From: Seth Morris <Seth.Morris@lambada.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 93 23:42:46 PST
To: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: Tagging copyrighted text
In-Reply-To: <9302121739.AA21361@netcom.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <9302130720.AA22872@lambada.oit.unc.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text


Timothy May writes: 
> To make this very concrete, I just installed a new release of the American
> Heritage Dictionary, a complete edition with definitions, thesaurus,
> anagrams, roots in Latin, Greek, German, Indo-European, etc. Look up a word
> and one gets an entire screenful of stuff, including detailed etymologies,
> usages, etc.
> 
> Now what happens when a "dictionary server" offers to look up a word for,
> say, 10 cents? With fast enough networks, of the sort ld231782 proposes,
> this could replace the current system in which folks buy their own copies.
> (One would still need very high bandwidth programs like editors, word
> processors, drawing programs, etc., but some classes of software would be
> amenable to this kind of remote access use, especially with very fast
> networks.)
	I'd point out that with unlimited Telnet access, I can already use
dictionaries and quote books, thesauri and other references, at reates varying
from free to hundreds of dollars an hour....
	The only software I "need" to do this is an OS and a comm program.

	This sounds like a great way to convince the holdouts of the value
of encryption: if services are offered, over comm links, available easily
from the home, with a minimum of fuss, to perform popular, resource
intensive searches/services (quote books, dictionaries, come to mind,
many of the things Gopher does), then the only software a user needs is
(1) an OS
(2) X server (or other screen manager/UI manager)
(3) comm program (integrated into screen manager w/drag-and-drop probably
	necessary in this day and age, when using things like a baby is c
	considered "mature technology"
(4) encryption package...
	If I cannot sign my requests (automagically, I suppose), then I can
	disavow billing, and if the service cannot encrypt the reply, any
	listener can receive "free" responses, perhaps over time duplicating
	much of the work and creativity that went into creating the service
	and selling it. I hate to support something like encryption with
	economics (the issues are deeper than that), but it sounds like an
	argument that would please many people. I just have to look at 
	Prodigy (yech) sales with modems (or Windows (double-yech) with
	systems!) to see the infiltration of a useful and powerful thing
	like online service (or GUI/device independence) into a previously
	reluctant market to see what a little convincing can do. (Remember
	Nintendo? Before they started their ad campaign, noone was buying
	dedicated game machines, then they convinced everyone that everyone
	else was playing, soon they were as common as TV's, in a market
	still reeling from Atari!)
	I also hate to suggest charging for something already free! Hopehully
	I'm thinking of something (a) cheap, (b) convenient (which Gopher is
	not, I feel), and (c) better.

 It just jumped into my head how tied up with encryption ALL telecom issues
are, even ones we've been doing for years now. Just look at how CI$ has had
to change as more users jumped on, or the difference between CI$ and AOL or
Prodigy.
 I'm new to this list, and probably repeating something axiomatic, but it
seemed that with "extreme high speed networks" comes an assumption of extreme
load (seems reasonable to me), and that means (1) commercial exploitation
(possibly a good thing!), (2) need for security, and (3) the usual lag of
technological penetration from the trailblazers to the huddled befuddled,
with the trading of glitz for substance, name for talent, and pretty for
powerful. 
> There may be attempts to limit this, as with the laws which ban rental of
> CDs (but not videos, presumably because few people have two VCRS, while
> those renting CDs can presumably easily diub them onto cassettes).
	If you assume that some of these systems (like the ones already
online) will be legal and entreprneureal(sp?), this might still hold! 

> This could also reduce the costs of entry to the market, as new programs
> could be offered for sale or access in a low-cost way, such as through
> information markets like AMIX.
	Am I correct in deducing that encryption cannot be offered in this
way? What other services are in this category?
 
> I'm not taking a moral stand on either side, just noting one more
> consequence of extremely high-speed networks.
> 
	Oh, can someone drop me a line with more information on digital
cash? I'm new here, like I said. I'm a math major on leave of absence,
currently unemployed (interview monday... crossing fingers), lately
working as a programmer or in support. I've been interested in public
key cryptography since the '79(?) Scientific American article (I was 13 
when I read it, in '83... may have been one of the things that pushed me
towards math) and am glad to finally get to play. (20 digit keys in
BASIC/6502 on a VIC-20 were fun, but that's all!)

 Seth Morris (seth.morris@launchpad.unc.edu)