time to acknowledge, move on

[jdblair@nextsrv.cas.muohio.EDU]

OK, so the reputation of the list has been screwed up.  So what?  It is
all just information, and we're here to explore how the metaphores the
information represents evolve in cyberspace.  As cheesy as that word has
become, if memory serves right, one possible definition for cyberspace is a
"consensually agreed upon metaphore for certain aspects of reality."  I'm
sure I will get corrected for that, and that is good- that's why I said it:
to test my hypothesis.

I think the coffee house metaphore makes sense, but we have to deal with
the fact that this coffee house isn't exactly like normal coffee houses.  You
can't spoof a person, in person, in reality, short of incredible acting
ability and plastic surgery.  Real James Bond stuff.

I think most of us believe that cyberspace can serve as a useful addition
to reality, and some of us probably see it as a possible replacement for
reality.  One simply needs to know one MOO addict to believe that (an
acquaintence of mine once spent 18 hours straight on-line.)

So we're working out the kinks in the metaphore, and learning where the
metaphore breaks down.  So sometimes we get burned.  So what!!


By the way, some of us have built a metaphorical workshop onto the back of
this metaphorical coffee house.  Discussion is going reallly slowly right
now, I think because most of use are really more software people than
hardware people.  Myself definately included.  I laid the foundation for
the workshop because I thought there was still a lot of hard information I
could learn from the Cypherpunks, like how following this list turned my
understanding of cryptography from virtually zilch to getting into an
argument with someone from the NSA that I led into the mountains in one of
my real-world personalities, a summer backpacking guide.  He was freaked
out to find that this outdoorsy guy understood public key cryptography,
and had an opinion about the clipper chip.  There's the main purpose of the
list, right?  To educate.  It educated me, and it threw a real-world NSA
employee for a loop.

So, we've all been educated about spoofing, and the dangers inherent in the
privacy we advocate.  If I wasn't ready to have my views challenged, I
wouldn't follow the list, and I certainly wouldn't post.  Of anybody, we
should understand that a name on the net is just a label.  We have a
certain assumed level of trust that label = real person.  We're the ones
that have been emphasizing that a public key can only be trusted if you
trust a real person somewhere in the web of trust you build to verify it. 
We all knew that its elementary to spoof someone (or pseudospoof, I mean). 
We just assumed that no one would break our trust, do more than just a few
harmless pranks.  Oh my god, I here people shout, label != person?  We
deserve it.

So, y'all, chill out.  I think L.D. taught us all a BIG lesson that we can
all take through the rest of our cyperspace lives (or metaverse lives,
depending on one's jargon persuasion).

The net isn't the real world.  Stop pretending it is, and treat it as the net.

-john
<jdblair@nextsrv.cas.muohio.edu>

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Insert cool signature file that makes a trendy, yet bold and original
statement about my cyberspace proficiency, then mentions that I'll send
you my public key if you want it, and you trust that I'm me.