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Message no. 1
From: Sebastian Hamann <5hamann@**********.UNI-HAMBURG.DE>
Subject: CYBERYOGI: second thoughts
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 23:09:03 +0200
Hello everybody...

I listened to plotd and your answers for more than 24 hours. Because I
know, that most of xou read it regularly, I think most of you had a chance
to read, what I wrote yesterday. So I'm going to openly think about some of
the things mentioned until now. Also I'll put in some new things to reflect
your ideas...

First of all was Karl Low:

>Personally.. I think what would be a neat climactic event would be taking
down
>ShadowLands for a day. Ergo, one last post by Sebastian, which gets cut
off in
>the middle and then nobody posts for a full 24 hours

I had this answered before, but I'll do it a second time. I have never
thought of this one. In my opinion, nobody's going to take down the matrix
for whole. _Perhaps_ Shadowland _could_ be taken out, BUT it's improbable.
I mean they (SL) spend serious Nuyen and effort to hide SL from the corps,
the govs, and most other legal institutions. Why in the world, should a guy
(or group), who is bombing randomly, hit the SL-Node ?? No, way, I think
I'm not going to put this into my plot.

BTW, I think it's a nice idea, so if someone comes up with a solution, I'd
be happy to play along with that...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next was Jeffrey Mach:

>And it would cause one hell of an unholy backlash. Since the yogi wishes
>that his people avoid the matrix, I assume that this would require a

Well, he does not exactly want his people to stay away from the matrix. He
might be reasonable enough to see that you need to use fire to destroy
fire. It's just, that he wouldn't touch it, wouldn't go near to it or
something like that...


>physical attack on the node itself. Which is god-knows-where, under the
>protection of god-knows-what. Plus you get the chance to tick off at

Yes, some targets have to be attacked physically. But detecting a major
communication building shouldn't be an information to hard to find.

>least a good portion of the runners in Seattle, plus untold others in
>CalFree and around the world that typically monitor it.

Yes, of course, as I mentioned, this will put him really high on the
shit-list of some people. Not all the way up to the medal ranks, but I
think close to them...
And no worries about that, I've planned something like that, you are going
to have your fun Jeff...

>Hmmmmm. I'm not sure I understand this statement. Do you mean that even
>though this sounds like BS, something like it exists in real life and that
>you didn't just make it up? If that, then I agree. If you want to say
>that this religion is real and true, then, well I may have to debate you
>on that. Especially because it is scientifically faulty.
>
The first thing. I haven't made this up. I've got the ideas from a FAQ
posted to alt.religion-newsgroup... And I think this guy is quite sure that
it's right, what he posts.

As mentioned before, if someone is interested, I can send him a copy of
this FAQ.

[snip some technical clarifications on HF]

Jeff, I think you're right, but this guy just fears HF, and damns
everything, which even _might_ emit them... sad, but true.

>Okay, a band of zealot hari-krishna luddites running around the streets of
>Seattle might be interesting or amusing, depending on how it is played,

>however again, I have to wonder how effective they would be. I would

Please, don't assume, that he's dumb. He's not! he imposes some rules on
him and everybody, who wants to follow the path of Logology. That doesn't
mean, he wouldn't use other beings, to put his plans into existence. he
might be even clever enough, to lure some Corps into his net to run them
against each other...

>assume their strictures are also very anti-cybertech. Heck, that is
>grafting an electro-magnetic device right onto your body. The horror!
>Especially with the high power output of limbs (more than what a computer
>would ever use), and the neural interface cyber putting HF emitting cyber
>directly into the brain/spine should be anathama, unless they are being
>hypocrites.

Yep, you're right, Streetsams are not able to even reach the level of a
Cyberyogi. As a Catholic he would say, that they are full of sin. (No
offenses meant, sorry if I imposed one with my sentence...)

>Heh. About time for another rant to be spawned.

Fine, I think this can be very nice...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next was Justin Fang:

>Anyway, the point is that depending on what this guy thinks is "high
>frequency" (and on how self-consistently he applies the term), not only will
>he oppose the things you mention, but also microwave ovens, portable phones,
>electric cars, and probably most common household appliances. (By 2059,
>computer chips--which generate radio waves--are going to be *everywhere*.
>Even today, I believe GM used more microprocessors in its products last year
>than IBM.)

Yes, you're right, this guy is going to live in a cave or something like
that. But nevertheless he can command some well chosen beings to carry out
his plans...


>Whils I don't object to this guy in principle, I think he should be a bit
>more focused, otherwise it'll be impossible for him to function at all in
>society, much less blow stuff up. His philosophy can oppose anything and
>everything you like, but (at least initially) he should pick some relatively
>small group of targets to focus his (and his followers') attention on.

