In a secret sharing scheme, a dealer has a secret key. There is a tit&et P of participants and a set I' of subsets of P. A secret sharing scheme with I' as the access structure is a method which the dealer can use to distribute shares to each participant so that a subset of participants can determine the key if and only if that subset is in I'. The share of a participant is the information sent by the dealer in private to the participant. A secret sharing scheme is ideal if any subset of participants who can use their shares to determine any information about the key can in fact actually determine the key, and if the set of possible shares is the same as the set of possible keys. In this paper, we show a relationship between ideal secret sharing schemes and matroids.

In a secret sharing scheme a dealer has a secret key. There is a finite set P of participants and a set F of subsets of P. A secret sharing scheme with F as the access structure is a method which the dealer can use to distribute shares to each participant so that a subset of participants can determine the key if and only if that subset is in F. The share of a participant is the information sent by the dealer in private to the participant. A secret sharing scheme is ideal if any subset of participants who can use their shares to determine any information about the key can in fact actually determine the key, and if the set of possible shares is the same as the set of possible keys. In this paper we show a relationship between ideal secret sharing schemes and matroids.

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Current conceptions of the integration of computers into society often depend on the view that the human mind, as well as the computer, is a computational system. This view is widely taken to have broad implications for educational policy. We present a critique of the premise and some of the conclusions of the above argument. It is here shown that the thesis that the human mind is a computational system is, in principle, not scientifically supportable. It is also shown that, even if the computational theory of mind were held for non-scientific reasons, the educational implications often derived from it do not follow.

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