From d718e59e258439b523ffdb6c5a91836b41624a0b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Thomas Walker Lynch Date: Tue, 19 May 2026 09:17:55 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] . --- document/A1.html | 497 -------------------------- document/A2.html | 7 +- document/gemini-code-1779123821558.py | 118 ------ document/temp.txt | 32 -- document/to_pdf.py | 111 ------ 5 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 759 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 document/A1.html delete mode 100644 document/gemini-code-1779123821558.py delete mode 100644 document/temp.txt delete mode 100644 document/to_pdf.py diff --git a/document/A1.html b/document/A1.html deleted file mode 100644 index 06a423e..0000000 --- a/document/A1.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,497 +0,0 @@ - - - - - About Computer Security - - - - - - - - - - -

Introduction

-

- We live in a dangerous world, so we need security. The threats we face are real: hostile nations seeking weapons of mass destruction, terrorists who would hurt us, spies stealing our technology, blackmailers encrypting our data for ransom, and scammers using the Internet to rob our grandmothers, to mention only a few of the threats we face. -

-

- What has made our nation a shining light in the face of such threats has a lot to do with the group intelligence effect. To give an example, when people come to a 4H fair and buy a contest ticket to guess the weight of a pig, it is usually not the agricultural experts who come the closest. Nor is it typically a lucky contestant. Rather, the most accurate value is consistently gotten by averaging all the individual guesses. This is group intelligence. -

-

- In the US, anyone can express an opinion, and they typically do. Any citizen who is qualified can invest in projects, and even if unqualified, can join in with crowd-funding. We have an active marketplace of ideas, and this has made us strong. -

-

- As a contrasting example, consider the Soviet Union, where all project investment went through centralized committees, and company management was merely an extension of the state. Or consider East Germany. Authoritarian systems suppress group intelligence, and thus fundamentally fail to benefit from it. -

-

- As a researcher, I commonly download source code for the Linux operating system and modify it to see if ideas for improving it actually work. I currently have a "subu" security algorithm up on GitHub. I am one of tens of thousands of independent actors adding intelligence to software development. What an irony it is that Android, which is based on Linux, utilizes a closed root system. Yet, can a person even imagine the modern smartphone market without the foundation of Android? Open architectures are the engine of our digital economy. -

-

- Yet, as explained in this white paper, our current approach to cybersecurity is threatening to dismantle this open ecosystem. We appear to be heading down a path toward a novel type of authoritarianism. In this new system, instead of the state asserting control directly over individuals, they are preparing to assert control over their computers. Instead of suppressing speech directly, the architecture is being shifted to limit who can communicate with whom over the Internet, and to dictate what the nature and utility of that information can be. -

-

- In my opinion, the dangers we face indeed possess a high probability of spelling the end of the anonymous participant on the Internet. However, this does not have to lead to computer authoritarianism; we can secure our networks while preserving group intelligence. -

-

- This paper does not provide the complete Reasoning Technology proposal, as the intellectual property is still being worked on, and the deep technical details are better suited for a different venue. Rather, this paper explains the structural trap the industry is currently falling into, and specifically analyzes recent Congressional bills to demonstrate how current legislative efforts are inadvertently accelerating this descent. -

- -

How experts think about safety

- -

Linear risk

-

- In this model, each term is a product of the cost and the probability that the cost will be incurred. Then all the terms are summed to get a total expected cost. -

- - - T = Σ (ti × ci) - - -

- Here ti is the probability of the event and ci is the cost. As an example, consider that there is a 0.2 probability that a person forgot their password, and it will cost 900 seconds to recover it. (Here 0.2 is 20%, 1 out of 5 times). There is a 0.1 probability that a person made a typo in the user name which results in 45 seconds of time to figure out. There is a 0.3 probability that a person will type the password wrong, costing 15 seconds. There is a 0.05 probability that a person will get the password wrong 3 times and be locked out for a day, and thus a 0.65 chance that they type it correctly, taking 5 seconds to log in. -

- - - T = 0.2 × 15 + 0.1 × 45 + 0.3 × 15 + 0.05 × 86400 + 0.65 × 3 - T = 4334 seconds - - -

- Statisticians call this the expected time it will take to log in, though this specific time is not among the actual individual scenarios. After many times of logging in, the average time will tend towards this value. The reason this time result is so high is because, though it is highly improbable, it is overwhelmingly expensive to have 3 wrong attempts. -

