nettime The Limits of Networking
THE LIMITS OF NETWORKING A reply to Lovink and Schneider's Notes on the State of Networking by Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker The question we aim to explore here is: what is the principle of political organization or control that stitches a network together? Writers like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri have helped answer this question in the socio-political sphere using the concept of Empire. Like a network, Empire is not reducible to any single state power, nor does it follow an architecture of pyramidal hierarchy. Empire is fluid, flexible, dynamic, and far-reaching. In that sense, the concept of Empire helps us greatly to begin thinking about political organization in networks. But like Lovink and Schneider, we are concerned that no one has yet adequately answered this question for the technological sphere of bits and atoms. To this end, the principle of political control we suggest is most helpful for thinking about technological networks is protocol, a word derived from computer science but which resonates in the life sciences as well. Protocol abounds in techno-culture. It is a totalizing control apparatus that guides both the technical and political formation of computer networks, biological systems and other media. Put simply, protocols are all the conventional rules and standards that govern relationships within networks. Quite often these relationships come in the form of communication between two or more computers, but relationships within networks can also refer to purely biological processes as in the systemic phenomenon of gene expression. Thus by networks we want to refer to any system of interrelationality, whether biological or informatic, organic or inorganic, technical or natural--with the ultimate goal of undoing the polar restrictiveness of these pairings. In computer networks, science professionals have, over the years, drafted hundreds of protocols to govern email, web pages, and so on, plus many other standards for technologies rarely seen by human eyes. The first protocols for computer networks were written in 1969 by Steve Crocker and others. If networks are the structures that connect people, then protocols are the rules that make sure the connections actually work. Likewise, molecular biotechnology research frequently makes use of protocol to configure biological life as a network phenomenon, be it in gene expression networks, metabolic networks, or the circuitry of cell signaling pathways. In such instances, the biological and the informatic become increasingly enmeshed in hybrid systems that are more than biological: proprietary genome databases, DNA chips for medical diagnostics, and real-time detection systems for biowarfare agents. Protocol is twofold; it is both an apparatus that facilitates networks and also a logic that governs how things are done within that apparatus. From the large technological discourse of white papers, memos, and manuals, we can derive some of the basic qualities of the apparatus of organization which we here call protocol: + protocol facilitates relationships between interconnected, but autonomous, entities; + protocol's virtues include robustness, contingency, interoperability, flexibility, and heterogeneity; + a goal of protocol is to accommodate everything, no matter what source or destination, no matter what originary definition or identity; + while protocol is universal, it is always achieved through negotiation (meaning that in the future protocol can and will be different). + protocol is a system for maintaining organization and control in networks; We agree wholeheartedly with Lovink and Schneider's observation that networks are the emerging form of organization of our time. And we agree that, due to this emerging form of organization, networking has lost its mysterious and subversive character. Yet they also note that, despite being the site of control and organization, networks are also the very medium of freedom, if only a provisional or piecemeal liberation. They write that networking is able to free the user from the bonds of locality and identity. And later they describe networking as a syncope of power. In this sense, Lovink and Schneider posit power as the opposite of networking, as the force that restricts networking and thus restricts individual freedom: Power responds to the pressure of increasing mobility and communications of the multitudes with attempts to regulate them in the framework of traditional regimes that cannot be abandoned, but need to be reconfigured from scratch and recompiled against the networking paradigm: borders and property, labour and recreation, education and entertainment industries undergo radical transformations. Our point of departure is this: Lovink and Schneider's Info-Empire should not be defined in terms of either corporate or state power, what they call the corruption of state sovereignty. Instead it must be defined
nettime Temporary ... Shopping Zones!
