Chabon on BE

[David Morris]

I think DA is supposed to be internet Zone, anarchy, a place w/o rules or
rulers. Pynchon Paradise. What is it "for?"  Wrong question. What for do
you want to make it?

David Morris

On Saturday, October 19, 2013, John Bailey wrote:

> Yeah, I'm a bit confused about DeepArcher too... as far as I can tell,
> it's a program lodged in the deep web, which as you say is basically
> the "place" where IP addresses aren't connected to DNS so won't show
> up on any search engine, and you need a direct link or knowledge of
> the specific IP address to access it.
>
> So that kind of makes sense - DeepArcher is a program with Second
> Life-like aspects that can't be accessed unless you have the key. And
> later on the security of the fortress is compromised, and then the
> gates are just thrown open and it basically leaves the Deep Web and is
> accessible from the surface.
>
> What I really don't get is what the *hell* the program is for. A
> Second Life that only a handful of people can get into? And do what?
> The descriptions of Maxine's early journeys around the place make it
> seem like a point-and-click adventure game with no mystery to it or
> reason to play further. Except it has stunning graphics, for the
> era...
>
> At first I thought it was a navigation system for travelling through
> the Deep Web but that doesn't really seem right, since it would
> basically be a search engine with graphical interface for finding the
> IP addresses of places that aren't meant to be findable. Which would
> be exactly the thing that would pose a threat to the entire meaning of
> the Deep Web, even if you could erase your footsteps the way DA
> promises.
>
> Anyway, maybe that's the point - that this supposedly subversive
> method of total anonymity itself provides the architecture for control
> and surveillance and some sweet home shopping.
>
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> > On Oct 19, 2013 7:09 PM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net<javascript:;>>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> Chabon is careless there. Ernie's capsule history is not *historically*
> >> baseless: yes, DARPA did fund some of the IT research leading to TCP/IP
> >> and
> >> packet switching. And yes, the Cold War justification for that funding
> >> *was*
> >> to develop a network technology that could "work around" servers knocked
> >> out
> >> by enemy attack, so that government could keep communicating.
> >>
> >
> > One of my other favorite authors, John Crowley, in _The Translator_
> > made the female protagonist's dad a darpa dude and evoked those times
> > wonderfully.
> >
> > If we were gonna get crazy and do a non-p group read like we did a few
> yrs
> > back - I guess I finally thought of the one I'd suggest (-:
> >
> > But getting back to BE, I sort of have a question about this deep web
> where
> > Deep Archer resides - does that correspond to anything nonfictional?  I
> mean
> > are we talking about using a browser to navigate to some bare IP address
> > known not to dns at all but only to the cognoscenti? Afaik there were
> bbses,
> > ftp and gopher, and then all of a sudden there was yahoo and aol and urls
> > but nowhere was there anything like deep archer which is sophisticated,
> > ambiguous - nothing like the games I'm aware of - plus it's more and less
> > than a game, possibly even a place that responds to users' emotional and
> > spiritual states of mind and even a place where a person can be said to
> > reside while accessing it.  Maybe a mmorpg or a Second Life type
> > environment?
> >
> > A development of the angelic realms alluded to at the beginning of
> Vineland
> > and the amazing things computers - the ideal readers with the ideal
> insomnia
> > - can do with mere 1s and 0s by stringing enough of them together.
> >
> > Also on a different note a compare/contrast between Maxine and March,
> Maxine
> > having the annointing (though somewhat revoked) to do a little something
> > about fraud while March is more a John the Baptist voice in the
> wilderness -
> > strictly speaking there's no real need to say they represent stances
> that an
> > author could take in depicting a social scene, but if a choice like that
> is
> > evident in BE, it seems to me Pynchon - whose Sistine Chapel, Gravity's
> > Rainbow, could be described as more March-like - is aiming more at a Mona
> > Lisa effect in bringing Maxine to the fore.
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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