8 ms·

Topics in Core Mathematics at Graterford Prison

154 points by tomahunt 9y ago

gibsjose 9y ago
It is quite fascinating to imagine inmates passing their handwritten Vigenère encrypted secrets using Diffie-Hellman key exchange.
- wyager 9y ago
  As I recall, Neil Stephenson commissioned Bruce Schneier to come up with a reasonably secure cryptosystem that could be computed using a deck of cards, so that a character in Cryptonomicon could do something similar while imprisoned.
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    https://www.schneier.com/academic/solitaire/ https://www.schneier.com/academic/solitaire/
    - userbinator 9y ago
      The two indices and the permutation operations are very reminiscent of RC4.
mrkgnao 9y ago
> Christopher is an inmate in a high-security federal prison not far from Atlanta. He’s been in trouble with the law since he was 14. He didn’t finish high school, had an addiction to hard drugs, and at age 21, his involvement in a string of armed robberies landed him in prison with a 32-year sentence. > Right now, you’ve probably formed a mental image of who Christopher is, and you might be wondering why I’m opening my speech with his story. When you think about who does mathematics–both who is capable of doing mathematics and who wants to do mathematics–would you think of Christopher? Francis Su's retiring address as the President of the Mathematical Association of America is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEtDvc1SWm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEtDvc1SWm8 There's a transcript on his blog, too: https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-human-flourishing/ https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-hu...
- thearn4 9y ago
  That's a great read, thanks for linking it.
eecc 9y ago
yeah, criminals shouldn't be treated with dignity anyway... any mistake should mark you for life. Who would give a petty thief a second chance, they may get good and land a job, your job - you, the law abiding citizen - at Google. Amirite?
- draugadrotten 9y ago
  Your reply is filled with emotion and while prison time is an emotional matter, laws and rules must be based upon logic to be effective and good for society. Crimimals serving prison time have violated the laws of society. They have a responsibility for this and they will indeed be marked for life, and rightly so. That doesn't mean that they should be restricted from any job, but it makes sense to limit their career options. You don't want a pedo in day care, a bank robber in banking, or a wife beater as a carpenter. As for teaching inmates about mathematics, this is probably a good idea. Many inmates suffer from low education, which makes it hard for them to understand today's society. Mathematics is fine, but it will only be useful to a percent of the inmates. Most of them have other, more basic educational needs. But hey, who doesn't need a clappy-happy sunshine story about a convicted felon every now and then? You could be next, you never know when they are gonna come for you, bad boy.
  - nnq 9y ago
    > laws and rules must be based upon logic to be effective and good for society Yeah, but let's not forget that "civilized society" is a necessary evil - we accept it simply because we know no better way to minimize suffering, on average. For any one particular individual, the laws of the particular society (s)he happens to be living in are probably far from the laws that would be best for him/her in particular... Some individuals would flourish better in societies where stealing is accepted. Other in ones where murder is accepted, etc. There's nothing absolutely better about out set of rules and moral values made of o concepts like "don't kill", "don't rape", "don't steal" etc. They are just a good local average maximum... Maybe the actual global maximum of human flourishing would be achieved in a society where rape and murder are allowed in a certain circumstances. I'd personally bet it is, though the definition of that set of circumstances is probably too complex to allow optimal practical implementation of such policies. I mostly like our current set of rules, but let's not delude ourselves into seeing them as anything other than a local average optimization! The "criminals" are just the unlucky fellas whose traits don't correspond well with flourishing while playing by the rules in our little play pen we call civilized society. Nothing more. A sadistic murdering rapist can at the same time be a great mathematician, and, judged by the global maximum of the universe, may have a much greater positive contribution to the betterment of the human race through his mathematical discoveries and their consequences (than the relatively minor negative contribution done by taking some of his unlucky victims out of the population a few decades sooner than their natural death) and judged by this one could say he could be a better human being than you in total, even if he/she may have directly killed 20 people, and you may have killed 0. And be honest with yourself if you think the society we live in is anything but a necessary evil: you know you've felt the desire to murder, or torture, or rape, one time or another, just as any other human being, and that you've been hurt by society because it didn't let you exercise the freedom to do these things. (Yeah, you've been hurt less than the victims of such actions would've been hurt, hence the optimal average given by the current set of rules. But maybe it's not the optimal average for you as and individual.) (And to put thing in better context: the character that started the talk, Christopher, was far from a sadistic murdering rapist, he was convicted for armed robbery... basically "stealing some crap while holding a gun in your hand to look more terrifying, or for self-defense against the shopkeeper who might have a gun himself and shoot you instead"... something with less negative moral value than most actions of most heads of state I'd guess, and far from "a true monster")