Fans of Thomas Frank (or is it the other way round? ;-), rejoice! There is really no end to capitalism's recuperative prowess: - Commes des Garcons Guerilla Store The ever-inventive and playful Rei Kawakubo's latest probe into the bleeding edge of the buying psyche. She's just opened this store in Berlin, Germany. It's the first example of provisional retailing by an established fashion house: the store plans to close in one year, even if it's making money. Instead of spending millions to build or renovate a building, Comme des Garcons spent just $2,500 to fix up a former bookshop in the historic Mitte district. Because the company doesn't plan to stay long in the 700-foot-square space, it didn't bother to remove the name of the previous tenant from the windows. Advertising consisted of 600 posters placed around the city, and word of mouth. Said Adrian Joffe, who conceived the store with his wife and partner Rei Kawakubo, Of course it seems outrageous to close something once it becomes a success, and I think we will be successful. Of course, it helps to have a story about your venture appear on the front page of the New York Times, as this one did. Joffe continued, To be creative at anything takes an unbelievable amount of energy, and the minute you start to feel content with your success is when you lose it. You don't want to get too comfortable. All 20 stores the company plans to open within the next year, including one in Brooklyn, will adopt the same guerilla strategy, disappearing after a year. The Comme des Garcons Guerilla Store flouts conventional wisdom in almost every way. Said Nancy Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business School, Guerilla marketing is the wave of the future. Red Bull and Trader Joe's have built their followings by word of mouth. The sense in the fashion industry that nothing lasts for long has become more and more apparent. Tom Ford, whose career at Gucci will end next month, was asked recently if he thought people would remember him for his work there. They will forget, he said with a snap of his fingers. This is today. This is the world. Six months, a year, two years. Whatever happens goes away. For years, corporations have recognized that the medium is the message. But as the sheer glut of information clogs up the sensory channels, making traditional news media less effective - American consumers are bombarded with 750,000 individual advertisements a year - marketing experts say how a product is sold can break through the clutter. Said Seth Matlins, a branding expert, What you'll see is that distribution will become the message. Joffe and Kawakubo noted when they visited Berlin last summer that young consumers attitudes are shifting radically: content and product now count for more than image. Their new store, whose monthly rent is $700, gives Commes des Garcons an inexpensive way to channel avant garde pieces from the runway, sell off clothes from past seasons, and reduce inventory. Said Matlins, the branding expert, One of the things we're seeing with kids is how much they're buying from eBay. Claudia Skoda, a knitwear designer shopping at the Guerilla Store, said, I think people are tired of things you can get everywhere in the world. bookofjoe's World Tour 2004 will be visiting this store. No question it's filled with potential joeheads, joebabes, and joesluts. -- (from the http://www.bookofjoe.com blog (cached by Google), March 10 entry - but I saw it first (sic) in Le Monde dated Feb 26... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime An Emergency Call-to-Arms
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Eric A. Smith Hot Damn! Design 81-03-3959-5371 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (please distribute among your membership.) An Emergency Call-to-Arms: A Five-Step Battle Plan for YOUR Future This is a call to arms to you -- as an American and a custodian of your = nation's future. Please act as if your life depends on it -- it well = might. We have been led down a dark, perilous road. The journey has touched us all, from mothers and fathers burying = children in a war over nonexistent WMD, to firefighters and policemen = promised vital funds only to be cheated and asked to work for free. = Millions of Americans have been cut loose as corporations exploit = foreign workers on the cheap and CEOs gorge themselves on riches = unprecedented in history. While Americans take second and even third = jobs just feed their families, the Bush Administration has poured = America's wealth into the greedy hands of defense contractors and = tax-dodging megacorporations, notorious companies like (#1 Bush donator = Kenneth Lay's) Enron or Cheney's wartime ripoff-artists at Halliburton. Our environment, safety, economy, national security, labor protection = and Constitutionally-guaranteed rights have all been gutted and left to = die in a worker-hostile economy. NOW WE FIGHT BACK. Here's what we're facing: This November, the Bush election machine has more than three times the = spending power of its opponenets(1) And they are fighting dirty, just as they did in 2000, when they purged = Florida voter rolls(2), rioted to stop recounts(3), barred citizens from = voting (ibid) and even threatened the Vice President and his family on = their front lawn (4). This year, through gerrymandering, data theft from Congressional = computers, impeachments and