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Comment by timthorn | Hacker News Reader

> The little black book of the internet

The article doesn't mention the Coloured Book protocols, but I'm pretty sure this phrasing isn't accidental: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coloured_Book_protocols

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While it could be, "little black book" commonly refers to an address book, and has since long before the internet. While it's hard to established when it became a commonly understood term for that, -as it was used in a more general sense before that, and often simply referred to small notebooks -, it has seen use to refer to address books since at least the 19th century[1]. (EDIT: It's also mentioned in Aretha Franklin's "Runnin' Out of Fools[2] from 1964)

Also, now I feel very old. "Little black book" was an ubiquitous term when I grew up, and so using the term would just be a synonym to "address book" that nobody would think twice about.

[1] E.g. The House and Home: A Practical Book - Volume 1 (1896): "And there is a little black book with red lettering seen on every writing-table and carriage-cushion wherein puzzled mater-familias finds her bearings annually among her cherished acquaintances, many of whom the little black book alone keeps in her recollection!"

[2] Guess you got back (Guess you got) To my name (To my name) In your little black book

> "Little black book" was an ubiquitous term when I grew up, and so using the term would just be a synonym to "address book" that nobody would think twice about.

Indeed, I'm aware of that meaning and its ubiquity. But amongst UK university computing staff at that time, knowledge of the Coloured Books was as embedded. Remember that JANET network addresses were the other way round, so rather than cam.ac.uk it used to be uk.ac.cam - the author of this piece will have been well aware of the double meaning.

It's that double meaning that gives the headline it's precise relevance and a dash of humour.

I don't see why the order makes any difference with respect to the use of the term, nor do I get from description what you think is humorous about it.

It still reads to me like just a synonym for "address book" to refer to a mapping.

The order of the addresses was linked to the Coloured Books and needed translation to interwork with SMTP, and eventually the users needed to change their addresses. The point being, that anyone involved in UK scientific computing will have been aware of the UK protocols - many will have been involved in their creation and maintenance.

The humour comes from a (non-risqué) double entendre.

I don't think we'll agree here. To me this just looks like a straightforward use of a common metaphor for an address lookup that isn't funny to me whether or not it was intended to link it to the coloured books.

Red book was particularly interesting (modulo lack of security) long before "the Grid"; it worked between various computer centres.

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