> Hell, the EPA might even be able to do it. But this is what really frosts me about the current state of affairs. Even if industry and government should have similar goals (keeping the screw ups and cheaters out of the game), they can't seem to get together and put up some fairly simple regulatory frameworks.

As I understand, a large part of the problem is that regulatory bodies are often underfunded to the point of dysfunction. It is done intentionally, under the heading of "starving/shrinking the government", arguing that the government would be (is) inefficient anyway. The second related major issue is that nominees heading agencies are often cannot be confirmed due to (even) a single senator holding up the vote.

I really have no clue what you guys argue about above. To clarify: when I used the word "stupid" I did not evaluate the experiment from a scientific point of view. I just wanted to emphasize that I love cats...

I have a cat. I think the above is stupid even for a thought experiment.

Assuming NP != P your first sentence is correct. And maybe this is what laymen should know about it. However for completeness...

In general a problem is presented as a string of n bits and the algorithm (Turing Machine) has to decide whether it is acceptable or not (good or bad etc.) For example, take the graph coloring problem. This involves a graph on m vertices and you have to color it using k colors such that neighboring vertices have different colors. The input to the algorithm is a description of the graph and k as a bit-string. And the bit-string is acceptable if there is a proper coloring.

If the Turing machine can decide whether the bit-string with n bits is acceptable in less than p(n) steps where n is a polynomial, then the problem is in P.

NP does *not* stand for Not P.

NP means that there is a witness to the acceptability of a bit-string that can be verified in p(n) steps. For example, the witness for the graph coloring is an actual assignment of the colors to the vertices. It is quite straightforward to verify that the coloring is proper (no neighboring vertices have the same color, it takes less than n^2 color comparisons. NP stands for Nondeterministic Polynomial, I am
not a fan of the name.

NP-Hard means that the problem is such that any NP problem can be reduced to it (with a polynomial correspondance). Therefore, if you had a polynomial algorithm for it than you had one for *all* NP problems. This would imply P=NP and is doubtful to be true. In other words a proof of NP-hardness means: Yes, it is harder than P, at least most scientists think so.

I have no idea yet how the Pac-Man problem is represented as a bit-string. I will find out tomorrow on a lecture...

It is worth mentioning the class co-NP. This is a the class of problems for which there is a witness that the input is *not* acceptable. Think what witness could easily verify that a graph is not k colorable... For example existence of a full k+1 subgraph would suffice but other constructions also prohibit k coloring which have no full k subgraph in them. I do not recall from the top of my head whether k coloring is co-NP or not. But I think it is not, here is why:

There is a conjecture that may have more chance than P = NP. And that is: P = NP intersect co-NP. That is if both acceptability and non-acceptibility can be polynomially verified then there would be a guaranteed polynomial algorithm. So far this appears to be the case.
The last famous problem that is NP and co-NP at the same time and was found to be in P was prime testing.

And of course there are many, many other complexity classes...

Replying to my own post...

It seems Trycrypt can host a volume in a file, in which case the user only needs an explanation for the existence of a file with apparently random data. A hidden volume is also supported. Note however that operating systems do make copies
(swap, hibernation etc.) of data and so data leakage has to be considered.

Of course this is all interesting from a technical and legal point. One hopes that those committing mortgage fraud will not be smart enough to hide their data from the law.

I agree in theory. The relevant earlier court decision mentioned in the article:

"A year earlier, a Vermont federal judge concluded that Sebastien Boucher, who a border guard claims had child porn on his Alienware laptop, did not have a Fifth Amendment right to keep the files encrypted. Boucher eventually complied and was convicted.

Prosecutors in this case have stressed that they don't actually require the passphrase itself, and today's order appears to permit Fricosu to type it in and unlock the files without anyone looking over her shoulder. They say they want only the decrypted data and are not demanding "the password to the drive, either orally or in written form."

In practice however, it would be a challenge to keep grandma's recipe collection up-to-date with modification and access times recent so that it would *look* like that the drive is used every day.

The solution is obvious, still I am not aware Truecrypt implementing it yet: the hidden and "public" volumes should largely overlap and there should be hidden files (directory) instead. Whether this is implemented by the public data written twice (to both volumes) or by a more sophisticated method is somewhat irrelevant (but can be a matter of efficiency). Now, in that case the user could claim with real "plausible" deniability the lack of existence of *some* data.

***
More details:
1. Say original drive is 300GB, and dedicate 50GB to secret data.
2. Regular password login shows a filesystem without the secret data showing (a missing directory or individual files). Still care must be taken that presence of the secret files cannot be inferred, for example through symlinks.
3. Secret volume password shows all data.
4. Additional feature: the 50GB secret data is still tied to the existence of some otherwise harmless looking file in the regular volume. Removing that file will destroy the secret data without the need to log in with the secret volume password.
5. An efficient solution may need dedicated filesystem support.
An additional feature that comes to mind could be the

If they made signs, commercials, or hold rallys in support of SOPA, I bet 99% of posters here would have no problem at all.

On the other hand, *if* they spent the money to buy politicians and congressional votes, now that is repulsive. "More money should not *buy* more democracy."

You see, it is not a question of limits on spending by corporations. I always thought that is not the important issue at all. The question is what the money is spent on (speech or bribe?) and disclosure.

You see if you picket in front of the police headquarters with signs saying the speed limits are too low, that on its own will not get you in trouble. On the other hand, if you offer money to a police officer to not give you a speeding ticket, that will. So if we decided to treat corporations as people, then these corporations should be punished if they attempt bribes; the equivalent of prison for them is prison for the execs and confiscation of ill gotten gains (say those due to political influence) or suspension of business activities for a time period...

  If I buy an advertisement in a paper to spread my message, it could be traced back to me. I expect that corporations, political action committees etc. should act with the same transparency.

Simply put: corporations should not get the benefits of "personhood" without any of the responsibilities/consequences.

I do not want to sound jealous. But I probably am. She must be very smart and clearly stand out from her peers. However...

I have seen the projects at our university for the Siemens competition and I got a feeling of... but enough of that. Instead, I would really love to hear comments by the authors of the following paper submitted in 2007:

Multi-Functional Nanoparticles and Their Role in Cancer Drug Delivery – A Review
Priya Pathak and V. K. Katiyar

Note the operative word "review" in the title, indicating substantial earlier work. It would be great to understand how this new contribution fits into the picture.

I am fortunate that in my field I did not have to add "extra" citations. But, I have heard about the practice and it is a serious problem along with the fact that many papers simply use references from other papers without checking them first. I still think that citations are better (if rigid measure is needed). And obviously any attempt of a measure that does not account for differences between the fields will have to be flawed.

I also understand the pressure from funding agencies. However, tenure and promotion decisions are made within academia. I guess, too many key players cave in to the outside pressures, and hail the money bringers. While I do not expect academia to solve all the problems, I do expect academia to internally address this issue and at least talk about it. For example, regarding abuse of citations: a separate review of the references could help (and for such a review you do not need the same level expertise as for the content); maybe an anonymous tipline regarding citation farming could also be implemented. (One could set it up even in the presence of double blind reviews so that a statistics of complaints against a reviewer can be gathered without identifying the papers reviewed. Too many complaints in a given period and the reviewer is simply dropped, but no other consequence.) Etc.

I understand what you are saying. But consider: where does the publish or perish demand come from?

It seems it is perpetuated by academia itself to a great extent. A lot of them got pretty got at the game and it is easier than writing really good papers. People in academia should promote and use "be cited or perish" instead (if a rigid measure is needed).