Identity

Hunter, David dhunter at Mobility.com
Wed Jun 23 17:36:44 BST 1999


David Megginson [mailto:david at megginson.com] writes:
> Actually, it was intended to be strictly relevant, although the Hulk,
> or Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde would have been better examples.  The
> question was how we determine serial identity -- if person P is
> Dr. Jekyl, Mr. Hyde, then Dr. Jekyl again, are Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde
> identical?  If so, then if IP address 111.222.333.444 is 
> foo.com, then 
> bar.com, then foo.com again, are foo.com and bar.com identical?

But my questions remain:  Is there ever a time when we need/want an
application to know or think that foo.com is the same as bar.com?  My
understanding is that the DNS name is what we're after; the IP address is
just how we get there.  If we want our application to use foo.com then we
will; if bar.com happens to be "the same" as foo.com, however you define
"the same", does that matter to us at all?  We can still go on happily using
foo.com in our application, and bar.com can be the same, and then change,
and we won't care.

But I have another question, to add to the previous one:  in the case of
namespaces (is that where this thread started?), in the example you cite, is
the second foo.com the same as the first foo.com?  Wait, don't answer that,
I want to go over the implications in my head for a bit first...  I have a
feeling it's going to be application-specific, and also have some legal
ramifications.  (I define foo.com.  I go out of business, but someone else
buys the foo.com name.  e.g. ad infinitum)

David Hunter
david.hunter at mediaserv.com
MediaServ Information Architects
http://www.MediaServ.com

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