[11157] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
March Ask Dr. Internet Part II (long)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Public-Access Computer Systems For)
Thu Mar 20 22:47:19 1997
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 14:43:47 -0600 (CST)
From: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <LIBPACS@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
March 1997 Ask Dr. Internet Part II (450 lines)
DEC ROLLS OUT MILLICENT
Digital Equipment Corp. has taken the wraps off Millicent, a software system
designed to handle very small monetary transactions on the Internet,
enabling vendors to sell items for 10 cents or less. The company is making
arrangements with a couple of banks that will serve as "scrip brokers" --
dispensing $5 or $10 of Millicent scrip who can then use it to purchase
inexpensive information such as movie reviews, horoscopes, encyclopedia
articles, highway traffic reports, stock graphs, or a 10-second use of a
computer software application, from online sellers. Digital is currently
seeking content providers to participate in a trial program. (Wall Street
Journal 11 Mar 97)
SCHOOLS OFFER WEBMASTER DEGREES
Universities are heeding the call from companies for more qualified techies
capable of designing and managing a corporate Web site, and are now
beginning to formalize such training with degree programs geared toward
producing "Webmasters." Rather than stressing computer science skills, the
programs tend to lean toward either library science (with a special emphasis
on technology) or graphic media design. Included in the degree programs are
courses in such disciplines as organizational psychology, library science,
graphic design, and business. For example, Indiana University offers a
master's degree in information science, building on the library science
program for which it has long been known, and John Brown University is about
to offer a bachelor-of-science degree in digital media. Other programs can
be found outside the U.S. in Australia and Canada. (Chronicle of Higher
Education 14 Mar 97)
APPLE MAY RECONSIDER LICENSING FEES
With sales of Mac clones rising, Apple Computer is reevaluating the
licensing fees it charges companies that build the clones. Clone sales are
largely responsible for boosting the Mac share of the U.S. business-computer
market from 7.8% in November to 11.2% in January. Currently, Apple earns
only about $50 for every Mac clone sold, and a company spokeswoman says
Apple will decide in the next few weeks whether to up their fees on the new
operating system due out in July. (Wall Street Journal 10 Mar 97)
APPLE PARES WORKFORCE, PRUNES PRODUCT LINE
Apple Computer announced it will cut its 13,000 workforce by several
thousand employees and will scale down the company's large product line,
particularly peripheral communications products, such as the Pippin, and
some versions of its Macintosh Performa. "We are going to start doing what
we do well and stop doing what we don't do well," says Apple's executive VP
of marketing. (Wall Street Journal 14 Mar 97)
HIGH ACCESS CHARGES = LOWER NET USE
A forthcoming study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development indicates that high Internet access costs, not language
differences, are what really dictate a country's Internet usage. While U.S.
customers pay only the Internet service provider's charge and nothing for a
local phone call, most other countries have a system where they allow both
access charges and a per-minute local phone call charge. "You can talk
about cultural differences. You can talk about how there are less personal
computers in Europe than in the U.S. But the fact is that prices charged by
European phone companies for local calls are slowing down the market," says
a telecommunications analyst at the OECD. The report shows that consumers
in the most expensive countries, Mexico and Ireland, pay more than $90 a
month in access charges and phone bills for 20 hours of Internet use,
compared to Canada, for instance, where 20 hours cost about $21. (Wall
Street Journal 14 Mar 97)
SPRING CLEANING TIME FOR SOME WEB SITES
According to AltaVista, which has indexed a total of about 30 million Web
pages, five million of them haven't changed at all since early 1996, and
some 424,000 pages haven't been updated since early 1995. "People have
enough enthusiasm to design the sites once -- but it's not clear that they
have the resources to update them regularly," says Louis Monier, the
architect of Digital Equipment's search engine. (Wall Street Journal 11 Mar
97)
AT&T PLANS $9B UPGRADE
AT&T will invest up to $9 billion this year in upgrading its communications
network -- almost double what it usually budgets for such improvements.
