From: Bubba Rom Dos <bubba@dev.null>
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 16:24:50 -0800 (PST)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: WebWorld 10-11
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Title: The True Story of the InterNet






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The True Story of the InterNet

Part II


WebWorld & the Mythical 'Circle of Eunuchs'


by Arnold


Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997 Pearl Publishing


The God Channel


But I was talking about insanity, and I'm afraid
I've strayed rather far from my original train of thought.

There are no windows on Level 'Leven. There is no
way to keep track of the time of day, or even the passing of the
days. Meals are served at random times and the staff have erratic
schedules. It's done to keep the inmates off balance but it doesn't
really matter-because no one ever gets out of Level 'Leven.

Like I said, I'm not a Fund'er, I'm a Net'er, but
no one will ever believe me, because I'm in a Money Market facility.
And that just doesn't happen. Everybody knows that.

You see, on WebWorld the Channel Governments are
all independent of each other, with their own institutional and
social structures. The CG's don't like their citizens to mix-numbers
and ratings are everything.
There are five hundred different sets of laws, which one would
think would be confusing, but in practice it's not. Each CG has
their own policing system and the citizens acquire a thorough
understanding of what their social duties are through constant
exposure to their Channel.

You see, citizens are only allowed by law to watch
their own Channel.
Surprised? So were the citizens after the transfer of power.

At first they were ecstatic about the changes. For
the first month everyone received all five hundred channels absolutely
free, giving them time to decide which Channel to become citizens
of. 
And there were incentives-prizes, parties, free meals, free vacations.

The Sex Channel offered some rather interesting incentives
for new citizens. They did quite well in the final ratings (what
had formerly been called 'election results'), despite fierce competition
from the S&M Channel, the Group Sex Channel, the Lesbian Channel,
the 'Buck Futters' Channel, and a host of minor players vying
for the same basic audience.
The Credit Channel offered extravagant credit ratings to new citizens
(you can guess how long that lasted after they had committed themselves
to Card'er citizenship).

Anyway, I'm sure you get the picture.

At the end of the first month the 500 Channel Transition
Committee announced that, everyone now being citizenized, citizens
would be restricted to watching only their own Government Channel
for a one month period, in order for the citizens to become acquainted
to the new forms of society, their own in particular, without
distraction.
There was quite a bit of grumbling but, since the Channels continued
their promotional antics (and because the citizens had chosen
to join Channels corresponding to their major interest), things
went not only very smoothly but also quite pleasantly.
By the end of the one month restriction people were beginning
to look forward to more variety in their cerebral and visual diet
but the CG Transition Committee then announced that, due to some
rather complicated changes in the satellite transmission programming,
it would be another few weeks before the 500 Channels would be
available to everyone.

At this point there was again a lot of complaining,
but the CGTC announced that this would be an excellent time for
each Channel Government to use the interactive features of the
medium to get input from their citizens for a Channel Bill of
Rights for each individual Channel's citizens. This announcement
was received with great acclaim and, once the process had begun,
several months passed with much haggling back and forth involved.
During this period of time the citizens became rather politically
and emotionally bonded with their Channels.

Although the 500 CG's already had the new Channel-oriented
society mapped out down to the smallest of details, they were
very effective in using the Bill of Rights process to cement the
bond between the citizens and their Channel.
The citizens of each Channel, having the same fundamental interests
as their fellow constituents, would sometimes engage in heated
debates among themselves but, for the most part, they were all
pulling together in the same direction-exactly according to plan.

The individual CG's, while secretly coordinating their activities
through the InterNet, began releasing 'news' flashes and 'special
reports' on their various Channels suggesting, subtly at first,
that the other Channels were working towards including items in
their Bill of Rights that would adversely affect the citizens
of their own Channel's citizens.

There were suggestions that the Fund'ers wanted the
Money Channel to have a say in how large a credit-line the Shopping
Channel could make available to their citizens. The Shop'ers went
ape-shit over this, having joined the Channel with the express
purpose of spending every dime in their possession on 'combination
can opener-mouse traps' with genuine cubic zirconium embedded
in their sides in the shape of Elvis' shaky hips.
Naturally, the Shop'ers Channel Government came to the aid of
their citizens with a great show of bravado and saved the day,
thus earning their constituent's eternal gratitude.

The were rumors of the Top Cop Channel wanting sole
power over law enforcement, which didn't sit well with the Military
Channel, the Citizens Vigilante Channel, the Libertarian Channel,
or any of the various Criminal Channels, such as the Loose Screw
Gun Nut Channel.

