Nurm Jabber/interworlds
18 May 2004

[14:19:58] <Phycon> I'm really captivated by the ideas the walrus article has put into my head
[14:20:14] <Phycon> I might write some of it up tonight
[14:21:06] <Phycon> out-there stuph but VERY realisable
[14:22:15] <Phycon> kinda coupling the "jabber transport" idea to virtual worlds combined with the relative currency values.
[14:22:55] <nurm> ??? wiierd
[14:23:08] <nurm> i agree you could simulate a mud/moo world in a jabber muc,
[14:23:17] <nurm> the users would be a list of objects in the current room,
[14:23:21] <Phycon> much bigger, much much bigger
[14:23:28] <nurm> when you (or others) change rooms the list changes too
[14:23:43] <Phycon> think almost otherland big
[14:23:48] <nurm> yea
[14:24:36] <Phycon> but I think Tad Williams missed one fundamental part
[14:24:41] <nurm> ?
[14:24:44] <Phycon> and so has everyone else up till now
[14:24:47] <nurm> bandwidth ....
[14:24:59] <Phycon> no, it's what I am busy pondering now
[14:25:14] <Phycon> this whole transport/interworlds thing
[14:25:22] <nurm> like jabber
[14:25:26] <Phycon> yeah
[14:25:29] <Phycon> like jabber
[14:25:36] <nurm> all nodes are home nodes
[14:25:43] <nurm> but they can connect everywhere else
[14:25:52] <Phycon> kinda
[14:26:21] <Phycon> very new idea - fragile - please don't bruise
[14:26:33] <nurm> nah kewl
[14:26:43] <nurm> don't some muds have an interconnect ability...
[14:26:57] <Phycon> yeah _some_
[14:27:00] <nurm> tiny fugue can pick up the text line and automatically connect to the address
[14:27:16] <Phycon> the whole point is there is already a way one person can connect to all muds
[14:27:22] <nurm> ?
[14:27:26] <Phycon> the internet
[14:27:28] <nurm> you mean from their pc
[14:27:31] <Phycon> yeah
[14:27:42] <nurm> compared to from their server
[14:28:03] <Phycon> what needs to happen now is you need an interface client that lets pplp interact with all their worlds, real and vitual
[14:28:42] <nurm> remembering that the reason I prefer the jabber idea is because i have taken the config OFF my pc,
[14:28:57] <nurm> and back into a server (and/or decentralised) envirnment
[14:29:00] <Phycon> exactly
[14:29:18] <Phycon> think the plaza in otherland
[14:29:23] <Phycon> but different
[14:29:40] <Phycon> each home node is a link off of that central plaza
[14:29:49] <Phycon> (not necc 3d or anything)
[14:29:55] <nurm> so if i trash my pc allll my settings are kept
[14:29:58] <nurm> i wish jabber had a client prefs namespace,
[14:29:59] <nurm> so the client could store it's own prefs on the jabber server,
[14:29:59] <nurm> in your xml file
[14:30:06] <nurm> yea
[14:30:15] <nurm> and nodes stay interconnected....
[14:30:24] <nurm> or do you connect to nodes from your home node always ?
[14:30:24] <Phycon> now, what happens is it is totally anonymous, and toally secure
[14:30:36] <Phycon> initally sounds weird, right
[14:30:43] <nurm> not really,
[14:30:53] <Phycon> but you log in, no identifying features
[14:31:09] <Phycon> you can buy a skin for the plaza you are on
[14:31:15] <Phycon> or not
[14:31:23] <nurm> hrm, ppl will want to design their own skins
[14:31:30] <Phycon> you meet someone, and you are unidentified to them
[14:31:33] <nurm> and they need to stay with the person while they move around nodes
[14:31:37] <nurm> surely ?