-

- The true dollar expense depends on how much a person's time is worth and how much of the waiting time can be filled with other tasks. If it is work time, it will be one value; if it is time with children, another. At $100 an hour with no fill-in tasks, the average login cost comes to $7,223. And people wonder why computers are so frustrating. Now imagine spending 8 years dealing with ID.me. -

-

- If this login model is implemented across millions of people, one would hope the company is protecting more than the aggregate login cost per user, otherwise they are costing users more than the value they hold on the system. -

- -

Catastrophic failure

-

- When a person is sitting in an airplane, they probably hope the airline engineers were not thinking in terms of averages, and indeed the engineers were not. Instead, they planned for a very low probability of catastrophic failure. -

- - - P = 1 - Π (1 - p(ti)) - - -

- Here p(ti) again represents the probability that a specific failure ti could happen. P is then the probability that the system will fail due to any one of the independent parts ti failing. The symbol Π means to take the product. -

-

- As an example, consider a small business where a Wi-Fi password gets guessed with probability p(t1) = 0.02, the manager clicks a scam email with probability p(t2) = 0.10, and a thief sneaks into the back room with probability p(t3) = 0.01. -

- - - P = 1 - (1 - 0.02)(1 - 0.10)(1 - 0.01) - P = 0.13 - - -

- There is a 13% probability that the system will be compromised. That is far higher than would normally be tolerated for a catastrophic risk. Here the biggest contributor was the human variable. -

-

- This is called the failure equation. Notice that it scales exponentially with the number of terms, making it disproportionately more difficult to drive the total failure rate down as systems grow more complex. For a small, simple computer system it is possible to reach P = 0, but even then it is exceedingly difficult. When it comes to security, small and simple is beautiful. -

-

- That scenario is unlikely to be found for a system that serves the general public. Most security engineers simply implement existing protocols. Those protocols use algorithms that we assume to be formally proven to be correct, although that is often not the case, and it is certainly not the case for common algorithms used on the Internet. Even for correct security protocols that are correctly implemented, hackers have consistently found physical ways to vary timing, monitor power consumption, or grind the tops off chips to break into systems. -

- -

The role of perspective

-

- It is typical that fraud cases act as linear risk failures from a credit card company's point of view, as they statically plan for some fraud to occur every year. However, those exact same risks are viewed as a catastrophic failure from the individual card holder's point of view. The entire purpose of insurance is to put card holders into the same boat as their card companies. -

-

- Computer security is almost always treated as an uninsured catastrophic risk situation. There is typically no contract with users, and legally there sometimes can be no contract, to make up for losses after a security lapse. -

- -

Dynamic behavior

-

- In computer security, a single failure is not treated as an isolated event; it spreads like a disease. It is assumed that once an attacker has figured out a way in, the attacker will scale that solution mechanically or sell it on the dark web. Consequently, once a failure occurs, the catastrophic failure equation changes, with a near 100% probability of repeat for the failure term. -

- -

Helps the bad guys, hurts the good guys

-

- Most security systems are breakable or bypassable in the face of extreme innovation and effort. Once broken, an organization starts adding layers of friction on its way to the Marianas Trench. -

-

- Good-intentioned users do not expend effort to break systems. In contrast, bad actors do. Thus, the trend over time is for security to severely hurt the productivity of good people, while bad actors make use of hard-won know-how to easily bypass it. -

- -

Emergent properties from secure systems

- -

The Marianas Trench paradigm

-

- To make a computer secure, disconnect it from the Internet, turn it off, lock it in a safe, hire a firm to take the user, the safe, and armed guards around the world on a ship; then drop the safe into the Marianas Trench. -

-

- Then to access said computer later, mount a deep sea salvage operation, raise said safe, unlock it, connect the computer to a generator, plug in Starlink, type in the user name, and oops, the password was forgotten. -

-

- Of course the password was forgotten, because when it was made the system forced the inclusion of capitals, numbers, and special characters, so unless a person named their dog Xr$nzD4s7, they will not remember it. So then travel back home, get out a notebook and look at the password. -

-

- We have all experienced this in some form or another, grace our IT friends. Thus, we all know intuitively that security comes at the expense of utility. The Marianas Trench paradigm is the asymptotic eventuality for all computer systems that have security as their top priority. -

