Pushing Back Against Backdoors: 2018 Year in Review

On 01/01/2019 02:44, nospam wrote:
you cannot accept that 'every call is recorded' means something other
than what you think it does, which is making an audio recording of
every call, not a log of who called whom and when.

All the kings horses and all the kings men,
Couldnt put Humpty together again.

Words do not mean what you alone intend them to mean.
If you are only talking to yourself you can say what the **** you like

If you are attempting communication (as against egotistical browbeating)
with other people it behoves you to use words as others expect them to
be used.



--
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over
the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that
authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

Frédéric Bastiat

On 01/01/2019 01:42, Wolf K wrote:
(1) E.g., how many meanings of "horse" do you know of? I have four
top-of-mind, three nouns and one verb, but the dictionary close to hand
gives six nouns and four verbs, and none of the verbs is the one I'm
thinking of, because it's part of a North American slang phrase, and the
dictionary is British. Total (so far): 11 usages. All determined by
context.

You're welcome,

Words are approximate metadata for experiential data.

Philsophy gets into very deep waters if it attempts to assign concrete
entries to words and make them identities.

German tends to do this, which is why Germans can be such total ****s.

Language is by consensus only. Since its purpose is communication
*between* individuals. Standards are necessary to ensure that it IS
such. And lawyers make fortunes out of ambiguity,

Consider 'I leave my diamond necklace to the sons of my daughters who
have red hair'




--
Labour - a bunch of rich people convincing poor people to vote for rich
people
by telling poor people that "other" rich people are the reason they are
poor.

Peter Thompson

"Wolf K" wrote

|And pronouncing "herb" as "erb" is a
| solecism.

"I'd like to H-onor this salad with H-erbs", said the
British cannibal, as he sprinkled colorful flakes into
a bowl and I began to speculate about how far it might
be to the nearest pizza place, in case I might need
to ightail it out of there.

On 2019-01-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/01/2019 02:44, nospam wrote:
you cannot accept that 'every call is recorded' means something other
than what you think it does, which is making an audio recording of
every call, not a log of who called whom and when.

All the kings horses and all the kings men,
Couldnt put Humpty together again.

Words do not mean what you alone intend them to mean.
If you are only talking to yourself you can say what the **** you like

If you are attempting communication (as against egotistical browbeating)
with other people it behoves you to use words as others expect them to
be used.

Except other people, which includes individuals other than you, have
different districts of meaning surrounding words, because they have
different experience with the language and with life. It is that spread
of meaning which makes poetry possible.
(But then you probably hate poetry).

In comp.os.linux.misc nospam wrote:
In article , Wolf K
wrote:

what you intended to say and what you actually said are not the
same, but what's really odd are the lengths to which you are going
to justify it.
[...]

what you said was ambiguous, and that's being generous and polite.

You are correct here, the original phrase had a level of ambiguity
about it.

the meaning that the vast majority of people will think when hearing
the phrase 'every call is recorded' is *not* what you want it to be.

Unfortunately here, for you, you have, and continue to have, a weak
argument.

Yes, taken out of context, the bare phrase 'every call is recorded'
would likely mean, to most listeners, exactly what you argue it means.
But the origional phrase was not the bare phrase 'every call is
recorded'.

Unfortunately for your argument, and what causes it to be very weak, is
that English is a highly contextual language [1], and to decide what
meaning should be assigned to the words, the relevant related context
of the phrase has to be analyzed. The phrase, in the context of the
full sentence in which it was used, was:

And for billing purposes (even prepaid), every call is recorded.

And, of course, the full context of the phrase in the entire posting,
was:

For a cellphone to work, it must have a unique ID, and be within
range of at least one cellphone tower.

In most of the USA and Canada, the cellphone user is are within
range of three towers, which means the location of the phone can be
triangulated to within a few meters.

And for billing purposes (even prepaid), every call is recorded.

Tracking you is therefore relatively simple. That's why smart
crooks buy (or steal) a phone, use it once, and toss it.