agumonkey 9y ago
Reminds me of high school dropout buddies who couldn't math at all, yet would compute weed ratios, prices in fake currencies on the fly while bantering. Irony.
- posterboy 9y ago
  That's 4th grade level math ...
  - swift 9y ago
    Speaking as someone with a graduate-level education in mathematics, I definitely can't make change as quickly as an experienced cashier, and I'm sure a drug dealer would be able to judge the profit or loss expected from a series of transactions more quickly than I would. Some respect for those skills is warranted, I think, even if they just boil down to being fast at arithmetic.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      parent is right, its not really impressive, but these guys didn't know the maths they were doing, they didn't even learn or try, it was just natural to devise rules, ratios, conversion because they just wanted it was inspired by a strong desire. I'm sure some dealers have nice economic skills.
      - posterboy 9y ago
        The fallacy is in equating criminal activity with stupidity. This fallacy might stem from assuming that the risk was immeasurable and the profit therefore potentially negligible (bayesian inference). Arithmetically inclined individuals being advantaged as sellers leads to survivorship bias. It's not actually surprising that a salesman can do that. It's surprising that drug sales can score huge gains and that some people see hardly any alternative to make a living even if small time dealers hardly make a profit because of oversupply in competition, much less if they are addicted.
bglazer 9y ago
http://blogs.ams.org/phdplus/files/2017/05/Wali-and-Brandon.jpg http://blogs.ams.org/phdplus/files/2017/05/Wali-and-Brandon.... This poster presentation of non-Euclidean geometry is really one of the best demonstrations that I've ever seen of these ideas. The precision and clarity of the hand drawn figures is lovely.
cubano 9y ago
I am all for knowledge for knowledge's sake, and these guys are doing an amazing job not only teaching these convicts about important, perhaps even life-changing, math concepts, and by donating their ever-shrinking and increasingly valuable time, something that is in very limited supply in todays age. But, as I am currently finding out in my life, the odds are very slim to none that life post-prison is going to change for these convicts as they try to rejoin society, as the job markets will be almost totally closed off to them as they seem to be for me. Even with all this "enlightened" rhetoric here on HN about second-chances and "understanding the struggle", not one person here has contacted me about remote work even though I have make it very clear how desperate my situation is [0]. Please don't misunderstand...I don't really expect anyone to have much sympathy for my situation, but I know plenty of people here are currently looking for IT workers and my posting clearly show I am capable of doing high-quality LAMP work, so I think it's at least notable to discuss my experience. It's all well and good to provide education and such to people in seek it, and its a great feel-good-story with wonderful social signaling for all you comfortable techies, but the reality is that food and shelter costs real money, and all the education in the world isn't going to help these ex-cons find work, build self-esteem and rejoin society if the common prejudices continue to work against them at every turn. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017760
- Blackthorn 9y ago
  I teach at a prison on occasion, and our program results in a dramatically lower recividism rate. Could come from a number of variables but take that evidence as you will. They probably can't get remote work though.
  - cubano 9y ago
    They probably don't have a 30 year history as a software developer/engineer either do they? And a exceptional work history that include IBM Advanced Technology, AT&T, and TransUnion along with more current cutting edge gigs using systems like Fastlane, Jenkins, and React as a very successful remote IC? Yes what I've learned is that most HNers just like to virtue-signal their support and aren't really interested in actually involving themselves...but a serious and heartfelt THANK YOU for the ones that do. Blackthorn, it's fantastic you are involved in a active and successful program that is helping people coming out of prison find a job and stay out...that's God's work for sure. But in my experience many are almost surely being exploited by employers whom are using their desperation against starving and living in the streets, violating parole and going back to prison, and going back to a life of crime against them to offer them a employment at below market-rate jobs. Many if not most of these jobs are actually designed for the ex-con to fail at and to be easily replaceable with the next crop of paroles and new releases as the revolving door spins in-and-out. Halfway houses seems to be the worse offenders here as they often take a large portion of the ex-cons take home pay in the name of "protecting" them against themselves but its often just a raw money grab. Very few of these jobs pay anything close to a decent living wage that will allow the newly released convict a good chance at rejoining society in a meaningful way anyway. It's so easy for even a very empathetic person who wants to help to take a hard look at these problems and eventually decide "well damn...there is no solution here so let's just go back to the old attitude that is their fault for breaking <insert random bullshit non-violent offense here> so they deserve to be social outcasts, shit on forever living on the margins of society with very little hope of redemption." You guys just don't know how much I hate knowing all this shit...I truly don't believe I am the person that my background suggests I am to most employers but as always, the very few ruin it for the most.

