Of Clique Owners and the resolution of "squabbles".

The implementation has brought me to the question of the resolution of confusion that would inevitably arise when different versions of Clique Space(TM) Elements are flying around, and being communicated to devices; which version is the true version.

This is a significant issue to the smooth operation of the Clique Space. This issue is equally significant to all devices that are connected within a Clique Space domain, and between federated domains. The issue is critically significant to all devices that use Clique Space, and counts directly to Clique Space's efficacy.

So, considering this issue earlier, I envisaged that one Agent Device in every Clique Space was responsible for the consistency of all the Clique Space's Elements. Furthermore, I envisaged that one Participant of every Clique would be responsible for the consistent communication of all Participants' device status. As a Clique Space is itself, modelled in a Clique, any Agent Device which has the ultimate say in the state of a Clique Space and its constituent Elements is designated the Clique's Owner for that Clique Space's Clique just as the case is true for the Agent Device that is serving any other device associated with a Participant designated as that Clique's Owner.

Hence, in any medium, a Clique's Owner is a critical designation; fulfilling the necessary realisation of an ultimate chain of responsibility that ends with a single Agent Device as arbiter of squabbles that would ensue when, consequent to changes in device state, different versions of Elements exist simultaneously. Such squabbles need to be resolved quickly so that a Clique Space can be restored to a consistent internal reflection of the state of all devices.

So, the following observations can be made about Clique Owners.

1. The general case for all devices
   
   The Clique's Owner Agent Device (the Agent Device serving a device assigned as one or more Participants - one of which is designated as the Clique's Owner) is the Agent Device responsible for the consistent representation of all Participants in that Clique.
   
   
2. The specific case for a Clique that is modelling the underlying Agent Collaboration
   
   The Clique's Owner Agent Device (a particular Agent Device which is manifest by one or more Participants - one of which is designated as the Clique's Owner) is ultimately responsible for the existence and state of all Clique Space Elements in that Clique Space.

Hence, general Clique Owners are the lords of their Cliques, while a Clique Space's Clique Owner is the sovereign representative of a particular Clique Space domain - much like a King or President. The Clique Space Owner may hence be the prime target for a cyber attack in the Clique Space system, while a Clique Owner in any other medium might be the target of such an attack which would be limited only to the particular medium being modelled.

Ownership, influential power, concepts of sovereignty, and ways and means to overthrow and resist attempts to overthrow, become a central consideration in cyberspace as they may ever have been in any other physical sense.

I firmly believe that something like Clique Space can largely cast aside myths that the internet is a place where anonymity over any telecommunications medium can be maintained. It is at least theoretically possible that access to and use of a telecommunications infrastructure of any type can be totally supervised by a Clique Space system.

This might be a controversial claim, but it is one that remains to be disproved. I believe that whoever implements a truly real-time media agnostic audit and control system, they will find that they will have had to do this in accordance with my specification for Clique Space.

Clique Space(TM) Progress Report

I've redone the way the Agent Device forms an Agent Collaboration's Clique. This time, I've put in a bit more thought about how the formation of the Clique Space can rely more on the core components to the Clique Space concept. I.e., how I can form an Agent Collaboration's Clique Space as if it were just like any other medium.

It appears that I've had to forsake multiparty formation. This is primarily because restricting the process to the concept's core objects leads to a small conundrum in the formation process: in what administrative domain is a Clique Space formed? Well, I've answered that in part by the concept of the Agent Device's Clique Space. The Agent Device's Clique Space is the genesis of all other (Agent Collaborations') Clique Spaces.

So, I've taken the opportunity to describe a use case scenario of how an Agent Collaboration's Clique Space can be created. This is a fairly accurate description as a version of it was accompanied by console output of the three devices (one Agent Device - AgentOne - and two Client Devices - ClientOne and ClientTwo) to someone who has expressed an ongoing interest in the concept.

So, here is the scenario:

1. ClientOne connects, activates, and forms a serving Agent Device's Clique with AgentOne in the Clique Space known as the Agent Device's Clique Space.
   
   
2. ClientOne instructs the Agent Device to create a new "Agent Collaboration's" Clique Space by using the same Active Affiliations that formed the Agent Device's Clique Space. The new serving Agent Device Clique is to be named "Two" and the Agent Collaboration's Clique Space is to be named "First".
   
