BE group read: CH 2

Tue Nov 9 00:55:05 UTC 2021

Agree that Peter Thiel is probably as good or better as a  fit for Gabriel Ice.  

> On Nov 8, 2021, at 4:39 PM, Neal Fultz <nfultz at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> There's also a drug connotation for the Burning Man crowd, which
> overlaps with the startup scene quite a bit.
> 
> Worth adding, according to legend, Google's original cluster was bunch
> of thrown together leftover PCs, returns from Frye's acquired on the
> cheap, not high end servers that would cost 10x. A different kind of
> hash.
> 
> I think the dot-com crash benefited Google tremendously as it wiped
> out a lot of competition, while Google was propped up by a contract
> with Yahoo (which was Too Big To Fail at the time) -
> https://googlepress.blogspot.com/2000/06/yahoo-selects-google-as-its-default.html
> - so Google could ride out the recession and cash out in the Web 2.0
> era.
> 
> "Modern" Google doesn't really begin until a few years later with the
> acquisition of DoubleClick, the ad network, and they really started
> making money. YouTube also.
> 
> Many of those early competitors actually still have web sites up, but
> beneath the hood, they are "powered by Google" now. Sometimes Bing. :(
> 
> ---
> 
> I think the closest real-world inspiration could be Palantir, which
> explicitly developed and sold Google-style search software to various
> agencies and drank deeply from the post-9/11 security funding well.
> 
> Its CEO, Peter Thiel, is even further out-there than Gabriel Ice. Note
> that Thiel is coming from the same Stanford milieu as Y! and G
> founders; he also founded PayPal and invested early in FB (along with
> the Napster guy).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 12:52 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> A hash slinger is a short order cook. Someone who “slings” crap food across
>> a grill and onto a plate, to be served in a cheap diner.  “Crap thrower”
>> might be its equivalent.  Or crap “server”:  somebody who serves crap.
>> 
>> On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 3:39 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>> 
>>>> "kleptos of monstrous proportions, but all of these people are wined and
>>> dined and enabled  by bankers, insurers, lawyers ad inifintium in New York,
>>> London (especially), Zurich--those are the centers of modern corruption not
>>> Moscow or Beijing (though they have many players in the game). stateless
>>> banking is the adversary here.”    rich
>>> and credit card rates that start where people used to be indicted for
>>> loansharking.
>>> 
>>> And hashslingerz is not just one of the private kleptos, but is founded on
>>> software to protect and insulate both the kleptos and perhaps government
>>> secrets too..My first suspect as real world parallel is Google whose
>>> founders were from  earliest research at Stanford funded by military and
>>> intelligence money(
>>> https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e
>>> <
>>> https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e>
>>> ). If you design super fast efficient code to find everything on the web,
>>> you probably know more than anyone about how and where to hide stuff from
>>> searches, hackers etc. You also have a big say in what information searches
>>> turn up.
>>> 
>>> One thing I wonder about is the name hashslingerz. is the hash potatoes?
>>> Doesn’t sound right or connect to anything obvious in the book.
>>> Hash tags,  secure hash algorithms, hash functions etc seem a better bet
>>> as basic to digital processes, encryption etc.
>>> And is it slingerz with the once clever z people use, or  is it lingers?
>>> the dangers of leaving a digital trail? Both? So I get the image of a
>>> digital short order cook at a resturaunt near you serving a universal need,
>>> like say free email accounts, becoming a virtual monopoly and leader of
>>> surveillance capitalism, but with a second  less obvious agenda as it
>>> enters the world of intelligence contracts . Again Google fits the bill.
>>> 
>>> On the other hand the timing seems iffy. All the core  search engine
>>> software was there before 2001 plus a lot of funding toward the IPO, but
>>> the actual IPO happened in 2004. They went super-big fast and its hard to
>>> say if 9-11 helped them but it certainly created an everybody is suspicious
>>> and no one should expect anonymity atmosphere… except? well we may need to
>>> make some exceptions for the managers of this new digital panopticon.
>>> 
>>> I’m probably drifting too paranoid, maybe too much garlic here; just tryin
>>> to keep the vampires at bay. Rein me in with some different takes. This is