recess judicial appointments, they are = trying to consolidate their unprecedented power. And they have a special = election-season surprise in store for us as well -- as the AFL-CIO = argued before the Supreme Court last December(5), the Bushites have MADE = IT A CRIME FOR THIRD PARTIES TO CRITICIZE THE PRESIDENT OR SAY THINGS TO = INFLUENCE THE ELECTION during the election's most critical phase: This blackout will become national in scope on July 31, 30 days before = the August 30-September 2 Republican National Convention . . . and it = will then continue without interruption throughout the remaining 60 days = until the November 2 election. Thus, from July 31, 2004 until the = election, it will be a crime for a union, corporation, or incorporated = non-profit organization to pay to broadcast any 'reference' to the = President by 'name,' 'photograph,' 'drawing' or other 'unambiguous' = means anywhere in the United States. (6) They are ruthless, and will not concede victory without a vicious fight. = Expect the outlawing of gay marriage to divide and conquer, = marginalize opponents and consolidate support from the religious right, = a base estimated to be 30 million strong (7). Expect the Supreme Court = to halt recounts again. Expect a surprise discovery of WMD even after = Blix, David Kay and Iraq's scientists saying they were all destroyed. = (8) Expect the suprise capture or destruction of Bin Laden = conveniently close to the election (9). Expect lots of scary terrorism = warnings and perhaps even an attack.(10) General Tommy Franks has even = suggested a second 9-11-scale attack will lead to martial law in America = (11). None of this should deter you; remember it was the same group (Rumsfeld, = Cheney, Baker, Bush Sr., Perle, etc.) that armed and funded Hussein and = Bin Laden in the first place. The blood of our dead is therefore on = their hands. We must not underestimate the ruthlessness of those willing to start an = international war based on known and transparent lies -- virtually = against the will of the entire planet. Make no mistake; they are willing = to throw away American lives in their quest for global dominion. And if = you rise up and oppose them, you may be bullied, harassed and = threatened, perhaps even by the FBI.(12) YOU MUST NOT LET THIS DETER = YOU. WE MUST NOT BE BULLIED INTO LETTING THEM SEIZE POWER AGAIN! And here we come to the deep, dark heart of the matter: This year 28% of the vote (and counting) will be tallied on electronic = voting machines or scanners, which have been repeatedly hacked and can = be used to fix an election -- all without a trace. Below you'll find a = link to the diagrammed, step-by-step report of how e-vote activist Bev = Harris hacked one(13). If you think this is exaggeration, please follow = the links listed below, where everything has been well-documented and by = the NY Times, the Washington Post, CNN, ABC, CBS, the BBC, etc. (14) Once paperless, effortlessly hackable (10) voting machines have been = installed, the situation will be PERMANENT -- we will never know or be = able to prove if an election has been stolen. And if it HAS -- those who = have stolen it CAN NEVER BE VOTED OUT.
Re: nettime WiReD: 'infectious blogs'
Would we expect the most-read bloggers to be the most original thinkers? Although some of the top bloggers are leading thinkers in their fields (Juan Cole comes to mind http://www.juancole.com ), in an era of information overload a blog whose viewpoint you identify with and trust serves more as an information filter, helping to bring you choice bits of of the kind of info you would look for on your own if you had more time. I enjoy reading Eschaton http://atrios.blogspot.com and CalPundit http://www.calpundit.com but neither Atrios nor Kevin Drum are experts in politics or any of the other subjects they write about, rather they are highly skilled at filtering through large amounts of data and presenting their readers with a selection of links to material that may interest them, more editors than writers. Not all blogs are like this, but these are two of the most widely read on the left leaning side of things... John --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I thought this was great coming from WiReD: The most-read webloggers aren't necessarily the ones with the most original ideas, say researchers at Hewlett-Packard Labs There is a lot of speculation that really important people are highly connected, but really, we wonder if the highly connected people just listen to the important people, said Lada Adamic, one of the four researchers working on the project. = John von Seggern producer remixer DJ Digital Cutup Lounge West Los Angeles http://www.digitalcutuplounge.com videogame film and TV scoring with Terra Incognito http://www.terra-incognito.us # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime ine poppe: a letter from madrid