154 points by tomahunt 9y ago

It is quite fascinating to imagine inmates passing their handwritten Vigenère encrypted secrets using Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

wyager 9y ago
As I recall, Neil Stephenson commissioned Bruce Schneier to come up with a reasonably secure cryptosystem that could be computed using a deck of cards, so that a character in Cryptonomicon could do something similar while imprisoned.
- grogenaut 9y ago
  https://www.schneier.com/academic/solitaire/ https://www.schneier.com/academic/solitaire/
  - userbinator 9y ago
    The two indices and the permutation operations are very reminiscent of RC4.

mrkgnao 9y ago

> Christopher is an inmate in a high-security federal prison not far from Atlanta. He’s been in trouble with the law since he was 14. He didn’t finish high school, had an addiction to hard drugs, and at age 21, his involvement in a string of armed robberies landed him in prison with a 32-year sentence. > Right now, you’ve probably formed a mental image of who Christopher is, and you might be wondering why I’m opening my speech with his story. When you think about who does mathematics–both who is capable of doing mathematics and who wants to do mathematics–would you think of Christopher? Francis Su's retiring address as the President of the Mathematical Association of America is one of the most powerful things I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEtDvc1SWm8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEtDvc1SWm8 There's a transcript on his blog, too: https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-human-flourishing/ https://mathyawp.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/mathematics-for-hu...

thearn4 9y ago
That's a great read, thanks for linking it.

eecc 9y ago

yeah, criminals shouldn't be treated with dignity anyway... any mistake should mark you for life. Who would give a petty thief a second chance, they may get good and land a job, your job - you, the law abiding citizen - at Google. Amirite?

draugadrotten 9y ago
Your reply is filled with emotion and while prison time is an emotional matter, laws and rules must be based upon logic to be effective and good for society. Crimimals serving prison time have violated the laws of society. They have a responsibility for this and they will indeed be marked for life, and rightly so. That doesn't mean that they should be restricted from any job, but it makes sense to limit their career options. You don't want a pedo in day care, a bank robber in banking, or a wife beater as a carpenter. As for teaching inmates about mathematics, this is probably a good idea. Many inmates suffer from low education, which makes it hard for them to understand today's society. Mathematics is fine, but it will only be useful to a percent of the inmates. Most of them have other, more basic educational needs. But hey, who doesn't need a clappy-happy sunshine story about a convicted felon every now and then? You could be next, you never know when they are gonna come for you, bad boy.
- nnq 9y ago
  > laws and rules must be based upon logic to be effective and good for society Yeah, but let's not forget that "civilized society" is a necessary evil - we accept it simply because we know no better way to minimize suffering, on average. For any one particular individual, the laws of the particular society (s)he happens to be living in are probably far from the laws that would be best for him/her in particular... Some individuals would flourish better in societies where stealing is accepted. Other in ones where murder is accepted, etc. There's nothing absolutely better about out set of rules and moral values made of o concepts like "don't kill", "don't rape", "don't steal" etc. They are just a good local average maximum... Maybe the actual global maximum of human flourishing would be achieved in a society where rape and murder are allowed in a certain circumstances. I'd personally bet it is, though the definition of that set of circumstances is probably too complex to allow optimal practical implementation of such policies. I mostly like our current set of rules, but let's not delude ourselves into seeing them as anything other than a local average optimization! The "criminals" are just the unlucky fellas whose traits don't correspond well with flourishing while playing by the rules in our little play pen we call civilized society. Nothing more. A sadistic murdering rapist can at the same time be a great mathematician, and, judged by the global maximum of the universe, may have a much greater positive contribution to the betterment of the human race through his mathematical discoveries and their consequences (than the relatively minor negative contribution done by taking some of his unlucky victims out of the population a few decades sooner than their natural death) and judged by this one could say he could be a better human being than you in total, even if he/she may have directly killed 20 people, and you may have killed 0. And be honest with yourself if you think the society we live in is anything but a necessary evil: you know you've felt the desire to murder, or torture, or rape, one time or another, just as any other human being, and that you've been hurt by society because it didn't let you exercise the freedom to do these things. (Yeah, you've been hurt less than the victims of such actions would've been hurt, hence the optimal average given by the current set of rules. But maybe it's not the optimal average for you as and individual.) (And to put thing in better context: the character that started the talk, Christopher, was far from a sadistic murdering rapist, he was convicted for armed robbery... basically "stealing some crap while holding a gun in your hand to look more terrifying, or for self-defense against the shopkeeper who might have a gun himself and shoot you instead"... something with less negative moral value than most actions of most heads of state I'd guess, and far from "a true monster")

agumonkey 9y ago

Reminds me of high school dropout buddies who couldn't math at all, yet would compute weed ratios, prices in fake currencies on the fly while bantering. Irony.

