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Michael Rabin has died

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Re: Michael Rabin has died

#71

Post by eranation »

k4rli wrote: post #67
AlecBG wrote: post #7

First sentence starts with horrible antisemitism. Can someone fix it? (on my phone with kids so not in a position to)

[flagged]

This is the page history. Using the K word for Jewish people is antisemitic. There was no mention of his affiliation of IDF, in fact the page mentions he was released from service in order to pursue his academics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_O._Rabin&...

Re: Michael Rabin has died

#72

Post by welldoneator »

ajewhere wrote: post #56
welldoneator wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commend you for the attempt, even if it’s clear that it’s falling on deaf ears to who you’re replying to. The rest of us Jews appreciate that you didn’t let it slide. It’s hard not to wonder why they even bothered clicking into this thread other than “oh the name sounds Jewish, I can push my narrative” especially with respect to their comment history.

[flagged]

That’s quite a take to assume willful blindness to widespread suffering.

What is pretty clear though: your obsession with constantly minimizing the lived experience of a minority with “no ackshually they deserve it because they really are this way” warrants a look in the mirror.

Re: Michael Rabin has died

#73

Post by wk_end »

keybored wrote: post #63
apical_dendrite wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wikipedia edit that this thread is discussing was as follows. I think it's worth printing it here to make the point that the commenter above you is completely right about the prevalence of anti-semitism in online discourse today: > Michael Oser Rabin (Hebrew: מִיכָאֵל עוזר רַבִּין; September 1, 1931 – April 14, 2026) was a Jew (a.k.a. kike) rat computer scientist who was co-recipient, with Dana Scott, of the 1976…

Who the heck sets it as their antisemitism campaign to edit “vile X” and “X (aka rat)” on Jewish biographies. Normalizing slurs? I thought the goal of antisemites was to spread propaganda about how Jews are bad. Writing “X (aka BAD)” seems like the weakest possible attempt at that. I don’t know what people elsewhere in this thread are going on about Israel for.

I think racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, etc. who do that sort of thing aren’t doing it to convince anyone - it’s partially for shock value, partially to help normalize their attitudes and make other bigots feel more comfortable expressing their views, and partially to make the members of the group that they hate upset and feel unsafe.

Re: Michael Rabin has died

#75

Post by tptacek »

adrian_b wrote: post #2

Michael O. Rabin had important contributions in many domains, but from a practical point of view the most important are his contributions to cryptography. After Ralph Merkle, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, Michael O. Rabin is the most important of the creators of public-key cryptography. The RSA team (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman) is better known than Michael O. Rabin, but that is entirely due to…

They didn't really found a successful business. They founded a middling business that didn't do much but license a patent until Security Dynamics, a smart card company, bought them and took over the name.

Re: Michael Rabin has died

#77

Post by blovescoffee »

AlecBG wrote: post #7

First sentence starts with horrible antisemitism. Can someone fix it? (on my phone with kids so not in a position to)

Wikipedia has demonstrably been ravaged by anti-semitism. Feel free to ignore any of the notes here about Israel / anti-Israeli sentiment which I understand is not clear cut. There's demonstrably antisemitic coalitions editing wikipedia en-masse.

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/editing-hate-how-anti-i...

Re: Michael Rabin has died

#80

Post by YZF »

adrian_b wrote: post #2

Michael O. Rabin had important contributions in many domains, but from a practical point of view the most important are his contributions to cryptography. After Ralph Merkle, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, Michael O. Rabin is the most important of the creators of public-key cryptography. The RSA team (Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman) is better known than Michael O. Rabin, but that is entirely due to…

I think you're vastly underplaying the importance of RSA to cryptography. Personally it was the first time I was exposed to the concept of public key cryptography (in the 1980's). "would have been delayed by some years" is very dismissive. The same thing can be said of many inventions. Yet someone is/was the inventor.

RSA were the first to provide a practical and easy to understand implementation and that had a huge impact in practice.

That's not to downplay Rabin's or others contribution. That RSA pursued a certain commercial strategy that you may or may not like is not really relevant.

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