(posted with permission of the author /geert) From: Ine Poppe [EMAIL PROTECTED] A story i wrote for my friends: The Reina Sophia Museum ( with the great Picasso's) had bought expensive flights for us, which didn't offer you a meal - in economy class: glass water 2 euro's-, so we arrived pretty hungry in Madrid. My brother, married with a Spanish girl, has a fresh new kid: Fabio. They live in a village near Madrid but both work in the city. In the evening Sam and I had a lovely Tapas dinner with my brother, outside on a terrace - good vibes, much people on the streets. Nice to see Martino again, he has become very Spanish. The next day in the Reina Sophia we met the friendly Teodora Diamatopoulus of the Audiovisual Department later her boss Bertha Sichel. Bertha, an older lady with dark glasses with diamonds, which gave her the typical austere art-historian look, complained about her lack of power: she could create exhibitions but only use the museum auditorium. Only film/ video-screening and lectures. Together with Jenny Marketoe, ex college from the University of New York, the department came to a programme with 'hacker' lectures and films: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62452,00.html?tw=wn_culthead_1 So Wednesday evening Sam and i gave a talk, Sam first, he told about the connection between the Dutch squatter movement, local television, the up coming Internet in Holland, xs4all, the Digital City and he showed a wonderful compilation of Smart-tv (1993) where the poet Diana Ozon on local tv talks about 'Internet - what is that?' (starring: Walter van der Cruijsen; artist Maarten Ploeg; Mieke Gerritzen who couldn't pronounce the term 'world wide web' yet). I told the story of the videofilm HFH, larded with pieces of the film. Talked about my first Internet experiences, Women with Beards, how i met the hippies, what is fun and special about this group of individuals; the immense problems with the National Broadcaster VPRO, etc etc - and how it became possible to put the film (free- download) on the web - reason: we made our own version, so i kept the copyright! - Then question round. The lecture was in English and the public had earphones for the Spanish simultaneous translation (According to my brother the translator translated the word PORN with 'pictures of bad quality' ;-)) There were around 150 people there and afterwards we went for a drink with madame Sichel and a bunch of youngsters (between 25 and 35 years old) to the cafe. FUN! They told me Necrocam was on national news, the film broadcasted, + they hosted a big tv- talk show about the subject. About HFH was also covered in the Spanish newspapers, that was what triggered them to come - they treated me as a celeb - good for my ego- So I spend the whole night hanging around with fans in all sorts of Spanish pubs. The company existed of poor artists, handsome Spanish video artist ladies, an architect who teaches at the University and some hard core nerds, who organize hacker conferences in Spain. They spoke reasonable English ;-) A few fans invited us to come the next day to the HACK-LAB (20 people pay 20 euro a month, lab is based in a squat - full with old and new computers, a small video studio, including a bar and all the visitors have free Internet access. They teach f.i. Linux, or 'hardware for girls' and organize party's, lectures, film events. There were posters starring Richard Stallman but also Grayson Perry. Beside that they create in whole Spain (even in Morocco) alternative labs with Linux networks and instruct people how to use this. GREAT! A story which made HACK-LAB known, is that they - on the eve of the Big Brother- Award -who-do-you-vote-out-of-the-house Television-evening would be evicted out of their squat. The made posters with the text: LOOK TONIGHT HOW WE ARE VOTED OUT OF OUR HOUSE BY BIG BROTHER, with an url. They put up a web cam. The audience could see, life on-line, how the police kicked in the door and removed the squatters, without resistant. At 2.30 AM we walked behind the Atocha station to our hotel. In the morning we woke up by the sound of sirens and a helicopter. Sam switched the television on and we saw the first horrible images of the attack close to our Hotel. The Reina Sophia is placed near Atocha. I phoned my brother: he and his wife were okay. In the Museum was nobody whom i knew and when i phoned Teodora she told me everybody of the AV department was in good health. We decided NOT to go to the museum anymore ( the body bags were on the square in front of it). We walked to the HACKLAB. On the street the atmosphere was loaded . we passed a police station where hundreds of people, some hysterical, had gathered to get information about their missing beloved one's. Horrible. The visit to the HACK-LAB was interesting, the squatters said this couldn't be the ETA, but in general we all felt down. The day before i had considered to postpone my ticket (an offer of the Museum) but i
Re: nettime The Limits of Networking
Quoting Alex Galloway and Eugene Thacker: Protocol abounds in techno-culture. It is a totalizing control apparatus that guides both the technical and political formation of computer networks, biological systems and other media. [...] The problem with the word protocol seems to me that computer science has given it a meaning quite different from common English. Other examples are the words transparent (which is used in software design in practically opposite sense to common understanding, as a mapping of two or more different symbolic systems into a simulated one, like the transparent access of FTP servers directly in a desktop PC file manager), code (used not in the common sense of codifying system, but as codified symbols), interpretation (understood in the C.S. as the formal execution/translation of an instruction at runtime, whereas in philosophy, literary studies and music interpretation it