Name: Ivan Cypherpunk E-Mail Address: cypherpunks@algebra.com sixdegrees Password: listhome Hi. You've been sponsored as "Significant Other" by Joe Cypherpunk as part of something called sixdegrees, one of the fastest growing phenomena on the Web, located at http://www.sixdegrees.com You may have already heard of the six degrees of separation concept - where everyone on the planet is connected to each other through fewer than 6 people. Well, we haven't quite connected the whole world yet, but there are over a million people participating, and over 900,000 of them are connected in one giant chain. And, just by confirming your relationship with Joe, you can instantly tap into this interconnected community of interesting people from all over the world. So what? Well, by getting connected, you can come to the Web site (which is completely FREE) and use a whole variety of valuable, fun and intriguing services that make use of this massive chain of connections. You can come see who's logged on the site right now and when you find someone interesting, we'll show you exactly how you're connected no matter how many degrees it takes, and then you can instant message them. You can also find out how you're connected to that head of personnel at the big firm where you've been trying to get your foot in the door. You can chat with people from around the globe and then see who you know in common. You can post burning questions on your own personalized bulletin board and get valuable answers from your "circle" (your friends and friends of friends). You can even get Movie recommendations from the people you're connected to. So, stop by the site at http://www.sixdegrees.com to learn more and give it a try. (You can log in with this password: listhome). ==================================================================== You can also get things started and get yourself connected right from this e-mail: ** To confirm your relationship with Joe, just send a reply that says only CONFIRM on the first line of the message body * To deny this particular relationship (but keep open the possibility of joining sixdegrees if the concept intrigues you) send a reply that says only DENY * And, if you'd like to make sure you don't hear from us again (even if somebody else you know lists you as a contact) then simply send a reply which says REMOVE in the SUBJECT LINE so we can process your request right away Thanks, and we look forward to seeing you at sixdegrees. ==================================================================== And, if you're really ambitious, you can get your network of connections growing right away. Just list the people you think might be interested in participating in sixdegrees and we'll contact them with an e-mail like this one which mentions your name and invites them to join. Just follow these directions: * Click your mail program's REPLY button. * On the FIRST line of the message body of the reply e-mail that opens, type only the word CONFIRM to let us know that you are in fact Joe's Significant Other. * On the next line of the message body list the first and last names and e-mail addresses of the people you'd like to invite (you can list as many as you'd like - but we recommend you list at least two), and the relationship numbers that correspond with how those people are related to you. MAKE SURE: * That the first name, last name, e-mail address and relationship number are separated by SEMI-COLONS. * You follow the format of these examples: John; Smith; jsmith@fakeplace.com; 12 Jane; Doe; superjane@fakeplace.com; 3 * And that you define each relationship by choosing a number from this list: 1=wife 2=husband 3=life partner 4=significant other 5=mother 6=father 7=sister 8=brother 9=daughter 10=son 11=other family member 12=friend 13=employer 14=employee 15=co-worker 16=client 17=service provider 18=business contact 19=fellow alum 20=acquaintance We look forward to hearing from you! =================================================================== PLEASE NOTE: All replies to this address are processed by a computer. If you have any problems, questions or requests send an e-mail to issues@sixdegrees.com and you'll receive a prompt and courteous response. And, if you'd like to review our privacy statement just visit http://www.sixdegrees.com/Public/About/Privacy.asp ==================================================================== sixdegrees is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. E.DB.ANB.1
wow, a new site called sixdegrees.com, in which everyone registers and reveals who their friends are. the privacy implications are really incredible. yet supposedly close to 1 million people joined, with 900,000 of them connected!! wow!! boy, it sure would be interesting to write software that analyzed this data. reminds me of another program someone wrote that looked up proper nouns in the ciabase database, I think, and showed the relationships. probably the kind of software that intelligence agencies use all the time. pretty sophisticated. amazing what the information revolution is bringing. in many ways, extraordinary things can be done merely by sloshing information around in creative ways. no one has really predicted some of the coolest stuff that is happening. wheeeeeeee!!! cyberspace is so much fun!!!
At 12:47 AM 9/11/98 -0700, Vladimir Z. Nuri wrote:
wow, a new site called sixdegrees.com, in which everyone registers and reveals who their friends are. the privacy implications are really incredible. yet supposedly close to 1 million people joined, with 900,000 of them connected!!
We've got a somewhat related Cypherpunks problem, which is PGP key signatures. The traditional software likes chains of less than 4 deep, yet the last time I checked the key servers, there were chains as deep as 12-14, and most people seemed to be at least 6 signatures away from Phil Zimmermann or Derek Atkins, who were the centers of the list at the time. (On the other hand, I suppose a lot of signatures between Joe Cypherpunk, Ivan Cypherpunk, T0T0M0nger, etc. could improve the averages :-) The PGP Web of Trust key management tools have the difficulty that they don't make it easy to decide which signatures on your key to export when giving someone a key to sign or distributing a key to a key server. You can manage this somewhat by creating different name/key pairs for different uses, with your Phil Zimmermann, Respected Entrepreneur key signed by venture capitalists and your Phil Zimmermann, Anti-Nuclear Activist signed by your fellow activists, and trying to make sure that people who attend meetings at the bank building where you have your office digitally sign in with their Respectable Software Developer or Free Speech Activist personnas, and not with their Buddhist Temple Assault Rifle Shooting Club personnas that seem to overlap with the Respected Entrepreneur web.... I'm not sure how solvable a problem this is - there are some parts that are easier to solve, like - storing secret keyrings entirely in encrypted form This could be done using a disk encryptor instead, or could be done using an additional passphrase to unlock the keyring before determining whether the specific key you want it on it; both are annoying. The threat is the attack currently being used against T0T0, whose secret keyring had a key for a personna that signed a supposedly incriminating message. In his case, it was probably just ranting or humor, but there are some PGP users who really _are_ trying to overthrow their governments. and friendlier GUI tools (e.g. the current PGPkeys lets you add and delete signatures from a key in the keyring, but doesn't let you decide which ones to export except by deleting them (or by exporting to a separate keyring and using the GUI on that keyring, which is awkward.) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart@pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
participants (3)
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Bill Stewart -
sixdegrees -
Vladimir Z. Nuri