   AgentOne does not know of a Clique Space named "First", so by specifying a Clique Space name that the Agent Device doesn't know of, this Clique Space will be created on AgentOne, and a Clique will form that has two Participants - both taken from AgentOne's collaborator Active Affiliation that is created in this new Clique Space so the new Clique Space itself can be modeled. This "Agent Collaboration's" Clique will also have the name "First".
   
   Because ClientOne is connected to AgentOne in a serving Agent Device's Clique on the Agent Device's Clique Space, the Agent Device uses these two Active Affiliations to create Participants that appear in a serving Agent Device's Clique - "Two" as named in the form operation - inside the new Agent Collaboration's Clique Space.
   
   These elements demonstrate one use of foreign elements in Clique Spaces that are technically federated even though they exist merely as different collections of Clique Space Elements in the same Agent Device. Although untestable until I get the Agent Collaboration truly functioning (see the first paragraph following these steps), I believe the Clique Space federation is a natural extension to what already exists.
   
   
3. In this step, I cheat by taking advantage of the fact that I can see what Elements exist on the Agent Device through its console output. With this knowledge (a Clique Space user may not ordinarily have it) I take an identifier of one of the AgentCollaboratorParticipants (these are the Agent Device's collaborator Participants in the Clique that is modeling Clique Space "First" - mentioned in step 2) and tell ClientOne to get this identifier. Doing this creates the projection of the Clique Space's Clique - the Clique named "First" - in ClientOne.
   
   
4. ClientOne then shows a Participant list of Clique "First", an Element list of Clique Space "First", and Element structures of the Agent Device (just another Client Device structure to Clique Space) described by both Participants of Clique "First". Both Client Device structures show that both Participants are created from the same set of six elements that describe AgentOne. In other words, both structures list the same set of six Elements; they come from the same Client (Agent) Device.
   
   
5. ClientOne creates a new Account called "Who", an Account Profile called "Self", and an affiliation that associates the Account and Account Profile on "First" - the newly created Agent Collaboration's Clique Space.
   
   
6. ClientTwo connects to "First" using the Account "Who" (Who is on First), activates its Connection against the Affiliation registered in the previous step, and forms a serving Agent Device's Clique with the Agent Device in Clique Space "First" called "Three".
   
   At this point, we can observe the element structure of this newly formed Agent Device's Clique. Doing this demonstrates that "Who" - the Account underlying the Participant which is modeling ClientTwo - is a different user to "Primary" - the Account underlying the Participant which is modeling AgentOne. This is of course what most Cliques would be representing - a collaboration between two or more Participants typically representing two or more individuals typically using two or more devices over a particular medium.
   
   
7. To demonstrate that the Clique Space concept is robust, ClientOne is instructed to disband Clique "First". Because Clique "First" is the Clique that models the Clique Space in which it is manifest, this instruction obviously implies that Clique Space "First" is to be destroyed.
   
   Hence, in an orderly fashion, AgentOne disconnects ClientTwo, and ClientTwo cleans itself of Clique Space "First". Likewise, ClientOne is disconnected from "First" and cleans out its projection of the Clique Space, including both Cliques "Two" and "First".
   
   
8. Observing the Element structures again, we can see that ClientTwo is not connected to an Agent Device, and knows of no Cliques. ClientOne remains connected to AgentOne via its Agent Device's Clique Space, and knows of Clique named "One" which models ClientOne's connection to AgentOne through this Clique Space.
   
   
9. ClientOne disbands the serving Agent Device's Clique from "First" which removes this Clique Space from ClientOne, and finally deactivates, and disconnects itself from AgentOne. This leaves AgentOne's Clique Space container in the same state it was when it was started.
   

This scenario primarily represents the creation and destruction of an Agent Collaboration's Clique Space. However, Agent Devices do not currently collaborate, although I have implemented some of the infrastructure necessary to do this. My intent has always been to have Agent Devices collaborate to realise Clique Spaces; this being the prime reason I called them Agent Devices.

I think Clique Space does some unique things, and provides the potential to see some other rather unique things emerge. To me, these things appear analogous to how a central nervous system functions. It is still my belief (a believe I have held shortly after conceiving the system) that anything that would do anything similar to Clique Space would provide society with something similar to a CNS. Likewise, I believe that anything that realises a social (or possibly any synthetic) CNS is probably going to look very much like Clique Space.

