A MemoryForm from the Culture.

Indeed. Especially given that they never asked the address owners. They just scraped them all.

IIRC, it contained whatever finger returned. So, in my friend’s case his full name and email address.

Back in the early nineties, I had a book called something like The Internet White Pages (I forget). It contained 100k email addresses. My friend had his email listed in it, and he’d use it as a flex. Then, Spam was invented.

Many of the roads across the interior are probably gravel. At least they were when I last journeyed there. The ones along the West Australian coast are paved though. They form what’s called Highway 1 (or at least it used to be).