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THE MATURATION OF THE MATRIX
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by John S. Quarterman
Camping
When I finished The Matrix (Digital Press, 1990) in late 1989, the web of computers and humans it described was divided into at least three camps:
The First Camp, of research and academic computer networks. In their own eyes, the first, the best, and the defenders of the Only True Way (which one? depends on which continent you're on) against the barbarian hordes.
The Second Camp, of commercial database and conferencing systems and public data networks. Perhaps not always acceptable in academe, but certainly profitable.
The Third Camp, of conferencing systems. Not usually as profitable as the Second Camp, but sometimes as respectable as the First Camp, and frequently more fun than either.
Some of these camps (particularly the First and the Third) hardly even acknowledged eachs existence, and the division between one of them (the First) and the rest was so strong that I adopted the traditional term WorldNet for the former and distinguished as more general (and optimistic) Bill Gibson's name, the Matrix, to include the other two camps, as well.
We've hardly reached the state of networking described in Gibson's book, Neuromancer, where everyone is connected, the interfaces are graphical, aural, contextual, and allusive, as well as verbal, and cyberspace is so real that many prefer to be in it than the ``real'' world. Well, ok, so that last part is already true, and words are enough for context and allusion, too.
For the rest, the necessary speeds, storage capacities, and user interfaces will come, and with them are already coming millions of new users of new kinds. We're getting there.
One can debate whether we *want* to get there, but if we assume that for the moment, I think I can safely assert that warring camps do not contribute to the general usability of the Matrix. Fortunately, the various network nations have in recent years mostly at least accorded each other diplomatic recognition, and there are many trade routes between them now. This isn't to say there aren't border skirmishes and occasional acts of terrorism, but at least we haven't achieved full scale warfare.
Let's take a quick look at some recent adventures in interconnectivity.
The Ivory Tower, the Friendly Barbarians, and the Big Top
In the Bad Old Days (a year or so ago), blatant capitalist outfits like CompuServe and MCI Mail were not allowed access to that pristine (or at least white-washed) ivory tower, the TCP/IP Internet. (This didn't stop many people from getting mail there anyway, e.g., through DASnet, but that's another story.) But even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, it became possible for Internet users to send mail to him@compuserve.com and her@mcimail.com, and the reverse. It's true that he can't send to her nor her to him through the Internet, but that sort of problem has become a major topic of national policy discussion, with workshops sponsored by the Kennedy School of Government and the Office of Technology Assessment, and with implications for the future of gigabit networking technology here and worldwide.
The Americans, Europeans, and Japanese have been using each other as reasons for more funding in high speed network research for years. They're still doing this, if anything more than before. But now there are new developments like the group of U.S. federal agencies that fund the Internet co-authoring reports with the organizations (E.C. and other) that fund and and organize networking efforts in Europe.
The Europeans have even (some of them) admitted that perhaps OSI (the long-heralded but not-very-evident Fourth Camp) might not be the Only True Way, and maybe something that works now might be of use, even if TCP/IP is a barbarous American acronym. Even stranger, some Americans have even admitted that there might be something useful about OSI, even if it has been mostly promoted by those well-known foreigners, the Europeans. Meanwhile, the First Camp has pitched its Big Top, the Internet, over the whole industrialized world, from Australia to Finland, by way of Canada, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and even Moscow (maybe; depends on who you ask and which week).
As for the Japanese, the Americans are convinced that Japan Inc. is going to do gigabit networking before Congress (or maybe IBM and MCI?) gets around to it, and the Japanese are convinced that they are way behind the Americans. Who is right? Well, my business partner and I spent a couple weeks in Japan last month, and we're writing a book about Networks in Japan with our favorite translator. We're aiming for simultaneous publication in Japanese and English, by the middle of 1991. Stay tuned.
The Fun Camp
The Electronic Networking Association has for years represented the Third Camp of Networking, which probably prefers to think of itself as the First Camp. Whichever it is, there have always been some marvelously colored tents in it, inhabited or frequented by interesting, amusing, and useful people in salons and parties, and even caravanserais of tents of the same color. Some of them have even established caravan routes to the Third World and other geographically remote areas. Unfortunately, there hasn't been a lot of tent-to-tent communication, and the trade regulations and tariffs between the tent-states have sometimes been horrendous.
But the most recent ENA (San Francisco, May 1990) showed ambassadors (or maybe they were trade representatives; I don't understand all the local customs) sitting around the same table and teaching each other trade languages like RFC1036 and X.400. Many of them have even already adopted noms-de-comm for their tents in WorldNet dialects such as DNS. (And NETWEAVER is being edited this month by a Norwegian who is collecting articles by RFC822 mail!)
Big Brother's Side Show
Now that the Berlin Wall is no more, and even the Department of Defense has to admit that the Soviets aren't much of a threat anymore to the American Way of Life, what do the powers that take it upon themselves to defend said Way have for an enemy? Hackers! Maybe it's the KGB's fault for sponsoring the Spy Who Broke the Net (I assume that one has gotten so much publicity that I don't need to explain it; after all, who am I, Readers Digest?), but it's no joke.
The Secret Service (if you didn't know we had one in the States, they're the people whom you usually see in dark suits with wires out their ears when the American president appears on TV) has apparently decided people who use computers are the new commie pinko subversives.
Keeping source code that you used in a previous job could land you in jail. Publishing apparently harmless documents could get your printing press (if electronic and not paper) seized at gunpoint. Having employees who once used to be associated with groups that might have done something illegal recently might get all the computers in your company seized without a search warrant.
All hypothetical? 'Fraid not. And it's not even as if the gummint really knew what it was doing. They seem to be attacking something they don't understand *because* they don't understand it. If you *do* understand computers, don't be surprised if you get a surprise visit someday.
Fortunately, there are people attempting to do something about this problem, from a legal, and especially from an educational, perspective. A good example is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, jointly founded and funded ($150,000 each) by Mitch Kapor of Lotus-1,2,3 fame and Steve Wozniak of Apple fame.
Maturity?
One of the strangest cases of recent cooperation is the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference, to be held March 1991 at San Francisco International Airport. This thing is co-sponsored by a list of organizations as long as Mycroft Holmes' arm, from just about every group associated with computer communication you can think of, from ENA to Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to founders of various large software and hardware companies, to lawyers and cops. Pretty unusual, but it hardly even sticks out in these days when the Barbarians have caravans to the Big Top.
So, will we achieve cyberspace soon, will that be the Maturation of the Matrix? Maybe. Me, I'd like to see maturation evidenced by cooperating camps and extended access. Maybe the Circus would be a better metaphor than the Matrix....