Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Wendy Grossman is a prolific London-based American writer specializing in
technology and the Internet. She's also founder of The Skeptic, the UKs
only regular magazine to take a skeptical look at pseudoscience and claims
of the paranormal. She was formerly a folksinger who, she says, "played a
mix of American and British traditional and contemporary music which you
might characterize as having a slight degree of perversity." And she's
into tennis

Hard-workin' Wendy's written three books, _net.wars_, and the brand-new,
almost-concurrent releases, _From Anarchy to Power: The Net Comes of Age_
(NYU Press) and _The Daily Telegraph Internet A-Z_ (Macmillan) She also
edited _Remembering the Future: Interviews from Personal Computer World_.

She also writes regularly for "The
Philosopher's Magazine" and "Tornado Investor," and she's co-chief sysop
of the Fleet Street Forum < http://www.fleetstreet.org.uk>.

In _net.wars_, Wendy explored many of the more contentious issues of the
evolving Internet. Library Journal wrote, in its review of the book: "Fans
of Grossman, whose Wired magazine article, "alt.scientology.war," won her
an award in 1996 from the American Society of Journalists and Authors,
will appreciate her latest endeavor. Grossman sets out to answer questions
about the future of the Internet and how it will be regulated. She does a
fine job of explaining the issues and the background behind online
controversies ranging from the Church of Scientology raids on net users to
the derailment of the Communications Decency Act. She also addresses such
issues as net scams, class divisions on the net (especially regarding
America Online users), privacy issues, women online, pornography, hackers,
and computer crime. Her approach is one of informed skepticism, which is
not surprising from someone who founded Britain's The Skeptic magazine in
1987. Grossman predicts that the world's governments will confront further
issues as if dealing with an alien invasion, making the net wars of the
1990s look like a mere fracas."

From Anarchy to Power picks up where net.wars left off. It's an
exploration of issues related to the Internet's "coming of age"  privacy,
copyright, net.addiction, the impact of the "Internet industry.":  Says
Wendy in her preface, "The big difference now is that everyone's involved.
Few people in the United States talked about privacy five years ago, other
than in book reports on Orwell's _Nineteen Eighty-four_. Now, the question
of how to protect our lives from government and commercial scrutiny is the
stuff of presidential candidates' speeches and stories in, of all
newspapers, 'USA Today.' The same goes for the future of intellectual
property, cryptography regulations, and even the issue of how the
technology industry should be regulated (in the example of the Department
of Justice's suite against Microsoft). Five years ago, these were all
arcane subjects, but today they get play-by-play coverage in the
mainstream media...."

Jon Lebkowsky <jonl> will lead our conversation with Wendy. Jon is a
writer/technologist and former net.activist currently based in Boulder,
Colorado. A cohost of Inkwell.vue, Jon has been a member of the WELL for
over a decade, and has hosted several conferences here.  He's currently
editing _Virtual Bonfire_, a sourcebook for online activists to be
published by MIT Press, and he's written for various periodicals including
Whole Earth Magazine, Wired, bOING bOING, Fringe Ware Review, 21C, and the
Austin Chronicle.
  

    
Welcome, Wendy! Before we talk about your current projects, we should
delve into your past. You had a previous career as a folk singer. Why did
you decide to stop singing professionally, and start writing?
  

    
Just sort of happened.  I think I'd always wanted to do both.

wg
  

    
How did you get your start writing? Where were your first publications?
  

    
First unpaid, skeptical and humanist magazines such as Skeptical (Inquirer,
Free Inquiry, New Humanist, and The Skeptic (UK).  First paid, the Guardian.
The UK one.  Went in over the transom, exactly how it's not supposed to
work.  Then when I got to London someone I knew through the Skeptic gave my
name to a couple of editors on trade computer magazines who were desperate,
and I sort of just worked my way up from there.  Took a few years to get
back into the Guardian.

wg
  

    
What brought you to the Internet? (Both as a hangout and as subject
matter...)
  

