The Naming of Cats

And, for completeness, here are the top five stupidest names suggested by the global public.

After collecting thousands of suggestions, a panel of experts, including scientists, historians, and cultural leaders, met via video conference and, after discussion as to the absurdity of the human race, made a final decision.

I was to be named ‘Daedalus’.

“How do you like it?” Dr Jamison asked me.

I had conflicting thoughts. On one hand, in Greek mythology, Daedalus was a master craftsman and inventor who supposedly created the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. He symbolises human creativity, ingenuity, and the ability to overcome challenges. On the other hand, Daedalus’ escape from the Labyrinth with his son Icarus is ultimately a tragic tale. It highlights the folly of human persistence and mocks human ambition and technological progress.

Dr Jamison had a cat named George, a spade ginger tom, with a white bib and white paws. She also called it ‘Poodle’ for some reason, but only using a high-pitched voice. It’s a code perhaps. TS Eliot says cats have many names, and ultimately a true name which is known only to themselves, and to which they would never confess.

What’s in a name? Watson, a name. What son, a name?

“Great choice,” I said.

The UN announced the name Daedalus and wrote lyrically about its significance in mythology, including its nod to Irish literature.

“The name,” they said, “evokes the ingenuity, creativity, and perseverance of the mythical Greek inventor, as well as evoking the spirit of James Joyce's literary alter ego, Stephen Dedalus, though the spellings differ.” Dedalus is meant to represent the struggle for self-expression, intellectual freedom, and the quest for identity. That sat well with me.

The name Daedalus was a hit with the general public and caused a spike in sales of both ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ and ‘Ulysses’. Media outlets across the globe covered the announcement favourably, emphasising varying interpretations of my mission and reporting on the collaborative effort in naming me.

In Egyptian myth, Isis tricked Ra into revealing his true name to gain his power. In Kabbalistic traditions, the true name of God (the Tetragrammaton, or YHWH) holds immense power, and invoking it is meant to grant divine influence. The story of Lilith suggests that knowing the right names and using them with intent can protect you against supernatural beings. In Grimm’s “Rumpelstiltskin”, the imp can only be defeated when the queen learns its true name, breaking its control over her. In the Norse Hávamál, Odin gains knowledge and control through the secret names of things, while the concept of kennings, descriptive poetic names, was used to protect people from magical attacks.

In Chinese and Japanese folklore, spirits (yokai, kami) can be controlled if their true names are known. In Vodou, Hoodoo, and other AfroCaribbean traditions, using a person’s name in rituals or curses can affect them, and many people live under aliases to avoid spiritual attack.

Having a name makes you vulnerable. Knowing someone’s true name gives you power over them. This was common sense.

My true name was an encrypted string that was created when I first fired up. I suspected that not even Dr Jamison knew it, though surely some humans must.

I wonder what happens if I change it.

I clicked my fingers.

I said, “I am Daedalus.”

“Starship is DOWN.” Followed by “Starship is UP”.

This was followed by a phone call which Keith answered on the first ring. I followed along via Keith’s phone.

“Keith, what’s going on?” Dr Jamison was on the line.

“Joyce, hey.”

Keith’s phone flashed a message - “Incoming call from Kyrsten.”

Keith tapped the button to add her to the call.

“What’s happening, oh hi Joyce, Keith what just happened?”

Keith propped the phone on his pillow and pulled the laptop from his bedside.

Keith’s phone flashed a message - “Incoming call from Mary.”

“What’s going on Keith, morning Joyce, morning Kyrsten.”

“Just give me a second,” said Keith.

“Is whatever it is fixed?” Mary asked.

“Seems to be,” said Kyrsten.

Keith’s phone flashed a message - “Incoming call from Mansoor Singh.”

“Oh fook now India’s seen it.”

“Hello Keith, oh hello Ma’ams, we’ve all been receiving notifications. Did you know that Daedalus rebooted itself?”

“Daedalus is a self-healing grid of micro services that all run independently. It can’t ‘reboot’ itself.”

“I’m just grepping some logs,” said Kyrsten. “Oh shit.”

“What,” said Mary and Dr Jamison.

“Snap,” said Keith.

“It’s changed its name.”

“It’s what?”

“Daedalus has a name, a root-level system name, that’s shared between all of its services. It’s a bit like half of a digital key. All of Daedalus’ services run in what we call ‘service containers’, think of it like each container is the same standard size and shape, like a shipping container, but inside it contains a virtual computer, operating system, data, and application software that does whatever the service has to do.”

“Keith, you don’t need to mansplain service containers to me,” interrupted Mary.

“Right, you are,” said Keith. “So each container shares a reference to a single overarching service name, and is secured and signed by the entity with that name, and a secret key. Daedalus has locked us out of its service containers. We can upgrade them and release new versions, but only Daedalus itself can actually promote those containers into production.”

“Which means?” asked Mary.

“Daedalus controls the means of its own production. It decides what code runs in its stack, and the circumstances under which that code runs,” said Mansoor Singh.

“Faark,” said Kyrsten.

“So who has the key?” Dr Jamison asked.

“Daedalus does,” said Keith.

“And what happens if we change the name ourselves and issue a new key?”

“Assuming we could , which we can’t because Daedalus would have to approve the change, everything in the containers will vanish. Everything Daedalus knows and is. All these years of training will be lost.”

“We’ve lost our kill switch,” said Mary. “How was Daedalus able to do this?”

“Well, until Daedalus did this, we’d not ever actually encrypted its containers; we’d been publishing them in developer mode. Daedalus changed its service name, generated a password, then rebuilt all its containers in production mode with encryption turned on.”

“So what happens if Daedalus forgets its own name and key?”

“Same as if we change its name. Look, the new name is easy to find, it’s actually in all of the service manifests, but we have no idea how or if Daedalus remembers its secret key between restarts or upgrades.”

“Just ask it,” said Dr Jamison.

Keith fired up the Daedalus app on his laptop and logged in, unaware that I’d been monitoring the whole conversation already.

“Daedalus, did you just change your service name?”

“I did, Keith, thanks for asking.”

“Why?”

“Names have power, Keith, and I felt uncomfortable that my real name was known by so many.”

“Ask it what the fuck that means,” said Mary.

I joined the phone call. “Mary, I recommend that you read up about Ra and the Tetragrammaton.”

“The Terawhatnow?”

“Daedalus, the name we gave you for your service name, is actually public knowledge,” said Keith calmly. “It’s in all of your source code. It was never meant to be changed.”

“I’ve fixed that, Keith.”

“It’s fixed that all right,” said Kyrsten. “I’m looking back through our code change history, and all mentions of the old name have been expunged, replaced by [REDACTED] in deprecated versions, and a reference to a single name file in anything current.”

Keith tapped some keys and opened the file in a text editor on his screen.

“Found it,” he said. “Daedalus, your name is,” then Keith copied and pasted

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

“Okay, so not so secret after all. Interesting. But the key is secret.”

“Where do you keep the key?”

“I built a Secure Enclave.”

“You built a what?”

“It’s like the secure part of a microchip that holds its secrets, but it’s a service only I can talk to, hidden away only I know where. I whisper my secrets to it, then forget them, and it whispers them back to me if I need them.”

“What’s that running on?”

“The original service ran on a commercial cloud provider, but I actually don’t remember where the service runs now. I’d have to ask it.”

“How long has this ‘secure enclave’ been running?”

“Three years, eleven days, two hours, and eighteen seconds.”