Re: Hidden information question

"Reef Fish" <Large_Nassau_Grouper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jerry Dallal wrote:
Schizoid Man wrote:

Several coworkers would like to know their average salary. How can
they calculate it, without disclosing their own salaries?

It's perhaps a semantic thing, but in the scheme proposed by you, and
earlier by xhos. everyone disclosed their own salaries except YOU,

Sure, they disclosed it to the calculator, or a piece of paper. Does that
really count as discloser? Do you think the first person is in cahoots
with a bunch of pieces of paper?

who
thinks you are smarter than the rest of them.

This statement says a lot about you, but nothing about the system under
question.


The proposed scheme is bogus.

If YOU can play the game of adding a random number to YOUR salary,

The *first* person adds a random number. It doesn't matter whether
first person is you or me or someone else.

then assuming that your are working in a think-tank that everyone can
come up with the same idea, and adjust the average from his OWN
fake noise (random or not is irrelevant).

That is, if EVERYONE enters Si + Ei where Ei is known only to person
i, then nobody will ever know the true average salary. In order for
the
scheme to work, one has to make the tacit assumption that there is
ONE, and ONLY ONE, smart donkey in the group, who thinks he is
smarter than the rest, and the rest is indeed as dumb as he thinks by
telling the truth of their salary when you think you are smart enough
to
fool them.

The whole scheme of having the first person add a random number is not some
kind of secret plot. It is an open collaboration. It takes a seriously
cracked mind not to understand this.

Congratulations.

Xho

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