modified 2003-10-09.
David also maintains related files:
What are the ethical implications of cryptography, for people who already believe that the Bible comes from the ultimate authority on ethics ? What does the Bible say about cryptography ? Surprisingly, quite a bit -- and not what I expected, either.
There are 2 completely different ways to connect the Bible with cryptography:
This is just something I threw together that I thought you might find interesting. This is woefully incomplete and should not be considered in any way definitive. You *will* see glaring inconsistencies and think of things that "ought to be here"; please help me improve this page by bringing these to my attention. Comments?
What does the Bible say about showing outsiders the valuables you have in your house ?
What does the Bible say about showing foreigners the weapons your government has in the armory ?
-- Isaiah 39:4-8 and 2 Kings 20:12-21 (see also 2 Chronicles 32:31-32 )... Hezekiah ... shewed them ... all the house of his armour ...
"They saw everything in my palace," Hezekiah said. "There is nothing among my treasures that I did not show them. Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, "Hear the word of the LORD: The time will surely come when everything in your palace, and all that your fathers have stored up until this day, will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left, says the LORD. And some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, that will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good [is] the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days.
DAV: clearly Hezekiah is acting like a Brinist here. Many people interpret this passage as saying Hezekiah messed up, he should have kept these things secret; and the consequences of this mistake are that Babylon will conquer his kingdom. For example, "God Expects National Leaders to Keep Their Economic And Military Secrets Secret." http://www.prayeralert.org/wir/archives/bible.html .
On the other hand, a Brinist could make the completely opposite argument:
Many people have the opinion that what Hezekiah did was wrong -- or at least not a very smart thing to do. But what does the Bible say ?
After Merodachbaladan showed concern for Hezekiah's personal life, Hezekiah reciprocated with openness. The personal friendship that was built caused Merodachbaladan (and his successors) to leave Judah alone
- for the rest of the lifetime of Hezekiah (?? years),
- the rest of the lifetime of his son King Manasseh (55 years),
- the rest of the lifetime of his grandson King Amon (2 years),
- the rest of the lifetime of his great grandson King Josiah (31 years),
- until his great great grandson King Jehoahaz (3 months) was captured by the Pharaoh of Egypt.
and a few years later Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took the land of Judah from Egypt.
Why did various kingdoms attack the kingdom of Judah ? Don't blame Hezekiah. The Bible clearly lays the blame on Manasseh:
Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up ... according to the word of the LORD, which he spake by his servants the prophets.
Surely at the commandment of the LORD came this upon Judah, ... for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did; and also for the innocent blood that he shed
-- 2 Kings 24:1-4
The Bible says that, in general, "Hezekiah did right" (2 Kings 18:3,6). Please consider the possibility that perhaps "Hezekiah did right" in this particular case. If the Bible always labels Hezekiah and his actions "good", "right", "pleasing", etc., and never labels any of his actions as "sin", "wrong", "mistake", etc., who are we to accuse Hezekiah of sin ?
Babylon conquering Judah was inevitable. I think Hezekiah's actions were good because they delayed this tragedy for over 88 years. Perhaps if the next few kings of Judah had followed Hezekiah's example, the destruction would have been delayed even further.
-- David Cary, trying to sound as Brinist as possible.
What does the "plain text" (in the crypto sense) of the Bible say about the activity of cryptogaphy ? What are the ethical implications of cryptography, for people who already believe that the Bible comes from the ultimate authority on ethics ?
This is also relevant to software:
Keeping a secret is "prudent".
``It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.'' -- Prov. 25:2 (So which should the believer do ? Act like God ( name.html#like_God ), or act like kings (?) ?).
"Woe to those who go to great depths to hide their plans from the Lord, who do their work in darkness and think, "Who sees us ? Who will know ?" " -- Isaiah 29:15 -- a curse on cryptographers.
``Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she ... is more precious than rubies ...'' -- Prov 3:13-15 -- a blessing on decrypters.
"Do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces." --Matt. 7:6 seems to be pro-cryptography, but the very next verse "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." -- Matt 7:7 seems to be saying cryptography is useless.
``Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor...'' -- Eph. 4:25 ?? Eph 4:29 ??
``The lips of the rightous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgement.'' -- Prov 10:21
Jesus answered him [the high priest], I spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort; and in secret have I said nothing.
-- John 18:20 [open-source][open source]
James 1:5 Lack wisdom ? Ask God. (No stupid questions).
``But [we] have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.'' 2 Corinthians 4:2 KJV
``Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.'' -- 2 Corinthians 4:2 NIV
Jeremiah 8:4, 8, 10, 9:6, 9:9 (the first mention of 'scribes' ?)
"Say to them, 'This is what the LORD says: ... " 'How can you say, "We are wise, for we have the law of the LORD," when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely ? ... From the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain; prophets and priests alike, all practice deceit. ... You live in the midst of deception; in their deceit they refuse to acknowledge me," declares the Lord.
Therefore this is what the LORD Almighty says: "See, I will refine and test them, for what else can I do because of the sin of my people ? ... Should I not punish them for this ?" declares the LORD.