posterboy 9y ago
That's 4th grade level math ...
- swift 9y ago
  Speaking as someone with a graduate-level education in mathematics, I definitely can't make change as quickly as an experienced cashier, and I'm sure a drug dealer would be able to judge the profit or loss expected from a series of transactions more quickly than I would. Some respect for those skills is warranted, I think, even if they just boil down to being fast at arithmetic.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    parent is right, its not really impressive, but these guys didn't know the maths they were doing, they didn't even learn or try, it was just natural to devise rules, ratios, conversion because they just wanted it was inspired by a strong desire. I'm sure some dealers have nice economic skills.
    - posterboy 9y ago
      The fallacy is in equating criminal activity with stupidity. This fallacy might stem from assuming that the risk was immeasurable and the profit therefore potentially negligible (bayesian inference). Arithmetically inclined individuals being advantaged as sellers leads to survivorship bias. It's not actually surprising that a salesman can do that. It's surprising that drug sales can score huge gains and that some people see hardly any alternative to make a living even if small time dealers hardly make a profit because of oversupply in competition, much less if they are addicted.

bglazer 9y ago

http://blogs.ams.org/phdplus/files/2017/05/Wali-and-Brandon.jpg http://blogs.ams.org/phdplus/files/2017/05/Wali-and-Brandon.... This poster presentation of non-Euclidean geometry is really one of the best demonstrations that I've ever seen of these ideas. The precision and clarity of the hand drawn figures is lovely.

cubano 9y ago

I am all for knowledge for knowledge's sake, and these guys are doing an amazing job not only teaching these convicts about important, perhaps even life-changing, math concepts, and by donating their ever-shrinking and increasingly valuable time, something that is in very limited supply in todays age. But, as I am currently finding out in my life, the odds are very slim to none that life post-prison is going to change for these convicts as they try to rejoin society, as the job markets will be almost totally closed off to them as they seem to be for me. Even with all this "enlightened" rhetoric here on HN about second-chances and "understanding the struggle", not one person here has contacted me about remote work even though I have make it very clear how desperate my situation is [0]. Please don't misunderstand...I don't really expect anyone to have much sympathy for my situation, but I know plenty of people here are currently looking for IT workers and my posting clearly show I am capable of doing high-quality LAMP work, so I think it's at least notable to discuss my experience. It's all well and good to provide education and such to people in seek it, and its a great feel-good-story with wonderful social signaling for all you comfortable techies, but the reality is that food and shelter costs real money, and all the education in the world isn't going to help these ex-cons find work, build self-esteem and rejoin society if the common prejudices continue to work against them at every turn. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017760 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14017760

Blackthorn 9y ago
I teach at a prison on occasion, and our program results in a dramatically lower recividism rate. Could come from a number of variables but take that evidence as you will. They probably can't get remote work though.
- cubano 9y ago
  They probably don't have a 30 year history as a software developer/engineer either do they? And a exceptional work history that include IBM Advanced Technology, AT&T, and TransUnion along with more current cutting edge gigs using systems like Fastlane, Jenkins, and React as a very successful remote IC? Yes what I've learned is that most HNers just like to virtue-signal their support and aren't really interested in actually involving themselves...but a serious and heartfelt THANK YOU for the ones that do. Blackthorn, it's fantastic you are involved in a active and successful program that is helping people coming out of prison find a job and stay out...that's God's work for sure. But in my experience many are almost surely being exploited by employers whom are using their desperation against starving and living in the streets, violating parole and going back to prison, and going back to a life of crime against them to offer them a employment at below market-rate jobs. Many if not most of these jobs are actually designed for the ex-con to fail at and to be easily replaceable with the next crop of paroles and new releases as the revolving door spins in-and-out. Halfway houses seems to be the worse offenders here as they often take a large portion of the ex-cons take home pay in the name of "protecting" them against themselves but its often just a raw money grab. Very few of these jobs pay anything close to a decent living wage that will allow the newly released convict a good chance at rejoining society in a meaningful way anyway. It's so easy for even a very empathetic person who wants to help to take a hard look at these problems and eventually decide "well damn...there is no solution here so let's just go back to the old attitude that is their fault for breaking <insert random bullshit non-violent offense here> so they deserve to be social outcasts, shit on forever living on the margins of society with very little hope of redemption." You guys just don't know how much I hate knowing all this shit...I truly don't believe I am the person that my background suggests I am to most employers but as always, the very few ruin it for the most.