This if forwarded from list Cypherpunks because it outlines
a prospect of the architecture of the Net that should be
handled on this list: the anarchitecture of technology and
knowledge and who controls it.
It begins with a brief exchange on why long, thoughtful
posts are seldom answered. The best part follows that.
I have posted messages by Tim May before -- he is a well-
to-do ex-Intel physicist and, well, see his sig for the
full story. Very smart man who uses wry humor as
camouflage of brilliance and anger. His last paragraph is
a jewel of wisdom.
---------------
L. McCarthy wrote:
>LF: Lately, I've had the feeling that majordomo@toad
echoes my epistles only back to me. None of the longer
pieces I've written has elicited so much as a flame from
Eric, Perry, or even James in a while.
TM: Should I feel left out by not being mentioned in this
set? Or relieved?
TM: In any case, I agree that most responses are mostly
reactive. Though in defense of the Cypherpunks list, not
nearly so reactive as are many groups. Lots of lists and
groups are dominated by in jokes, non sequitors, and other
ephemera. At least this group quite often gets into meaty
issues.
>LF: I've encountered an insidious hazard of high-volume
lists (such as this) that probably snares other people too.
It's altogether too easy to sit at one's mailer and merely
react to whatever comes along. Obviously, if everyone did
this all the time, nothing of substance would ever be
accomplished. It's therapeutic, IMHO, to step back
regularly, refocus on one's long term goals w.r.t the
group, and push new initiatives.
TM [balance of post]: Like a lot of you, I try to do this
regularly. If people are interested, they'll follow up. If
not, they won't. Think of it as evolution in action.
It so happens that the latest theme I've been thinking
about is ready to spring on you folks. If you respond, so
be it.
That theme is this: Is cyberspace, or the Net/Web/Etc.,
sufficiently rich or complex to meet our needs?
By "rich" or "complex" I mean in terms of "places to go,"
of "degrees of freedom." For example, the multiplicity of
routing paths for messages, via remailers explicitly and
via the underlying routing options the Internet itself
offers implicitly, gives certain major advantages that a
centralized system vulnerable to "choke points" would not
have. (The Internet gurus will likely jump in at this point
and blather about how this is isn't so, how they could shut
down the Internet in several minutes with just their
Leatherman tool and a few O'Reilly books, but my point is
not that it isn't _possible_, but that the direction in
which the Net has moved is generally one that makes
shut-down harder than more centralized alternatives.)
By our "needs" I mean roughly the Cypherpunks goals of
privacy, free choice, cybernetic free association, virtual
communities, anarcho-capitalism, etc. (Quibblers can
dispute any of these, but clearly most active posters on
the list advocate some vector made up of many of these
diverse elements.)
So, what am I getting at?
Consider how the abstractions of the World Wide Web, URLs,
HTML, HTTP, and Web browsers have *increased the size of
cyberspace* rather dramatically in just the past two years.
More places to visit, more interconnectedness, more
difficulties in controlling access to stuff, etc. Home
pages containing banned material are proliferating (a la
the Homolka-Teale ritualistic cannibalism trial in Canada,
the Scientology material, and so on -- this is not the
place for me to recap this). Sure, ftp sites used to do
this pretty well; in fact, I'm considering ftp sites in
this "evolution" toward greater complexity (in the richness
sense).
(Actually, cyberspace is partly getting "bigger" and partly
"increasing in dimensionality." Dimensionality of a space
can be related to how many neighbors one has....think of
the two nearest neighbors one has in a 1-D space, the 4 (or
8 if diagonals are considered) neighbors in a 2-D space,
the 6 in a 3-D space, and so on. Arguably, if one has "100
close neighbors" in a space, it is roughly a 50 dimensional
space. An equivalent formulation is in terms of the radius
of the n-sphere that everyone fits into.
For example, the "six degrees of separation," the 6
"handshakes" that separate nearly any two people in
America, suggests that American society is in some
important sense roughly a 15-17 dimensional space, because
in some sense all 250 million Americans "fit into" a
hypersphere of radius 3 (diameter 6) when the
dimensionality is around 17. (Or slightly lower, as the
slight corrections to V = r ^ n have to be included, which
I'm not bothering with). What "increased connectivity" does
is to increase dimensionality, about as one would expect
from our usual metaphors about "a multidimensional society"
and "the world is shrinking"...indeed it is shrinking, even
as the absolute volume increases.)
What Cypherpunks should be pushing for, in my view, is this
increased dimensionality. More places to stick things, more
places to escape central control, and more degrees of
freedom (which has a nice dual meaning I once used as the
working title for a novel I was working on).
Is Cyberspace already rich enough (= high enough
dimensionality) so that central control cannot be
reestablished (to the extent it ever existed)?
Many of this think that it probably already is past this
point, that the "point of no return" has been reached.
After all, the Soviets couldn't stop samizdats, the Chinese
couldn't stop fax machines, and the Americans can't stop
drug use, so what hope is there in controlling modems,
crypto, cellular phones, satellites, Web links,
stegonography, terabytes of data flowing unobstructed
across borders, and so on. Just to "stop the Net" would
disrupt the entire financial system, which not even Clinton
or the next (Republican) President would be tempted to
do....they might as well launch a nuclear war as try to
shut down this "anarchic" ( = high dimensionality) system.
