Privacy Math

[kirby urner]

Mozilla has launched a CS-friendly math site about encryption:

https://advocacy.mozilla.org/en-US/encrypt/codemoji-b/1

Lambda Calc teachers (as I think of them) want their students

to understand about the importance of encryption in today's

world.  The emerging world of crypto-currencies depends on

such tools, but so does everyday privacy.

Here's a Numberphile Youtube introducing the RSA algorithm

in particular, note his mentioning of Fermat's Little Theorem
towards the end:

https://youtu.be/M7kEpw1tn50?t=7m14s

(the time pointer is preset to the segment on FLT).

If you watch the Mozilla PR you'll see fears expressed that
the UK might soon attempt to make our Lambda Calc track
verboten at the behest of know-nothing politicians.

True, GCHQ suppressed an earlier version of RSA in the
pre-Internet era, and the US NSA tried to delay its coming into
widespread use during director Bobby Inman's tenure [1]).

However by 2016, turning back the clock to 1976 seems an
unlikely threat given the "strong encryption cat" has been out
of the bag for many decades by now.

The software for strong encryption is already widespread (in
every web browser) and perfectly legal.  [ However it may not

be strong enough with 1024 bit public keys -- 2048 bit is what

Twitter and many banks use).

The excellent Cut the Knot website embeds FLT in a longer
outline teachers might  want to use, especially if tasked with
innovating their own curriculum. 

Big publishing doesn't have much to offer along the LC track
I'm afraid, and waiting for it to catch up could take forever, so
local innovation is key.

http://www.cut-the-knot.org/blue/Fermat.shtml

Understanding modulo arithmetic is a big part of this story

of course, as will as the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic.

Remember that 'Mathematics for the Digital Age and

Programming in Python' (Skylit Publishing) builds towards

comprehension of RSA as one of its curriculum goals. 
That's a high school level math text used in several schools,

not just Phillips Academy.  AGT uses it in New York.[2]

http://www.skylit.com/mpquotes.html

(you'll see I'm quoted on this page, along with Michel Paul)

If your local high school has no CS-friendly math courses,
I recommend writing to the governor of your state and asking
why not.  Let educators know that you want relevant math

education in the schools today!  Let your voice be heard.

Kirby

[1]  Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government--
Saving Privacy in the Digital Age (Penguin Press Science) by
Steven Levy (Author)

[2]  http://shadowfaxrant.blogspot.com/ (a Pythonic Math teacher)

Links:
http://www.garykessler.net/library/crypto.html
http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/crypto0.html

CS-friendly math:

(1) not all functions use numbers (lexical domain used)

(2) a REPL is introduced (calculator was a first step)

(3) functions of more than one step are saved and reused

(4) Euclid's method is introduced

(5) includes Euler's function "the totient" of N

(6) introduces number bases other than 10, esp. 2 (binary) & 16 (hex)

(7) friendly to cryptography as a topic, also standard encodings (QR codes)

(8) introduces prefix notation for operators (per Scheme and LISP)

(9) introduces dot notation

[Christian Baune]

Bad news for you.Math Curriculum kinda "sucks" (no more meaningful word for it) because it is tge will of government. Not speaking about Country where I reside, but Europe and USA. With USA leading the way.

The goal of primary school (up to K12 ?) was to give freedom, free will and critical skills so people can teach themselves a job by jumping in. Any little boy at this age knew how to pass a contract (which mentions are required), know their rights and duties (can I work mor than 8 hours in a row ?).

Also, ratios were mastered. Doing change in BEF from Pounds wasn't a struggling part.
Cooking, ironing was part of the curriculum.

Any 16 year old was seen as "an adult who can make mistakes and try out things".

Then slowly, all these things felt appart. Now people learn less critical skills. They are trained at few critical tasks (Eg. reading diagrams).

As for instance, I learned the principle of "numeric base" when I was in 3 form (8year old). I filled CTU boards, I added alien numbers together (what if we pick packs of 8 ?). I drew frogs (Eg. x6 is x2x3).
I added symbols using addition tables and even did simple equations. (eg. if "♤+♡=♧-♢" then "♡-♧=?-♢" ?)

I sometime present old problems to educated colleagues and they are puzzled!

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MathFuture" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mathfuture+...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to mathf...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/mathfuture.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[kirby urner]

On Sat, Jul 9, 2016 at 12:24 AM, Christian Baune <progr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Bad news for you.Math Curriculum kinda "sucks" (no more meaningful word for it) because it is tge will of government. Not speaking about Country where I reside, but Europe and USA. With USA leading the way.

The goal of primary school (up to K12 ?) was to give freedom, free will and critical skills so people can teach themselves a job by jumping in. Any little boy at this age knew how to pass a contract (which mentions are required), know their rights and duties (can I work mor than 8 hours in a row ?).

Also, ratios were mastered. Doing change in BEF from Pounds wasn't a struggling part.
Cooking, ironing was part of the curriculum.

This all sounds very utopian and yet this is how it was eh?

I'm a big believer in making cooking a core subject, not marginalized as "home economics".  I'm not thinking in terms of 1950s US with "home economics" about future "homemakers" learning to use the latest appliances.

I'm thinking about a more institutional kitchen such as you'll find in a church or a school, hospital or... yes, prison, lets not forget any of our institutions.  There's collaboration and scripting, like choreography, that needs to go on.

I think we're afraid to let teenagers work with anything sharp or mechanical for liability reasons?

Working with food is about health, nutrition, world food politics (GMOs etc.), world hunger.  It's also about concurrency, working in parallel, so important in (a) theater (b) logistics (c) computer science.

My own personal experience includes working in such kitchens with a religious cult, a gathering of "Young Friends" in backwoods Oregon, and with an activist group known as Food Not Bombs (the Friends and FNB groups have similar values -- I even arrange for FNB to have weekly access to a Friends' kitchen in a later chapter).

What I've learned from my time in a kitchen is (a) I still have a lot ot learn, and would gladly learn more if given a chance and (b) we still have lots of untapped potential in terms of integrating food prep, cooking, serving, cleanup, into a more standard curriculum.

For example, we've all seen "cooking shows" on TV and Youtube.  If a school offers anything like videography (making videos, including editing, streaming etc.), then food is eternally a topic of interest.  Students might use the same facilities at the same time to learn so many skills, from handling sharp knives to collaborating on meal plans, to making videos.

Kirby