I think he's going to concentrate on this for a time and then changing to
some other goal, just to come back to the first one, after hitting some two
or three others. And yes, his philosophy is against a whole lot of things,
but lunatics don't care... so I was told. ;)) What he preaches is some kind
of 'rebuilding human society' which is going to be hard, at least in my
opinion. Too many people, who might not like to loose their power, money
house or whatever.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then there came Jaimie:

>There was a previous post in which Marlowe (Paul Adams' character) cut off
>matrix communication to an area by breaking up one of these LTG server
>wossnames... last year sometime. I forget why now, but I'm sure it seemed

Thanks for the fire cover Jaimie, but it just shows that it _can_ be done.
(But needn't to be done. I still think, it can be done. Not the whole
matrix, but a part of it. Some area that's not that important... say...
Seattle :*))) )

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then Mark Neidengard, I:

>There's a very unassuming small building near where I grew up that extends
>about 10 stories (or so) underground to prevent against indirect nuclear
>strike: the point at which the trans-Pacific cables go offshore. Problems

>there could impose a fairly unpleasant penalty in those lines of
>communication.

I'm sure there'll still buildings like this in 20XX. They might be highly
protected, but I've seen runners entering some locations here on the list,
which I would protect as well...

>Work on fail-over routing protocols is proceeding apace; by 205x I'm sure
>they'd be fairly effective. The problems are that a) destroyed bandwidth
>is destroyed bandwidth and a reroute won't give you back all the performance
>and b) as you mentioned, if you go far enough down in the distribution tree
>you can isolate some number of hosts by taking out their only POP. I
>don't know what the budding terrorist has planned, but by assaulting a local
>exchange he could probably deny service to tens or hundreds of thousands of
>people's homes...businesses, hospitals, and other more "official"

Well, he's not that much focused on his goal, besides building a new
society, so he just might decide, that's time to blow up this router, or
that POP. He wants cheap advertisement in a way, and this should give him a
lot...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here comes Erik Jameson:

>And I would think they would probably have a militant arm that would do
>these nasty things. The major wing would be in airports handing out
>flowers or whatever, but a small elite cadre of physadepts (who else is
>that in tune with their bodies and the cosmic will? these guys could be
>terrifying) goes out and teaches the error of their ways to overly chromed

>street samurai, smashing routers, firebombing computer stores, that sort of
>thing.

I thought of something similar, perhaps some kind of rear world refuge,
like a monastery in the central Moroccan mountains, or the Andes or Alps,
or just somewhere... Or even a huge cave like the ones in southern France...

>Would probably fit right in with the entire Corporate War plot.

He might try to outplay one Corp against another, so he might be even
unaware of fueling the Corpwar-plot and also getting some benefits, for
them destroy mankind harming objects...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here comes Mark for the second time:

>A "24 hour" crash of the Matrix?? Not the whole thing, we won't. Not even
a
>major portion of it. Even simultaneous terrorist strikes against major
>landline nexi aren't going to take the Matrix down as respects corps,
>research institutes, etc. Localized disruptions to end users I can see...
>_total_ shutdown of the Matrix a la the Internet Worm of 1988 is a) all but
>impossible to cause, and b) would constitute a world-altering event in my
view

Well, I think I made my point on this clear before and Mark very clearly
states something alike...

>that would be beyond the scope of the list.

Just to throw in another nice quote:

>>>>>[Never say never.]<<<<<
-- M <12:45:03/XX-XX-1973??>

I think it's a nice idea. I'd be cautious to say it's beyond the scope of
the list, I think the list just needs to come up with a good reason, why
this should happen and how this could (be made to) happen. But I would say
we should spare this event for another plot.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
And, last but not least (as Germans like to say) Paul J. Adam:

>Telehouse in London, for instance. Lose that and UK internet access goes
>quiet for a while.

Well, nothing to be added...

>I see it as more, not less, likely: lots of corps, lots of squabbles,
>lots of compatibility problems, lots of jurisdiction fights because
>Renraku don't want their data going through any system controlled by
>MCT...

this is in fact something I haven't thought of. But it sounds interesting
to me, although CYBERYOGI, isn't really interest in these squabbles. But it
might be a good idea for Erik and his Corp-war scheme...


Puhhh, that was, again, a lot. I sorry to impose such things on you, but as
different events have shown in the last months, I think it to be necessary,
to confront you with something heavy like this...

When the main problems are solved, I think I'll have come up with some more
structure to the whole thing, something like a timetable and a target list,
as well as how the YOGI acquires his forces, how he lives, where and to
what degree his illness goes, I'll tell you. I think I'm not going to post
all that, cause it would spoil just to much. But everyone, who's
interested, can drop me a mail, what he wants to know: something or
everything and I post him the stuff.

I hope nobody is going to hate me for this, I warned you...

so long

Sebastian

PS: I hope my ranting is understandable...
=========
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way
to factor large prime numbers." -- Bill Gates from "The Road Ahead," p.
265.

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