"Might makes right," so the saying goes. What does this mean? What does it mean to say that humans live by this saying? How can this saying that is considered by almost all as an expression of injustice play a justificatory role practically universally and ubiquitously? How can it be repulsive and yet, nonetheless, attractive as an explanation of the ways of the world? Why its long history? I offer a non-cynical explanation, one based on a re-interpretation of the saying and of both recognized and unrecognized related phenomena. This re-interpretation relies on the notion of a tacit justification for violence. This non-cynical, re-interpretive explanation exposes the ambiguity of the saying and the consequential unwitting, self-deceptive, fallacious equivocations that the ambiguity makes possible under common conditions. While this explanation, furthermore, focuses on thinking factors--specifically on fallacious thinking, on humans' unwittingly and self-deceptively committing the fallacy of equivocation--it does not deny the possible role of non-thinking factors; it only tries to show that the thinking factors are significantly explanatory. What is the ambiguity? "Might makes right" expresses two principles. The first principle is the common meaning, namely, that the dominance of the mightier over the weaker is right. This principle is generally considered to be not a definition of justice but an expression of injustice. The second principle, which is almost universally shared in a tacit and unreflective way, is a principle of life, namely, that it is right for any living being to actualize its potential. This second principle is originary and thus primary, while the first principle is derivative and thus secondary. The use of all powers, natural or social, can be ultimately derived legitimately or illegitimately from this primary principle. A common manifestation of "might makes right" is the unwitting abuse of power, an abuse that is not recognized as such by the so-called abuser, but that is rather suffered by this latter, who misapplies the second principle in situations that fall under the first principle, thereby unwittingly living by the saying, tacitly justifying abusive ways by it. This unwittingness calls for critical control and forgiveness.

Since the definition of the wiretap channel by Wyner in 1975, there has been much research to investigate the communication security of this channel. This thesis presents some further investigations into the wiretap channel which improve the reliability of the communication security. The main results include the construction of best known equivocation codes which leads to an increase in the ambiguity of the wiretap channel by using different techniques based on syndrome coding. Best known codes (BKC) have been investigated, and two new design models which includes an inner code and outer code have been implemented. It is shown that best results are obtained when the outer code employs a syndrome coding scheme based on the (23; 12; 7) binary Golay code and the inner code employs the McEliece cryptosystem technique based on BKC0s. Three techniques of construction of best known equivocation codes (BEqC) for syndrome coding scheme are presented. Firstly, a code design technique to produce new (BEqC) codes which have better secrecy than the best error correcting codes is presented. Code examples (some 50 codes) are given for the case where the number of parity bits of the code is equal to 15. Secondly, a new code design technique is presented, which is based on the production of a new (BEqC) by adding two best columns to the parity check matrix(H) of a good (BEqC), [n; k] code. The highest minimum Hamming distance of a linear code is an important parameter which indicates the capability of detecting and correcting errors by the code. In general, (BEqC) have a respectable minimum Hamming distance, but are sometimes not as good as the best known codes with the same code parameters. This interesting point led to the production of a new code design technique which produces a (BEqC) code with the highest minimum Hamming distance for syndrome coding which has better secrecy than the corresponding (BKC). As many as 207 new best known equivocation codes which have the highest minimum distance have been found so far using this design technique.

As quickly as individuals engage in new ways to share personal information online, their concerns over privacy are increasing. Online engagement is not just “to share or not to share,” but a continuum of the disclosure. To remain engaged online and to avoid privacy exposure, individuals sometimes omit or provide inaccurate information. This process is defined as online equivocation. Drawing on privacy calculus research, this study investigates how individuals use online equivocation to lower privacy concerns in mobile computing, essentially reducing the costs of online disclosure. Several studies are used to explain and analyze online equivocation and draw out the implications for theory, firms, society, and individuals. To achieve this a qualitative questionnaire was distributed among 547 individuals across the United States asking subjects to report whether they had provided inaccurate data online in privacy-concerned situations and to detail the various strategies used. The results indicate that online equivocation can be categorized into five distinct strategies organized on a continuum of level of effort: omission, abbreviation, substitution, combined substitution, and alternative persona. A follow-up questionnaire was completed with 582 respondents that showed individuals use one more online equivocation strategy in the majority of personal information sharing. This result provides a framework for further study of online equivocation. A third and final survey tested a new conceptual model constructed from the results of the previous questionnaires to examine the effects of online equivocation on privacy concerns, collecting 2,947 responses. The final survey analysis found that individuals employed online equivocation strategies to help reduce privacy concerns in mobile computing and contributed to privacy calculus theory, contending that individuals will make a cost-benefit analysis regarding whether to disclose inaccurate personal information to reduce privacy concerns. However, the research shows that the behavior of online equivocation positively effects mobile privacy concerns, implying that the more that individuals online equivocate, the more likely they are to be concerned about privacy. Overall, the study shows that online equivocation is a fairly common strategy, leading to high percentages of inaccurate data collected by businesses. Inaccurate personal information from consumers can misinform companies and lead to incorrect business decisions, affecting the nature of the products or services offered. Firms aiming to compete online depend on the quality of the information they collect from consumers and may view understanding this phenomenon as strategically crucial to competitiveness. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

