeated as necessary.) And observers photograph the ballots, taking
their cameras away independently. The ballots are then scanned to
derive official results. The public scans are published. However, the
independent ballot images are put up on web sites. Media will do
their own scans, immediately, but also the public can simply look at
the ballots and read them and record what they read. This makes the
whole public, all who care to participate, into observers *of the
counting process*. Beause ballots have been serialized, it's easy to
check any questionable count.
(Conflict in vote-counting often has to do with anomalies on
individual ballots.)
The original ballots are immediately, after the public scan,
sequestered under seal.
This is a cheap system, in fact, far less expensive than the fancy
computerized voting equipment that is apparently easily corruptible.
Paper ballots. The public system can be designed for cheap, because
high security isn't so important *if it can all be verified, easily.*
That is the power of multiple independent observation. Same principle
is involved with review of Rossi. The more independent observations,
the more access the independent observers have, the lower the
possibility of fraud.
