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Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

gwern.net

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Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#31

Post by Natsu »

Lockyy wrote: post #23
Natsu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The show itself used quite a few very interesting methods to do it. Basically, L played a lot of hunches and won big several times. The part about the time of day was found out long after L had narrowed things down to a small region of Japan by provoking Light into killing someone who appeared on a "worldwide" broadcast that was actually only broadcast in Light's prefecture. The time of day part was actually used to…

One problem with the article I realised earlier was that it described the broadcast to Kanto as a gamble because it wasn't broadcast anywhere else, which is wrong. It was broadcast in each region one after another to find out which region it was in. It wasn't a gamble at all, it was a very clever way of finding out where Kira was watching from.

It might be possible for him to hear about the broadcast by other means had he not been in the first region where it was broadcast.

But it never really turned out to matter, as you say. L was able to notice that weird case where the evil guy who had taken school children hostage died of a mysteriously timed heart attack and piece a lot of things together.

Actually, though, that broadcast was probably one of the most important puzzle pieces. He was able to prove that Light could kill remotely with nothing but a face & name, having cut a special deal with a criminal and kept the guy under special observation the whole time. Light was very careless there.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#32

Post by noonespecial »

buu700 wrote: post #19

It's kind of funny that you posted this now, because at the moment I'm actually hacking on the last level of Stripe's Capture the Flag with Low of Solipsism, L's theme, Kira's theme, Near's theme, and Zetsubou Billy looping in the background. As a side note, has anyone else considered the possibility that it's entirely possible that Light could have simply set up a server which would schedule his victims' deaths for…

E-gads, Brain, brilliant! Wait. No. All of the printers I've ever administered would have one of those postscript errors where they print randomly forever and end up killing everyone on earth.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#33

Post by gwern »

ff0066mote wrote: post #30

Just a note to the author: I'm getting a lot of [Math Processing Errors] when I view your article: http://imgur.com/PSeMX I haven't looked at the source to see what was going on, so it might be that I'm blocking flash or something. Otherwise, it was great! :) Thanks for a fun read!

No, it's all done via MathJax/JavaScript. That should be cross-browser without any issues, I thought.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#34

Post by buu700 »

archangel_one wrote: post #28
buu700 wrote: post #19

It's kind of funny that you posted this now, because at the moment I'm actually hacking on the last level of Stripe's Capture the Flag with Low of Solipsism, L's theme, Kira's theme, Near's theme, and Zetsubou Billy looping in the background. As a side note, has anyone else considered the possibility that it's entirely possible that Light could have simply set up a server which would schedule his victims' deaths for…

As I recall, part of the rules of the Death Note was that the user has to picture the face of the victim as they write the name, so they have to have a name and a face to kill. I assume a printer doesn't manage to do that, although I do suspect at times that some printers are fairly malevolent.

".. would accept POST requests of victims' names/pictures ... at that time pull up an image of them on X and print their name on one page of the death note ..." (emphasis added)

Like I said, this depends on a bit of a loose definition of "mind", so it might not have worked at all.

Here is the exact wording of the rule in question: "This note will not take effect unless the writer has the person’s face in their mind when writing his/her name. Therefore, people sharing the same name will not be affected."

It specifically appeals to the (somewhat hazy) concept of mind, which would imply the prerequisite of some sort of sentience. However, the rules are not absolute, but rather based on Ryuk's imperfect interpretation (Ryuk didn't know a priori how certain experiments would turn out, like writing causes of death before names with the FBI agents); thus, the use of "mind" itself isn't so important, as it merely implies that Ryuk's experience is limited to sentient beings, which should be obvious.

In other words, there isn't any way to know whether a death note could be used in this way without testing it on a "real" death note (or having the authors write canonical material on it).

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#35

Post by ff0066mote »

gwern wrote: post #33
ff0066mote wrote: post #30

Just a note to the author: I'm getting a lot of [Math Processing Errors] when I view your article: http://imgur.com/PSeMX I haven't looked at the source to see what was going on, so it might be that I'm blocking flash or something. Otherwise, it was great! :) Thanks for a fun read!

