Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more
Locked out
The phrase 鈥測ou couldn鈥檛 make it up鈥�, Feedback feels, is often misunderstood. It doesn鈥檛 mean there are limits to the imagination, but rather that there are some developments you can鈥檛 include in a fictional story because people would say 鈥渙h come on, that would never happen鈥�. The trouble is, those people are wrong, because real life is frequently ridiculous.
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In the world of codes and ciphers, one of the more important organisations is the International Association for Cryptologic Research, described as 鈥溾��. The IACR recently held to choose new officers and directors and to tweak its bylaws. Being cryptographers, they did so in a clever way: they used Helios, an online platform that promises 鈥渧erifiable online elections鈥�.
Helios is really quite clever. Every vote is tracked, so you can check that yours has been received and that it hasn鈥檛 been altered 鈥� apparently making tampering impossible. At the same time, each vote is completely secret. The system 鈥溾��.
But how does the tally get decrypted, you may ask? Well, an organisation must designate a number of trustees. The IACR picked three, each of whom was given one-third of the cryptographic key. To decrypt the tally and see the results, all three trustees had to input their bit of the key. This was an all-or-nothing process: one or two bits of the key wouldn鈥檛 get you even a partial decrypt.
And so, the inevitable happened. 鈥淯nfortunately, one of the three trustees has irretrievably lost their private key, an honest but unfortunate human mistake, and therefore cannot compute their decryption share,鈥� the IACR on 21 November. 鈥淎s a result, Helios is unable to complete the decryption process, and it is technically impossible for us to obtain or verify the final outcome of this election.鈥�
The IACR has had to the election and the whole process again. This time, it says, 鈥渨e will adopt a 2-out-of-3 threshold mechanism for the management of private keys, and we will circulate a clear written procedure for all trustees to follow before and during the election鈥�. Feedback is keen to examine that 鈥渃lear written procedure鈥�, if only to find out whether the first page reads 鈥淒ON鈥橳 LOSE IT鈥� in massive bold type.
We are also fascinated by the capacity of what the IACR calls a 鈥渉uman mistake鈥� to cut through even the most ingeniously designed system. Every time some Silicon Valley hype-man tells us that human-level artificial intelligence is imminent, we groan inwardly, because the first human-level artificial intelligence will presumably be on a par with the average person 鈥� and, well, have you met people?
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Float like a raisin
The capacity of science journalists to come up with new and interesting units of measurement never ceases to amaze. On 17 November, The New York Times ran a about 鈥渁 tiny solar-powered radio tag that weighs just 60 milligrams and sells for $200鈥�, which entomologists are using to track monarch butterflies on their migrations across North America.
Anthony Weaver flagged a sentence that tried to convey how much a tag weighs compared with its porter: 鈥淢ost monarchs weigh 500 to 600 milligrams, so each tag-bearing migrator making the transcontinental journey is, by weight, equivalent to a half-raisin carrying three uncooked grains of rice.鈥�
Feedback thinks we can all agree this makes it much clearer, in a way that saying 鈥渁bout a tenth of your body weight鈥� just wouldn鈥檛 achieve. Or, as Anthony says: 鈥淎s I picture myself as a half raisin on a transcontinental journey, carrying rice to Mexico, I finally understand firsthand how butterflies feel about science.鈥�
No, this isn鈥檛 an invitation to send in similar examples from the pages of 麻豆传媒. Don鈥檛 even think about it.
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The boys鈥� club
Feedback isn鈥檛 on social media because, quite frankly, we don鈥檛 have the mental energy to work out how to get eyeballs on half a dozen distinct sites that all use radically different algorithms. Nevertheless, we do keep half an eye on things, so we were intrigued to learn of an impromptu experiment on LinkedIn. Women on the site their names and pronouns to appear male, then saw their engagement rocket.
For instance, social media consultant Simone Bonnett changed her pronouns to 鈥渉e/him鈥� and her name to 鈥淪imon E鈥�, then saw her profile views increase by 1600 per cent, . Others saw . As a control, Daniel Hires, who incidentally has the perfect LinkedIn name, tried the opposite. 鈥�,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭he result? Day 1: reach down -26%鈥�.
Now, Feedback must tell you that, according to LinkedIn鈥檚 Sakshi Jain, the site鈥檚 鈥渁lgorithm and AI systems do not use (such as age, race, or gender) as a signal to determine the visibility of content, profile, or posts in the Feed鈥�. We don鈥檛 doubt it, but we also thought that unintentional emergent effects were a major driver of .
Meanwhile, Feedback is in the process of setting up our brand-new LinkedIn page. We鈥檙e going to call ourselves Mansplain.
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Got a story for Feedback?
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