In other words, the change we need to make affects not
only the initial application, but also the operating system and other
applications that depend on it. They need all to be revised.
So when the
competence of the machine is changed, its performance can be dramatically
altered, to the point of not being able to function. At the least, there is a
moment where performance is hampered until applications are changed to adapt to
the new competence. That moment allowing to go for a level of competence to
another one, and ultimately to a higher level of performance, results in a
temporary deprivation of sensori-motor capabilities while the full circuitry of
the system is modified. As it is strikingly similar to out-of-body experiences
described in ultimate stages of ecstasy, we have considered that it is in fact
a good model of ecstasy. When human beings, who rely on unconscious mechanisms
to affect their sensori-motor system, actually evolve their competence by
altering those mechanisms, they go through stages that map features inherent to
the functioning of complex computer systems.
With that said,
let the show begin.
In The Attic Theater: Description of the Stage
and Theatre of the Athenians, and of the Dramatic Performances at Athens,
Arthur Elam Haigh quotes Plato to mention that in the IVth Century
B.C., “It was enacted that a public copy should be made of the works of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and deposited in the state archives; and
that the actors, in their performances, should not be allowed to deviate from
the text of the copy.” The concept of a scripted play couldn’t be expressed
more clearly. Greek productions of the antiquity featured both tragedies and
comedies, and the mechanics of their presentations featured a number of
techniques still found in the modern theatre. Within the scripted play, a fixed
set of characters present a fixed plot. We refer to them as fixed because they’re
the same for every instance of a presentation of the play. It is the function
of the director of the play to map the script to the actors chosen to play the
various roles and to define the details of the setting of the play. The
response of the audience to a particular presentation is due not only to the
content and the form of the play itself as they have been defined by the writer
and interpreted by the director, but also of the degree to which the actors are
able to exploit a shared capability for metaphoric experience. A well acted
play often elicits a similar reaction from us each time we see a performance. A
superbly acted play might well evoke nuances in our interpretation that we had
not previously appreciated.
In the theater
of secure cores, the typical plot of a performance is that of authentication
and authorization within the very limited context of a specific application. In
fact, the script is defined by the application and cues for the lines spoken by
the token are provided by the application to the token as needed. For example,
one application might entail the use of a chip based credit card to pay for a
meal at a restaurant. There are essentially five roles in this particular play:
the credit card, the cardholder, the point-of-sale terminal of the restaurant,
the waiter and the bank managing the account to which a charge is to be made on
behalf of the cardholder. When it comes time to pay for the meal, the scripted
action is rather straightforward. Trust for this particular script comes
primarily from causality; knowing the lineage of the secure core based credit
card and the other equipment involved. However, trust in this script also
derives from the process through which the credit card and the terminal are
provisioned with keys through which identities are authenticated. It is
imperative to the trustworthy function of the system represented by this script
that the various keys be truly secret within the constraints of their use.
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