Additionally, and I've seen this since putting the user case together, I've begun to question the purpose of federating an Agent Device's Clique Space when forming an Agent Collaboration's as described in the fourth paragraph of step 2. Although federations are an important component to the Clique Space concept, and although the concept of Clique Space federation should be as natural as it appears in step 2, I feel uncomfortable about federating an Agent Device's Clique Space as step 2 demonstrates. This did originally start as an appeal to some thought of algorithmic symmetry, but now, the concept of an Agent Device's Clique Space which can federate seems technically problematic.

There's still more work to be done on Clique Space formation...

Clique Space(TM) and Wikileaks

This unfolding tale of "citizen action" is great to watch. In some ways, blame might in time be seen to fall with me for raining on the parade. In considering this statement, it still might be nice to be recognised for inventing such a versatile tool.

The internet is supposed to allow anonymous communication, and the Clique Space system can deal with people who choose to remain anonymous by simply not connecting to one, while interacting with others who do use one or more Clique Spaces to keep track of their device activity and interactivity with other individuals so connected. However, what might be controversial is that any device can obtain a connection to a Clique Space.

Truly, any piece of hardware or software could be eligible of being made "Clique Space aware", so any "low-level network device" over which a network is manifest could potentially be connected to a Clique Space. Now, if devices such as these are connected to a Clique Space, they might mandate that devices that use them to provide low-level network services to also be connected. Such low-level network devices might also account for the number of bits that they transmit between themselves by any device which uses them, ultimately assigning these bits to the user from whom the bits originated and to whom the bits were destined. As a Clique Space is used to capture which device is sending which bits to which other device, an audit log could well be kept of which users are sending and which users are receiving every bit that is transmitted.

Because Clique Space might identify a user who is claiming control of a device to other users capable of knowing these things, the potential does arise to attribute the transmission and consumption of every bit of information to the actions of the individuals involved, and hence, holding them accountable for their actions.

I don't wish to make it my place to prescribe wisdom on the morality of such a scenario. I only wish to point out that such a scenario is possible with Clique Space as the tool. Society is there to make such intricate judgement calls. In considering some of the ways that anonymity can embolden individuals to do harm to other individuals, I'm not going to discount the utility in a scenario such as this; however, neither am I about to defend the actions of corporate or government organisations that attempt to restrain the rights and so forth of what it is to be an individual.

Clique Space(TM) Progress Report

Over the past week or so I have been working on the Agent Collaboration's Clique Space, and yesterday reached a break-through of sorts.

I can create a multi party Agent Collaboration Clique Space on the device designated as the Clique Space Owner. Although the underlying Agent Collaboration does not yet distribute the Clique Space and its contents to all member Agent Devices which are recorded as Participants in the Clique representing the Agent Collaboration, the Clique Owner (the Clique Space and the Agent Collaboration Owner) "invites" the prospective members into this Agent Collaboration by requesting each to divulge identifying characteristics about themselves corresponding to the Agent Device's device Participant identifiers supplied by the administrator Client Device directing the Agent Device to create the new Clique Space, and hence form the new Clique.

As I work further on this, I realise further just how flexible and elegant my concept is. For instance, in this case, I now realise how I can improve the way the Agent Devices are asked to form the Agent Collaboration's Clique Space. At the moment, I direct the administrator tool (the Client Device in this case) to Connect to each Agent Device, and from there, I issue a special "create cliquespace" command to one of the Agent Devices, supplying the administrator tool's delegate Connections obtained from each other prospective member. Even though I think this is a very good first try at the formation of an Agent Collaboration's Clique Space, think this is a little too "special" in that I am making excuses for the Clique Spaces' creation that go beyond my original specification; I am saying that Clique Spaces are more than just a collection of devices participating in some collaborative activity, ipso facto raising Clique Spaces above mere collaborations between devices.

I do not believe Clique Spaces are more than mere collaborations between devices. I am actually thinking how I might bring the Agent Collaboration's Clique Space down to the same plebby collaboration level possible between any set of devices. I believe this will involve a federation between the Agent Collaboration's and the Agent Devices' Clique Spaces because at this moment, the Connections that look most suitable to be activated in the Agent Collaboration's Clique Space are the ones that each member Agent Device creates to their own Agent Device's Clique Space.

This way of Agent Collaboration Clique Space membership is very intriguing, and demonstrates an immediate utility of federation I hadn't hitherto though of.

More to come... evidently.