What do these mean ? : 2tim2:15 phil 2:13(not kjv) matt 28:18-20 1pe 2:13,17 ps 139:17 1 tim 6:20 "science" command 1 joh 5::1,4 promise and test 1 joh 2:15,6,27,3:2,11,4:4,17 (phil)1:16
-- ed. Grant R. Osborne http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/webcommentary?book=2cor&chapter=6The text is literally "our mouths are open to you." The perfect tense bears the sense "our mouths stand open" (aneogen). Barrett suggests that we translate verse 11 "I have let my mouth run away with me" in order to make the connection with verses 3-10 more apparent (1973:191). But the idea is that of being completely truthful with someone and not holding anything back (Louw and Nida 1988-1989:33.252; "frankly" [TEV, JB, NEB], "freely" [NIV], "hiding nothing" [Phillips]).
If what he writes is true why is he afraid of the public? if it is false, why has he written it? We read when we were boys the words of Cicero: "I consider it a lack of self-control to write anything which you intend to keep hidden."-- Jerome's letter to Pammachius and Marcella from Bethlehem, A.D. 402 http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2710.htm
Nizkor believes that truth has no need for secrecy.http://www.nizkor.org/qar-complete.cgi
security researcher Matt Blaze published a paper describing a new attack against door locks.[FIXME: do a I need a "why DAV is a Brinist" section ? Transparency International http://www.transparency.org/ ]
http://www.thewordistruth.org/ ... http://www.thewordistruth.org/narr_article.cfm?id=105&page=17
"Secrecy must be replaced by full and frequent disclosure of information. The only way to prevent driving people into isolated and self-preserving behaviors is to entrust us with difficult, even fearsome information, and then to insist that we work together." http://www.thewordistruth.org/narr_article.cfm?id=107&page=21
Now, you might argue that this is going to result in a lot of harassment, either from individuals (not too likely) or from spammers and business (likely). But the same argument used against gun control applies here too. If data is outlawed, only outlaws will have data. If everyone has access to information on everyone else's personal lives, nobody will actually make use of it for fear of repercussion. Is DoubleClick annoying you? Post information about the CEO's secret affairs and watch the media jump all over the company! We can only fear data when it is not available to everyone. Privacy is not a "right"; it is an encumberment to freedom. You can't have both free data and privacy. And when it comes to down to the decision, data can only help us move forward. You can't say that about privacy.
Personally, I agree that all data should be open. I strongly support companies publishing all salary information, for example. That way, you'd know where you stood. If the company wanted to pay one guy more than others, then it is quite reasonable that it justify that pay.
how can we prevent our info from getting on these sites in the first place? I don't know about everyone else, but I don't like the idea of every Tom, Dick and Harry being able to look up my address and other personal contact info.IMHO this is just another aspect of the same problem facing musicians who want to control who listens to their music. In both cases, I don't think there is a good way to prevent the data from being distributed if people really want to do so.
[pro-Brinist]
"...
At this point in Net history it should be almost too obvious to say this, but the lesson still demands repeating: In the online world, you can't make users do what they don't want to do just because it happens to be convenient for your business. You have to let them do what they want to do -- then align your business in such a way that what they want to do benefits you, too.
..."
At the same time, data needed to predict and react to system stress -- such as basic information on the quantity of energy flows -- began disappearing, treated by utilities as competitive information and kept secret.
Starting in 1998, the utilities stopped reporting on blackout statistics as well,says Ben Carreras of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, so system reliability could no longer be accurately assessed....
...
The solution advocated by deregulation critics would revise the rules to put them back into accord with the grid physics. ... For one thing, FERC or Congress could ... Second, the data on energy flows and blackouts could again be made public so that planners would know what power flows are occurring and the reliability records of the utilities. ...
Most people don't realize the Bible says so much about hacking ... or perhaps I just have a heretical interpretation :-).
The word hack at MIT usually refers to a clever, benign, and "ethical" prank or practical joke, which is both challenging for the perpetrators and amusing to the MIT community (and sometimes even the rest of the world!). Note that this has nothing to do with computer (or phone) hacking (which we call "cracking").
I've also listed verses relevant to reverse-engineering here.
Freely you have received, freely give.
-- Matthew 10:8
(quoted at
http://www.calvarychapel.com/webservants/duplicators/
which has other interesting commentary on the Bible and copyright law
)
When thou comest into the standing corn of thy neighbour, then thou mayest pluck the ears with thine hand; but thou shalt not move a sickle unto thy neighbour's standing corn.
-- Deuteronomy 23:24-25 [hacking][how does this apply to reverse-engineering ?]
Acts 20:20 make backups share ideas freely ICor14:26 IICor1:8,12 (a type of backup)
1 tim 6:18 hack ``That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;'' open-source
``Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, ...'' -- 1 Thessalonians 4:11
"Look, each of you, not only on your own things, but also on the things of others." -- Philippians 2:4
Luke 8:16 No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick, that they which enter in may see the light. [pro-hacker ?]
Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with [his] hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Eph 4:28
"And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call [thee] by thy name, [am] the God of Israel." Isa 45:3
Secrecy: http://www.mtnhome.com/~bdtwm/10-Hidean~1.htm
[open source ?] ``Where there is no wise guidance, the nation falls, But in the multitude of counselors there is victory.'' -- Pr 11:14
[open source ?] ``Where there is no counsel, plans fail; But in a multitude of counselors they are established.'' -- Pr 15:22
[open source ?] "...: freely ye have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8
Is there some "hidden message" encoded in the Bible ? The most persuasive answer I've seen so far is the article by Rev. Mike Somerville.
...
I have derived, with John Geohegan's assistance, a formula for how many occurrences of given words you would expect to find in a text of a given number of random letters. You must calculate the probability of selection for each letter, which depends on the particular text being examined. This is just the number of occurrences of the letter divided by the total number of letters. Typically, the probability for getting an "E" is above 0.1, while that for a "Q" can be just 0.005. For a given word like "Roswell," you multiply the chances for an "R" with that for an "O", then an "S," and so on. The final product is multiplied by the total possible number of equidistant letter sequences for the word, which is roughly the square of the number of letters in the entire text divided by one less than the number of letters in the candidate hidden word. This formula works quite well. I estimated that I would find 18.7 occurrences of "Clinton" in War and Peace, Book 1 (212,000 characters, 7.5 billion possible 7-letter equidistant sequences); the actual number was 21. I estimated I would find 128.1 matches for "Apollo" - and got 129. For "Moon," I estimated 150,283, and found 151,704. With each additional letter in candidate words, the chances fall, because you must multiply your product by another number invariably less than one. And rare letters reduce the expected matches greatly.
...
million-to-one odds happen eight times a day in New York City.
Another kind of "Bible code":
"NZ army to remove Bible citations from armaments" "ABC News: Secret Jesus Bible Codes on U.S. Military Weapons" http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100121/ap_on_re_as/as_new_zealand_weapon_sights
see also my rant at dav_info.html#infinite
Infinity and cryptography are both mathematical concepts, but other than that they're pretty much unrelated.
a few other infinity links:
points to "Zero" article by Dick Teresi http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97jul/zero.htm which mentions [FIXME: move to time.html]
... implies that in many American hotels and casinos, one must go up 12 floors to reach the "14th" floor.The United States has no official calendar, and no legally prescribed method for numbering years. In general, though, we use the Gregorian calendar, established by an act of Parliament in 1751 as the official calendar of England. This act also bound the American colonies to the Gregorian, but that obligation was canceled by the Revolutionary War. In the United States we have the inalienable right to number our days and years as we please. One could run a company, for example, according to the Mayan 584-day Venerean calendar (based on Venus years) without fear of prosecution, though not without practical difficulties. Or one could choose from among the forty or so extant calendars worldwide.
...
... The Royal Greenwich Observatory, in England, the internationally recognized authority on timekeeping and the self-proclaimed last word on calendrics, ... (Timekeeping is defined as the "measurement of fractions of a day," whereas calendrics is "the reckoning of time over extended periods," the day being the smallest calendrical unit of time.)
...
... The great Lutheran astronomer Johannes Kepler dated his most important book, Astronomia Nova, 1609 "Anno Aerae Dionysianae" rather than "Anno Domini," because he believed the calendar numbers were ordained by Dionysius, not by God.
...
Darryll McCall asks, "Is zero a number?" Is it a real integer, a counting number, or just a vertical line on a time line? ... I called the math department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to find out the proper way to count and whether zero is a real number. Apparently, counting is not MIT's forte. I was told that no one in the math department would comment on that topic. As for zero, a department administrator said, "Our people are interested more in numbers invented after 1972." He told me I needed a number theorist.
...
also points to "The IEEE standard for floating point arithmetic" (ANSI/IEEE Standard 754-1985, Standard for Binary Floating Point Arithmetic) http://laguerre.psc.edu/general/software/packages/ieee/ieee.html and "Some disasters attributable to bad numerical computing" http://www.ima.umn.edu/~arnold/disasters/ (which lists 3: "The Patriot Missile failure ... 1991 ... poor handling of rounding errors.", "The explosion of the Ariane 5 rocket ... 1996 ... the consequence of a simple overflow." "The sinking of the Sleipner A offshore platform ... 1991 ... inaccurate finite element analysis." )
So does the thread at http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/5/23/134430/275/166 --
In mathematics, you cannot do something an infinite number of times, since the result of that is undefined. What is done is if you consider the completed set as a whole, and see what properties you can infer about this set. In other words, infinity is not "constructed" piecemeal---we can never reach it that way. Rather, we look at the infinite set as something that has already been completed, and see what behaviour we can infer from it.
anyone interested in this stuff and with a bit of mathematical knowledge (say, first degree level)
should read Stan Wagon's beautiful book called "The Banach-Tarski Paradox".
One of the comments http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/5/23/134430/275?pid=264#270 points to the actual proof http://www.math.hmc.edu/~su/papers.dir/banachtarski.pdf and claims that it only applies to the 3D case; there's no way to do it in 2D.
Started: 1996-08-24
First posted to web: 1997-02-18
Original Author: David Cary.
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