From: ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu (the future is now.....)
Subject: Re: Cyberspace Gravity
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93 04:23:16 GMT

Somewhere in Cyberspace, ah185@yfn.ysu.edu said about 'Cyberspace Gravity':
|
|I think the Cyberspace equivalent to gravity is a kind of 'data osmosis'.
|The tendency for data to spread itself accross the net, from site to site,
|mailbox to mailbox, archive to archive, hard-drive to hard-drive. The rate
|of this diffusion tends to be determined by the value/importance/demand
|for/of this information (or the persistance of the source..ie junk mail,
|crosspostings..). This is kind-of a corollory to 'Information wants to
|be free'. A good example being how quickly every BBS in the world had
|3D Catle Wolf (Back when it came out). Less important info will
|diffuse far more slowly, and may never diffuse completely. But given
|infinite time, I would expect all information in Cyberspace to eventually
|pass through all points.

I agree with most of these opinions, and they coincide with mine to a
large degree.  Yet, I think you might be better off substituting "More
specialized" for "Less important".  Also, given infinite time,
cyberspace and the collective unconscious would pass through an
infinite number of dimensions, along with every other aspect of
subjective and objective reality.  

I don't believe in information overload, I do believe in "information
wants to be free", and I think we will see a continually exponential
increase in the amount of information that is spread, the speed at
which it disseminates, and the available means of communication and
available cyberspaces.  I also think that an inability to objectively
process this information on an individual level produces a more
subjective, personal "attitude" in its spread.  (compare the Bible to
a Usenet post, notable nexus points being media like radio, the
evolution of painting, etc.)

|I suppose you could formulate a similar theory with respect to users.
|That a user of/influence on the net tends to increase as well (as
|new telnet sites are explored, new archives are examined, mailing lists
|are joined, new usenet groups are read).
|
|And nobody's mentioned that Cyberspace is constantly expanding, perhaps
|even faster than the 'real' universe.

Uh-oh, bringing up the ole 'r' word....!  

Usenet is real.  Information is information, and if you really think
about it, Usenet is just as valid as ABC Nightly News, probably no
more and no less so.  Cyberspace is probably the first territory we've
plopped ourselves down in where physical location and geography is
increasingly irrelevant and even invalid, thus allowing us to not only
explore the new territories, but add our own.  Witness MUDs, homegrown
BBSes, IRC channels, public access cable, etc.  When geography means
nothing, when we can honestly transcend a physical world to some
meaningful degree, then we can truly say that the possibilities are as
limitless as the human imagination.  (I wouldn't go so far as to say
infinite, but, who knows.....)

|DATA is a virus.

|(Have you ever had Archive do a search for you to reveal NUMEROUS sites
|with the file you're looking for? Why? With everything interconnected
|what good is this duplication? Seriously inefficient use of space I'd
|say...unless there's a (natural) reason for it...)

The misuse of space is part of the limitless, expanding universe of
cyberspace.  Right now, interconnectivity throughout cyberspace is not
readily available to everyone, everywhere, everytime, thus duplication
serves it's purpose.  For example, it is not logical right now for me
to call you long distance at 1200 baud to use your local networked
Macintosh to create a desktop publishing document, thus it becomes
necessary for me to have my own copy to use at my own discretion.  In
the future, undoubtedly we will view floppy-disks and cd-roms as an
incredible waste of space, but we know that now in this time they
serve their purpose.  Similarly, archie telling me I can get the
Beyond Cyberpunk Hypercard Stack on 10-20 sites may seem wasteful to
you, but to someone, somewhere, there's a valid reason for it.

If we organized a group of people (AI viruses would obviously be
better) to comb every ftp site and report, or better yet automatically
delete duplicate copies of ftp-able files, then we would probably
automatically thrust ourselves into a technology we might nod be ready
for.  Also, numerous problems are evident in the world of ftp, a main
one being the subjectivity of the whole thing.  IE, if 2 ftp sysadmins
read the same text file, one might label it as one thing, and the
second would give the file an entirely different name.  

Ideally, FTP reality would be a group of core sites which mirror each
other automatically that also send out viruses to communicate with
each other as to duplicate or unnecessary files, files that are
lacking, etc.  Each core site might then have three or so alternatives
ftp sites, which would allow for the incredible net.lag that can occur
when an ftp site is filled to capacity with users ftping the entire
phrack library or somesuch.  This is similar to, I believe, the way
the Internet was originally intended to operate:  a backbone that is
interdependant of one another to some extent but each site can also
survive on it's own outside of the other hosts.

--

    ahawks@nyx.cs.du.edu	        FutureCulture:  In/f0rmation
    ahawks@mindvox.phantom.com		future-request@nyx.cs.du.edu

Newsgroups: alt.cyberspace