Re: [atlarge-discuss] Re: the preview icannatlarge.org site...

["J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin" <jefsey@club-internet.fr>]

On 16:01 12/12/02, Stephen Waters said:

> On Wed, 2002-12-11 at 15:06, J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin wrote:
> >
> > Europe and mostly France) masterized a long ago through Minitel
>
> Interesting about Minitel... I guess my concern about rolling out a
> Minitel-style system is it would end up being "American-tel", where
> America "tells" you--and me--what to do.
Actually I was the person to sell to the Minitel for America. I was at that 
time the head of the leading US public packet switch network and had a lot 
of meetings on the matter with France Telecom. We had Minitel ports in NY, 
Houston and SF in test. France Telecom and a French manufacturer had a 
joint ventue in Chicago. The American-tel was tried several times, 
including a test synchronous service by AT&T in Florida. The main problem 
is that Minitel is 40 characters wide and you do not put 2 screens on the 
same desk. Encryption has nothing to do with security. Security is about 
spoofing. Internet is a spoofing system.

America is fucking by phone and payng through ceditcards. Other style. The 
main application is telephone directory, then e-government, local life, 
cinema, etc. etc.. quick, cheap, millions of simple users. Minitel set is 
free. You cannot do that in a country where you have several operators. In 
the US you would have had golf club reservations, academy results, 
traveling etc.. But again the main thing is that Minitel sets were free and 
by millions.

That lead to the real thing: to network the French people. Machines, 
applications, etc.. are nothing, what really count is noosphere, the 
people, the habitus.

> For example, I doubt Minitel Rose would've been allowed here in the 
> States, with central government
> control (c.f., .SEX gTLD).
>
> I haven't found anything that explains how Minitel is secure, though. I 
> can't imagine those little TTYs doing real-time encryption back in the 80s!
The Minitel is secure because it is a 7 bits application supported by X.25. 
The real problem of the Internet is that it is not a network but an access 
system. There is not such a thing as an Internet company or consortium or 
at least set of standard, with an internet architecture, an internet 
intelligence, an internet protocol, internet extedned services and most of 
all an internet technical manager. There is no built-in security in the 
Internet because there is no Internet secure architecture.

> Is Minitel "space" expensive? I mean like the Minitel equivalent of web 
> hosting. One thing I like about the Internet is I can throw up a server on 
> my dial-up connection and pretty much anyone anywhere can get to it.
The secret of Minitel is that anyone can host a system for you, software to 
build and load pages are ofthen free, hosting cheap and connecting a 
service makes you gain money. You may not pay and make very stable money.

Try to beat that :-)

There are several "TLDs". equivalent to ORG is free, COM is cheap, NET os 
more expensive, etc... This permits very sophisticated expensive services 
to be in direct access. You just modulate the speed of display and short 
cut to make casual users to pay more than regular users or even direct 
computer access. Neat, easy, far more efficient than the web: I can copy 
the entire French Telephone directory with indications, addresses, fax, 
etc;.. for FREE in probably 3 weeks time. Since the update is around 3 
months. It just ask for a single PC working all the day long on the phone. 
Rustic, but secure, efficient and free.

When I tell you that the Internet model is prototyping.
jfc

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: atlarge-discuss-unsubscribe@lists.fitug.de
For additional commands, e-mail: atlarge-discuss-help@lists.fitug.de