We reveal a symmetric structure in the ho/n games model of innocent strategies, introducing rigid strategies, a concept dual to bracketed strategies. We prove a direct definability theorem of general innocent strategies with respect to a simply typed language of extended Böhm trees, which gives an operational meaning to rigidity in call-byname. A corresponding factorization of innocent strategi...

In this paper we propose a formalization of probable innocence, a notion of probabilistic anonymity that is associated to “realistic” protocols such as Crowds. We analyze critically two different definitions of probable innocence from the literature. The first one, corresponding to the property that Reiter and Rubin have proved for Crowds, aims at limiting the probability of detection. The seco...

As illustrated by the story of Amanda Knox and many others wrongfully convicted, false confessions often trump factual innocence. Focusing on consequences, recent research suggests that confessions are powerfully persuasive as a matter of logic and common sense; that many false confessions contain richly detailed narratives and accurate crime facts that appear to betray guilty knowledge; and th...

Scapegoats have always served to underline the standards of the majority, a new book suggests that society in the 19th and 20th centuries has used the mentally ill as the outcasts necessary to confirm its stability and righteousness.

We show that if a car stops at a stop sign, an observer, e.g., a police officer, located at a certain distance perpendicular to the car trajectory, must have an illusion that the car does not stop, if the following three conditions are satisfied: (1) the observer measures not the linear but angular speed of the car; (2) the car decelerates and subsequently accelerates relatively fast; and (3) t...