response 51 of 88:

Aug 5 19:51 UTC 1996

<vedagiri and not vedagirl.... I think this is grexyndrome :)>

response 53 of 88:

Aug 6 00:33 UTC 1996

Since we don't seem to have any other Indians in this discussion it's hard
to tell if there's anything to this theory, but I'm wondering if we've got
a bit of a cultural clash going on here.  We've got vedagiri, from India,
arguing for this proposal seemingly shocked that the rest of the people here
don't consider it reasonable, and we've got a bunch of Americans upset that
this sort of thing would be considered appropriate by anybody.  Since I've
been in a lot of situations over the years where there have been big
misunderstandings  between groups of people from different cultures who didn't
realize that there were assumptions they and most of the people they knew took
for granted but that the foreigners didn't even think of, I can't help
thinking that's what's going on here.

In American culture, the right to privacy and to be left alone are generally
considered to be really important.  People can, at least on the surface,
publish as much or as little about themselves as possible.  Most people choose
to at least be listed in the phone book, but a lot of people don't even do
that (although at the same time there is a lot about people that is a matter
of public record, so the public record isn't quite in step with the cultural
expectations).  Once people have chosen to publish somethign about themselves,
Americans generally consider the right to privacy to extend to the person
looking up the information.  If anybody were to suggest that people should
be notified when somebody looks them up in the phone book, or even when
somebdoy calls directory information asking for their phone number, I think
most Americans would probably be outraged that they couldn't look up
somebody's phone number in privacy.  Fingering somebody is the same sort of
thing as looking them up in the phone book.

Actually, this funny American view of privacy extends a bit even beyond that.
The the phone companies came out with a new feature a few years ago that lets
people know the phone numbers of people who are calling them, it got bogged
down for a very long time due to protests.  The phone companies were finally
allowed to go ahead with caller-id, but only after setting it up such that
there's a number people can dial to block their number from showing up on the
caller-id display.

So, what has been proposed here flies in the face of a lot of American
cultural expectations.  Whether these are reasonable hangups for people to
have is probably an open question, but should be discussed with a full
understanding of the cultural things going on behind the discussion. 
Likewise, I'm sure there are a lot of things about Indian culture that most
of the American users here (me included) really don't have a clue about.  I'm
hoping somebody (vedagiri?) can jump in here and explain how Indians generally
treat issues such as this, since it would probably help this discussion a lot.

response 55 of 88:

Aug 6 04:34 UTC 1996

If this modification were made, I would rarely finger anyone.  I sure don't
want to send an "I'm interested in you" message to anyone, at least not until
after I've read their .plans and seen enough to decide if I'm interested in
them.  Instead of using finger, I'd write a little script that looked like
this:

                more /u/$1/.plan

and look at their .plan files without using the finger program and without
sending any random message to random strangers.  Probably I'd gradually
improve that script until it does everything the old finger program does.

I don't think I'd be alone in this response to finger-logging.  I think a very
large fraction of the users who understood what was going on would do the same
thing.  So the effect of this change would be (1) you still don't get informed
when people finger you, (2) dozens of people implement slow and kludgy finger
programs of their own instead of using the fast, efficient one installed in
Grex.

response 57 of 88:

Aug 6 05:47 UTC 1996

Re 55 - Not only would I write a script that simulated the
finger program without logging anything, I'd go one step
further and make it available to anyone else who wanted it.

response 59 of 88:

Aug 6 08:43 UTC 1996

  I'm not a finger-logging advocate, but to play "devil's advocate"
on a couple points here....
 
  The finger program could be modified so that you couldn't just
do a "more /u/whoever/.plan" to see the .plan file.  The fingeree
could set up their account by making their .plan private, but
having a .finger file that tells finger to display it if the user
agrees to have their name logged.  If the finger program is suid
root, it can display the .plan even though it's not publicly
permitted.  And if logging were done only in user's directories
which specifically request logging, I don't think it would take
up a big chunk of disk space or processing power.

response 61 of 88:

Aug 6 14:01 UTC 1996

Thanks ...! Danke ...! Dhanyawaad ...! Nanri ...!
        
        ... for pointing out that this is an American exercise.
I will only be too glad to see such a frank statement in the
motd.
        I begin to see why there is so much resentment to
the concept. Yes ! American and Indian cultures are radically
different. There are historical reasons for that. Not many
Indians will be able to identify the name Amerigo Vespucci. But
the name Christopher Columbus will surely ring a bell. History
tells us, he wanted to do business with India of those times !
        India is a country with people who speak different languages
and follow different traditions. All along being inquisitive has
been the survival tip in India. Even at the times of Columbus, India
was not a single country. It was a concept, a group of smaller
states that did good commerce and were frequently at war. But when
it came to business, as the rule always is, they needed to know
more about the other party. There comes the inquisitiveness. Probably
what Americans have observed in Indian grexers is a manifestation
of this.
        But that's not all of it. Today's university educated Indians
(You meet only these people on the net) dont think in these lines.
With the economic liberalization that started in the 90's, they
are in too deep in material pursuits (just as everyone else in
the world) and care less for issues like *invasive curiosity*.
There are exceptions though (as always the case).
        The section of the Indian society that the world is
used to seeing is just a fraction of the massive Indian population.
So if there is a bad image that Americans on grex have formed about
Indian people, all I can say is that it comes nowhere close to
reality that prevails out here (in India) with the vast majority.
        Here are some of my observations on the American and Indian
grexers (including some on myself).

a) I have never 'talk'ed to an American. No American has 'talk'ed
to me either. If this is a *grex phenomenon*, it is really
disheartening. Otherwise I need to improve my public relations.
b) Most Indians don't get pissed off at receiving talk requests
from strangers.
c) A lot of American people have their .plan saying
"**** you if you fire a talk request". (Some Indians might
have it too. I don't remember having seen one.)