For the sentence context, the meaning assigned to "recorded" and "every
call is recorded" has to be weighed against the full context within
that sentence, which was "for billing purposes". There are two
possible meanings that can be assigned for "recorded" in this context:
"record metadata" and "record call contents (audio)". When considered
within the context of "for billing purposes", at least the meaning
"record metadata" must be used, because without metadata, billing is
not possible. But metadata is all that is necessary for billing (i.e.,
full call contents is not necessary merely to bill) so the meaning
"record full content" is much less reasonable because it goes far
beyond that which is reasonably required for billing purposes. So the
reasonable meaning to assign "recorded" in the context of this sentence
is the meaning "record metadata".

Repeating the above contextual analysis for the entire posting provides
even further weight towards selecting the "record metadata" meaning as
the most likely intended meaning of the sentence.

And in fact, when I read the original article, this was exactly the
meaning (record metadata) I read into "recorded" when reading the
sentence.

Was the sentence ambigious, yes. Would it have been better had it been
worded as:

And for billing purposes (even prepaid), **metadata of** every call
is recorded.

Yes, it would have clearly been better this way, because this
explicitly removes the ambiguity from the sentence.

But it is also unreasonable to take the last four words out of context
and argue that the intent of the full statement was to mean "record
call contents". Doing so ignores the contextual nature of English [1]
in the decoding of the most likely intended meaning for particular
words used in a sentence.


[1] Context-Dependent Interpretation Of Words: Evidence For Interactive
Neural Processes

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577612/

An interesting property of words, however, is that their meanings
are highly context-dependent. In fact, most English words are
ambiguous: they have multiple meanings that vary in how much they
overlap. Many words have multiple semantically-unrelated meanings
(e.g., watch: a time piece, to look; rose: a flower, past tense of
rise); others have multiple semantically-related senses (e.g.,
twist an ankle vs. twist the truth); and some have both (e.g., one
of the meanings of rose is the name of both a flower and a related
color). Even the meaning of a seemingly unambiguous word such as
piano depends on the context in which it occurs: moving a piano
brings to mind different concepts than playing a piano;

In comp.os.linux.misc The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/01/2019 01:42, Wolf K wrote:
(1) E.g., how many meanings of "horse" do you know of? I have four
top-of-mind, three nouns and one verb, but the dictionary close to hand
gives six nouns and four verbs, and none of the verbs is the one I'm
thinking of, because it's part of a North American slang phrase, and the
dictionary is British. Total (so far): 11 usages. All determined by
context.

You're welcome,

Words are approximate metadata for experiential data.

Philsophy gets into very deep waters if it attempts to assign concrete
entries to words and make them identities.

German tends to do this, which is why Germans can be such total ****s.

Language is by consensus only. Since its purpose is communication
*between* individuals. Standards are necessary to ensure that it IS
such. And lawyers make fortunes out of ambiguity,

Consider 'I leave my diamond necklace to the sons of my daughters who
have red hair'

Or, an extreme example:

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffal... ffalo_buffalo

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

your still trying to justify your incorrect usage. crazy.

Nah, I'm just poking you to see how far you will go in insisting that
there is one, and only one, correct usage. Or alternatively, that it's
forbidden to extend usage beyond a word's "specific meaning".

i never said there is only one correct usage. you are once again wrong.

In article , Wolf K
wrote:


So you haven't come across "check the record..." I have. Many times. It
tends to be British usage, and it means what you would phrase as "Check
the log..."

check the record is not the same as every call is recorded.



My whole discussion has been an attempt to get your head around the fact
that context is always necessary for meaning. But meaning in one context
doesn't forbid different meanings in other contexts.

i'm well aware of that. you, however, are not. you are insisting that
every call is recorded means logging the metadata.

If I tell you that
I'm about to fix dinner, does that mean that we can't say that we are
about to fix the clogged drain?

fix dinner *usually* means prepare & cook, but it *could* mean
something else, such as if a particular recipe did not come out
properly and had to be 'fixed', i.e., repaired, before the guests
arrived.

as you say, context matters.

In article
nospam wrote:

In article , Wolf K
wrote:

your still trying to justify your incorrect usage. crazy.

Nah, I'm just poking you to see how far you will go in insisting that
there is one, and only one, correct usage. Or alternatively, that it's
forbidden to extend usage beyond a word's "specific meaning".

i never said there is only one correct usage. you are once again wrong.