means non-formal translation of [instructive or non-instructive] signs), and so on. What computer science and network engineering call protocol could just as well, or better perhaps, be named [a simple, formal] language because they simply serve the purpose that two connected entities can talk to each other. Yet another word, which you use yourself, is standard. It is a virtue of the Internet that its standards are open and designed to be as agnostic to the information transported as possible; it seems to me that preserving this design (with DRM schemes, patents etc. on the horizon) is the issue rather than, as you at the end of the paper, pushing the protocols. Of course it is right to say that protocols, standards, languages or whatever we call them are systems of control in the sense of what theoreticians such as Lacan and Foucault have called symbolic order or discourse; if this applies to common human language, it no doubt applies to formal languages as well. But in praxis, it boils down to the question how the standard is designed, i.e. how much freedom it allows and who controls it in which way, see Lawrence Lessig's analysis of the Internet vs. AOL. But as with any play, consisting of a ruleset and its free execution, control is never total to the extent that it wouldn't permit freedom, a paradox best seen in Oulipo writing with its self-imposed formal restraints (like: writing a novel without a single occurence of the letter e, as Perec's La Disparition). Freedom and control thus are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent on each other. To envision communication systems without control - i.e. languages without rules, networks without protocols - and find them desirable, would be utterly an infantilist vision of a pre-language paradise. (And to read Freud, Lacan or Foucault in this way, would be no less naive.) Put simply, protocols are all the conventional rules and standards that govern relationships within networks. Yes, but the reality is more complex because network protocols can be layered onto each other and thus used in quite unpredictable ways. To stick with the example of the Internet, it would be false to assume that because http is a hypertext transportation protocol, it would force everything under its totalizing control apparatus (to quote your paper) into hypertext format. - The counter-examples are abundant and well-known, but even topped by the fact that any imaginable network language can, with the right software tools, be steganographically tunnelled through http, just as you can subvert the totalizing control system English by using it merely as a cryptographical container for a text written, for example, in the cosmic Zaum language of futurist poet Velemir Chlebnikov - apart from the fact that you can still use it to write novels like Joyce's Ulysses, or in the case of http, web sites like www.jodi.org. We need only remind ourselves of the military backdrop of WWII mainframe computing and the Cold War context of ARPAnet, to suggest that networks are not ahistorical entities. Yet the history is more complex as popular media history reductionism tells it. The Arpanet/Internet was funded by the military, but designed by academics - many of them with hippie backgrounds - who used the rhetoric of the nuclear-strike resistence to get the money for it. Today, you probably have to write something about e-commerce opportunities in a globalized world or terrorist-proof network design if you run a C.S. lab and want a grant for your work. (Or, if you do humanities research on the subject, don't miss to write the word interdisciplinary cultural research into your application letter, at least here in Germany.) and so forth. What we end up with is a *metaphysics of networks*. The Agreed, for which to not a small extent Deleuze/Guattari and their popular perception must be blamed. An aspect of D/G where most clearly their indebtedness to vitalist philosophy [and hence right-wing philosophy] shines through. I wonder if that critique could be applied to the
nettime OpenP2P.com: Next-Generation File Sharing with Social Networks
From Rob Kaye, freelance Mayhem and Chaos Coordinator and ubergeek behind the Musicbrainz database. (Those pie recipes sound pretty tasty ;-) http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2004/03/05/file_share.html by Robert Kaye 03/05/2004 Editor's note: At the recent O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in San Diego, CA, Robert Kaye lead a talk on Next Generation File Sharing with Social Software. For those who were able to attend, this essay builds upon that session. And if you missed the talk all together, you can now get up to speed. Open file sharing systems like Kazaa welcome everyone on the net and enjoy a broad selection of content. The selection is so vast that Cory Doctorow calls it The largest library ever created. (Personally, I'd call it the largest and messiest library ever created, but that is another essay entirely.) However, this vast selection comes with a significant risk attached -- outsider attackers who want to stop you from sharing files and would like to throw you in jail or pilfer your college fund. The natural reaction is to run away and hide from the bad guys and play in your own sandbox that the bad guys cannot even see. Due to the recent massive lawsuit waves from the bad guys, there is more talk than ever about