Xref: utzoo sci.aeronautics:207 comp.windows.x:14912
Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!samsung!usc!venera.isi.edu!raveling
From: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling)
Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics,comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Black Boxes
Message-ID: <10417@venera.isi.edu>
Date: 6 Nov 89 16:14:48 GMT
References: <oZJ8pWK00Xoe80YkUr@andrew.cmu.edu> <530@uncmed.med.unc.edu> <4562@wpi.wpi.edu>,
Reply-To: raveling@isi.edu (Paul Raveling)
Distribution: usa
Organization: USC Information Sciences Institute
Lines: 28

In article <oZJ8pWK00Xoe80YkUr@andrew.cmu.edu>, pc2d+@andrew.cmu.edu
(Philip Edward Cutone, III) writes:
> If I recall, there is also another type of black box.  Phone hackers
> have various devices that allow them to illegally make calls ...

	"Black box" originally referred to any system whose
	functional (external) behavior is known or specified,
	but whose internal workings are utterly unknown.  This
	usage tends to crop up most often in connection with
	with testing or analyzing a system -- it need not be
	avionics.

	As often used by news media, this became any sort of system
	a reporter didn't understand, basically a widget.  "Black box"
	may join "hacker" as a term whose public usage will change
	its original meaning.

	And now, in the not-so-general public (yet) we have a SPECIFIC
	meaning for "widget".  I can no longer say "widget" to safely
	refer to some sort of black box.

	This note should probably go to newsgroup
	sci.isn't-it-a-miracle-that-we-communicate-at-all.


----------------
Paul Raveling
Raveling@isi.edu