About $5 billion of that will go toward the business-markets division to
beef up the backbone network, improve fast packet technology, and enhance
voice and local services. (Information Week 10 Mar 97)
LAWSUIT AGAINST AMERICA ONLINE
A new $100 million class action lawsuit against AOL has been filed in a U.S.
District Court in Los Angeles, alleging that the company engaged in
racketeering, mail fraud and wire fraud when it adopted a flat-fee $19.95 a
month pricing plan it knew would produce a huge surge of business that it
could not handle and would result in poor service to existing customers,
such as those who are filing the suit. America Online says the lawsuit is
frivolous. (Reuter 14 Mar 97)
TELEDESIC GETS APPROVAL FROM FCC
Teledesic, the privately owned company owned by Craig McCaw and Bill Gates,
has won FCC approval to proceed with its plans to launch an 840-satellite
computer network. In 1990, Teledesic's plan was to use an orbiting grid of
satellites to send data around the world, but the current plan is to provide
high-speed computer access by transmitting from a rooftop antenna to the
satellites in orbit. The Boeing Corporation could play a big part in
building or launching the satellites, and other companies are also likely to
help underwrite the $9-billion project. (Seattle Times 15 Mar 97)
PC MAKERS OFFER REBATES
Computer owners who purchased their machines between May 1, 1991 and May 1,
1995 may be eligible for a $13 rebate on their next purchase of a computer
monitor under a proposed settlement of a false-advertising class-action suit
against PC makers. The suit alleges that the computer companies advertised
that the monitors accompanying their systems were larger than the actual
viewing area size. IBM, Dell Computer Corp., Digital Equipment Corp.,
Hewlett-Packerd Co., Compaq Computer Corp. and Apple Computer Inc. are all
named in the lawsuit. Customers will receive a $13 coupon that may be
applied toward the purchase of a new monitor from any of the companies
named. The coupons will be good for three years, after which they'll be
redeemable for $6 cash. (St. Petersburg Times 17 Mar 97)
MMX CHIP IN MORE PCs
The market research firm Computer Intelligence says that Intel's MMX Pentium
chip with enhanced multimedia capabilities was installed in 27% of the
personal computers sold by U.S. retailers in January. (New York Times 18
Mar 97)
BOOKSELLER PRICE WAR ON NET
With the Barnes & Noble bookselling company opening an operation today on
America Online (and moving ahead with plans to begin selling books on the
Web later this Spring), its much smaller rival Amazon.com, currently the
biggest bookseller in cyberspace, is increasing the discount on 700 popular
titles to 40%. But Barnes & Noble, which had $2.4 billion in sales last
year, will prove formidable competition for Amazon, which had 1996 sales of
only $17 million. Forrester Research says: "It's a case of a relatively
successful pipsqueak taking on a heavily fortified giant. They can only
compete by finding a niche and providing superior service." Atlanta
Journal-Constitution 18 Mar 97)
NEWS CORP. COURTING POINTCAST
Media giant News Corp. is negotiating to acquire PointCast Inc., an
entrepreneurial leader in "push" technology for the Internet. The deal
would be good for News Corp., giving it an established vehicle for
distributing its news and entertainment content, but would jeopardize
PointCast's existing arrangements with News Corp. rivals Time Warner, Times
Mirror, Knight-Ridder and Dow Jones Co. Meanwhile, PointCast is pondering
what effect a spurned offer would have on its plans to go public: "We've
received plenty of unsolicited offers in the past as well as recently and
we've accepted none of them," says PointCast's CEO. "The path that we're on
is to take the company public. We're enthused about that and our investors
are enthused about that." (Wall Street Journal 18 Mar 97)
Q10.
Interview
This month's interview is with Jude Milhon [St. Jude],
the first female hacker, amongst many other accomplishments.
INTRODUCTION [Skip to *** if you hate introductions]
Well, this is going to be one of the more interesting interviews
we have ever done on "Ask Dr. Internet" for several reasons.