Equivocation was introduced by Shannon in the late 1940’s in seminal papers that kick-started the whole field of information theory. Much ground has been covered on equivocation’s counterpart, channel capacity and in particular, its bounds. However, less work has been carried out on the evaluation of the equivocation of a code transmitted across a channel. The aim of the work covered in this thesis was to use a probabilistic approach to investigate and compare the equivocation of various codes across a range of channels. The probability and entropy of each output, given each input, can be used to calculate the equivocation. This gives a measure of the ambiguity and secrecy of a code when transmitted across a channel. The calculations increase exponentially in magnitude as both the message length and code length increase. In addition, the impact of factors such as erasures and deletions also serve to significantly complicate the process. In order to improve the calculation times offered by a conventional, linearly-programmed approach, an alternative strategy involving parallel processing with a CUDA-enabled (Compute Unified Device Architecture) graphical processor was employed. This enabled results to be obtained for codes of greater length than was possible with linear programming. However, the practical implementation of a CUDA driven, parallel processed solution gave rise to significant issues with both the software implementation and subsequent platform stability. By normalising equivocation results, it was possible to compare different codes under different conditions, making it possible to identify and select codes that gave a marked difference in the equivocation encountered by a legitimate receiver and an eavesdropper. The introduction of code expansion provided a novel method for enhancing equivocation differences still further. The work on parallel processing to calculate equivocation and the use of code expansion was published in the following conference: Schofield, M., Ahmed, M. & Tomlinson, M. (2015), Using parallel processing to calculate and improve equivocation, in ’IEEE Conference Publications - IEEE 16th International Conference on Communication Technology’. In addition to the novel use of a CUDA-enabled graphics process to calculated equivocation, equivocation calculations were also performed for expanded versions of the codes. Code expansion was shown to yield a dramatic increase in the achievable equivocation levels. Once methods had been developed with the Binary Symmetric Channel (BSC), they were extended to include work with intentional erasures on the BSC, intentional deletions on the BSC and work on the Binary Erasure Channel (BEC). The work on equivocation on the BSC with intentional erasures was published in: Schofield, M. et al, (2016), Intentional erasures and equivocation on the binary symmetric channel, in ’IEEE Conference Publications - International Computer Symposium’, IEEE, pp 233-235. The work on the BEC produced a novel outcome due to the erasure correction process employed. As the probability of an erasure occurring increases, the set of likely decoded outcomes diminishes. This directly impacts the output entropy of the system by decreasing it, thereby also affecting the equivocation value of the system. This aspect was something that had not been encountered previously. The work also extended to the consideration of intentional deletions on the BSC and the Binary Deletion Channel (BDC) itself. Although the methods used struggled to cope with the additional complexity brought by deletions, the use of Varshamov-Tenengolts codes on the BSC with intentional deletions showed that family of codes to be well suited to the channel arrangement as well as having the capability to be extended to enable the correction of multiple deletions.

The extensions of vague predicates like ‘is bald’, ‘is tall’, and ‘is a heap’ apparently lack sharp boundaries, and this makes such predicates susceptible to soritical reasoning, i.e. reasoning that leads to some version of the notorious sorites paradox. This essay is concerned with a certain kind of theory of vagueness, according to which the symptoms and puzzles of vagueness should be accounted for in terms of a particular species of context sensitivity exhibited by vague expressions. The basic idea is that the extensions of vague predicates vary with certain contextual factors, and that this fact can explain why they appear to lack sharp boundaries. This kind of view is referred to as contextualism about vagueness. A detailed characterisation of contextualism about vagueness is given in chapter two and three. In chapter two, a generic version of contextualism about vagueness is developed, and some alternative forms of context sensitivity are introduced. In chapter three, the specific contextual factors appealed to by different contextualists are discussed. In chapter four, different contextualist diagnoses of the sorites paradox are considered, and found to be problematic in various ways. It is argued that contrary to what some of its proponents have claimed, contextualism about vagueness is not superior to other comparable theories of vagueness when it comes to explaining the appeal of soritical reasoning. In chapter five, a certain version of the sorites paradox, known as the forced march sorites, is discussed. It is argued that “data” about how speakers would behave in the forced march cannot lend any firm support to contextualism about vagueness. In chapter six, some problems concerning the instability of the contextual factors are considered. One problem is that contextualist diagnoses of the sorites which locate a fallacy of equivocation in the reasoning seem to render non-soritical reasoning fallacious as well. A model for treating this problem is suggested, but on closer consideration, it turns out to be problematic. Moreover, this model is of no help in solving the more general problem that even if classical logic remains valid for vague language on some contextualist views, the instability of the extensions of vague predicates makes it difficult to know when a certain piece of reasoning instantiates a valid argument form. Other difficulties arise with respect to speech reports and belief contents. Chapter seven concludes with a summary and some methodological remarks.

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