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Can I Be Trusted?

schneier.com

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Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#31

Post by relate »

buro9 wrote: post #20

You'd have to define trust to understand and then answer the question. Trust is the inverse of what most people think it is. Trust isn't about what someone will do, it's about what they won't do. You might trust a guy with your life by asking him to hold a ladder whilst you climb up it, but you probably wouldn't trust the same guy with your medical history and insights into your state of mind and personal relationshi…

You'd have to define trust to understand and then answer the question.

Trust is the inverse of what most people think it is.

Trust isn't about what someone won't do, it's about what they will do.

You might trust a guy with your life by asking him to hold a ladder whilst you climb up it, but you probably wouldn't trust the same guy with your medical history and insights into your state of mind and personal relationships.

Yet you would trust a doctor with your medical history, and you would trust a psychiatrist with your mental wellbeing.

The basis of trust is a belief that the person/entity you are trusting will do something. In the case of that ladder, that the guy will hold it. In the case of the physician and psychiatrist that they will keep your information private. The NSA stuff can be seen in that light, there is a betrayal of trust as the basis for trust in a government spy agency was that they would do a certain thing... spy only on foreign people. The rest is all forgiveable (you pretty much should expect them to spy on everyone else whether you agree with it or not, that's their purpose).

When it comes to Bruce Schneier the question is "Do you trust Bruce Schneier?", but this seems to just beg the next question, "To do what?".

I trust Bruce Schneier to honor his own principles and belief system by not backdooring some code or otherwise compromising his work.

But I don't necessarily trust Bruce Schneier to hold a ladder that I'm standing on (he may well have a sense of humour that reflects silent cinema, and being up a ladder was never a good thing when a Loki character was holding it).

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#32

Post by cpt1138 »

buro9 wrote: post #20

You'd have to define trust to understand and then answer the question. Trust is the inverse of what most people think it is. Trust isn't about what someone will do, it's about what they won't do. You might trust a guy with your life by asking him to hold a ladder whilst you climb up it, but you probably wouldn't trust the same guy with your medical history and insights into your state of mind and personal relationshi…

Thats a very interesting way of putting it. But why do you trust your doctor or psychiatrist?

I would argue that we "know" Bruce Schneier from his writings and his works better than we know our doctors. The reason we "trust" our doctors is the implied and understood restrictions on sharing confidential medical data and not the character or works of the individuals (since we don't really know them).

With the NSA, that implied restriction (Constitution, laws) has been breached.

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#34

Post by amalcon »

dbaupp wrote: post #9
juskrey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he just have disclosed the reason not to be trusted. He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

> He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The false statement of that form is "absence of proof is proof of absence". If absence of evidence wasn't evidence of absence, then, at best, the presence of the event and the presence of evidence are have no bearing on each other & are independent (in the statistical sense, i.e. the "evidence" is not evidence at…

This is only the case for binary events (either "it happened" or "it didn't"), which in the real world are quite rare. "Absence of evidence" usually means "The test hasn't been run yet", or "The test results are inconclusive." This is, of course, different from "The test has been run, and I'm choosing to rationalize the results after the fact."

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#35

Post by growt »

Amadou wrote: post #16

After the wall came down, the stasi shredded a lot of their files. But they were reassembled a few years ago and they revealed that some of the dissidents at the time were snitching on their fellows in return for less harsh treatment.[1] I don't think Schneier is similarly compromised - to give out misleading interpretations of the NSA leaks - but we can't know that with 100% certainty as long as the documents he's c…

It's a little offtopic, but those shredded files were put together with software (they scanned all the scraps and put them back together with algorithms). Here is a link to the research article (couldn't find a free source, sorry): http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00287-004-0395-8

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#36

Post by gadders »

I trust Bruce Schneier to believe what he says when it comes to cryptography.

I would also be fairly confident that what he says is correct.

When he strays outside of his area of expertise into politics, I think he is naïve.

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#37

Post by forgotAgain »

Yes, I do trust him.

His work is out in the open for all to see. I'm sure that he has a very large target on his back for what he has accomplished. There are more than a few government tools and internet fools who would consider their careers made if they could point to any technical compromises in his work. They haven't been able to.

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#38

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

dbaupp wrote: post #9
juskrey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he just have disclosed the reason not to be trusted. He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

> He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The false statement of that form is "absence of proof is proof of absence". If absence of evidence wasn't evidence of absence, then, at best, the presence of the event and the presence of evidence are have no bearing on each other & are independent (in the statistical sense, i.e. the "evidence" is not evidence at…

Absence of evidence is [pretty much the weakest possible] evidence of absence. It is most useful for things which are readily apparent. It is not particularly useful for determining questions where the evidence is not readily apparent (such as, obviously, 'Is the NSA spying on Americans?').

One may easily use the absence of evidence of woolly mammoths to conclude that woolly mammoths are extinct. Given their physical size (they are easy to detect) they could not remain hidden from view. We can assume (from our knowledge of other large mammals) that they would leave signs of their presence wherever they trod (footprints, dung, etc.) It is not so easy to use absence of evidence to disprove the existence of neutrinos or tree shrews. Both neutrinos and shrews are hard to detect. There are few people even qualified to attempt to detect them, fewer who are interested, and even fewer who have the resources and opportunity.

A relevant question is "Is it possible for spies to conduct espionage undetected for an extended period of time?" The answer is yes, there is ample evidence of that. Schneier is clearly in a place of trust in his community, making him a high value target. The standards of evidence for betrayal of trust being high (and difficult to define), mean that Schneier could potentially be a spy/collaborator in some capacity, and/or could become one at any time.

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#39

Post by tetha »

epo wrote: post #7
juskrey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he just have disclosed the reason not to be trusted. He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

No, he is suggesting "innocent until proven guilty", you are suggesting the opposite. This is a "have you stopped beating your wife" question, what could any person say except "there is no evidence that I am untrustworthy". How do you mathematically verify a person?

The technically correct answer is "mu" or "wu". It's an asian term for absence. In the context of a questions, it means that the question cannot be answered correctly due to a lack of preconditions or because the answers are restricted to a set which does not contain the correct answers.

"Did you stop beating your wife" must be answered wu if you have not been beating your wife. "stopping X" requires the precondition that X was happening at the time of the question.

"Am I trustworthy", as the parent comment pointed out, must be answered wu as well, because it probably is impossible to be universally and unconditionally trustworthy.

Even if it is not, judging if one will be unconditionally trustworthy in all contextes, actions and all possible futures of this situation cannot be estimated with enough confidence, unless your life will end within a very short timespan.

Re: Can I Be Trusted?

#40

Post by rmc »

dbaupp wrote: post #9
juskrey wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, he just have disclosed the reason not to be trusted. He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence.

> He conflates absence of evidence with evidence of absence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. The false statement of that form is "absence of proof is proof of absence". If absence of evidence wasn't evidence of absence, then, at best, the presence of the event and the presence of evidence are have no bearing on each other & are independent (in the statistical sense, i.e. the "evidence" is not evidence at…

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

Yep, Occam's razor means that absence of evidence is evidence of absece.

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