Chabon on BE

[John Bailey]

Here's a (very) light article on people trying to create DeepArchers
today - online communities that are technically in the dark web.

"‘Wow, this is like the Internet in 1994"...

http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/10/thompson/

On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 5:22 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Oct 19, 2013 7:09 PM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net> 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
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l