On 01/01/2019 15:45, William Unruh wrote:
On 2019-01-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/01/2019 02:44, nospam wrote:
you cannot accept that 'every call is recorded' means something other
than what you think it does, which is making an audio recording of
every call, not a log of who called whom and when.

All the kings horses and all the kings men,
Couldnt put Humpty together again.

Words do not mean what you alone intend them to mean.
If you are only talking to yourself you can say what the **** you like

If you are attempting communication (as against egotistical browbeating)
with other people it behoves you to use words as others expect them to
be used.

Except other people, which includes individuals other than you, have
different districts of meaning surrounding words, because they have
different experience with the language and with life. It is that spread
of meaning which makes poetry possible.
(But then you probably hate poetry).

Poetry is a different way to use words.

To describe emotional states.

"I wandered, lonely as a cloud" is pure nonsense if taken literally,.
Thats is the point. It is therefore obviously not supposed to be taken
literally.

However in this case we were in the contxet of definite factual
statements about something: there should be no place for wolly ambiguous
interpretation.

We have very pricse langauge to use in this case, as IT professionals,
To record a call is not the same as to record a call's *metadata*.

Since it is perfectly clear to all except weasels attempting a reverse
ferret that there is a difference, your attempts to pretend they mean
the same are somewhat more indicative ne suspects of the childlike
desire to cover a mistake by claiming you meant it all along...







--
Gun Control: The law that ensures that only criminals have guns.

On 01/01/2019 17:26, Wolf K wrote:
If you insist that it can't mean what I intended it to mean _in that
context_, that's not my problem.

It bloody well is.

If you say 'I think I will shoot you' and wave a gun in my face, and I
am also armed I will make a BIG problem for you evcen if you say,
assuming you surbvive 'I didnt mean actually SHOOT you'.

If others act on your communications and their actions impinge on you,
that IS your problem.

You appear to be a solipsist or a narcissist.




--
"What do you think about Gay Marriage?"
"I don't."
"Don't what?"
"Think about Gay Marriage."

On 01/01/2019 17:31, Wolf K wrote:
On 2019-01-01 07:09, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/01/2019 01:15, Wolf K wrote:
And pronouncing "herb" as "erb" is a solecism.

or affectation to speak french.

Where it emans 'grass' IIRC.


It's the accepted pronunciation in the USA. "Herb" is considered, um,
down-market.


In Englsih, erb is considered vulgar affectation.

Attempting to sound what you are not.

But then so is most Amerian. Use three syllables where two will do

Burglarize! Honestly! Its BURGLE (3=2)
'Going forward'? In Future! (4=3)




--
"What do you think about Gay Marriage?"
"I don't."
"Don't what?"
"Think about Gay Marriage."

On 01/01/2019 17:34, Wolf K wrote:
So you haven't come across "check the record..." I have. Many times. It
tends to be British usage, and it means what you would phrase as "Check
the log..."

I am 100% brit and I have NEVER heard ANYONE ever say that in an IT context.

Outside of IT we might says 'look up the record(s)' but that would not
be about phone calls or their logs.



You seem to be addicted to making up stuff that justifies your position.


--
The lifetime of any political organisation is about three years before
its been subverted by the people it tried to warn you about.

Anon.

On 2019-01-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/01/2019 15:45, William Unruh wrote:
On 2019-01-01, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 01/01/2019 02:44, nospam wrote:
you cannot accept that 'every call is recorded' means something other
than what you think it does, which is making an audio recording of
every call, not a log of who called whom and when.

All the kings horses and all the kings men,
Couldnt put Humpty together again.

Words do not mean what you alone intend them to mean.
If you are only talking to yourself you can say what the **** you like

If you are attempting communication (as against egotistical browbeating)
with other people it behoves you to use words as others expect them to
be used.

Except other people, which includes individuals other than you, have
different districts of meaning surrounding words, because they have
different experience with the language and with life. It is that spread
of meaning which makes poetry possible.
(But then you probably hate poetry).

Poetry is a different way to use words.

To describe emotional states.

"I wandered, lonely as a cloud" is pure nonsense if taken literally,.
Thats is the point. It is therefore obviously not supposed to be taken
literally.

However in this case we were in the contxet of definite factual
statements about something: there should be no place for wolly ambiguous
interpretation.

We have very pricse langauge to use in this case, as IT professionals,
To record a call is not the same as to record a call's *metadata*.

