[E-Lang] SocialModels4P2PNetworks

[Mark S. Miller]

At 04:56 PM Saturday 6/30/01, Wesley Felter wrote:
>(This really belongs on cap-talk since it's not specific to E, but that
>list seems dead so I'm posting here.)
>
>A new list called SocialModels4P2PNetworks has started up:
>
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SocialModels4P2PNetworks/
>
>So far there has been discussion of problems like spam, privacy, having
>your online identity controlled by some not-so-trusted third party like
>Passport, etc. I posted a message about how capabilities may be able to
>solve some of these problems:
>
>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SocialModels4P2PNetworks/message/14

I just looked, and it's a nice bridge-building message.  Thanks. 
Unfortunately, egroups requires you to join the group (or at least this 
group) before you can read the message.  So for everyone else's 
enlightenment, Wesley's message is:

>From:  Wesley Felter <wesley@f...> Date:  Sat Jun 30, 2001  4:35pm Subject:  
>Presence, Granovetter diagrams, and capabilities
>
>The authors of "Capability-based Financial Instruments" [1] say that:
>
>"The sociologist Mark Granovetter originally developed [Granovetter 
>diagrams] to illustrate how the topology of interpersonal relationships 
>changes over time, as people introduce people they know to each other 
>[Granovetter73]. Though Granovetter devised this diagram in the context of 
>human relations, we have found it to be a powerful notation for 
>understanding the relations between computational objects in a network."
>
>I'm not a sociologist, so I'm going to take it on faith.
>
>Unlike the Giant Presence Services where everybody knows and trusts The 
>Service and The Service knows everybody, capabilities [2] are a model for 
>network communication that is much more like the everyday social 
>interactions we are used to. Capabilities even use similar terminology: They 
>say that one object may "introduce" other objects that it "knows". They say 
>that "only connectivity begets connectivity", meaning that you cannot 
>communicate with an object unless you are introduced to it.
>
>In systems based on global names, once someone knows your name you can't 
>really prevent them from contacting you. Spam is an example of this problem: 
>Once a spammer has your email address (which is a kind of name) they can 
>deluge you with unwanted mail. You can filter it out, but by that time 
>you've already paid for it. You can escape spam by changing your address, 
>but this will frustrate people who you *want* to communicate with. 
>Capabilities solve this problem with "facets", which are special references 
>that con be revoked without disturbing other communication paths.
>
>The Giant Presence Services want each person to have a single, unique name, 
>even though different people want to use different names for the same 
>person. (For example, many people simply think of me as "Wes", but someone 
>who knows two people named Wes is likely to call me "Wes Felter".) 
>Capabilities also have a solution for this problem called pet names [3].
>
>In summary, I think capabilities are a communication architecture that 
>promotes privacy and independence instead of subjugation.
>
>[1] http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/ode/index.html 
>[2] http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/index.html 
>[3] http://www.erights.org/elib/capability/pnml.html
>
>Wesley Felter - wesley@f... - http://felter.org/wesley/

(And yes, egroups really does truncate the author's (Wesley's) email address 
at the top and bottom of the message, presumably in order to inhibit you 
from contacting the author through a non-Yahoo-based communications medium.  
WebRing interactions are similarly mutilated.)

So, ok, should I ask?  What's a Giant Presence Service?  But if it's too 
stupid to bother discussing, let's not.


        Cheers,
        --MarkM