Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

gwern.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 145 posts

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#21

Post by arugulum »

As a fun mental exercise, I've been wondering if the Death note could've been used to solve difficult computational problems. As far as I know, the following abides by Death Note rules, in particular we know that the Death Note is able to "manipulate" luck. Assume Bob Robert is an amateur mathematician, so this is something he would reasonably do and guess.

"Bob Robert. Writes down a number X>=82,589,933 where 2^X-1 is a prime number as his guess of the next largest known prime number, and it is indeed correct. Then dies of a heart attack."

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#22

Post by mjevans »

teej wrote: post #12

One thing the author seemingly didn't address - the overlap in entropy between the different mistakes. For example, Mistake 2 in timing leaked 6 bits, but those same 6 bits got leaked as a part of Mistake 4 in using confidential police information. Mistake 4 on its own is possibly the worst, but if you consider what L already knows, it's only 5 incremental bits lost. Despite that, loved the article.

The two mistakes corroborated each other and the second was only possible to observe based on the refining characteristic intrinsic to the earlier mistake. Additionally the second wouldn't have necessarily invalidated the first six bits, though it would strengthen refinement along a different path.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#23

Post by Malic »

This is somewhat related to a thought experiment of mine.

Suppose you had a means of transmitting information back in time - a one-node network that effectively could email to itself with a timestamp (in the past) being the message's "recipient."

Suppose such a thing existed in the world today. Assume the individuals in possession of such a thing were very intelligent, very careful and very guarded about its use.

Could you still detect that such a thing existed by observing real-world events - stock market changes, tech innovations, amazing coincidences and the like? What evidence would you look for?

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#24

Post by PaulHoule »

Death Note is great...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5HT8HoiAHg

Death Note is based on the "keep your enemies close" that turns up a lot in Japanese Culture. For instance, more than once in Sailor Moon the bad guys wind up embedded with the good guys, and the same thing happens in Tales of Symphonia. Thus it is almost necessary for the plot for Light to move in with L.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#25

Post by cbau »

arugulum wrote: post #21

As a fun mental exercise, I've been wondering if the Death note could've been used to solve difficult computational problems. As far as I know, the following abides by Death Note rules, in particular we know that the Death Note is able to "manipulate" luck. Assume Bob Robert is an amateur mathematician, so this is something he would reasonably do and guess. "Bob Robert. Writes down a number X>=82,589,933 where 2^X-1…

If I remember correctly, it has to be something that the person was actually capable of, otherwise the person just dies.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#26

Post by mjevans »

lawn wrote: post #11
the8472 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deathnote game is played iteratively. Satoshi ceased publishing before running out of bits.

This is true. I would very much like an article in this style examining Satoshi and how many bits he theoretically had left.

Baseless gut-guess: Any move clearly associated to Satoshi, including use of any of the Bitcoin value, would receive such unrelenting scrutiny that there are only two likely outcomes.

A) Satoshi would be identified as a unique individual and any number of bad things would happen since they are such a high value target.

B) Satoshi would be identified as (effectively?) a pseudonym for one or more nation states and whatever value they derived from creating Bitcoin would evaporate.

Given we are currently in a superposition between states A and B, as well as a possible state C where the pseudonym Satoshi is either effectively dead (lost the credentials) or actually dead (end of life); one can infer that the value of Bitcoin continuing to exist as it is either outweighs any change of state or that such a change of state is no longer possible.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#27

Post by arugulum »

Arnavion wrote: post #14
joe_the_user wrote: post #5

The ability to kill anyone one chose would be a far more terrifying weapon if used to instill fear. If someone used to this ability to kill individuals who didn't fit their agenda but kept anonymity about their goals, whatever changed they wished would only happen fairly slowly and haphazardly - those replacing the dead wouldn't have that much chance to produce different policies. Also, even a bunch of seemingly rand…

The Death Note could control what the victim did before their death. So Global Warming Kira could definitely have those random company heads die next to a piece of paper with "the deaths will continue until CO2 declines" written on it.

To clarify the Death Note rules discussion, this would be possible, but would need to be adjusted such that it's something the company heads would have reasonable done. So something more akin to

"Ceo Ceoson, overcome by immense guilt over environmental destruction, writes down 'Companies 1-16 are responsibl for the dying environment and we don't deserve to live.' having a heart attack."

It needs to double up as a stand-alone action as well as a threat.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#28

Post by arugulum »

cbau wrote: post #25
arugulum wrote: post #21

As a fun mental exercise, I've been wondering if the Death note could've been used to solve difficult computational problems. As far as I know, the following abides by Death Note rules, in particular we know that the Death Note is able to "manipulate" luck. Assume Bob Robert is an amateur mathematician, so this is something he would reasonably do and guess. "Bob Robert. Writes down a number X>=82,589,933 where 2^X-1…

If I remember correctly, it has to be something that the person was actually capable of, otherwise the person just dies.

The person is capable of writing down X, it's a handful of digits. Moreover it is not unreasonable for an amateur mathematician to do so.

The fact that they entirely lucky that the series of digits indeed satisfies the mathematical condition we want is incidental but I believe abides by Death Note rules.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#29

Post by jquery »

lawn wrote: post #6

If it's true that privacy is dead, how come Satoshi is still unknown?

Is he? He leaked a lot of writing samples. Unless he took great care to anonymize his writing style (and I'm not even convinced that it's possible to completely anonymize a writing style without scrambling the ideas themselves), it's possible (perhaps likely) he leaked enough bits for a state actor to track him (or her) down.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity and Eluding Entropy (2017)

#30

Post by prewett »

joe_the_user wrote: post #5

The ability to kill anyone one chose would be a far more terrifying weapon if used to instill fear. If someone used to this ability to kill individuals who didn't fit their agenda but kept anonymity about their goals, whatever changed they wished would only happen fairly slowly and haphazardly - those replacing the dead wouldn't have that much chance to produce different policies. Also, even a bunch of seemingly rand…

This is exactly what happens in totalitarian regimes. I know the CCP does this in China, but I assume Hitler, Stalin, Mao, maybe the Saudis, did/do this.
Post reply on HN