in celebration of informational "vandalism"

[Zooko Journeyman <zooko@xs4all.nl>]

Forgeries motivate people to adopt digital signature 
technology!  Spam motivates people to develop better filtering 
techniques!  Cracks motivate people to adopt secure systems and
to back-up their important data!  Mailbombs and SYN floods 
motivate people to acquire denial-of-service-attack-resistant 
services!  Trolling a la D.M.Vulis separates the tough and 
realistic from the fragile psyche and nascent censor!


In the world of physical interaction, attacks or acts of 
vandalism are the components of evolutionarily stable
(more or less) strategies of extortion and oppression.
But in the world of information exchange, no such strategy
is evolutionarily stable, and each attack is best regarded
as an opportunity to up your tech and improve your capabilities
while simultaneously defending against further attacks.


:-)


Z