    
I got an editor to pay me to review BBSs back in 1991.  I'd been interested
in getting online as far back as 1984, but I was living in Ireland at the
time, and was advised the phone lines weren't good enough.  Actually, I
guessa as far back as 1983, but in Edinburgh at *that* time you could only
buy modems from BT at an outrageous price, and I didn't know anyone online
at the time whom I could check with to find out if an American modem would
work.  So once I started writing for computer magazines, like I say, I'd get
them to pay me to learn whatever I wanted, and in July 1991 I did a review
of a series of online services and BBSs for What Micro? (now What PC?),
including cix, compuserve, bix, and a few other UK things.  Thought then
online stuff would be a good area to specailize in, and actually that's
pretty much right, as that's given a lot of scope -- eg last year, I wrote
for six months straight about money, and this year I seem to be doing a lot
of mobile stuff.  But the stuff I find most interesting is the
social/cultural/political impact.

Goinog to CFP <http://www.cfp.org> every year is a big help, and so is
hanging out with some of the CFP people year-round on the WELL.

wg
  

    
I agree about CFP (for those of you who don't recognize the acro, it's the
Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy). It's been a brain boost
for me, as well!

Before we start talking about BBSs, computers, and the Internet, though, I
have a question on a slightly different subject - 'The Skeptic,' which you
founded in 1987. What made you decide to take on pseudoscience and the
paranormal? Were you influenced by 'Skeptical Inquirer'?
  

    
Yes, but more specifically by seeing James Randi do a lecture/demonstration
and Martin Gardner, whose mathematical games I was familiar with as a teen.

wg
  

    
Do you see a relationship between your work for The Skeptic and your
writing about the Internet? I ask because I think you do a great job
blowing out flaky theories about the 'net. Your discussion of
net.addiction in the new book, for instance.
  

    
Well, yes and no.  I draw some analogies between the two, certainl,
particularly in sections like the one you mention.  But most of what I do
for the Skeptic is write and edit -- I don't really have the background or
qualifications to do the kind of stuff that matters, ie, investigate claims.
It helps, for example, to know magic (like Randi and the UK's Richard
Wiseman), or have academic credentials (like Susan Blackmore or Chris
French), or even to have a history as a private investigator (Joe Nickell,
David Alexander).  Lacking any of those things, I actually feel there's
relatively little that's original for me to say in a skeptical vein.  But
making information available is something I *can* do, hence founding the
magazine.

On the Internet, it's obvious to me that there are people who've been around
a lot longer or who know more technically, or who are more dedicated
activists, but I got in just about early enough to have something to say.

OOps -- :) wrapped.

One of the better moments of the last few years happened at a UK lunch to
talk abo8ut the RIP bill (now, sadly, the RIP Act) regulating crypto, when
one of the leading and most important activists told me that my early
articles on the subject -- for the Guardian when Phil Zimmermann got
arrested, and for some of the computer magazines on the basics of the
argument -- were the first he'd ever read and were what got him interested
in the area.  (read on the subject, I mean).  So, in a way, if you're not
going to be a dedicated activist yourself it's terrific to think you've
inspired someone else to go out and do it.  :)

wg
  

    
In _net.wars_, you quote Barlow saying "There is such a thing as
net.culture" and "Therei ssuch a thing as net.religion."   You way that he
is "voicing a deep-seated belief, echoed by many others, that the Net's
two-way, many-to-many communication has brought us something so new and
special that it's almost sacred."  Do you think early adopters still feel
that way? And do you think new 'net users pick up on that sense (as
opposed to perceiving the 'net as a convenient tool for ordering books and
checking the weather)?
  

    
I think *Barlow* probably still feels that way.  But as I think I said in
net.wars, ovver time as more and more people get on the Net it becomes more
and more like anywhere else, and so that feeling has to fade.  Newcomers now
certainly can't have the feeling that they're creating their environment the
way, say, the early founders of the WELL.  I'm kind of under the impression
that few pioneers use stuff like Usenet any more -- there are too many
people, too much noise, too much junk.  (A case in point:  I've been reading
rec.sport.tennis since probably 1993 and alt.showbiz.gossip since probably
1995, and rst is now full of idiots spouting racist and antiracist crap at
each other with supreme viciousness, and asg is mostly postings of news
stories from somewhere else -- most of the people I used to enjoy seeing
post are gone).  Increasingly, it seems to me the pioneers have withdrawn
into private spaces with their friends and/or colleagues.