- -

Reliability and Security are Competing Forces

-

- Security requires the centralization of control where logins, passwords, and identification information are accessed and verified. Central points of control are open to single points of failure. They are also honeypots that attract the most sophisticated of attacks. Once the cat is out of the bag, there is no putting it back, regardless of how capable the security staff is. -

- -

Economic Progress and Security are Competing Forces

-

- Productivity comes from efficiency, and the economy depends upon increased productivity. For reasons just outlined, security is at odds with efficiency. Therefore, overbearing security throttles the economy. -

-

- For security to be viable, the net economy must be greater than the economy suffering the theft: E - S > E - T. Often, the drag is so severe that S > T. There comes a point when less net forward progress is made on secure systems than insecure ones. Security becomes worse than the theft it prevents. -

- -

Extraordinary maintenance problem

-

- When software has a bug, a patch can be written by most any developer, then issued as an update. In contrast, when security software has a bug, the problem must first be understood by experts, who might not even reside at the company. Often alternative approaches must be architected. Essentially it is starting over. -

-

- Security fixes are often not as easy to apply because an insecure system might have become compromised. Patching a system that has a backdoor installed on it will result in a patched system with a backdoor. If data has been stolen, no patch can take the stolen data out of the hands of those who took it. Furthermore, customer support can typically do little or nothing, as security features often cannot be turned off. -

- -

Engineers Design to Spec, Leaders Carry Vision

-

The Biometric Fallacy

-

- The startup Pay By Touch incinerated $130 million on the premise that fingerprints are passwords. Yet sounding like a cool tech was enough to command a lot of funding. -

-

- The physical reality: A person leaves their "password" on every water glass, door handle, and table they touch. Security engineers design to specifications and can lose sight of the forest for the trees. They can build a mathematically perfect verification algorithm while remaining structurally blind to the physical reality that the "secret" is being left on a restaurant table. Leaders provide common sense vision. If a person is a leader, they should not be afraid to ask questions about the base metrics of performance and expect answers that they understand. -

- -

The Technician's Crouch

-

- In 1996, at a presentation to the SBC board, a man proposed a smartphone technology investment. One of the board members invited their "tech guy" to "interpret." Feeling his expertise was being challenged, the technician argued defensively that phone switches were the future and smartphones were a fad, simply because switches were what he understood. Two years later, the switch-centric giants like Nortel went into bankruptcy, and the world moved to the smartphone. Off switches were being handled by voice over IP. -

-

- Technicians optimize for the survival of their current tools and silos. They are rarely big-picture visionaries. Lawmakers must trust their common-sense judgment, and expect entrenched technology interests to propose further entrenchment. The goal is structural architectural integrity for the economy, rather than adding more layers that make life difficult for a person. -

- -

The coming security apocalypse

- -

The situation with public key cryptography

-

- All security today is built over communications that are secured by public key cryptography. There is no formal proof for any public key cryptography algorithm in use today that demonstrates that at a computation theoretical level it actually works. -

-

- Thus, catastrophic failure could arrive at any hour, and then all security on the Internet, current ID schemes, bitcoin, etc. would be broken. This lack of proof problem speaks to public key cryptography at the most fundamental level, and thus applies to existing hardware, software, and systems. When quantum computing comes online, Shor’s algorithm will break public key cryptography. -

- -

The situation with biometrics

-

- Fingerprints are left on door knobs and glasses. A fingerprint cannot be used as a secure password. Our faces are shown in public and in modern times are captured by cameras in buildings on street corners, through the front windshield when we drive under traffic cameras, and by anyone who gets within a few hundred meters and can take a snapshot. -

-

- Generative AI is already a reality and a practical technology. With generative AI a signal with a life-like model can be created and given to a computer in place of a camera output. Today there is no long-term secure biometric system. -

- -

Why do we want to ID computer users

- -

Policing money

-

- A product of the 1970s War on Drugs. To stop the outflow of illicit payments, the state began monitoring the movement of value. This transformed the bank from a private vault into a state monitoring station. All money being transferred had to have a name attached to it. -

- -

Citizenship-Based Taxation (CBT)

-

- The United States is one of only two nations that utilizes Citizenship-Based Taxation (CBT) instead of Residency-Based Taxation (RBT). Because the IRS must track every dollar a citizen touches globally, the US is the lead architect of the global financial "Phone Home" system. This requires every bank on the planet to report on American dealings (FATCA). -

