[109239] in Cypherpunks
Re: clique surveillance: what can you learn?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Josh Richards)
Sun Mar 14 20:19:43 1999
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 15:48:22 -0800 (PST)
From: Josh Richards <jrichard@freedom.gen.ca.us>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <199903131640.RAA04062@mail.replay.com>
Reply-To: Josh Richards <jrichard@freedom.gen.ca.us>
On Sat, 13 Mar 1999, Anonymous wrote:
> Has anyone thought about building a bot that built
> associations between identities (email addresses,
> links between personal pages, common phrases) looking for
> cliques or subcultures?
I don't think this is what you had in mind, but you reminded me of
something. I was recently thinking about how possible it would be to
develop a sort of "intellectual networker" which worked on the premise of
a web based questionnaire (free form? multiple choice? both? AI? Who
knows..). Anyhow, taking it and opening it up to the net. Basically the
idea is that if you could attract the numbers of people like a Yahoo or
EBay pulls in, it would become an ever involving database, which would
allow people to "network" on a MUCH larger scale and in a much more useful
manner then possible in the real world (of business, hobbies, whatever).
Personal matchmaker for intellectuals? It's not like it's really that
different. There is just no (required) sexual overtone to it. Obviously
privacy issues come into play, but that is not the point, since if you are
interested in networking with people you are going to have to divulge
_something_ (and there is no reason why it has to be really personal, the
data entered wouldn't have to divulge anymore then you might by posting to
this list and others...it only consists of your idea and interests, not
your life history).
Anyhow, you're asking about surveillance, and I'm thinking more for
purposes of enhancing communication among people, willingly. A bit
different, just that you gave me an excuse to post this. :)
>
> It would be an interesting project. You'd want
> to exclude Mr. Anonymous since he has so many
> postings, so few friends :-)
Or, IMO, include him since it would be an interesting test of how feasible
it would be to develop an app that could compile anonymous postings and
try tying them to potential "real" identities, based on the contents of
other posts... Instead of having to disguise your voice, now you'll have
to disguise your spelling and sentence structure as well through a "smart"
remailer..
-jr
----
Josh Richards - <jrichard@freedom.gen.ca.us> - This is my personal account.
Finger "jrichard@fix.net" for my PGP key - "Export crypto, not jobs!"
