I know it's NOT true, at least as stated. I was Verity's first Internet product manager and one of the first members of the W3C's advisory board, so I was in the thick of this. I clearly recall, without reference to any notes, that the first really broad indexing of the Web was by Open Text. We thought they were a bit crazy to claim that they'd even try... Verity had already developed a commercial spider, which shipped with our server, when Alta Vista was still developing theirs, I think. I clearly remember when "Scooter," which was how it identified itself, nailed my poor little Macintosh server one day. I called to complain and found out that someone who wasn't familiar with it was trying it out while the primary developer, Louis Monier, was away.
I'm sure that Tim Bray, founder of Open Text, would have a clear recollection of the order of events.
Nick
When is it appropriate to subpoena?
on
Anonymity
·
· Score: 1
Do courts have the right to subpoena a pseudonym's real identity *before* libel has been proven? That's what's at issue when companies use subpoena power to intimidate. Once libel is proved, it seems reasonable (in today's world, not necessarily in the future) to reveal the true identity. But when all one has to do is allege libel in order to pierce the Internet's veil of pseudonymity, it seems clear to me that the courts can be misused.
Eventually, I would hope that for some kinds of libel or other harmful language, serious penalties can be imposed on the pseudonymous identities themselves, rather than on the real people who own them. To reach that point, pseudonyms will have to gain serious economic value. I think one could argue that some identities on Ebay already have this, based on the reputation they have earned over time. Loss of reputation and earning power for such pseuds might be a sufficient penalty in some cases. Internet identities would have come to resemble corporations in the sense of limited liability.
Add my name to the list -- I wrote Cringely a few times when Mark was on vacation. Which was just about never. The only one I clearly recall was a parody of Nick Danger, Third Eye, the Firesign Theater piece. Others filled in now and then, I seem to recall, but I was only at InfoWorld for a year.
Not to speak for O'Reilly, but this is something I've talked with them about many times over the last few years, including quite recently. I don't think anyone there doubts that it would be a wonderful thing; the problem is that it is a much larger undertaking that it seems at first glance. There aren't good tools for organizing the information in the first place; on the search side, what you're describing requires the search engine to use each page as a retrieval unit, which search engines haven't been designed to do. It clearly *can* be done with current technology, but there's a tremendous amount of manipulation of the data to make it work. I was in product management and evangelism at Verity (the biggest search engine software developer) until last year and now I'm doing an information-retrieval startup where Tim O. is on the board, so I've been living and breathing these kinds of issues. Nick
Legally, "malice" is not what we typically mean. It is reckless disregard for the truth. I think that one might make a good argument for this in this case...
You're right. I was thinking "complexity" when I read "chaos." I've stuck a note to that effect in the essay itself.
I don't think I can articulate very well the intuition that chaos and complexity are related. Not that that'll stop me from trying. Both theories show that seemingly random systems are not nearly as random as we had imagined. How's that as a start?
However, I should acknowledge immediately that this is a step or two away from the point I was making in the essay about context and content.
>The point of Chaos Theory, in short, is that simple, deterministic systems can produce highly complex rather-random-looking patterns.
A pattern *is* the collapse of something complex into something simple. One can see both complexity and simplicity in chaotic systems; the beauty of chaos theory is that it offers a glimpse of how the chaos can be understand through simple principles, how simple features emerge from chaotic systems. Your statement turned that idea around, saying the same thing.
I see the goal of being a good user as rather secondary to the computer being a good tool. Not that that's an argument against command line interfaces, but neither was the essay.
The e-mails have barely begun, but that's probably because my connection was crushed by the aforementioned crush of rubberneckers.
I feel like this is a good moment to add that I really enjoyed "Snowcrash." Read it twice.
Further, I'm not so unhappy with Stephenson's conclusions, just how he gets to them. I was learning SPURT (Sperry Univac machine language) in 1972 (and Algol, good heavens, before that) and I do understand the virtues of deep access to computers. When I use my Macs, I sometimes get very annoyed that there's no easy way built into the OS to change a bunch of file names, or to select them with wildcards, just as random examples of my own occasional CLI lust.
But I also find it a bit weird when a great bit-twiddler bemoans the fact that compilers have all the fun these days. That was something that Andy Hertzfeld said back in the early life of General Magic. And I'm not criticizing Andy with that -- he's a friend and a wonderful person. He's not normal, though, which is good.
My agency (Waterside Associates) has been revising their contracts to deal with the possibility of books that never go out-of-print, since that has been the main test for rights reverting to the author. Contracts are already starting to require X sales per month or rights revert (I had a prescient lawyer put such a clause in a contract for a book of his I publisher six years ago or so).
The main roles of publishing companies have been marketing and assuming the risks of a very inefficient distribution system. As technology increases efficiency, I think we'll see more publishers overall. The net offers a lot more opportunities for promotion. Anyone who thinks I offered this essay to slashdot out of pure altruism is naive, for example. I have a new book coming up, which will deal with some of the issues in the essay.
By the way, there are about 55,000 publishers in the United States. Of course, I would guess that the biggest few have most of the market (and are no longer owned by U.S. companies!), the old 80/20 rule.
I've put a copy of the essay on angelfire and my server is set to redirect you there. The collision LEDs on my router and switch are breathing much easier now -- they were working awfully hard most of the morning...
Yes, publishers are eager to reprint their backlists, even though they aren't doing it today -- and this is the opinion of a published author and publisher! I'm doing consulting in this very area these days. The problem is the cost of the publishing supply chain. It is too expensive to print a few copies of any book, but startups such as Lightning Printing and supply chain automation developers are changing the economics considerably. It is generally believed in the publishing industry that there will come a day when no book need ever be out of print.