-

- This structural requirement is the hidden driver for an interoperable, global digital ID. Every dollar is now a suspected launderer, a drug payment, or a tax-evading "sneak." In a CBT world, the source and identity of the money are more important to the state than the payment itself. -

- -

We are reaching a critical instability point where we need ID to organize our databases

-

- Due to the explosion in number and size of databases, IDs are needed to keep the databases coherent and accurate, and to unify them. This is desired both by the tech companies and law enforcement. -

- -

State (The Sovereign Sinks & Secret Ledgers)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
State Database / AgencyPrimary Data HarvestedImpact on Identity
State DMVs / Real IDFacial biometrics, physical characteristics, home address.The foundational physical anchor; increasingly weaponized by law enforcement for automated facial recognition sweeps.
IRS & Social Security (SSA)SSN, income, employment history, family structure.The ultimate financial gatekeeper; defines the "Right to Work" and the legal existence of the citizen.
Incarceration (3 Layers)Local jail bookings, State DOC records, Federal BOP data.Creates a permanent, multi-jurisdictional underclass. Often networked via private aggregators, ensuring data persists even after exoneration.
Child Welfare (e.g., CCWIS)Abuse allegations, family history, psychological profiles.Interstate data sharing ensures subjective stigmas follow citizens across borders.
FBI (NGI Database) / CODISFingerprints, iris scans, palm prints, DNA, arrest records.Permanent biological tracking; high risk of false-positive algorithmic criminalization.
DHS / Customs (CBP)Passport data, international travel history, border scans.Controls physical freedom of movement; tracks global associations and jurisdictional shifts.
Voter Registration & CourtsParty affiliation, voting frequency, civil judgments.Publicly accessible state data aggressively scraped by commercial brokers to fuse political identity with consumer profiles.
EDGAR (SEC)Corporate submissions, quarterly/annual financial filings.Publicly exposes the financial footprints and corporate affiliations of executives and major shareholders.
- -

Commercial (The Surveillance Brokers & Shadow Financials)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Data Broker / AdTechPrimary Data HarvestedImpact on Identity
ChexSystems & EWS (KYC)Account history, bounced checks, suspected fraud profiles.The "Shadow Credit Score" used to deny banking. Crucial Note: Under the Bank Secrecy Act, banks are legally prohibited from telling a citizen what is in their fraud file.
Meta (Facebook/IG) GraphSocial graphs, political leanings, private communications.A de facto global ID database; continuously scraped by AI algorithms to feed state intelligence.
Acxiom / LiveRampUp to 3,000 data points per person (offline & online).Creates a "connected identity" linking web browsing to offline purchases.
Experian / EquifaxCredit health, employer data, loan default likelihood.Dictates financial participation; heavily targeted by hackers.
CoreLogicComplete property, mortgage, and historical tax records.Aggregates physical residence history across millions of property transactions.
LexisNexisDemographic info, behavioral analytics, public court records.Sells targeted audience segments to private entities and law enforcement.
- -

- Monotonic failure: each database is a honeypot, and once data is stolen, the damage cannot be undone. The KYC/Fraud database point is particularly chilling for a Congressional briefing because it highlights a system where the citizen has zero due process, they are judged, convicted, and digitally exiled by a black box they have zero permission to look inside. -

- -

International scammers

-

- Though we police money internationally, to the great consternation of out of jurisdiction banks, many of whom will no longer serve Americans, quizzically we take no enforcement action on international scammers who steal from our senior citizens through phone calls and spam mail. Russian hackers who were found creating conflict on the Internet. By IDing those on the Internet, we can deny access and prevent bad actors from entering the ecosystem in the first place. -

- -

Current ID efforts

- -

Base Categorizations of ID Technology

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
CategoryTechnologies UsedThe Structural Flaw
Physical Hardware GatesmDL (Mobile Wallets), Smart Cards, NFC/RFIDDemands mandatory capital expense (Smartphones) and exposes users to tracking.
Biometric AnchorsFacial Recognition, Iris, FingerprintBiological identifiers cannot be rotated or changed once compromised.
Cryptographic LedgersPKI, X.509 Certificates, eIDAS WalletsRequires a centralized "State Bishop" (Certificate Authority) to grant trust.
Algorithmic ProfilingAge-Gating, Credit Scoring, AdTech MAIDsFuses offline identity with unregulated commercial surveillance markets.
- -

