Hierarchy, Force Monopoly, and Geodesic Societies - the internet is a tree.

[R. A. Hettinga]

At 3:55 AM -0700 4/11/04, Bill Stewart wrote:
>The biggest problems are all at layer 9.

Exactly.

And, I would claim, that because of book-entry settlement, the latency
thereof, the need to send someone to jail if they lie about a book entry,
and the unavailability of bearer transaction settlement, we need lawyers
and politicians to effect our network transactions, and the more bandwidth
involved, like those between tier 1 interconnections, the more politicians
and lawyers you need. At the top of the network lurk the most expensive
"switches", again.


As I've said before, geodesic networks need geodesic transactions.
Book-entry transactions, are, by definition (look at a chart of accounts in
a company's books...) tree-like.

Cash and bearer transactions are, inherently, geodesic. There are only
three parties to a bearer transaction, the underwriter, the buyer and the
seller.

A book entry transaction requires up to seven participants, in, guess what,
a hierarchy, with a single route through the network.

Cheers,
RAH

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'