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William Gibson's AGRIPPA Recovered and Revealed
Bud Cook writes "While the text of William Gibson's elusive electronic poem AGRIPPA is widely posted around the Web, it has not been seen in its original incarnation — custom-built software designed to scroll the poem through a single play before encrypting each line with an RSA algorithm — since 1992. Today is the 16th anniversary, to the day, of the poem's initial release. A team of scholars at the University of Maryland and UC Santa Barbara used forensic computing to restore the code from an original diskette loaned by a collector and have placed video of the complete 'run,' as well as never-before-seen footage from the night of AGRIPPA's public debut in 1992, up on a Web site called the Agrippa Files. There's also a detailed essay documenting the forensic process, plus a mess of stills, screenshots, and a copy of the disk image itself."
We finally found the Epitaph of the Twilight?!
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Could this be the first DRM? It's much more draconian than the 3 activations and buy a new game from EA.
...it's quite heartbreaking to see a work that intentionally removed itself from your grasp. It's quite the change from people who expect immortality simply for having cameras pointed at them or semi-literate fiction aimed at people who think MTV is the height of culture.
"The 2008 incarnation of the poem consists of custom-built software that, when /. readers try to read the poem, it is encrypted in a weird Web-based algorithm that transforms the text into a message saying 'Error establishing a database connection'.
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
I have to say the book is beautifully put together - a real work of art.
But I have read the poem (a copy of it is on Gibson's website) isn't it a bit pretentious?
However as a piece of art it is an interesting idea (minus the poem).
it is a 5th grade programming project
So, let me get this straight. You were writing programs that RSA encrypt data embedded within its own executable in the 5th grade?
Wow. And here I was just writing programs in LOGO that made a turtle move around the screeen. :(
You were a gifted child, weren't you?
My blog
Good art requires the viewer to think. What is more indicative of the state of social consumerism and the temporary nature of anything, than a document that allows precisely one viewing then removes itself from the page. Not to mention the indirect commentary on the transitory nature of language as a communication mechanism. It doesn't matter what the theme of the poem was, the art was the action of allowing one reading then visibly degrading the communication to the point where it was no longer communicating anything other than loss. What is poetic about a sunset ? The scientific fact that the sun is merely being hidden by the rotation of the earth ? Or the mental notion of the day coming to an end, time passing, out with the old, everything dies, sadness, hope etc. ?
I would see Gibsons work as deliberately demonstrating the sadness of work being published, read, then being removed from view and denying future readings. Very nice work considering the date it was first published, and our current problems with DRM and copyright.
Actually, interestingly enough, RSA is about as simple a cryptosystem as they come (next to OTP, that is). Really. The complexity is actually in the key generation (and even that is pretty simple once you've got a couple large primes). But once you have them, the actual encryption algorithm is dead simple.
'course, that's not to say it ain't still an impressive accomplishment. But it's no DES implementation. :)
an alternative interpretation is that in a world that Gibson envisioned where data is fleeting and we are deluged with it, there are times when you need to pay attention.
This poem, for all intents and purposes self destructs after the first reading. Therefore, you should pay attention the first time--you won't get another chance.
That was, I think, the intent. Whether he could have written a program that would have enforced that intent better is beside the point (apparently it was "broken"). For the average reader, you'd get one shot.
It's still a compelling thought.
RSA encryption: c = m^e mod n.
It really is something a 5th grader could write. The security is in the selection of e and n (and d, for decryption).
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
This is only news if your opponent has studied his Agrippa.... which I have.
That's a major factor in Buhddist/Nepalese sand art (proper name escapes me): a great deal of effort goes into making an intricate work of art, only to have it brushed away a few days later.
From the Japanese samurai classic text Hagakure: "In the Kamigata area, they have a sort of tiered lunchbox they use for a single day when flower viewing. Upon returning, they throw them away, trampling them underfoot. The end is important in all things."
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
I love art
Thanks for clarifying that.
Lookit, I'm no expert on the topic, but as I recall the whole thing from when it debuted in '92, the use of the self-scrolling, self-encrypting gimmick was Gibson's toe-dip into a whole new creative medium.
The poem was about his mother, memories for whom were very dim, ephemeral even. Gibson selected this new "self-destructing" medium as a metaphor, to facilitate the poetry: Once you had read the poem, you could not go back and re-visit it, you had to rely upon your memory only -- as did the poem's writer, creating it.
Don't compare it to what Da Vinci did with fine art, compare it to what Ernie Kovaks did with the new medium of television. Now, you watch Kovaks' schtick with switchers today, and it all seems goofy and trite -- but back then it was obviously well though-out, never before seen, and geeky as hell.
Kinda like "Agrippa."
RSA encryption: c = m^e mod n.
It really is something a 5th grader could write. The security is in the selection of e and n (and d, for decryption).
Assuming of course you wanted to decrypt it. That doesn't seem to be part of the design in this case.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?