From: jcarroll@ferris.cray.com (Jeff Carroll)
Subject: Re: Bruce Sterling & Cyberhemian Rhapsodies
Originator: jcarroll@ferris
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Date: 5 Oct 92 23:26:17 CDT


In article <Bvo995.KDr@rice.edu>, ratner@owlnet.rice.edu (Logan Joshua Ratner) writes:
> In article <1992Oct3.181445.12662@walter.cray.com> jcarroll@ferris.cray.com (Jeff Carroll) writes:
> 
> >...
> >This is what bothers me about Gibson's vision of cyberspace: there is no
> >practical reason whatsoever to make financial databases accessible on a
> >public network as a three-dimensional virtual object that can be attacked
> >at will by a Nintendo jockey.
> >
> >I think it's more practical to talk about "cyberspaces" in the plural;
> >We will have cyberspaces in which we work, and in which we play. For
> >people like me, the "work" and "play" cyberspaces may coincide. For
> >people who work in the financial industry, or people who work with
> >classified information, or people whose business needs to be confidential,
> >they will not.
> >(etc.)
> 
> well, i know some profs and students who are working on massively-parallel
> processing, and one of the ideals that is bandied around involves tying
> all processing power together in something like a cybernet.
> 
> imagine never lacking for processing time when a really big job comes along.
> (the numbers i've seen say 10 ibm rt 1000's + 1 good programmer > 1 cray xmp)
> 
> now, the downside of all this is that to "share in the wealth," you have to
> keep your machine on-line, accessible on a public network, as it were.

This is strictly an ideal. Heterogeneous-network parallelism is a long way from
being competitive (trust me on this, don't make me trot out my resume).

The "numbers you've seen" are hopelessly naive. People with big problems to
solve are going to continue to buy one-box supercomputers, whether "massively
parallel" or not.
 
> further, i gather that in gibson's world public archives exist in cyberspace.
> not to mention password-restricted archives.  company a's machine needs a credit
> history report on citizen b from company b's machine.  rather than waste time
> asking a humen to call another human to arrange the transfer, machine a just
> calls machine b, gets authorization, and downloads the data. quick and neat.
> except, of course, that both a and b have to be linked to the net (or at least
> to the more realistic auto-dial auto-answer modem.)
> 
> tada, pubic acess network. all you need is a phone, and either an (elicit) password
> or a decent code-guesser (i.e. icebreaker.)

There are public-access X.25 networks today, with dial-up PADs in every major
city. Long after Wall Street traders are wearing HMDs, the NYSE's gateway will
filter out any Stock Market Protocol packets attempting to cross it.
 
> there is only one cyberspace.  the questions are:
> 1) can you afford to have your machine on the net?
> 2) can you afford to not have your machine on the net?
> 
> think about it.

Think about this: Do you see any Compuserve, Genie, or Prodigy subscribers
posting in this group? There's no more compelling reason keeping them out
than marketing strategy and bureaucratic government policy.

Jeff Carroll
carroll@lemon.cray.com
"The dice of God are always loaded." - Emerson
Newsgroups: alt.cyberspace