I have always maintained that I was one of the only people who
could define what art is, and how artists actually do art:
"An artist is a person who can see something others cannot see,
and can portray this in a manner in which others CAN see it."
And now we shall see if I have the intestinal fortitude to step
up to the plate and try to be an artist for one of the few times
in my life.
Here is why it is going to take guts [intestinal fortitudeness]:
1. I met Jude last fall at the Hackers' Conference. . .not "A"
hackers conference, but THE Hackers' Conference, the one that
espouses the "Hacker Ethic" that Steven Levy talked about in
his book "Hackers". . .and Jude, while not seeing eye to eye
with Steven about many things, was the only person there who
espoused any of the Hacker Ethic besides myself, so we ended
up getting into a frantic conversation at the very end of the
conference, which is when this all happened. [Only then did
I realize that this was the same person I had been standing
in line with during registration, along with Neal Stephenson.
[Yes, THAT Neal Stephenson, who wrote Diamond Age, Snow Crash
and other items of great interest. . .well. . .this is what
you GO to a Hackers' Conference FOR.]
1a. At any rate, during those last few frantic minutes,
Jude and I struck up a conversation that has been going
for several months now, which is going to take some "art"
to translate from what I see into what I hope you will see,
and what I also hope will not offend Jude too much, perhaps
will not actually take the patience of a saint for her to see
what I am trying to do here, which is basically to underline
the things about Jude that I see as extremely valuable, while
downplaying some items I know she would like to bang you over
the head with, but which I feel would dis-integrate the feel
our audience would have for her.
This could also be interpreted as dis-integrating her own
integrity, for which I ask forgiveness if I should do too
poor a job to attain my goals here at 3:00AM when the drnet
Newsletter usually gets is final editing completed.
I probably have one thing on my side here, in that Jude has
agreed to continue this interview for several installments,
and I can try to adjust the tuning of this program which may
tend to head towards "The Outer Limits" of both directions.
***
My first exposure to Jude was in Steven Levy's "Hackers" book
from 1984, a book which Jude doesn't have much fondness for,
but which I found to be the most fun of any of the books of
the early days of computing and hacking, and one of the only
mass media exposures of the "Hacker Ethic" which I continued
to develop and espouse in my own way since 1971.
My second exposure to Jude was in the registration line at
the Hackers Conference, during which we yakked about numbers
of things along with Neal Stephenson, all of which were to
set the tone for the first part of the conference for me,
but, at the time, I didn't know who either of them were.
My third exposure was a very intense few minutes that began
during the last session of the conference when we both got
on the cases of the major players of the conference for not
only a lack of the Hacker Ethics itself, but for never even
MENTIONING it in the first, or last, place.
We did the final comment such an argument deserves, we left
the main meeting hall and started our own conversation on
the Hacker Ethic, which continues here still.
***
At that time Jude gave me a copy of her "Cyberpunk Handbook"
which I was enabled to read in detail due to being iced in
at the St. Louis airport overnight on the way home. Thanks
Jude, for rearranging my sanity that night.
Like most of Jude's fare, Cyberpunk Handbook is challenging,
humourous, satirical of herself and all other cyberpunks and
hackers, and a general wild romp through some of the sort of
thing you might expect after reading the Yuppie Handbook and
all the others, but with a LOT more meat on or off, the bone.
The people on the cover are the real thing in this case, and
so are many/most of the tidbits inside. . .sorting them out,
and putting them together into any system may well be a more
impossible dream, both in the book and in reality.
But I am going to have a small try at it here.
[Please note that Cyberpunk Handbook is subtitled Cyberpunk
Fakebook, and that Jude, in her usual self-satirizing style
refers to it only in the latter terminology, but you should
try looking it up under both titles.]
***Questions and conversation from the PAST are labeled as
Dr. Internet: or Drnet:, my own personal comments and some
for the FUTURE are placed here in []'s.***
Dr Internet:
Would you prefer to be referred to here as Jude or St. Jude,
or are we going to get to interview more than one persona?
