The TURN (Nick Sylvain's "hole in the bag")

A thread of 2 messages, 4 November 1991 to 4 November 1991, in the order they were sent.

#3066 The TURN (Nick Sylvain's "hole in the bag")

Sean Owens · 4 November 1991

Richard,

	Excellent work on the Turn report.  Seeing it all in one place
(er, well, SIX places :-) certainly brought a semblance of order to the
whole process.  I think I've spotted what Nick Sylvain (aka the Aslan
CO) thinks is the weak point in Ralf's actions:

> -------------
> Aslan Pinnace
> -------------
> "Admiral, I respectfully must request that you give me the coordinates
> of the enemy fleet again.  My feeble sensors cannot distinguish it from
> the background of deep space."

	I suspect Nick means to use this to discover that the ships were
phantoms.  However, I question the accuracy of this... quoting from my copy
of the story sequence I sent to you:

> 	...and then he was there, in the buffer space at the fringe of
> the Aslan datasphere, watching the interplay between the two ships.  A
> stroke of luck, that.  The telemetry and encrypted communications
> between the two meant they had to be somewhat "open" to incoming
> signals, which in turn meant he had barely enough space for the
> foothold his heuristics package had secured.

	In other words, no, I did not specifically say "I'm faking out
the sensors of both ships", but that was because I was regarding them
as a whole, not as individual entities, acting under the implied
statement that my actions were directed at both ships.

Steven J. Owens
[email removed]
aka Ralf

#3077 Re: The TURN (Nick Sylvain's "hole in the bag")

Nicholas Sylvain · 4 November 1991 · reply to #3066

(Frankly, I am dubious about the value of this conversation on the TML, and
after this reply I think the TML can be spared further noise.)

>Excellent work on the Turn report.  Seeing it all in one place
>(er, well, SIX places :-) certainly brought a semblance of order to the
>whole process.

I agree, considering the total chaos in terms of time sync-ing that had been
created. Good work Richard! (applause)

>I think I've spotted what Nick Sylvain (aka the Aslan
>CO) thinks is the weak point in Ralf's actions:
>
>I suspect Nick means to use this to discover that the ships were
>phantoms.  However, I question the accuracy of this...
>
>(...)
>
>In other words, no, I did not specifically say "I'm faking out
>the sensors of both ships", but that was because I was regarding them
>as a whole, not as individual entities, acting under the implied
>statement that my actions were directed at both ships.

I have a few responses, let me cover them in no particular order.

It seems to me that we are having the same conversations over and over
again, generally speaking. A lot of this got rehashed during the PLAYER vs.
CHARACTER thing. My reaction is that it is your fault for not specifying
that both were being spoofed -- if you are operating under a critical
assumption, it is important for you to SAY so, lest someone seize upon the
omission. For example, if I assume that the Aslan on the surface are being
cautious and scanning constantly for others but don't say so, I cannot be
heard to complain about the phin surveillance. (Just off the top of my head.)

Further, I (could) complain myself, but I accept the turn. If I were to be
contentious, I would argue that Akhouw's reaction was based SOLELY on the
brief and cryptic mail message Richard sent me -- having seen that the spoof
actually contained much more substance, I am convinced (and have argued to
Richard) that he wouldn't have done so.

Further, I think that this is Richard's way of resolving the situation on
a quick basis -- I had originally sent him a message which went into detail
about my objections to the situation, which covered more than the point you
correctly note was one of my objections. The way Richard has done it, I
think, speeds up the process by which the result "It is a spoof" is found.

nps