Slashdot Mirror
I know it's NOT true, at least as stated. I was Verity's first Internet product manager and one of the first members of the W3C's advisory board, so I was in the thick of this. I clearly recall, without reference to any notes, that the first really broad indexing of the Web was by Open Text. We thought they were a bit crazy to claim that they'd even try... Verity had already developed a commercial spider, which shipped with our server, when Alta Vista was still developing theirs, I think. I clearly remember when "Scooter," which was how it identified itself, nailed my poor little Macintosh server one day. I called to complain and found out that someone who wasn't familiar with it was trying it out while the primary developer, Louis Monier, was away. I'm sure that Tim Bray, founder of Open Text, would have a clear recollection of the order of events. Nick
Do courts have the right to subpoena a pseudonym's real identity *before* libel has been proven? That's what's at issue when companies use subpoena power to intimidate. Once libel is proved, it seems reasonable (in today's world, not necessarily in the future) to reveal the true identity. But when all one has to do is allege libel in order to pierce the Internet's veil of pseudonymity, it seems clear to me that the courts can be misused.
Eventually, I would hope that for some kinds of libel or other harmful language, serious penalties can be imposed on the pseudonymous identities themselves, rather than on the real people who own them. To reach that point, pseudonyms will have to gain serious economic value. I think one could argue that some identities on Ebay already have this, based on the reputation they have earned over time. Loss of reputation and earning power for such pseuds might be a sufficient penalty in some cases. Internet identities would have come to resemble corporations in the sense of limited liability.
Nick
Add my name to the list -- I wrote Cringely a few times when Mark was on vacation. Which was just about never. The only one I clearly recall was a parody of Nick Danger, Third Eye, the Firesign Theater piece. Others filled in now and then, I seem to recall, but I was only at InfoWorld for a year.
Nick Arnett
Not to speak for O'Reilly, but this is something I've talked with them about many times over the last few years, including quite recently. I don't think anyone there doubts that it would be a wonderful thing; the problem is that it is a much larger undertaking that it seems at first glance. There aren't good tools for organizing the information in the first place; on the search side, what you're describing requires the search engine to use each page as a retrieval unit, which search engines haven't been designed to do. It clearly *can* be done with current technology, but there's a tremendous amount of manipulation of the data to make it work. I was in product management and evangelism at Verity (the biggest search engine software developer) until last year and now I'm doing an information-retrieval startup where Tim O. is on the board, so I've been living and breathing these kinds of issues. Nick
Legally, "malice" is not what we typically mean. It is reckless disregard for the truth. I think that one might make a good argument for this in this case...
You're right. I was thinking "complexity" when I read "chaos." I've stuck a note to that effect in the essay itself.
I don't think I can articulate very well the intuition that chaos and complexity are related. Not that that'll stop me from trying. Both theories show that seemingly random systems are not nearly as random as we had imagined. How's that as a start?
However, I should acknowledge immediately that this is a step or two away from the point I was making in the essay about context and content.
>The point of Chaos Theory, in short, is that simple, deterministic systems can produce highly complex rather-random-looking patterns.
A pattern *is* the collapse of something complex into something simple. One can see both complexity and simplicity in chaotic systems; the beauty of chaos theory is that it offers a glimpse of how the chaos can be understand through simple principles, how simple features emerge from chaotic systems. Your statement turned that idea around, saying the same thing.
I see the goal of being a good user as rather secondary to the computer being a good tool. Not that that's an argument against command line interfaces, but neither was the essay.
The e-mails have barely begun, but that's probably because my connection was crushed by the aforementioned crush of rubberneckers.
I feel like this is a good moment to add that I really enjoyed "Snowcrash." Read it twice.
Further, I'm not so unhappy with Stephenson's conclusions, just how he gets to them. I was learning SPURT (Sperry Univac machine language) in 1972 (and Algol, good heavens, before that) and I do understand the virtues of deep access to computers. When I use my Macs, I sometimes get very annoyed that there's no easy way built into the OS to change a bunch of file names, or to select them with wildcards, just as random examples of my own occasional CLI lust.
But I also find it a bit weird when a great bit-twiddler bemoans the fact that compilers have all the fun these days. That was something that Andy Hertzfeld said back in the early life of General Magic. And I'm not criticizing Andy with that -- he's a friend and a wonderful person. He's not normal, though, which is good.
My agency (Waterside Associates) has been revising their contracts to deal with the possibility of books that never go out-of-print, since that has been the main test for rights reverting to the author. Contracts are already starting to require X sales per month or rights revert (I had a prescient lawyer put such a clause in a contract for a book of his I publisher six years ago or so).
The main roles of publishing companies have been marketing and assuming the risks of a very inefficient distribution system. As technology increases efficiency, I think we'll see more publishers overall. The net offers a lot more opportunities for promotion. Anyone who thinks I offered this essay to slashdot out of pure altruism is naive, for example. I have a new book coming up, which will deal with some of the issues in the essay.
By the way, there are about 55,000 publishers in the United States. Of course, I would guess that the biggest few have most of the market (and are no longer owned by U.S. companies!), the old 80/20 rule.
I've put a copy of the essay on angelfire and my server is set to redirect you there. The collision LEDs on my router and switch are breathing much easier now -- they were working awfully hard most of the morning...
Nick
Yes, publishers are eager to reprint their backlists, even though they aren't doing it today -- and this is the opinion of a published author and publisher! I'm doing consulting in this very area these days. The problem is the cost of the publishing supply chain. It is too expensive to print a few copies of any book, but startups such as Lightning Printing and supply chain automation developers are changing the economics considerably. It is generally believed in the publishing industry that there will come a day when no book need ever be out of print.
Absolutely right. That's a mistake that I'll definitely fix. Can't believe I wrapped it all under PARC...
BTW, my DSL line is swamped; I'll be mirroring the piece at my ISP shortly and setting up a redirect.