MetaFilter posts tagged with Trust

It's all Greek to Me

scalefree — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:30:49 -0800

In 1984 computer pioneer Ken Thompson wrote one of the seminal works of computer security, Reflections on Trusting Trust [PDF]. In it he postulated putting a trojan horse inside a compiler as a means of infecting software compiled by it. 25 years later somebody has finally done just that. Researchers at anti-virus house Sophos have discovered a virus that places a backdoor into applications compiled with the Delphi language. They've identified at least 3000 separate Delphi applications that have had this backdoor compiled into them so far, including banking programs and programs used for cellphone programming.

Animal behaviour: Grape expectations

kliuless — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:10:32 -0800

Revealing how we are just a bunch of monkeys... (via) Franz de Waals and Sarah Brosnan

...trained brown capuchin monkeys to give them pebbles in exchange for cucumbers. Almost overnight, a capuchin economy developed, with hungry monkeys harvesting small stones. But the marketplace was disrupted when the scientists got mischievous: instead of giving every monkey a cucumber in exchange for pebbles, they started giving some monkeys a tasty grape instead. (Monkeys prefer grapes to cucumbers.) After witnessing this injustice, the monkeys earning cucumbers went on strike. Some started throwing their cucumbers at the scientists; the vast majority just stopped collecting pebbles. The capuchin economy ground to a halt. The monkeys were willing to forfeit cheap food simply to register their anger at the arbitrary pay scale.

in other words, it could be up to our kids to replenish our trust networks... BONUS GRAPES

The psychology of cons

homunculus — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 22:48:23 -0800

How to Run a Con. A neuro economist looks at the Pigeon Drop. [Via]

neurobiology of trust

nickyskye — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:25:38 -0800

As the market plummets, it might be interesting to look at the neurological background in the breakdown of trust. The author, Jonah Lehrer, is a young brainiac writer for Seed and the excellent Frontal Cortex. l Scientists immediately discovered a strong neural signal that drove many of the investment decisions. The signal was fictive learning. l One way to think of the financial markets right now is that instead of being populated by rational agents, they're full of people with borderline personality disorder. The Neurobiology of Trust Recent articles in Seed by Jonah Lehrer. Previously (wonderful post about Jonah Lehrer's first book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist). Previous references to Frontal Cortex: 1, 2, 3.

"We, having been so nearly destroyed, can use what we've learnt from our destruction to start the world again"

hadjiboy — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:43:14 -0800

Three award-winning photographers come together to photograph wo men from around the world, who have been the victims of war, and survived to tell their tale.

Home Semen Detection Kit

jonson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 09:16:48 -0800

Has some strange man been having orgasms inside your wife or daughter? Sure, you may think not, but can you be sure?? You can now, thanks to the revolutionary new CheckMate (get it) Semen Detection Kit that is not, in fact, a joke despite how absolutely creepy it seems.

Metafollowup

squidfartz — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 21:42:56 -0800

Adrienne Shelly was murdered.

HAVA has forced us to purchase systems that in my opinion are not appropriate for citizens to be voting on

amberglow — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:14:14 -0800

E-voting systems hacker sees ‘particularly bad’ security issues ...On Tuesday, Dec. 13, we conducted a hack of the Diebold AccuVote optical scan device. I wrote a five-line script in Visual Basic that would allow you to go into the central tabulator and change any vote total you wanted, leaving no logs.... More from the Washington Post here, where ... Four times over the past year Sancho told computer specialists to break in to his voting system. And on all four occasions they did, changing results with what the specialists described as relatively unsophisticated hacking techniques. ..."Can the votes of this Diebold system be hacked using the memory card?" Two people marked yes on their ballots, and six no. The optical scan machine read the ballots, and the data were transmitted to a final tabulator. The result? Seven yes, one no. ... Verified Voting and Black Box Voting have much much more on all of this.

Trust Cancels Fear

sultan — Thu, 08 Dec 2005 17:33:51 -0800

Trust-Building Hormone Short-Circuits Fear In Humans Oxytocin, a brain chemical recently found to boost trust, also suppresses the activity in the amygdala where fear is generated. This could be a breakthrough for those who suffer from any type of social avoidance disorder.

Is The BBC The United Nations Of Broadcasting?

MiguelCardoso — Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:52:54 -0800

Trusting The Redcoats: How many independent-minded Americans actually rely on the BBC (specially the World Service) for accurate coverage of American politics? Not to mention The Guardian. Is it a strictly an elitist, liberal/left-wing phenomenon? What does it mean? What does it say about better-informed liberal newspapers and media of the U.S.? If so, why aren't like-minded Europeans just as cosmopolitan and, say, pay the same attention to news sources like The New York Times, NPR and others, rather than stolidly sticking to their own national staples?

Impeach Bush now

acrobat — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 08:04:22 -0800

Impeach "the crazies" now! "Can there be any greater violation of the public trust than to bear false witness to the people's representatives in pursuit of short-term political gain? Can there be injuries more immediate to society than to send American citizens to their death on a fraudulent pretext? With each shooting of a U.S. soldier in Iraq, the case for impeachment grows stronger."

Fake Bronze, Fake Dong

tpoh.org — Sun, 29 Jun 2003 22:02:49 -0800

Man Sells Fake Bronze, Gets Paid With Fake Cash. From the You-Can't-Trust-Anyone-Anymore Dept.: "A Vietnamese man who used cow fat and paint to pass off a lump of iron as valuable black bronze found buyers, but was paid in counterfeit bills."

mattpfeff — Tue, 08 Oct 2002 09:28:18 -0800

"If you like surfing the web, it is probably because you believe people are basically good." That's the Economist interpreting the results of a recent study by IBM researchers of how cultural characteristics apparently affect people's readiness to adopt new communications technologies.