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.

Drama

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 IV^th 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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