Darknets, which are networks that hide themselves and their members from public view. Combining file sharing applications with social networks enables people to create a trusted network of their friends to keep out the bad guys. The definition of bad guys is up to the user to determine -- in a lot of cases, the bad guys would be the lovely folks slinging lawsuits. But these networks can easily be used for legitimate non-infringing uses, such as sharing personal information with a network of friends while keeping it out of reach of marketers and identity thieves. Social networks designed for file sharing should focus on three goals: share your files with others in your network, discover new files from other members, and protect the network from outside attackers. To achieve these goals, the social network needs to be founded on a well-defined social model. Social Models To find social models that can be employed for these next generation networks, we can look toward human evolution. Jared Diamond's perspective on human evolution, as told in Guns, Germs and Steel, points out that humans first formed hunter-gatherer tribes in order to share the burden of food production. As tribes grew in size, they combined to create chiefdoms, and from there they created states like those in which we live now. To apply this concept, the network starts with a group of trusted people forming a tribe of people. Starting a tribe as a friendnet, where each connection is backed up by a meatspace connection, is an excellent starting point. However, sharing files inside of a small tribe is only interesting for a short while because it presents a limited search horizon. If tribes connect with other tribes to form chiefdoms, the search horizon expands with each new connection in the chiefdom. Finally, connect chiefdoms to other chiefdoms to form states, and the search horizon may start to look similar to the search horizons in open file-trading systems. Each tribe should carefully select tribal elders who will set the tone of the network and determine social policies for the network. The elders should be aware of the tribal members and their strengths and weaknesses in order to set policies that are effective for the group. The elders should focus the tribe on its primary goals and continually evaluate the state of the tribe to ensure that its members are well educated on the tribal policies. Tribal elders must be aware that outside attackers can use social attacks on the network. For instance, if a number of members of a movie-swapping tribe are hanging out at their local coffee shop, they should be aware that attackers may appear as smooth-talkers with lots of knowledge about movies and claims of having a large collection of relevant movies. If one tribal member falls for the attack and invites the attacker into the network, the entire network is at risk. We'll go into the risks from attacks in more detail later, but tribal elders need to understand these risks and educate their tribe to act accordingly. The tribal elders are the guardians of the network who should use their awareness of the network and its members to continually reevaluate the relationships between members and other tribes. These elders should select or design the appropriate social policies for their tribes and oversee privileges of their members as members establish (or destroy) their reputations. Social Policies Social policies dictate who can be invited to the network; how must the reputation of a potential member be verified, if at all? What other tribes can this tribe link to and trade with? Is it OK for the tribe to end their questions in prepositions? What structure is appropriate for the tribe? A
Re: nettime OpenP2P.com: Next-Generation File Sharing with Social Networks
Nice to see some sense about Darknets. I also have a lot of respect for his position re Tribes and Elders controlling the extent to which tribes interlink. (This is much more widely relevant than the simple case of file sharing. It's essential for community software). However what wasn't made really clear was that a Darknet whose purpose was swapping illegal files has a serious problem - the social hack. Discussed but underplayed I felt. I call it a Trust Hack. Think of an illegal operations Darknet as having the same security problem as would face a terrorist cell or criminal gang. In essence, to avoid a security compromise through a Trust Attack (undercover cop, spy etc) you must remain small and tight knit. As soon as your numbers exceed those where every member has input to controlling who joins, you have a big security issue. This is perfectly OK for civil rights groups and political activists, where small is effective, but doesn't really work in developing critical mass type file sharing libraries. Summary - Darknets will always have their place, but any Darknet system designed to support more than a couple of hundred members will be at high risk of a Trust Attack, and any such attack could (when combined with legal attacks once core data collected) expose ALL Darknets connected directly or indirectly to the one penetrated. -- ian dickson www.commkit.com phone +44 (0) 1452 862637fax +44 (0) 1452 862670 PO Box 240, Gloucester, GL3 4YE, England for building communities that work # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and info nettime-l in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