[14:31:48] <Phycon> they have no way of telling who you are
[14:31:51] <Phycon> at all
[14:31:56] <nurm> if you wish
[14:32:03] <nurm> brb,
[14:32:03] <Phycon> you can then tell them, hey! I play everquest
[14:32:50] <Phycon> you then auth with everquest which sends them your id token for everquest
[14:33:05] <Phycon> they still don't know about your AIM
[14:33:08] <Phycon> or ICQ
[14:33:10] <Phycon> or whatever
[14:33:40] <nurm> yea
[14:33:45] <Phycon> if you want to send them your X id, you ask your X server to do so
[14:34:39] <Phycon> so the server (or homenode) becomes a "passport" server
[14:34:45] <nurm> yea
[14:35:00] <nurm> which is basically more info in your vcard,
[14:35:11] <Phycon> well yes, and no
[14:35:18] <nurm> your vcard is public
[14:35:26] <Phycon> you have one "vcard" per service
[14:35:54] <Phycon> in this model nothing is implicitly public
[14:35:55] <nurm> mmmm.... don't see why
[14:36:05] <Phycon> well look at it this way
[14:36:09] <Phycon> in the real world
[14:36:14] <Phycon> I meet you in street
[14:36:15] <nurm> (don't see why you need more than 1 vcard)
[14:36:24] <Phycon> I say I went to UCT
[14:36:48] <nurm> and...
[14:36:51] <Phycon> I auth to UCT and decide what to tell you, even if it just my name
[14:37:08] <Phycon> you then get a token from UCT saying we know who "Paul Hycon" is
[14:37:25] <Phycon> and if I choose to I can tell you that I studied Eng and did Aikido
[14:38:06] <Phycon> you'd also get my world ID which is my student no
[14:39:07] <Phycon> now if UCT was a virtual world, the next time you were fully immersed in the UCT environment you might see PHYCON005 and know that it was me
[14:39:27] <nurm> but again you're creating multiple identities,
[14:39:33] <Phycon> exactly
[14:39:36] <nurm> i'm all for the single identity
[14:39:42] <Phycon> ppl want multiple identities
[14:39:49] <nurm> yea, true they do
[14:39:54] <Phycon> you can link them ad lib
[14:39:56] <nurm> it's something i've never understood [14:40:07] <Phycon> if I want to tell you that I am phycon and Phycon
[14:40:15] <nurm> mm
[14:40:29] <Phycon> nowadays I send you one message on IRC
[14:40:35] <Phycon> and one message on jabber
[14:40:47] <Phycon> and you use your brain to combine them
[14:41:01] <nurm> yes
[14:42:34] <Phycon> so I am on Plaza N (just another world) wandering about looking for a good hifi, and I meet someone else on plaza N.
[14:42:58] <Phycon> they then give me their plaza N token so I can recognise them
[14:43:12] <Phycon> and they are added to my roster
[14:43:32] <Phycon> 'hey'! say they, I also jabber, here, have my jabber token
[14:43:47] <Phycon> they ask their jabber homenode to send me auth
[14:44:37] <Phycon> I then have both in my jabber roster, linked, with histories of my conversations with them
[14:45:09] <Phycon> what you think so far?
[14:45:54] <nurm> i'm against mutliple protocols,
[14:46:22] <nurm> but i also agree that new ones have to come along and there has to be a changover phase
[14:46:27] <Phycon> the protocol isn't important
[14:46:30] <nurm> so i doubt we'll ever have 1 protocol only
[14:46:40] <Phycon> eg: I have two jabber accounts
[14:46:51] <nurm> i still don't like the multiple identities, but they are inevitable
[14:46:52] <Phycon> one on .org and one with you
[14:47:07] <Phycon> the one with you implies a lot about me
[14:47:32] <Phycon> if your server weren't open it would mean I had a trust relationship with the owner of darkskies
[14:47:46] <nurm> which is as it is & true
[14:47:52] <Phycon> see
[14:48:13] <Phycon> now if I'm talking ot someone and they say who are you, I can point to my free

jabber account
[14:48:21] <Phycon> they say, hey man that means nothing
[14:48:31] <Phycon> I point to my darksies account
[14:48:58] <Phycon> they say okay dude, if they trust you, I do
[14:49:43] <Phycon> now along with my darkskies jabber functionality, I have a darkskies login
[14:49:56] <Phycon> and I can run a 'w' on darkskies
[14:50:13] <Phycon> so if I'm on darkskies, I'm in another attached world
[14:52:19] <Phycon> making some degree of sense?