St Jude:
Call me Jude.
However, if one of my backgrounded subprocesses interrupts with an answer
I'll credit it... all my personas live for by-lines, like writers do.
[But notice that when I have to fill out a form which gives me the option
of being a ms/mr/dr, I always put in "st".]
Drnet:
I presume you have seen all the cyberpunkish movies that have come out:
Johnny Mnemonic, Hackers, Strange Days, Virtuosity, etc.
St. Jude:
About these movies, I've grimly seen them. And I'm prepared to get very
particular here:
As I suggested in CYBERPUNK FAKEBOOK, if you offend the gods of cyberspace
they will make a movie of your precious inner dreams and make Keanu Reeves
play the hero. JOHNNY MNEMONIC, pfoo.
[I personally liked them both a lot. . .mh]
I loved HACKERS, the movie. I went to see it with my Cypherpunks posse,
and we hooted and shrieked. HACKERS was a wild mishmosh of insider
MOD/2600 jokes and Hollywood lameness. Great stuff. See it if you
haven't. The Phiber Optik references were hot and heavy. Emanuel
Goldstein appeared behind his usual handle... he puts out 2600, the
magazine of hack/phreak culture, and that's not his real name, you know--
EG is the villain in 1984, who caught the five-minutes HATEs.
[MOD and 2600 are two of the major groups of hackers and cyberpunks
and their related media. MOD is "Masters of Deception" and 2600 is
a hacker 'zine thingy named after the first Atari 2600 video game,
and it also, for REAL hackers, the frequency of Cap'n Crunch whistle,
which some of us hacked as our first test run into chipdom. Phiber
Optik is one of the more famous hackers on the planet, we may get
further into his exploits later. And let's not forget the Legion
of Doom and the 414's.]
Drnet:
I loved Hackers. It is so deliciously a spoof of itself and the
cyberpunk culture, along with some fairly serious attitudes as well.
A good mix. An interesting point is that Hackers and Sneakers are
aimed at such totally different age groups. . .even the PARENTS in
Hackers are younger than the major characters in Sneakers. . . !
[Speaking of spoofs. . .did you get that archaic reference to the
square phone in the round modem during the big satellite hack for
Redford to talk to Darth Vader? They were spoofing the Hollywood
rules that you can NOT portray REAL hacking, just as Red October
could not portray a real secret submarine. . .cute story there,
they were denied the real info, and their FAKE turned out to be
more accurate than was allowed, they had to undo a lot of it.]
First off I was engaged by THE NET, because Sandra Bullock is a splendid
read, if you know what I mean. She makes a great nerdgirl. Then I
noticed how uncharacteristically naive her character was. Nerds are a
signature blend of unworldly and shrewd. She had the agoraphobia, the f2f
[f2f is hacker talk for "face to face" mh]
clumsiness, fine-- but nerds are hair-trigger paranoid, ready to bolt at
the slightest off-note in a situation. That Captain America guy would
never have gotten her onto no boat, nuh uh. She'd have gone home and
ordered another pizza over the Net. No good. Dumb movie.
[I agree that it was a dumb movie, perhaps the worst thing every put
out about the Internet Age, but I disagree about her getting on the
boat, as this guy knew all her fantasies, and was perfectly playing
every card he knew was in her deck. But then again, I am a romantic,
but I think the movie character was, too. mh]
After that... well, I believed the reviews of VIRTUOSITY and didn't see
it, and then I was coerced by acquaintances into seeing STRANGE DAYS and I
can't remember a single scene... it's as if i nevah saw it at all.
[I saw Virtuosity several times. . .well. . .in preparing reviews on
them, I felt compelled to see them ALL several times, even The Net,
and I found Virtuosity to be a very good adaptation of the 1940's
Film Noir detective story with the current cyber rage stuff. mh]
On the other hand, do you remember SNEAKERS? A real nerd movie. Hero geeks.