        I assumed that the ideals of grex are towards
        
                o       Achieving a community atmosphere thats congenial to
everyone
                o       Dissemination of information through the technology
it has
                o       Betterment of individual personality through all the
wonderful
                        programs it has online

        *This item was posted with that in mind*.
        
        I agree that it will cause a disk log problem if the new proposals
        are <ever> implemented.
        I accept each person has his/her right to privacy.
        I resign from this conf. with just one big question.....
        
                        WHAT WILL THE MOTD SAY ?

Before there are any complaints that I am wasting grex's disk space
by posting such lengthy responses.....  
        
<vedagiri vanishes into thin air>


<vedagiri returns to say that he is
posting a new item in agora related to discussions here>
        
        

response 63 of 88:

Aug 6 16:39 UTC 1996

I think Veda is implying that the EI's see this 'finger' business as a
communications-exchange shortcut..

I think Veda is also implying we are supposed to be feeling guilty and
should post all of our attitudes in the MOTD.

Frankly, I think that mentioning the USA/CONUS/Michigan/Ann Arbor "flavor"
and perhaps the espousment of the privacy and freedoms might be mentioned
in the MOTD so that other EI's get the hint - and some Americans as well.
(Can the Motd mention !<something> linkages to other messages? That would
be great for pointing out the way to read bylaws and such).

Other than the above, I can only guess that Veda is rather disappointed
that Grex is American or Privacy-Driven.. This is of little concern to me
since, quite frankly, I would seriously expect foreign boards to be
radically different in speech and manner - just look at the local boards
for "Alien Contact"..

response 65 of 88:

Aug 6 18:14 UTC 1996

I already said that - and others have as well..

Further, since no one is interested in writing the abomination, nor are
the staffers sanguine about the resource-drain, I'd suggest that (again)
you are merely suggesting another waste of time, energy and resources that
are already pretty limited.

What is this encryption kick of yours? Is it a new word or topic you've
glommed on to?

PGP any files you want and leave the rest of us the hell alone..

response 67 of 88:

Aug 7 01:23 UTC 1996

Off-site fingering could be treated differently, not allowing .plan access.
But there's no "security" for always knowing who fingered you anyway, 
since anyone could create a new account with which to finger people.
I agree with Marcus' overall assessment of the issue, though...it sounds
like more people are against this than for it, at least within this item.

response 69 of 88:

Aug 7 20:07 UTC 1996

Egads.  So we decide to disallow .plan access from off-site.  Ok, Mr.
X., who does not like our policy, decides to invite a workaround.  He
writes a clever AI program that runs on a cluster of workstations at
some university.  Even so ofte, from a random workstation, it telnet's
in, and logs in with a fictitious user it "owns".  All we see is a user
who seems to really like doing "finger"s.  Just to confuse matters, the
AI program also runs newuser even so often, abandons old accounts, and
maybe even runs "mail" if it sees mail, and sends back responses like "I
no speak englishia" or "Katte na netsu wo fukun ja nai."  Meanwhile,
it's also listening for finger requests.  When it gets one, it uses its
telnet connection to "finger" the person, and ships the information
back.  It also keeps an offline stash of recent .plan's, which it
periodically refreshes or invalidates, and checks first before issuing a
fresh finger request.

Basically, it's a technological game of cat & mouse.  The problem with
information is, it's very hard to impose conditions of use on it.  I
hope the above example serves as an adequate sample of what will almost
certainly become a trivial hack in the near future, if it isn't already.

response 71 of 88:

Aug 11 21:26 UTC 1996

Steve,  I for one didn't take your "Lets remember that we may be coming at
this from two different angles" reminder to be ethnocentric.  The opposite,
actually.  I consider myself primarily as citizen of the "global village"
(it's a newage [pronounced like sewage] concept -- but it works for me.)  One
of the prime responsibilities I have as a citizen of the global village is
to consider that my way is my way -- but someone else with a different culture
and history has another equally importtant and valid outlook that deserves
to be considered.  That's not ethnocentrism, that's universal tolerance.  True
tolerance and acceptance isn't believing "We're all alike under the skin"
--true tolerance is believing "We have different ways of approaching the
world, I may or may not like yours, but I accept you right to have a different
approach than I have."

I would hope that this system *isn't* about promoting the North American
culture to the exclusion of finding out what other people think and why --
and to the extent practical, making this a comfortable place for all the
world's people.  The day I see GREx as rejecting cultural values as "wrong"
because they originated elsewhere is the day I leave.

response 73 of 88:

Aug 12 05:14 UTC 1996

why? who's bbs is this? the people who created it or the people
who cureently use it? I just don't believe in biases based on
physical location