New net users' reactions depend, I trhink, a lot on why they're getting
online.  Most of the people I know who are new to online get on to be able
to use email, or to do some other very specific thing.  Lots of them aren't
interested in conferencing like this.  I'm sure age plays a part in this --
if you're a kid or someone who's retired, or whatever, you're more likely to
have time to explore.  But remember that outside the US most people have to
pay even for local calls, so Internet access is much more expensive and
exploration is accordingly less appealing.

Also, it's less and less easy to use the net as a sort of escape from your
ordinary life -- you know, like going on vacation somewhere and lying about
your job and circumstances -- because the people you know are already there.

I don't think I ever thought the Net was sacred.  But then, I never really
shared the dream Barlow often said he had of being wired to every other mind
on the planet.  I can't help feeling that if that's how Barlow feels, he
hasn't spent enough time on Usenet.

wg
  

    
Well, at one level of magical interconnection every blade of grass is
sacred.  But you can't live on that plane all the time.

I remember listening to Barlow talking about a constitution for cyberspace
and thinking it was so rousing and fun, but so not the way it would play 
out.  If cyberspace was also "where a phone conversation takes place" it 
was obvious that the sense of place and the common hallucination would not 
be co-created by everyone, and that without a pretty strong cultural 
consensus, it would not carry much weight.  My impression was that 
legal and money interests doomed that possible evolutionary path from 
early on, but it was fascinating to see it played out.

I haven't had the chance to read your new book yet, Wendy, but I would
trust that your inate skepticism is brought to bear all along.
 
  

    
Heh, I can vouch for that!

Wendy, Gail brings up an interesting point about the impact of business on
the evolution of the Internet ("money changes everything").  I always felt
that it was inevitable. Do you think there was any strong potential
alternate (noncommercial) path?  I also note that many folks say the more
personal, private, nonprofit uses of the 'net are "drowned out" by
Internet business - do you think that's really the case?
  

    
I hasven';t got statistics, but don't "grass roots" Web sites still way
outnumber commercial ones?  The other thing is that there are still many
areas of the Net that are old-school values, so to speak.  Looks at the
grass roots efforts now to build out 802.11, open source software, etc.  And
someone like John Gilmore is evidence that money doesn't change everyone.

wg
  

    

  Wendy, I agree with your assessment of how many of us 'oldtimers' have
largely withdrawn from such things as Usenet.  What I wonder is, what do
you see as the 'solution' to that?  (I haven't seen your new book yet, so
please pardon me if you answer this question in there.)  Do you think the
only route to a solution here will be some kind of content regulation?

  If so, I counter that some sort of pseudonyms (by which I mean to say,
cryptographically authenticated persistent and accountable identities which
don't necessarily give away real-names short of some legal process) could
come into wide use.  This would enable the resumption of meaningful
conversations because it would be so much easier for individuals (or even
entire sites) to filter out the spam.

  Your example of a group being taken over by flamers could be handled by
an extension that allowed for pseudo-moderated newsgroups: all messages
are passed (unless they lack a pseudonym as I defined it above) but folks
that found particular sources of postings offensive or tiresome could not
only add them to their local 'killfile' or equivalent but also inform the
newsgroup distribution system that they're doing so -- and others could
choose to adopt those recommendations, either automatically or manually.

  I'm sure this is nothing new to you, lots of the cipherpunk and privacy
types have discussed this sort of thing for over ten years to my personal
knowledge (and probably longer) but what I was wondering was whether you
see any hope of that sort of thing actually getting implemented?  Sometimes
I have the sinking feeling that we've created a monster and can never ever
get all the different companies to agree on such changes.........
  

    
Of course, anyone who's frequented alt.religion.scientology has seen
examples of a group being taken over and finding ways to filter to deal with
it.  In the ars case, knowing that Scns were not supposed to use the word
Xenu (the name of the galactic supreme being or whatever that you learn
after many years of expensive study), anyone who posted genuinely headed
their post XENU: <subject>.  A second group was set up, called I think
alt.religion.scientology.xenu, and filtered for those posts.

But I don't think those techniques, or the more complex on3es you're talking
about using cryptography, create public spaces, only less obviously private
ones.  And I don't think old-timers will exactly come back to Usenet --
people's lives and interests change over time, and to me it's not surprising
that they hang out in one space for a while and then move on.  It's what
people do in real life.  Consider the number of people over time who've left
the WELL.

rab, have you tried Zero Knowledge's Freedom?  Does that work the way y9ou
have in mind?

wg
  

    
btw, I don't think this book is in stores yet (publisher delays), but if
youw ant to get a flavor of net.wars, the full text is online at
http://www.nyupress.nyu.edu/netwars.html.

