WS Assignment 2

What is the point of hidden links? They have shown up in several of our assigned materials. Douglas Engelbart was excited to show them off in “The Demo”, they played a major role in creating the experience of Patchwork Girl, and they also appeared in The Matrix as the telephones and other secret ways to move through or escape from the matrix. What is the purpose of a link only the user knows about? Is it a way to make hypertext personal? Or is it to make cyberspace less accessible to just anyone, hiding passages so only the cyber cowboys know where to go? Perhaps, as the Matrix suggests, hidden links are made to hide users from the long arm of the law. Why were hidden links first created, and what have they evolved into?