[14:53:33] <nurm> half-half
[14:54:13] <Phycon> this whole id token thing is automating the whole process of you jabbering me your

warious protocol ogins
[14:54:41] <nurm> but you'd still have to exchange an id token at some level ?
[14:54:43] <Phycon> then me sending you a message, getting auth and all that crap
[14:55:01] <nurm> or are you relying on the local token as some sort of information?
[14:55:17] <nurm> but then would each service know all your id tokens?
[14:55:24] <Phycon> no
[14:55:40] <Phycon> like in jabber
[14:55:42] <nurm> so only your home node would
[14:55:45] <Phycon> yeah
[14:55:56] <nurm> would all home nodes use the same protocol still ?
[14:55:58] <Phycon> your home node which is on an open, free protocol
[14:56:08] <nurm> (like jabber)
[14:56:11] <Phycon> they would have the choice, but ideally, yes
[14:56:22] <nurm> so if we drop this back to a conversation i can understand,
[14:56:28] <nurm> then we end up with - we take using msn,
[14:56:37] <nurm> and we discover we both have yahoo accounts,
[14:56:55] <nurm> you'd like jabber to be able to communicate our other accounts detail
[14:57:03] <Phycon> well no
[14:57:12] <Phycon> and yes
[14:57:12] <Phycon> [14:57:16] <Phycon> *EMFG*
[14:57:32] <nurm> sounds like everybody should be using the home protocol to me
[14:57:39] <Phycon> well they will
[14:57:50] <Phycon> but then if I want to know who you are
[14:57:52] <nurm> so we have Phycon@jabber.org and phycon@darkskies.za.net
[14:57:55] <Phycon> like on IRC
[14:58:06] <Phycon> a:hi
[14:58:09] <Phycon> b:hi
[14:58:15] <nurm> and i'm speaking to Phycon, and you want a nice automated way to send me your darkskies details ?
[14:58:19] <Phycon> a: um, like who are you
[14:58:24] <Phycon> b:
[14:58:30] <Phycon> b:bill gates
[14:58:38] <Phycon> a: sure right
[14:59:12] <Phycon> b who is actually bill gates clicks on send this nut my ID inside the microsoft virtual world
[15:00:10] <Phycon> the microsoft virtual world then contacts a over (some) protocol and tells a that b is bill gates and gives him the data that bill has asked it to
[15:01:07] <nurm> but still you've only got the authenticity of the virtual-world
[15:01:19] <Phycon> a's client invisibly auth's this by transferring data to//from the microsoft virtual world using the relevant transport for that type of virtual world
[15:01:27] <Phycon> exactly
[15:01:39] <Phycon> no I don't trust jabber.org for shit
[15:01:57] <nurm> well i don't trust msvw for shit either
[15:02:05] <nurm> but you might trust uct ?
[15:02:08] <Phycon> yeah
[15:02:31] <Phycon> or the government
[15:03:00] <Phycon> if A was a bank and B was me, I could get the government to contact A and tell them I am who I am
[15:03:08] <Phycon> so I can do my stuff
[15:03:18] <Phycon> like open an account
[15:03:35] <nurm> yea
[15:03:43] <nurm> so this is almost like kerberos
[15:03:50] <nurm> (now that i think about it)
[15:03:50] <Phycon> yeah, but fully open
[15:03:56] <Phycon> I know it is like kerberos
[15:04:02] <Phycon> I have spent a lot of time with it
[15:04:08] <Phycon> (kerberos)
[15:04:15] <nurm> yea
[15:04:22] <Phycon> but this system is far bigger
[15:04:29] <nurm> yea
[15:04:35] <Phycon> I like it
[15:04:43] <Phycon> and it goes further
[15:05:20] <Phycon> but not right now
[15:05:37] <nurm> he he
- posted by The Elusive Phycon @ 3:53 AM