Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet

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Chapter 1:  SETTING UP AND JACKING IN

1.1  READY, SET ...

     The world is just a phone call away.  With a computer and modem, 

you'll be able to connect to the Internet, the world's largest computer 

network (and if you're lucky, you won't even need the modem; many 

colleges and companies now give their students or employees direct access 

to the Internet).

     The phone line can be your existing voice line -- just remember 

that if you have any extensions, you (and everybody else in the house 

or office) won't be able to use them for voice calls while connected 

to the Net. 

     A modem is a sort of translator between computers and the phone 

system. It's needed because computers and the phone system process and 

transmit data, or information, in two different, and incompatible 

ways.  Computers "talk" digitally; that is, they store and process 

information as a series of discrete numbers.  The phone network relies 

on analog signals, which on an oscilloscope would look like a series 

of waves.  When your computer is ready to transmit data to another 

computer over a phone line, your modem converts the computer numbers 

into these waves (which sound like a lot of screeching) -- it 

"modulates" them.  In turn, when information waves come into your 

modem, it converts them into numbers your computer can process, by 

"demodulating" them. 

     Increasingly, computers come with modems already installed. If 

yours didn't, you'll have to decide what speed modem to get.  Modem 

speeds are judged in "bps rate" or bits per second.  One bps means 

the modem can transfer roughly one bit per second; the greater the 

bps rate, the more quickly a modem can send and receive information.  

A letter or character is made up of eight bits.  

     You can now buy a 2400-bps modem for well under $60 -- and most now 

come with the ability to handle fax messages as well.  At prices that now 

start around $150, you can buy a modem that can transfer data at 14,400 

bps (and often even faster, when using special compression techniques).  

If you think you might be using the Net to transfer large numbers of 

files, a faster modem is always worth the price. It will dramatically 

reduce the amount of time your modem or computer is tied up transferring 

files and, if you are paying for Net access by the hour, save you quite a 

bit in online charges. 

     Like the computer to which it attaches, a modem is useless 

without software to tell it how to work.  Most modems today come with 

easy-to-install software.  Try the program out. If you find it 

difficult to use or understand, consider a trip to the local software 

store to find a better program.  You can spend several hundred dollars 

on a communications program, but unless you have very specialized 

needs, this will be a waste of money, as there are a host of excellent 

programs available for around $100 or less.  Among the basic features you 

want to look for are a choice of different "protocols" (more on them in a 

bit) for transferring files to and from the Net and the ability to write 

"script" or "command" files that let you automate such steps as logging 

into a host system. 

     When you buy a modem and the software, ask the dealer how to 

install and use them.  Try out the software if you can.  If the dealer 

can't help you, find another dealer.  You'll not only save yourself a 

lot of frustration, you'll also have practiced the a prime Internet 

directive:  "Ask. People Know."

     To fully take advantage of the Net, you must spend a few minutes 

going over the manuals or documentation that comes with your software.  

There are a few things you should pay special attention to: uploading 

and downloading; screen capturing (sometimes called "screen dumping"); 

logging; how to change protocols; and terminal emulation.  It is also 

essential to know how to convert a file created with your word 

processing program into "ASCII" or "text" format, which will let you 

share your thoughts with others across the Net. 

    Uploading is the process of sending a file from your computer to a 

system on the Net. Downloading is retrieving a file from somewhere on 

the Net to your computer. In general, things in cyberspace go "up" to 

the Net and come "down" to you. 

    Chances are your software will come with a choice of several 

"protocols" to use for these transfers.  These protocols are systems 

designed to ensure that line noise or static does not cause errors that 

could ruin whatever information you are trying to transfer.  

Essentially, when using a protocol, you are transferring a file in a 

series of pieces.  After each piece is sent or received, your computer 

and the Net system compare it. If the two pieces don't match exactly, 

they transfer it again, until they agree that the information they both 

have is identical.  If, after several tries, the information just 

doesn't make it across, you'll either get an error message or your 

screen will freeze.  In that case, try it again.  If, after five tries, 

you are still stymied, something is wrong with a) the file; b) the 

telephone line; c) the system you're connected to; or d) your own 

computer.

