From: vagans@inanna.eanna.net   
      
   Johnny Fusion =11811=  wrote:   
   > Sourcerer  wrote:   
   > : Johnny Fusion =11811=  wrote:   
      
      
      
   > : Poly says information that cannot be accessed might as well not exist   
   > : (she might be quoting Edward Tufte). I'll add that bad information is   
   > : worse than useless if it is accessible. The quality of the information,   
   > : freely available or not, is questionable. Riffing on the journalism   
   > : motto bad news is good news, I wonder if bad information replicates   
   > : better than good.  Is there a 'critical mass' of bad data infecting and   
   > : transforming the good, like one bad apple spoils the barrel?  Would the   
   > : bad even be detectable if it is "evenly distributed"?   
   >   
   > Neal Stephenson addresses this very issue in his latests tome _Anathem_.   
   > (Anathem takes place on a different world with a different history but   
   > some parallel development and uses a specialized vocabulary) The Arbre   
   > version of the Internet The Reticulum ("Ret") is flooded with what is   
   > called "crap" (the in world entymology is different than the same word in   
   > english)  --  bad information sometimes a document altered to change   
   > just one fact and put back on Ret. The Ita (Arbre's cyberpunks you could   
   > say) had to develop a method to filter out the crap from legitimate data.   
   > I am a bit fuzzy on the details but I think part of it has to do with a   
   > vetted trust network.   
   >   
   > I really think we will get there and the need to filter crap from legit   
   > data.  It will have to do with trusted sources. Hell we see it in the   
   > media already.  Fox News is nothing BUT crap.   
      
   Fox is no different, as far as crap goes, than The Monthly Review,   
   CounterPunch or The Nation. Each has their agenda and each has their   
   paymaster. What is the basis for trusting a source? A shared ideology?   
      
   Transactional data, especially time-sensitive data, is totally worked   
   over, massaged, before a public summary is made available. Data has to   
   be converted into information, and those conversions are the issue I'm   
   raising. Both the trusted and the untrusted source only have these high   
   level summaries to work from, so it is their interpretation of a   
   massaged summary of data that is "trusted"? That doesn't get to the   
   accuracy of the data underlying the information underlying the   
   interpretation.  As I said, bad data that is freely accessible is worse   
   than useless.   
      
      
      
   > :> Being in this space again, it fits like an old glove, but I can't help but   
   > :> feel like what it must have been like to be a beatnik in the 1970s.   
   > :   
   > : This is the world we anticipated. I think it is just now gettng really   
   > : interesting.   
   > :   
   >   
   > Just now? Its been interesting for years. The biggest enabler is   
   > ubiquitous bandwidth.  High Speed Internet to the home is to me an   
   > essential utiltiy like electricity and gas. And now its being tied to   
   > outside the home, blanketing the globe where we can be connected anywhere.   
   > Next step? Make it cheap enough to be pratically free. Thats where I am   
   > looking forward.  It will probably be a google model that brings it to   
   > us, Free to the consumer paid for by advertisement.   
      
   Google may have jumped the shark with the Aurora exploit. We'll see. It   
   may have jumped right into bed with the Feds in a much closer   
   relationship than they've had so far. Larry Page and Sergey Brin   
   recently announced they're selling their majority position shares in   
   Google. Together they will have 48% position and no longer have control.   
   That's interesting. I can see Google (and I think they see it, too)   
   being the first datahaven in orbit, but I don't think they get there   
   without the Feds. The Feds gave them Google Earth and they brought   
   onboard the CIA's In-Q-Tel's director of technology assessment, Rob   
   Painter (quoting Wikipedia: "In-Q-Tel of Arlington, Virginia, United   
   States is a not-for-profit venture capital firm that invests in   
   high-tech companies for the sole purpose of keeping the Central   
   Intelligence Agency equipped with the latest in information technology   
   in support of United States intelligence capability.")   
      
   The datapoint to keep front and center is that the economy depends on   
   the internet -- and so does the social power. That's a major difference   
   between what it was like in the early 90s and now. I'm not disagreeing   
   with the picture you've drawn in this thread. It's just that it seems to   
   me you are a lot more cheerful about it than I am 8-)   
      
      
      
   Regards,   
      
   --   
     (__)    Sourcerer   
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