Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!uunet!ogicse!milton!sequent!szabo@RELAY.CS.NET From: sequent!szabo@RELAY.CS.NET (Nick Szabo) Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds Subject: Re: A view of CyberSpace Message-ID: <12953@milton.u.washington.edu> Date: 13 Dec 90 09:14:11 GMT References: <12295@milton.u.washington.edu> Sender: hlab@milton.u.washington.edu Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc Lines: 79 Approved: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu In article <12295@milton.u.washington.edu> gourdol@imag.imag.fr (Gourdol Arnaud) writes: >Let's make a step in the future (not speaking yet of real >cyberspace). I got a microphone attached to my terminal. >With it I can record voice messages. Let's suppose I choose >to send you the message this way. Do you mean you would like >to choose the way my voice is altered when you receive it ? >I do not want you to alter my message this way. Telephones already alter our voices, though user control is crude or nonexistant. Pop stars lip-synch concerts. TV and radio broadcast out-of-context "sound bites". Most folks get their message altered, sometimes trivially and sometimes in a big way. >Suppose I send you a graphic or a video sequence. Do you want >your system to "translate" it ? I sure do not want. Think we can convince Jeff Poskanzer to stop posting "pbmplus" source? We translate graphics all the time in this cyberspace, changing resolution and number of colors, cutting off parts, etc. to fit them to our individualized "decks". Then there are more sophisticated tools to just plain fake pictures, like the one of Reagan, Thatcher, Kaddafi, and Arafat sitting down to dinner in Newsweek. Somewhere in between these we have colorized movies. Where can we draw a line? > If I send >you the message a certain way, I want you to receive it the same >way, even if you can alter it after. If it can be altered after, then the next person may see only the changed message. Is there any significant difference between this and the first receiver getting an altered message? Is there some device-independent security scheme that can prevent any alterations except those specifically needed to display on a device or within a certain environment? > As you can take the words >I am sending today and then put them in any order you wish. But >it's not MY message any more. I can chop up and perhaps delete some lines. It's a long-time favorite Internet tactic. >So, let's go back to cyberspace. When the bandwith will be >high enough, we will not just send each other ASCII characters, >but sound, still pictures, video sequences, and maybe other >things as well (comportemental programms). You can not >customize this, as this is not just your deck that is making >cyberspace alive, but the whole network. If it is like the Internet, we can do just about anything with any media we like, as long is it is "fair use" | public domain. I wonder what happens if, say, the moderator posts a GIF self-photograph, clothed, and, thru modern magic, the unclothed moderator appears in alt.sex.pictures? Can the perpetrator, if found, be sued? Under what laws? Can the perpetrator be kicked off the Internet without recourse to the law? Some of this is being figured out on the Internet right now; news.admin makes for interesting reading sometimes. >[remainder of fine article deleted -- but the original is still back there somewhere, if the moderator didn't alter it :-] -- Nick Szabo szabo@sequent.com "For historical reasons, this feature is unintelligible" The above opinions are my own and not related to those of any organization I may be affiliated with.