    From time to time, you will likely see messages on the Net that 

you want to save for later viewing -- a recipe, a particularly witty 

remark, something you want to write your Congressman about, whatever. 

This is where screen capturing and logging come in. 

    When you tell your communications software to capture a screen, it 

opens a file in your computer (usually in the same directory or folder 

used by the software) and "dumps" an image of whatever happens to be 

on your screen at the time. 

    Logging works a bit differently.  When you issue a logging 

command, you tell the software to open a file (again, usually in the 

same directory or folder as used by the software) and then give it a 

name. Then, until you turn off the logging command, everything that 

scrolls on your screen is copied into that file, sort of like 

recording on video tape.  This is useful for capturing long documents 

that scroll for several pages -- using screen capture, you would have 

to repeat the same command for each new screen. 

    Terminal emulation is a way for your computer to mimic, or 

emulate, the way other computers put information on the screen and 

accept commands from a keyboard.  In general, most systems on the Net 

use a system called VT100.  Fortunately, almost all communications 

programs now on the market support this system as well -- make sure 

yours does.

    You'll also have to know about protocols.  There are several 

different ways for computers to transmit characters.  Fortunately, 

there are only two protocols that you're likely to run across: 8-1-N 

(which stands for "8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity" -- yikes!) and 7-1-E 

(7 bits, 1 stop bit, even parity).  

     In general, Unix-based systems use 7-1-E, while MS-DOS-based 

systems use 8-1-N.  What if you don't know what kind of system you're 

connecting to?  Try one of the settings.  If you get what looks like 

gobbledygook when you connect, you may need the other setting.  

If so, you can either change the setting while connected, and then hit 

enter, or hang up and try again with the other setting.  It's also 

possible your modem and the modem at the other end can't agree on the 

right bps rate.  If changing the protocols doesn't work, try using 

another bps rate (but no faster than the one listed for your modem). 

Again, remember, you can't break anything!  If something looks wrong, 

it probably is wrong.  Change your settings and try again.  Nothing is 

learned without trial, error and effort. 

     There are the basics.  Now on to the Net!

1.2 GO!

 

     Once, only people who studied or worked at an institution 

directly tied to the Net could connect to the world.  Today, though, 

an ever-growing number of "public-access" systems provide access for

everybody.  These systems can now be found in several states, and there 

are a couple of sites that can provide access across the country. 

     There are two basic kinds of these host systems.  The more common 

one is known as a UUCP site (UUCP being a common way to transfer 

information among computers using the Unix operating system) and 

offers access to international electronic mail and conferences.  

     However, recent years have seen the growth of more powerful sites 

that let you tap into the full power of the Net.  These Internet sites 

not only give you access to electronic mail and conferences but to 

such services as databases, libraries and huge file and program 

collections around the world.  They are also fast -- as soon as you 

finish writing a message, it gets zapped out to its destination.

     Some sites are run by for-profit companies; others by non-profit 

organizations.  Some of these public-access, or host, systems, are 

free of charge.  Others charge a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited 

access.  And a few charge by the hour. Systems that charge for access 

will usually let you sign up online with a credit card.  Some also let 

you set up a billing system. 

     But cost should be only one consideration in choosing a host 

system, especially if you live in an area with more than one provider.  

Most systems let you look around before you sign up.  What is the range 

of their services?  How easy is it to use? What kind of support or help 

can you get from the system administrators? 

     The last two questions are particularly important because many     

systems provide no user interface at all; when you connect, you are 

dumped right into the Unix operating system.  If you're already 

familiar with Unix, or you want to learn how to use it, these systems 

offer phenomenal power -- in addition to Net access, most also let you 

tap into the power of Unix to do everything from compiling your own 

programs to playing online games. 

     But if you don't want to have to learn Unix, there are other 

public-access systems that work through menus (just like the ones in 

restaurants; you are shown a list of choices and then you make your 

selection of what you want), or which provide a "user interface" that 

is easier to figure out than the ever cryptic Unix. 