I know they have plans to put at least some of this book online, too, but
not sure how soon it's due to go up.

wg
  

    
You talk about online communities going from metered usage to flat rates.
What impact did that have on the quality of conversation?
  

    
Probably that could best be answered by WELL old-timers who remember the
metered days here (now that we're flat-rate).

I don't know about the quality of conversation on AOL or CompuServe so much
-- I never could stand AOL's interface long enough to do much with its
message boards, even though I'm now nominally involved in running an area on
the system.  On CompuServe, the bigger effect was to get rid of many of the
niche forums (including our own Fleet Street for UK Media, now on the Web at
<http://www.fleetstreet.org.uk>, often attempting to recreate these niche
areas as sections in other forums.  Fleet didn't like it, and the new
section basically lost out to our Web version, although we as organizers
tried to do both.  I think what happened to us was pretty common -- there
was a culture clash, and eventually the section was closed down (apart from
anything else, some of the host forum's regulars really resented Fleet's
having its own section, particularly since we had two, one of which was
closed).  When I go back now and look at, say, the Showbiz forum (which has
a wonderful Ask Roger Ebert section, which RE frequents routinely) it
doesn't seem to me much different.  But the journalism forum has lost
several core groups that participated in the wider forum as well as running
their own closed sections (eg, the National Science Writers of America), and
a friend who frequents several other forums tells me they're nearly deserted
now.  I think it's the disappearance of much of its subscriber base, at
least as active participants, that's really killed the system.  And losing
the niche forums is part of that, as people deprived of their favorite
watering holes tended to leave the system altogether rather than find new
ones on it.

I found personally that size bred its own problems -- as long as our forum
was relatively small it tended to stay pretty noise-free.  There would be
usually one loony (as there still is) that everyone ganged up on, but that
would be manageable.  Every time the forum got publicity and we had a big
influx of newcomers we'd get tons of problems of idiots spewing abuse, etc.

But CompuServe lost so many of its long-term forum sysops and the support of
the companies who used it to offer technical support, and all of that that
it's hard to make a comparison now.

In any event, I always think it's the people who determine the quality of
conversation in the end.  The WELL is more interesting to me.  As, I
suppose, is CIX, since I still hang out there, too.

wg
  

    
I recall that you mentioned something about the future of commercial
forums being web interface to standard usenet (network news transfer
protocol, or nntp) technology. Is that just because it's a standard? Do
you think we'll see more instances of Slash (used at Slashdot and
Plastic)?
  

    
I don't think I said that.  I think I said that was what I liked bewst.

wg
  

    
Slash is interesting, but I sometimes have a little trouble keeping track
of the conversations. Slashdot is phenomenal, of course, and at times I've
thought it was the wave of the future, esp. given the shared moderation of
content. However I often feel a little overwhelmed when I go there.

Following the dotcom bust, do you think the more personal aspect of the
Internet will become more prominent? (I'm thinking interactive community +
blogs)...
  

    
Incidentally, I just had an interesting debate with some self-professed
anarchists in an IRC channel. They said the dictionary definition of
anarchy (as abscense of government, or disorder) is incorrect. Anarchy, to
them, is a form of organization... I think the term I would use for the
principle they were describing is self-organization.

It occurred to me to ask how you define anarchy?
  

    
I would love to think that interactive community will scoop the pool, but
the truth is, who knows?  I'm sure the money folks aren't done yet with
trying to figure out how to win the Net, and there is a huge threat to Net
freedoms being posed by the desires of the RIAA/MPAA and other folks like
the IOC to divvy the Net up into geoegraphically controllabel areas.
Slashdot *is* phenomenal, as you say, and it's driven by a very passionate
community of like-minded individuals whose needs and interests are poorly
served elsewhere.  I read portions of it, but really wish you could feed it
into the offline reader I use for everything else so I could skip threads,
skim topics, etc., more efficiently.  It suffers from many of the ordinary
limitations of the Web interface, which have been rehashed so many times in
vc here.

wg