State Sanctioned ID efforts

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Initiative NameJurisdictionCore TechnologyThe Structural Failure
EU Digital Identity WalletEuropean UnionPublic Key (W3C/OpenID)Mandatory cross-border tracking. Vulnerable to quantum collapse and centralized CA compromise.
AadhaarIndiaBiometric MatchWorld's largest biometric honeypot. Fails physically: manual labor wears off prints, excluding the poorest.
GOV.UK One LoginUnited KingdomAI Biometric MatchNo offline parity. Deepfakes and injection attacks bypass liveness checks, locking citizens out.
e-IDEstoniaPublic Key (Smart Cards)Total digital dependency. "State Bishop" architecture means a single chip failure or CA breach deletes the citizen.
SingpassSingaporeAI Biometric MatchFuses private banking and state services. Synthetic media renders the gatekeeper mathematically blind.
gov.brBrazilBiometric MatchThe "Water Glass" Lift: high-res biometrics are static. Once copied, the citizen's identity is permanently breached.
Login.gov & ID.meUnited StatesAI Biometric MatchOutsourcing core rights to private VC firms. Honeypot creation. Generative AI makes the biometric barrier obsolete.
Apple/Google Wallets (mDL)US (General)Public Key (SE)The Mandated Shackle. Gives Silicon Valley monopoly control. Vulnerable to supply chain hardware attacks.
- -

A house built on sand

-

- Every one of these technologies collapses under the scenario where identity is proven via credential data that can be observed and duplicated, because any system relying on a replicable digital signal structurally fails to distinguish a legitimate human being from a perfect mathematical or physical simulation. -

-

- Even Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) falls victim to this structural failure because it merely replaces a physical secret with a mathematical one, while still transmitting the proof across the same channel as the data. Possession Is Not Identity: A public key system proves that a person possesses a private key; it does not prove who that person is. If an attacker uses a memory injection to scrape a private key or intercepts the signing process, the resulting bit-stream is mathematically perfect. -

-

- The server has no capability to distinguish between the rightful owner and a thief because the "signal" of identity is simply another string of data bundled with the transaction. Because current architectures mix control signals and data, a person's "identity" becomes observable to the system itself. If the math can be seen, it can be simulated. -

- -

Evolution of ID technology

-

- Based on concepts of bureaucracy, mandated expense, and the biometric fallacy, we are looking at Dante's 7 Levels of ID Heck: -

- - -

Current Legislation

-

- The following bills represent the current trajectory of federally funded digital identity infrastructure: -

- - -

A better way forward: The reasoning technology plan

-

- We are currently charting a course for the byzantine ending of American civilization, but there is time to change course. We must simplify. Incentives are more powerful than regulations. -

- -
    -
  1. Mandatory Efficiency and Economic Impact Statements: Any federal agency or regulated private entity implementing a new security or identity measure must provide a "Net Economic Impact" audit. This addresses the "Nobody Home" problem. If a security measure costs the economy S in lost productivity through customer service paralysis, and the theft it prevents is only T, the measure is illegal if S > T.
    2. -
  2. The Research Integrity Act (Scientific Transparency): Criminalize and fine academic and corporate dishonesty in federally funded or regulated research. Apply the Daubert principle to regulatory research to prevent "Microwaves are Candy" style industry capture.
    3. -
  3. The Digital Habeas Corpus (Database Transparency): Apply FOIA-style transparency to all databases, public and corporate, that utilize a citizen's data. Every person has a right to see, contest, and correct any entry.
    4. -
  4. Verifiable Architectural Provenance: Mandate that the provenance of all AI-driven media be identifiable via an architectural signaling standard. A person must be able to distinguish between human and synthetic media at the architectural level.
    5. -
  5. Shift to Offensive International Policing: Redirect federal resources from "IDing the Victim" to "Tracking the Attacker." Policing the borders of the internet is more effective than turning the interior into a digital prison for citizens.
    6. -
  6. Structural elimination of security dependencies: The best security is removing the need for it. Citizenship-Based Taxation (CBT) requires a massive, global surveillance apparatus to track every citizen’s financial movements. Ending CBT and shifting from income tax to trade duties would structurally eliminate the need for vast swathes of the current global digital tracking infrastructure. Organizations like American Citizens Abroad (ACA) advocate for ending CBT, and similar efforts support state-side banking access for expats burdened by the current surveillance dragnet.
    7. -
  7. Reasoning Technology ID technology, RTID: Existing models force lawmakers into a false choice between massive surveillance honeypots or zero utility. Reasoning Technology has developed a foundational identity architecture that shatters this dichotomy. It works in the presence of quantum technology, works in the presence of strong AI, works without special hardware features, has minimal productivity impact, and is maintainable.
    8. -
- -