Both can fall under the term "record a call" in casual speech. There was
not attempt made to be precise. in the original.


Since it is perfectly clear to all except weasels attempting a reverse
ferret that there is a difference, your attempts to pretend they mean
the same are somewhat more indicative ne suspects of the childlike
And for someone concerned with accuracy, what is "ne suspects"?
And I think you have to give the benefit of the doubt to someone
interpreting they own words, than to someone who likes being tendentious.
desire to cover a mistake by claiming you meant it all along...



For someone who claims to be concerned about precise use of language,
you do not read very well. I am not the person who used the original
phrase about recording. I entered because of some incredibly wolly and
wrong claims being made about language which you seem to have agreed
with in your opening paragraph here. (and it is not just in conveying
emotion that poetic use of language is used. It is in all uses of
language. Go read both of Witgenstein's books, the first, Tractatus
espousing basically your position, and Philosphical Investigations
admiting he was wrong in his Tractutus, and that the use of language is
far richer than he first thought.

In article
Wolf K wrote:

On 2018-12-31 21:44, nospam wrote:
In article , Wolf K
wrote:

what you intended to say and what you actually said are not the same,
but what's really odd are the lengths to which you are going to justify
it.
[...]

I'm not justifying it. I don't have to. I said what I said, and I meant
what I meant. If I'd thought twice about whom I was talking to, I might
have rephrased it. But probably not.

what you said was ambiguous, and that's being generous and polite.

the meaning that the vast majority of people will think when hearing
the phrase 'every call is recorded' is *not* what you want it to be.

So? If I read what I think is nonsense, I try to figure out what the
writer probably intended. If I think it's important enough (egf, if the
apparently intended meaning leads in even weirder directions), I may ask
for confirmation.


What I'm trying to do is educate you about how language works. Which has
it backwards, because langauge is not an object. It's a behaviour that
people engage in. So I'll rephrase that:

no. what you're trying to do is not admit that it means something other
than what you want it to mean.

There' nothing to admit. I used a phrase to express what I meant in a
specified context. If you insist that it can't mean what I intended it
to mean _in that context_, that's not my problem.

I'm trying to educate you in how people actually use langauge. You seem
to believe that you know all there is to know about that. You don't.
Neither do I. But I know a hell of a lot more than you do.

straw man.

Oh no, you're the one

You also hold a widespread conceptual error: that words "have" meanings.

they do. sometimes more than one.

If you intend "people use words to express meanings", sure,. If you mean
"words have meanings the way apples have coluiur", you're simply wrong.
An apples' colour is objectively measureable as a mix of wavelenths of
lightb the apple's surface abosrbs and refklects (it's appearnec i
eonthing else).

Hence you believe that there are correct and incorrect words for things.

there are. sometimes more than one.

if the meanings of words were arbitrary, as you want them to be, then
it would be impossible to communicate.

we rely on specific meanings and choose words accordingly to
communicate with each other.

If only it were that simple.

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/abraham_lincoln_107482
How many legs does a dog have if you call his tail a leg? Four.
Saying that a tail is a leg doesn't make it a leg.

hence your comment that "recording calls is illegal", which it is, when
you intend "record the content of the call". But not in every
jurisdiction, so your "correct" meaning is limited by geography and
law.

recording a phone call without consent of at least one party, which
would be the case if the phone company is doing the recording and not
either participant, is illegal just about everywhere (there could be an
exception, but it's extremely unlikely).

It's legal in jurisdictions inhabited by most of the human race. A long
way from "just about everywhere".

what you're thinking of [...]

No, I ain't. In fact I'm not quite sure what I was thinking of. Probably
the fact that in US law even the police have to get a court order to
record phone call without consent, while in jurisdictions governing most
of the human race, the police can record whatever they want.
[...]
your still trying to justify your incorrect usage. crazy.

Nah, I'm just poking you to see how far you will go in insisting that
there is one, and only one, correct usage. Or alternatively, that it's
forbidden to extend usage beyond a word's "specific meaning".

I find it interesting that you've snipped my reminder of how
dictionaries are constructed, IOW, how we parse/construct meaning. UI
find it even more interesting that you are in the habit if snipping
without marking the snip.

Have a good day,


Off-Topic.