You think I'm kidding, don't you?

You have to realize that at the time the Infrared
Fiber Optic Cable System originally made it possible to carry
five hundred channels into each and every home, that there were
only thirty or forty channels currently in existence, and even
those few channels were not uniformly distributed.
When the rush began to take advantage of WebTV's new capabilities,
it was initially a very small rush. Most of the more prudent
corporations and potential investors were reasonably cautious
about rushing into this expanded market and the majority held
back for a while in order to see where the best investment potential
would appear. This was not so with the religious and political
crusaders, the zealots, the fanatics, the extremists, the radicals,
and the 'just plain lunatics' in general. 
Every nutcase with a cause, a product, or plain and simple illusions
of grandeur, crawled out of the woodwork intending to use this
vast new hi-tech environment to further their own personal 'cause
celebre'. 

Believe it or not, the Loose Screw Gun Nut Channel,
generally known as the Gun'ers, was far from the most bizarre
of the original channel offerings.

By the time the enormous potential of this new technology
became obvious, the majority of the channels were already in the
hands of the lunatic fringe of the proletariat. The serious corporate
and political powers already 'in the loop' endeavored to keep
it that way in order to secure their advantage over potential
rivals capable of offering them genuine competition.

The smallest of the Channels was the God Channel,
which had only one member. It has always been a mystery as to
just who that member was-no one having ever seen him (or her)-but
there was much speculation on this point, especially among the
other religious Channels.

The Dualist Channel had only two members, the Trinity
Channel had three, but after Channel War I, when Channel ownership
went through drastic changes, the God Channel was the only one
of the three still in existence, and something strange occurred
which resulted in troubling consequences for the InterNet (which
actually formed-although it was no longer commonly known-the root
of the basic communication and database link for the whole planet).

There are many versions or explanations of what happened,
no two of them the same. Those in the best position to know, however,
are in basic agreement with the explanation privately espoused
by the InterNet's premier Computer Cowboy who, according to legend,
was the Head Hacker who was later linked in the mythology of the
'Circle of Eunuchs' to the lineage of the Fool and the GrandMaster.

The Cowboy, as he was called, followed the auditing
trail of all Channel ownership's from their inception through
to the point of their reorganization at the end of Channel War
I. According to the audit trail-so he claimed-the Dualist Channel
and the Trinity Channel did not actually cease to exist, at that
time, but had instead merely merged with the God Channel. 
This merger necessitated changing the records concerning the number
of Channel members in the God Channel's database. The InterNet
transaction logs indicated that the accounting records were changed
accurately, and in accordance with established procedure, but
the change somehow resulted in a strange and puzzling paradox
that caused bizarre errors throughout the whole InterNet computer
system.

The InterNet started experiencing random problems
all tied to inaccuracies in mathematical calculations occurring
in even the most rudimentary operations. This wreaked havoc throughout
the system for several days, perplexing even the most vaunted
of the InterNet's system analysts, until the Cowboy finally nailed
down the source of the problem.
He found that the database field recording the number of members
of the God Channel would change inexplicably in the midst of the
ongoing system audit checks which went on constantly in the operating
system background for the purpose of maintaining and verifying
data integrity. He told the System Management Board that, as the
system analysts had confirmed, all of the programs and procedures
were flawless and that everyone was in agreement that what was
happening was, in a word...impossible.

The Cowboy explained that he had even tried changing
the physical location of the data field, storing it in a ROM chip
(Read Only Memory) which the computer could not write to (and
thus could not change the content thereof), but could merely read
the value which was already stored-hard coded-therein.
The results were the same, regardless. Sometimes the system would
report back the Channel membership as one, sometimes as two, sometimes
as three, often differing in a matter of microseconds between
auditing checks.
Even worse, the results would change to various numbers ranging
from 1 to infinity at times which corresponded to the ancient
holy days of obscure religious sects from the past.

The systems analysts had even tried writing a program
which the system could reference without having to physically
read the ROM chip, a program which would give a constant result.
Even this didn't work (once again, mathematically impossible).

The InterNet management, faced with an impossible
paradox that was threatening not only the integrity, but the very
existence, of their system, was in a total panic and called an
emergency meeting of everyone involved. The meeting had come within
a hairbreadth of turning into total cyberhysteria when the Cowboy
came in, announcing to one and all that he had consulted with
a bottle of Jack Daniel's and another old friend, that the problem
was now resolved, and that there would be no further trouble in
this area.