Appendices

- -

Appendix A: "Microwaves are Candy" and the Corporate Track Record

-

- The current RF/Microwave regulations entirely ignore cellular and neurological damage. When told that wireless signals are entirely safe, look at the historical track record of corporate industry assurances: X-Rays, Leaded Gasoline, Thalidomide, Asbestos, Tobacco, PFAS, and Glyphosate. The FDA must conduct and rely upon conflict-free studies. -

- -

Appendix B: The Aadhaar Tragedy

-

- India's Aadhaar system is the ultimate realization of Stage 4. A centralized biometric database that has suffered massive data leaks and routinely excludes the poorest citizens because their manual labor has worn off their fingerprints. -

- -

Appendix C: The History of "Secure" Cryptographic Backdoors

- - - - - - diff --git a/document/A2.html b/document/A2.html index 012068f..0ea107c 100644 --- a/document/A2.html +++ b/document/A2.html @@ -1,4 +1,9 @@ @@ -1167,7 +1172,7 @@ Engineers later discovered the cause. Temporary abuse-mitigation rules that had As demonstrated in the Catastrophic failure section, security becomes disproportionately more manageable when the problem domain is made smaller. For income tax, there is an obvious simplification. Money flows in a circular economy. Currently, the state taxes it both when it enters an individual's pocket as a salary or contract payment, and when it enters a company as revenue. It is the same money going all the way around.

- Circular flow of money + Circular flow of money

There are approximately 161 million taxpayers, but only 6.7 million companies. The security and enforcement problems would be a magnitude less complex if we collected tax at the point in the circle where it entered companies. diff --git a/document/gemini-code-1779123821558.py b/document/gemini-code-1779123821558.py deleted file mode 100644 index 10233db..0000000 --- a/document/gemini-code-1779123821558.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,118 +0,0 @@ -import re -import sys -from weasyprint import HTML - -def generate_pdf(input_html_path, output_pdf_path): - with open(input_html_path, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f: - html_content = f.read() - - style = """ - - """ - - html_content = html_content.replace('', style + '\n') - - headings = re.findall(r']*>(.*?)', html_content, re.IGNORECASE) - toc_html = '

