Waste and Internet

[Christophe Freund]

In COL49 ,  Thomas Pynchon  describes  a  form  of  parallel  mail .  The
politically organized States have always wanted to keep the monopoly  of the
distribution of the mail. It is a source of income that it  isn't necessary to
neglect. But, more, it is without doubting the last resort which has the state
in the control of citizens.

WASTE takes birth in the tragedy. It is a problem of property :  who belongs the
state, who is the legitimate prince ? It is the theme of the dispossession (in
french).

In the same way, another system of distribution of the information takes birth
in a potential tragedy : ARPANET.The objective of this system is to distribute
the information in all circumstances. If the state as a territorial entity no
longer exists, at least, it can still subsist as a net.

Note that this is not the message that has the importance but the medium himself
(cf Mc Luhan). If this medium exists, then we still exist. Again this theme of
the dispossession.

WASTE needs to exist whatever the nature of the messages that are sent, what
these messages contain has no importance. The comparison is easy to make.

Compare now the evolution of WASTE and ARPANET .
WASTE becomes gradually a public area in the same manner that ARPANET. Here
again, we can be confused by the similarity of the evolution of these two
systems.
It concerns in fact a form of phenomenon of unsacralisation : WASTE as ARPANET
are, in their very beggining,  instruments destined to the war. 

In the last pages of COL49, a mother recommends to its girl to use WASTE in
order that her correspondence not to be intercepted by the government.

It seems paradoxical that a system originally instrument of war is apt to
guarantee the anonymity.

The myth of the internet, it is the anonymity and also that the liberty of
circulation of the information outside all political or administrative control.
In order that the current form of the internet puts in place, it has been
necessary that to a certain moment,  it escapes the soldier and it produces in
the middle 80s.
In the beggining, the internet mainly concerns universities : it is an efficient
interconnection mean fo the different center research. However, it is the
explosion of the individual microcomputing that is going to upset and
unsacrilize this system.
The passage of internet in the public area dates 90s in the moment where service
providers buy addresses that they rent to individuals. From this time, anyone is
authorized to connect.

What is going to guarantee the anonymity in internet ? The  number : who would
dare to control the equivalent of 7 billion pages typed by months ?
WASTE benefits equally from the number, it is necessary for the system to be
used to subsist. It is necessary that it is perpetually in function, fed  (it is
the principle of the internet : all information are in circulation 24 hours a
day), whatever is the content since it is the medium that is the message.
Furthermore, WASTE uses what we could call levels of security but to the
difference is nobody seems be able to prevail to be the administrator of the
system : are proprietors these that use the system.
The anonymity is guaranteed by the fact that the information distributes through
number of intermediaries ( postmans, factors). The security is guarantee by the
fact that the system is among the official world : stamps are imitations of the
true ones but they suggest their difference by small details. Relay (Mailboxes)
are among the urban landscape and are perceptible only by the encounter with a
symbol of WASTE (a horn with a mute). WASTE doesn't go against official means,
he substitutes.
Internet acts the same : the distribution of the mail uses the terminology of
official systems which hold the postal monopoly : electronics or E-mail,
mailboxes, address etc. More, it uses as distribution vector : the telephone
line.

My Request :
Dans Crying of lot 49 (vente a la criee du lot 49, in french), il est fait
allusion a de nombreuses reprises a l'histoire des postes aux USA dans une
periode allant de 1845 a 1880. 
Il y est notamment question des actes (laws ?) qui ont ete pris durant cette
periode contre les systemes de postes (mail ?) prives.

Ces systemes prives ont-ils reellement existe ?
Peut-on supposer s'ils n'ont pas existe que Pynchon fait une projection en se
servant de ce que l'on connait actuellement, a savoir l'E-mail ? Je suppose par
ailleurs que de tels moyens existaient deja en 1966 d'autant que la notion de
cybernetique date egalement de cette periode la.