Drnet:
I thought Sneakers was a much better adaptation to the cyber genre
than was The Net. . .but I will remind you that Robert Redford was
just as easily led astray as was Sandra Bullock and he was perhaps
even more paranoid than she was, and even less romantic.
St. Jude:
Likewise Apollo 13. A geekly way of heroism. Hey, I saw a geek TV ad
that referenced Apollo 13 during the Superbowl (don't ask). What a
breakthrough! Hewlett Packard's copier, a bunch of engineers standing
around while their boss pitches a new copier to some VPs...
"This machine does everything but mow the lawn." The geeks look startled
and start whispering among themselves... [jumpcut to:] they dump a bag of
parts out on a table... [cut] an early prototype, tall and thin, lurches
across uneven terrain and falls over, wheels akimbo... [cut] a window-bar
is pulled down, the cursor moves past
COPY *C to
MOW *M...
and released thereon, and we see the triumphant copier mowing...
All HP's ads have been celebrations of geekness, and if I were buying a
copier you know what I'd do.]
Note that I use geek as a glory term. Deep geek is the highest of the
high. I identify with, and I lust after, geeks. All their organs working
perfectly, but not to usual spec. Hoop-la!
I just saw half of SNEAKERS again. Wondrous hokum. Last time was at its
premiere along with some MONDO2000 staffers and a passel of cypherpunks.
We (cypherpunks) were all so high on cryptography at the time that we were
STUNNED to see a Hollywood flick dealing with it, however hokily. My
boyfiend, Eric Hughes, shouted deliriously to a cryptophreak ten rows
back, AND IF N DOES NOT EQUAL NP...? [then this branch of crypto is not
computable, not crackable by government supercomputers, and we're all
saved. Maybe.] The idea was that a world of defendable privacy offered a
future that would be global and not reachable by governments... notional,
not national-- and free at last. The anarchist's dream.
[I mentioned to Jude that I had been indirectly involved in the latest,
and successful, effort to crack the highest orders of encryption, and
while we DID talk about this, it hasn't, as yet, related back to this
part of the conversation. I will merely repeat my advice to all drnet
subscribers who ask: "Presume ALL your email and net files are being
read, by several levels of corporate and government cyberphreaks.]
[So much for movies, but I recommend that you check out all of these,
and I would love to watch them with Jude, flinging commentaries ever
so much further than 10 rows. Popcorn? Coke?]
Dr: Many other subjects come to mind, including: Shockwave Rider
StJ: SHOCKWAVE RIDER! It's the godfather of cyberpunk AND cypherpunk,
twenty years in advance. John Brunner is now finally dead. . . .
behold the man who figured out identity-spoofing, creditcard hacking,
encryption breaking and all the rest, in 1972. awesome's the word.
[Much left out here about John Brunner, The Sheep Look Up, Stand on
Zanzibar, etc. However, if you read Shockwave Rider, and are in an
itsy bitsy manner capable of remembering 1972, when he wrote it, it
might occur to you what a visionary he was. . .as was Ted Nelson.]
Dr:
I have interviewed a number of writers, and it seemed to be like
pulling teeth to get them talk about their books except in the
most cryptic manner.
Jude: Maybe I don't take authorship seriously enough to be cryptic. I
don't identify as closely with my books as you might think. I love my
books, I feel they're important cultural commentary, note well, but
they're debrided skin, perhaps. Toenail clippings. They're the conscious
products of intellect and guts. Not that mysterious, even if the process
of creation remains surprising, unaccountable. If I felt that my books
were some elemental part of me, that they are like spermaceti,
miraculously separated from my head without killing me, I might be loth to
talk about them.
[Ah. . .now THERE's an insight!]
. . .
And a good place to leave off the interview until next month's issue.
Please be encouraged to send in questions for Jude, she is a very
nice person, and will actually answer them.
You can find all the past issues of "Ask Dr. Internet" at promo.net,
and you and directly subscribe to this newsletter if you visit that
site with your web browser.