No, it's all done via MathJax/JavaScript. That should be cross-browser without any issues, I thought.

Well, no worries. I was on a school computer with an outdated version of Chrome.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#36

Post by buu700 »

noonespecial wrote: post #32
buu700 wrote: post #19

It's kind of funny that you posted this now, because at the moment I'm actually hacking on the last level of Stripe's Capture the Flag with Low of Solipsism, L's theme, Kira's theme, Near's theme, and Zetsubou Billy looping in the background. As a side note, has anyone else considered the possibility that it's entirely possible that Light could have simply set up a server which would schedule his victims' deaths for…

E-gads, Brain, brilliant! Wait. No. All of the printers I've ever administered would have one of those postscript errors where they print randomly forever and end up killing everyone on earth.

Haha, well, there's no way that would work anyway unless the postscript error caused X to open a Web browser and search for images of us too.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#37

Post by buu700 »

sidww2 wrote: post #21
buu700 wrote: post #19

It's kind of funny that you posted this now, because at the moment I'm actually hacking on the last level of Stripe's Capture the Flag with Low of Solipsism, L's theme, Kira's theme, Near's theme, and Zetsubou Billy looping in the background. As a side note, has anyone else considered the possibility that it's entirely possible that Light could have simply set up a server which would schedule his victims' deaths for…

But he wanted the world to know that there was a Kira. His ambition was to be the God of the world. He could anonymously send instructions to the world to do what he wanted only if people knew there was a Kira.

Yeah, that would be a strong disincentive to frame the CIA, since his goal morphed pretty early on from fixing the world to becoming a god. For a more prudent and altruistic death note user, that particular strategy could have fit well into the automation idea.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#38

Post by Shaanie »

Natsu wrote: post #31
Lockyy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem with the article I realised earlier was that it described the broadcast to Kanto as a gamble because it wasn't broadcast anywhere else, which is wrong. It was broadcast in each region one after another to find out which region it was in. It wasn't a gamble at all, it was a very clever way of finding out where Kira was watching from.

It might be possible for him to hear about the broadcast by other means had he not been in the first region where it was broadcast. But it never really turned out to matter, as you say. L was able to notice that weird case where the evil guy who had taken school children hostage died of a mysteriously timed heart attack and piece a lot of things together. Actually, though, that broadcast was probably one of the most…

It would be extremely hard (probably impossible) to hide the fact that you need a criminals name and face to kill them. At most he could've gained a bit of time by being more careful, and at that point he didn't believe the death note would work anyway.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#39

Post by Shaanie »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #7
ufo wrote: post #5

I hate to be pedantic, but mistake #1 misses the point a bit. While the serial killer doesn't want to be found, he certainly wants to be known .

Agreed. It is interesting, though, to consider just how many bits of identifying information you must sacrifice in order to make your existence known while securing your anonymity. Also, considering Light’s ultimate goal was world domination, he would’ve had to make strategic anonymity sacrifices all along regardless. I say his first mistake was just jumping the gun with insufficient research.

Absolutely. I think a somewhat easier way for him to gain world domination would've been to start with another country than his own. If he could find a way to obtain information about another country's criminals without being exposed, it would probably be easier to first take over that country and then expand it from there.

Re: Death Note: L, Anonymity & Eluding Entropy

#40

Post by SamReidHughes »

gwern wrote: post #25
Cushman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to scare people, you should make every cause of death "Batman". Or maybe "space laser".

The death has to be possible; Light tests out the limits early and finds IIRC that if you specify an imprisoned criminal dies outside the prison, the Death Note just gives up and kills them normally or something like that. 'Batman' and 'space laser' are right out, as is making criminals solve NP-hard or Halting problems.

What are the odds that three victims would write out notes that combine to encode a message about death gods eating apples? I wouldn't rule out their writing solutions to NP-hard problems. Even halting problem problems. It's just a matter of getting them to write a note that begins with a certain letter, or that includes the word "yes" or "no".
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