23,209 research outputs found
Fighting Uncertainty with Uncertainty: A Baby Step
We can overcome uncertainty with uncertainty. Using randomness in our choices
and in what we control, and hence in the decision making process, could
potentially offset the uncertainty inherent in the environment and yield better
outcomes. The example we develop in greater detail is the news-vendor inventory
management problem with demand uncertainty. We briefly discuss areas, where
such an approach might be helpful, with the common prescription, "Don't Simply
Optimize, Also Randomize; perhaps best described by the term -
Randoptimization".
1. News-vendor Inventory Management
2. School Admissions
3. Journal Submissions
4. Job Candidate Selection
5. Stock Picking
6. Monetary Policy
This methodology is suitable for the social sciences since the primary source
of uncertainty are the members of the system themselves and presently, no
methods are known to fully determine the outcomes in such an environment, which
perhaps would require being able to read the minds of everyone involved and to
anticipate their actions continuously. Admittedly, we are not qualified to
recommend whether such an approach is conducive for the natural sciences,
unless perhaps, bounds can be established on the levels of uncertainty in a
system and it is shown conclusively that a better understanding of the system
and hence improved decision making will not alter the outcomes
A Meaningful MD5 Hash Collision Attack
It is now proved by Wang et al., that MD5 hash is no more secure, after they proposed an attack that would generate two different messages that gives the same MD5 sum. Many conditions need to be satisfied to attain this collision. Vlastimil Klima then proposed a more efficient and faster technique to implement this attack. We use these techniques to first create a collision attack and then use these collisions to implement meaningful collisions by creating two different packages that give identical MD5 hash, but when extracted, each gives out different files with contents specified by the atacker
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