[ih] what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol

[John Levine]

>I've long been strongly advocating against a 'default deny' model, but 
>hadn't latched on to a sufficiently simple and clear way to explain it. 
>I therefore greatly appreciate the girl scout example.

It's not bad, but if I were sufficiently wedged, I'd say "don't be
silly, the girl scouts show up in their little green uniforms and
the guy at the gate will always let them through."

I've often pointed out that the main difference between e-mail and all
of the other messaging systems that have tried to replace it is that
you can use e-mail for first contact, and that's important.  About
half of my income is from people who wrote to me looking for someone
who does what I do.

I suppose Facebook now has a sufficiently large critical mass that
some people think that anyone who wants to contact them will have
a FB account.  Who knows, they might be right.

R's,
John