# [SUG] Two changes to the server

Roger Crew (rfc@MICROSOFT.com)
Mon, 28 Jul 1997 17:32:58 -0700

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    > In fact (and now you'll see why I'm making such a fuss), I've been
    > experimenting lately with a system in which "person" and
    > "connection" are separate objects.  When you first establish a
    > connection to the server, the listener immediately creates a
    > connection object and logs you into it.
    > ...
    > None of this is an answer to your question; I just think it's
    > interesting to think about.

    As long as we're on the subject, I'll call attention to a prior posting
    of mine from a year or two ago that delved into this and was horribly
    long.  The capsule summary is that there are something on the order of 5
    distinct notions of identity that one might want to keep separate:

    (1) network connection
    (2) external user identity (RL name, RL email address, authentication)
    (3) internal user identity (page target, moomail recipient)
    (4) presence identity (object that mediates VR interactions)
    (5) technical identity (task/object/verb permissions)

    Admittedly, these days,

      (3) may not matter if you're not doing social experiments
      (4) may not matter if you're not doing VR-ish stuff,
      (5) is already pretty thoroughly divorced from
          everything else as of 1.8