Table of Contents

' - - html_content = re.sub(r']*>.*?', toc_html, html_content, flags=re.IGNORECASE|re.DOTALL) - - HTML(string=html_content).write_pdf(output_pdf_path) - -if __name__ == "__main__": - if len(sys.argv) != 3: - print("Usage: python3 generate_pdf.py input.html output.pdf") - sys.exit(1) - generate_pdf(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]) \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/document/temp.txt b/document/temp.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5fd3966..0000000 --- a/document/temp.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,32 +0,0 @@ -This is a helpful summary of Taiwanese history, though it lacks some critical nuance regarding sovereignty and demographics. - -Anthropologist Jared Diamond points out that Austronesian people were the first to inhabit Taiwan. This group eventually settled the entire region, spreading through the Malay Archipelago and across the Pacific. While Pickering initially referred to them as 'savages,' he later adopted the term 'mountain men' after personal contact. House noted significant travel between the East and West of the island, intermarriage was common, and the Austronesians were active traders who had even established a formal agreement with the Dutch. The Japanese sent the Austronesians to school with everyone else. Many today have college degrees. 'Austronesian' is a nicer term than 'aborigine.' - -A factor often overlooked is that Taiwan was rife with tropical disease. A Chinese general remarked to Pickering that they could not occupy the interior for long; Tainan was a poor choice of location for those unaccustomed to the climate. The Dutch paid for their presence with their lives, as did Koxinga, who died of malaria shortly after his arrival. Thousands of Japanese died of disease when they invaded and they had quinine. - -Sovereignty is not established by a mere ten-year claim of province status. American diplomat Charles LeGendre, along with Pickering and House, documented the lack of Qing control even during the decade the speaker references. As LeGendre noted, the limits of their authority were written directly onto their own maps, and more accurate French maps show even less Qing reach. Taiwan was never controlled by China. - -I think part of the confusion here is that people think of Taiwan as a small island, when in fact it is twice the size of Israel. Foreign powers never had more than regional control. - -Regarding the 1945–1949 period, describing Taiwan and China as being 'under the same government' is a blunt instrument that ignores international law. Chiang Kai-shek accepted the Japanese surrender in both Vietnam and Taiwan as an Allied commander; these were military governorships, not sovereign transfers. Notably, no one argues that Vietnam became part of China because of that surrender. This distinction is reinforced by the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which treats the status of Korea and Taiwan as parallel cases, and assigns Taiwan to no other power. This ironically echoes the CCP’s own pre-war position (see Pacific Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 3, September 1937) and aligns with the legal research of Roger Lin (Lin Chih-sheng). - -Finally, a language nuance: under the UN Charter, a nation possesses state rights. It is a non-sequitur to speak of 'giving back' a nation to a state that never possessed it. The correct terms for the two entities are 'China' and 'Taiwan.' The term 'mainland' is a political presumption that is antithetical to the historical evidence presented here. - -This is generally a nice presentation in a nutshell on Taiwanese history, but I would take issue on some of it. - -Anthropologists Jared Diamond points out that Austronesian people were the first to come to Taiwan. They also filled out the entire region, and spread down to Australia and across the Pacific. - -Pickering initially referred to them as savages, but after meeting them started calling them mountain men. House pointed out that many people were traveling between the East and West of the island. The Austronesians were also trading, and had made a treaty with the Dutch. - -Austronesian seems like a better term. - -Something that isn't discussed as much as I think it should be, Taiwan was rife with tropical disease. A Chinese general pointed out to Pickering that they could not stay there long. Tainan was an awful location choice. The Dutch paid for it with their lives, as did Koxinga who died of Malaria soon after arriving. - -It takes more than a ten-year claim of province status for sovereignty to be a reality. American diplomat Charles LeGendre, as well as Pickering and House, documented why the Qing did not control the island even during that decade. As LeGendre notes, the limits of their control are written right on their maps. The French maps show even less Qing control. Taiwan was never a full part of China. - -For the 1945–1949 period, the idea that Taiwan and China were "under the same government" during these years is a rather blunt instrument. Chiang Kai-shek accepted the Japanese surrender in both Vietnam and Taiwan as an Allied commander, so they were military governorships. Note we are not discussing Vietnam. This lack of sovereign transfer is reinforced by the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which treats the status of Korea and Taiwan as parallel cases. Ironically echoing the CPP's pre-war position, see Pacific Affairs (Vol. 10, No. 3) in September 1937. Also note the work of Roger Lin (Lin Chih-sheng) on this subject. - -Another language nuance. In UN Charter language, a nation has state rights, it is a non-sequitur to talk about 'giving it back'. And as Taiwan has never been part of China, it can't go back to where it has not been. - -The terms for the two places are "China" and "Taiwan". The term 'mainland' is presumptuous, and antithetical even in the context of this presentation. - diff --git a/document/to_pdf.py b/document/to_pdf.py deleted file mode 100644 index a8221dd..0000000 --- a/document/to_pdf.py +++ /dev/null @@ -1,111 +0,0 @@ -import re -import sys -from weasyprint import HTML - -def generate_pdf(input_html_path, output_pdf_path): - with open(input_html_path, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f: - html_content = f.read() - - style = """ - - """ - - html_content = html_content.replace('', style + '\n') - - headings = re.findall(r']*>(.*?)', html_content, re.IGNORECASE) - toc_html = '

Table of Contents

    ' - for level, text in headings: - toc_html += f'
  • {text}
    • ' - toc_html += '
' - - html_content = re.sub(r']*>.*?', toc_html, html_content, flags=re.IGNORECASE|re.DOTALL) - - HTML(string=html_content).write_pdf(output_pdf_path) - -if __name__ == "__main__": - if len(sys.argv) != 3: - print("Usage: python3 generate_pdf.py input.html output.pdf") - sys.exit(1) - generate_pdf(sys.argv[1], sys.argv[2]) - -- 2.20.1