Is cryptography where security took the wrong branch?

Ian Grigg iang at systemics.com
Sun Sep 7 21:54:24 EDT 2003


Eric Rescorla wrote:

> Elasticity is about how much consumption changes when price
> changes, not about what people who were already going to buy
> choose to buy.

Sorry, Eric, I'm not quite with you on this...

You said:
> > Maybe, maybe not. You've never heard of price inelasticity?


You haven't established anything beyond some apparent
intention to consider inelasticity, as if it is some
superior magic property we have to do battle with.


Then, you said:
> The fact of the matter is that we have no real idea how
> elastic the demand for certs is....


Firstly, most goods are elastic.  The natural
order of things is that if you want to establish
that your particular claimed good is otherwise,
then you might want to show it?  Please?

So, let's call this bluff:  please show why and
how the demand for certs is inelastic!

Secondly, I'm proposing self-signed certs.  What
does price inelasticity mean when the price is
zero?


> Ian, it's a major econometrics project to determine how
> elastic a given good has. To imagine that you can do
> it with a little handwaving is simply naive.


Thirdly, after we have established the inelasticity
of the certs in question - a tough call - and we've
also established that it means something even when
the price is zero...

...we now want to establish how useful a tool is that
won't measure it, as you assert, without such a "major
econometrics project?"

I'm curious, why did you bring econometrics up if it
is too hard to use?

And, why should *I* use it?  The certs are elastic,
until I see something to the contrary.

Fourthly, econometrics delivers explanatory power.
I.e., the past.  It is weak on predictive power.
I.e., the future.

That's because the assumptions are arbitrary.  And,
that's why marketeers don't use econometrics:  they
prefer to change the assumptions, which takes us out
of the data set.

Which is where I am:  the assumptions.

First step, examine the assumptions of the past.
That's what we on this list have been doing for the
last 6 months.

Second step, change them.

iang

PS: I'm curious, is there some URL that talks about
application of inelasticity and econometrics to crypto?
Somebody who's selling the notion?

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