But can we do more? One of my own wishes is to see hundreds
(nay, thousands!) of remailers, as these act as
"teleportation booths" which can dramatically increase
connectivity. (They can increase the connectivity in a
different way that just straight connections can...they
"stitch together" otherwise visibly-connected regions with
unobservable connections, a desirable thing.)
What else?
* Lots more remailers. Run out of accounts, not just
"remailer machines." Accounts allow trivial proliferation
of more remailers.
* Web access remailers. Like the "anonymous anonymous ftp,"
why not explore combining Web systems with remailers? (Not
so great for browsing, of course, but there should be some
interesting possibilities.)
* More offshore sites, members, etc. This increases
connectivity and increases the "regulatory arbitrage" we so
often talk about.
* Local corporate computer nets are "extra rooms in
cyberspace," and thus are harder to search. The equivalents
of "rat lines" (in which drugs are kept in one apartment
and retrieved through a hole in the wall, thus
delaying/foiling searches and kick-in-the-door
raids....think of how technology makes all this so much
easier).
* digital cash is of course of central importance. It glues
commerce together, but also greases it (a dual metaphor,
not a mixed one). In terms of the "richness" I'm talking
about, it incentivizes the colonization of cyberspace, the
expansion of this space, and the general richness.
* Alternative Nets, like FIDONet, are often lost in the
discussion of "the Net," but perhaps we should take much
greater interest in these alternatives. They make a
crackdown harder, they lessen the dangers of a single-point
attack, and they provide "genetic diversity" for building
future Nets. (I'm not saying Cypherpunks have the time,
expertise, or incentive to work on this, but just reminding
folks that the Internet is not the end all and be all...)
* More users, more education, more articles....all increase
dimensionality, by expanding the space (e.g., key software
on more machines, accessible by more people, more home
pages, etc.).
And so on. Increase the richness of cyberspace. More
places, more avenues, more rooms, more more. Make sure
there's a "there," there.
Well, I've written too much, and as folks have noted, long
posts get fewer responses that do short ones, especially
flamish ones.
Personally, I think there are fewer long essays and
analyses for the same reason there are fewer large
predators than grass-munching herbivores.
--Tim May
--
.................................................................
...
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital
money,
tcmay@xxxxxxxxxx | anonymous networks, digital
pseudonyms, zero
| knowledge, reputations, information
markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of
governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe
available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@xxxxxxxx with body message of
only:
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in
pub/tc/tcmay
a prospect of the architecture of the Net that should be
handled on this list: the anarchitecture of technology and
knowledge and who controls it.
It begins with a brief exchange on why long, thoughtful
posts are seldom answered. The best part follows that.
I have posted messages by Tim May before -- he is a well-
to-do ex-Intel physicist and, well, see his sig for the
full story. Very smart man who uses wry humor as
camouflage of brilliance and anger. His last paragraph is
a jewel of wisdom.
---------------
L. McCarthy wrote:
>LF: Lately, I've had the feeling that majordomo@toad
echoes my epistles only back to me. None of the longer
pieces I've written has elicited so much as a flame from
Eric, Perry, or even James in a while.
TM: Should I feel left out by not being mentioned in this
set? Or relieved?
TM: In any case, I agree that most responses are mostly
reactive. Though in defense of the Cypherpunks list, not
nearly so reactive as are many groups. Lots of lists and
groups are dominated by in jokes, non sequitors, and other
ephemera. At least this group quite often gets into meaty
issues.
>LF: I've encountered an insidious hazard of high-volume
lists (such as this) that probably snares other people too.
It's altogether too easy to sit at one's mailer and merely
react to whatever comes along. Obviously, if everyone did
this all the time, nothing of substance would ever be
accomplished. It's therapeutic, IMHO, to step back
regularly, refocus on one's long term goals w.r.t the
group, and push new initiatives.
TM [balance of post]: Like a lot of you, I try to do this
regularly. If people are interested, they'll follow up. If
not, they won't. Think of it as evolution in action.
It so happens that the latest theme I've been thinking
about is ready to spring on you folks. If you respond, so
be it.
That theme is this: Is cyberspace, or the Net/Web/Etc.,
sufficiently rich or complex to meet our needs?
By "rich" or "complex" I mean in terms of "places to go,"
of "degrees of freedom." For example, the multiplicity of
routing paths for messages, via remailers explicitly and
via the underlying routing options the Internet itself
offers implicitly, gives certain major advantages that a
centralized system vulnerable to "choke points" would not
have. (The Internet gurus will likely jump in at this point
and blather about how this is isn't so, how they could shut
down the Internet in several minutes with just their
Leatherman tool and a few O'Reilly books, but my point is
not that it isn't _possible_, but that the direction in
which the Net has moved is generally one that makes
shut-down harder than more centralized alternatives.)
By our "needs" I mean roughly the Cypherpunks goals of
privacy, free choice, cybernetic free association, virtual
communities, anarcho-capitalism, etc. (Quibblers can
dispute any of these, but clearly most active posters on
the list advocate some vector made up of many of these
diverse elements.)