>>> supposed to be fun , right.
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Nov 8, 2021, at 2:16 PM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Howdy
>>>> 
>>>> I'll leave others to answer the deep web question, but one presumes
>>> hashlingerz and others are private companies, for which, there is a ,
>>> dearth of information. Public companies whose shares are traded on public
>>> exchanges are required to file reports with the SEC on the company and its
>>> top execs (and even those are questionable), but there is no such
>>> requirement for private companies, so you can find little more than state
>>> registration info (and good luck if they are registered in Delaware or
>>> South Dakota, the latter is the new Caymans--countries so designated tax
>>> havens can now add the US to that list). So, no surprise one can find
>>> anything on Lexis Nexis.
>>>> One can see how corrupting the system can be when information is the
>>> baseline, and only those with resources can take full advantage. I'm
>>> surprised Maxine can nail anyone of substance. Yes, there are oligarchs and
>>> corrupt heads of state and kleptos of monstrous proportions, but all of
>>> these people are winded and dined and enabled  by bankers, insurers,
>>> lawyers ad inifintium in New York, London (especially), Zurich--those are
>>> the centers of modern corruption not Moscow or Beijing (though they have
>>> many players in the game). stateless banking is the adversary here.
>>>> 
>>>> rich
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Nov 8, 2021 at 12:43 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:
>>> brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
>>>> Maxine suggests that the information Reg needs about hashslingerz would
>>> normally be easy to get to with Nexis Lexis, HotBot….
>>>> 
>>>> R “What I’m really looking for,” solemn more than impatient, “probably
>>> won’t be anyplace any search engine can get to.”
>>>> M “Because . . . what you’re looking for . . .”
>>>> R  “Just normal company records—daybooks, ledgers, logs, tax sheets.
>>> But try to have a look, and that’s when it gets weird, everything stashed
>>> away far far beyond the reach of LexisNexis.”
>>>> 
>>>> Here we get our first indication that there is a web that is not
>>> avilable to the public, except with special procedures and passwords , the
>>> deep web . This deep web operates in the novel in 2 ways, as the reality of
>>> a secret communication and infomation storage system and IMO as  a kind of
>>> digital subconscious where new forms  and arenas of consciousness are
>>> emerging, a telling reflection of our desires and hidden doings.
>>>> 
>>>> Practically  It brings up questions out of my depth. I have a general
>>> idea of the the deepweb but plenty that I don’t understand at all. I assume
>>> it means code stored on servers as opposed to computers. So I will try to
>>> ask some questions and hope there are p-listers who understand this stuff
>>> better than I do and might be wiling to offer or direct us to good info.
>>>> 
>>>> Are there servers that are just private storage or are all servers
>>> required to register
>>>> or have some trackable identity? What exactly does it mean to be
>>> indexed? How hidden can information be.
>>>> There are drug and contraband dealers who use the deep web. This and any
>>> other illicit use of the deep web is often called the dark web. Is access
>>> by word of mouth? what keeps them from being busted? are transactons
>>> possible here without known addresses? suggested articles?
>>>> on stored in the Deep Web be?  Are there search engines like deep archer
>>> that can find and make acessible the deep web. Has getting this access
>>> always been the essence of hacking?
>>>> It seems that P is suggesting digital tech opens new ways to hide money
>>> transactions etc. Has anyone tried to estimate the tax losses etc? Any
>>> thoughts on how much of this is going on?
>>>> Does anyone have more intelligent questions about this. I read the
>>> wikipedia article on this topic  last time we read BE and not much stuck.
>>> I Will re-read more on the topic  but it’s definitely not my natural
>>> terrain. Pretty ok at photo editing and paint programs but that only as it
>>> relates to my own art processes and website.
>>>> 
>>>> Some expertise in this area of the functioning of the Deep web/Dark Web
>>> would definitely add to understading BE.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
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>>> https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
>>> 
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>>> 
>> --
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> 