The Cowboy resisted all efforts by the others to
garner specific details concerning his announcement, and he merely
replied that answering their questions would only replace one
mystery with another.
Even though he was questioned, threatened, offered bribes, and
put under constant surveillance by InterNet security forces, no
one ever learned the secret of how he had resolved the paradox,
nor whom he had consulted.

Until now.


Cowboy


The Cowboy had taken the time to dash off a hasty
email message to gomez@basis.inc, requesting a conference with
Bubba Rom Dos, ASAP, at the Last Chance Saloon. 

He removed all traces of the message from the InterNet
system, including the audit trail (technically impossible and
actually a felony), and scooted out the door to a rendezvous with
a legendary character from a mythological fable, who was waiting
for him in a back room at the Last Chance Saloon with a bottle
of Jack Daniel's, two glasses, a thirteen year-old nymphomaniac,
and a serious head-start in the "great race against sobriety",
as he so eloquently put it.

Bubba, a good friend of the nubile young girl's mother,
liked to drag her around with him for the purpose of perpetuating
the nefarious reputation he had garnered at the "original
allegorical meeting of the nonexistent Magic Circle", which
had in turn led to the "imaginary formation of the mythical
Circle of Eunuchs".
The preceding is the manner in which Bubba always replied to questions
regarding whether or not his tales of the Magic Circle were real
or parabolic (a term Bubba used to designate a parable distorted
by the effects of alcoholic delirium tremors).
The Cowboy always assumed this to mean that Bubba's explanation
was a Zen koan which, given long years of dedicated contemplation,
would lead one to the realization that the only aspect of the
myth that is true is the Jack Daniel's.

But I digress.

The solution to InterNet's dilemma was no problem
for Bubba. He merely let out a laugh, knocked back a healthy shot
of J.D. and said, "Oh yes. The 'Inaugural Enigma'."

He advised the Cowboy to install two separate entry
circuits at diametrically opposed points on a ROM chip that has
been hard-coded to the value NULL, using a diamond-laser Void
Enhancer. After that, he said, it was a simple matter of programming
the chip setting from both entry points simultaneously, one setting
it to the value 'zero' and the other setting it to the value 'infinity'.

The Cowboy contended that it was impossible to accomplish
a simultaneous dual hard-coding with the present state of technology,
but Bubba merely replied that it didn't really matter because
the problem the Cowboy was attempting to resolve was also impossible,
and that two paradoxes nullify each other, leaving only an enigma
in their wake, which was, after all, what caused all the trouble
in the first place.

Bubba leaned back in his chair, gave the young girl
a peck on the cheek, and drifted off to sleep.

The Cowboy, feeling perplexed and confused, quietly
made his exit, pausing at the door to glance back at the young
girl, who was softly stroking Bubba's brow. He had known the girl
and her mother for some time, but he had the mysterious feeling
that, somehow, there was much more to her than was apparent on
the surface.
The girl saw him watching her, and she gave him a shy, blushing
smile saying, "Try it. You might be surprised."

The Cowboy often wondered if she was reading his
mind, or if she was referring to Bubba's proposed solution. He
thought about her from time to time, wondering who she really
was, and always felt an uneasy sense of bewilderment that forced
him to think of something else instead.

It was the same feeling he experienced after he had
tried Bubba's solution, with a successful outcome that left an
air of disquieting emptiness in his mind. The system worked perfectly,
as it had before the problem arose. Everything was again exactly
the way it was before, except that something was different.
The same, but different. Another paradox that he instinctively
knew would someday lead to another enigma. The Cowboy reached
behind the system monitor for a bottle of Jack Daniel's he had
tucked away for special occasions. He didn't reach for it to celebrate.
He reached for it because he knew it was real.

The Cowboy reflected for a moment on whether he should
attempt to explain the solution to his InterNet compatriots, but
decided that there was some import of sacredness in the process
that should remain inviolate from those outside the Magic Circle.

He raised a glass in toast to Bubba Rom Dos, itinerant derelict
and philosopher extraordinare...and he thought about the girl.

I know you think I'm crazy. But you're also wondering
how I know all the details of a such a significant event in Channel
history that has remained unexplained for years. 
And you're wondering about the girl.

So am I. The legend is true...I was the Cowboy.


Chapter 10 - The God Channel / Chapter 11 - Cowboy


--
S a n d y 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~