So, what am I getting at?
Consider how the abstractions of the World Wide Web, URLs,
HTML, HTTP, and Web browsers have *increased the size of
cyberspace* rather dramatically in just the past two years.
More places to visit, more interconnectedness, more
difficulties in controlling access to stuff, etc. Home
pages containing banned material are proliferating (a la
the Homolka-Teale ritualistic cannibalism trial in Canada,
the Scientology material, and so on -- this is not the
place for me to recap this). Sure, ftp sites used to do
this pretty well; in fact, I'm considering ftp sites in
this "evolution" toward greater complexity (in the richness
sense).
(Actually, cyberspace is partly getting "bigger" and partly
"increasing in dimensionality." Dimensionality of a space
can be related to how many neighbors one has....think of
the two nearest neighbors one has in a 1-D space, the 4 (or
8 if diagonals are considered) neighbors in a 2-D space,
the 6 in a 3-D space, and so on. Arguably, if one has "100
close neighbors" in a space, it is roughly a 50 dimensional
space. An equivalent formulation is in terms of the radius
of the n-sphere that everyone fits into.
For example, the "six degrees of separation," the 6
"handshakes" that separate nearly any two people in
America, suggests that American society is in some
important sense roughly a 15-17 dimensional space, because
in some sense all 250 million Americans "fit into" a
hypersphere of radius 3 (diameter 6) when the
dimensionality is around 17. (Or slightly lower, as the
slight corrections to V = r ^ n have to be included, which
I'm not bothering with). What "increased connectivity" does
is to increase dimensionality, about as one would expect
from our usual metaphors about "a multidimensional society"
and "the world is shrinking"...indeed it is shrinking, even
as the absolute volume increases.)
What Cypherpunks should be pushing for, in my view, is this
increased dimensionality. More places to stick things, more
places to escape central control, and more degrees of
freedom (which has a nice dual meaning I once used as the
working title for a novel I was working on).
Is Cyberspace already rich enough (= high enough
dimensionality) so that central control cannot be
reestablished (to the extent it ever existed)?
Many of this think that it probably already is past this
point, that the "point of no return" has been reached.
After all, the Soviets couldn't stop samizdats, the Chinese
couldn't stop fax machines, and the Americans can't stop
drug use, so what hope is there in controlling modems,
crypto, cellular phones, satellites, Web links,
stegonography, terabytes of data flowing unobstructed
across borders, and so on. Just to "stop the Net" would
disrupt the entire financial system, which not even Clinton
or the next (Republican) President would be tempted to
do....they might as well launch a nuclear war as try to
shut down this "anarchic" ( = high dimensionality) system.
But can we do more? One of my own wishes is to see hundreds
(nay, thousands!) of remailers, as these act as
"teleportation booths" which can dramatically increase
connectivity. (They can increase the connectivity in a
different way that just straight connections can...they
"stitch together" otherwise visibly-connected regions with
unobservable connections, a desirable thing.)
What else?
* Lots more remailers. Run out of accounts, not just
"remailer machines." Accounts allow trivial proliferation
of more remailers.
* Web access remailers. Like the "anonymous anonymous ftp,"
why not explore combining Web systems with remailers? (Not
so great for browsing, of course, but there should be some
interesting possibilities.)
* More offshore sites, members, etc. This increases
connectivity and increases the "regulatory arbitrage" we so
often talk about.
* Local corporate computer nets are "extra rooms in
cyberspace," and thus are harder to search. The equivalents
of "rat lines" (in which drugs are kept in one apartment
and retrieved through a hole in the wall, thus
delaying/foiling searches and kick-in-the-door
raids....think of how technology makes all this so much
easier).
* digital cash is of course of central importance. It glues
commerce together, but also greases it (a dual metaphor,
not a mixed one). In terms of the "richness" I'm talking
about, it incentivizes the colonization of cyberspace, the
expansion of this space, and the general richness.
* Alternative Nets, like FIDONet, are often lost in the
discussion of "the Net," but perhaps we should take much
greater interest in these alternatives. They make a
crackdown harder, they lessen the dangers of a single-point
attack, and they provide "genetic diversity" for building
future Nets. (I'm not saying Cypherpunks have the time,
expertise, or incentive to work on this, but just reminding
folks that the Internet is not the end all and be all...)
* More users, more education, more articles....all increase
dimensionality, by expanding the space (e.g., key software
on more machines, accessible by more people, more home
pages, etc.).
And so on. Increase the richness of cyberspace. More
places, more avenues, more rooms, more more. Make sure
there's a "there," there.
Well, I've written too much, and as folks have noted, long
posts get fewer responses that do short ones, especially
flamish ones.
Personally, I think there are fewer long essays and
analyses for the same reason there are fewer large
predators than grass-munching herbivores.
--Tim May
--
.................................................................
...
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital
money,
tcmay@xxxxxxxxxx | anonymous networks, digital
pseudonyms, zero
| knowledge, reputations, information
markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of
governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe
available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@xxxxxxxx with body message of
only:
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in
pub/tc/tcmay