     If you don't want or need access to the full range of Internet 

services, a UUCP site makes good financial sense.  They tend to charge 

less than commercial Internet providers, although their messages may 

not go out as quickly.

     Some systems also have their own unique local services, which can 

range from extensive conferences to large file libraries. 

1.3  PUBLIC-ACCESS INTERNET PROVIDERS

 

     When you have your communications program dial one of these host 

systems, one of two things will happen when you connect.  You'll 

either see a lot of gibberish on your screen, or you'll be asked to 

log in.  If you see gibberish, chances are you have to change your 

software's parameters (to 7-1-E or 8-1-N as the case may be).  Hang 

up, make the change and then dial in again.

     When you've connected, chances are you'll see something like 

this:

 

               Welcome to THE WORLD

               Public Access UNIX for the '90s

               Login as 'new' if you do not have an account

   

               login: 

 

     That last line is a prompt asking you to do something.  Since 

this is your first call, type

 

                new

 

and hit enter.  Often, when you're asked to type something by a host 

system, you'll be told what to type in quotation marks (for example,

the 'new' above).  Don't include the quotation marks.  Repeat: Don't 

include the quotation marks.

     What you see next depends on the system, but will generally 

consist of information about its costs and services (you might want to 

turn on your communication software's logging function, to save this 

information).  You'll likely be asked if you want to establish an 

account now or just look around the system.  

     You'll also likely be asked for your "user name."  This is not 

your full name, but a one-word name you want to use while online.  It 

can be any combination of letters or numbers, all in lower case.  Many

people use their first initial and last name (for example, 

"jdoe"); their first name and the first letter of their last name 

(for example, "johnd"); or their initials ("jxd").  Others use a 

nickname.  You might want to think about this for a second, because this 

user name will become part of your electronic-mail address (see chapter 

2 for more on that).  The one exception are the various Free-Net 

systems, all of which assign you a user name consisting of an arbitrary 

sequence of letters and numbers. 

     You are now on the Net.  Look around the system.  See if there 

are any help files for you to read.  If it's a menu-based host system, chose 

different options just to see what happens.  Remember: you can't break 

anything.  The more you play, the more comfortable you'll be.

     What follows is a list of public-access Internet sites, which are 

computer systems that offer access to the Net.  All offer international 

e-mail and Usenet (international conferences).  In addition, they offer: 

   

     FTP: File-transfer protocol -- access to hundreds of file 

     libraries (everything from computer software to historical 

     documents to song lyrics).  You'll be able to transfer 

     these files from the Net to your own computer.

 

     Telnet: Access to databases, computerized library card 

     catalogs, weather reports and other information services, 

     as well as live, online games that let you compete with 

     players from around the world. 

 

        Additional services that may be offered include:

 

     WAIS:  Wide-area Information Server; a program that 

     can search dozens of databases in one search. 

 

     Gopher:  A program that gives you easy access to dozens 

     of other online databases and services by making 

     selections on a menu. You'll also be able to use these

     to copy text files and some programs to your mailbox.

 

     IRC:  Internet Relay Chat, a CB simulator that lets 

     you have live keyboard chats with people around the 

     world. 

 

     However, even on systems that do not provide these services 

directly, you will be able to use a number of them through telnet (see 

Chapter 6 for more information on telnet).   In the list that follows, 

systems that let you access services through menus (similar to those in 

restaurants -- you pick what you want from a list) are noted; otherwise 

assume that when you connect, you'll be dumped right into Unix (a.k.a. 

MS-DOS with a college degree).  Any unique features of a given system are 

noted. Several of these sites are available nationwide through national 

data networks such as the CompuServe Packet Network and SprintNet. 

     Please note that all listed charges are subject to change.  Many 

sites require new or prospective users to log on a particular way on 

their first call; this list provides the name you'll use in such cases.

ALABAMA

     Huntsville.  Nuance.  Call voice number below for modem number. 

setup; $25 a month. 

     Voice: (205) 533-4296.

      

ALASKA

     Anchorage.  University of Alaska Southeast, Tundra Services, (907) 

789-1314; has local dial-in service in several other cities. $20 a month. 

     Voice: (907) 465-6453. 

ALBERTA

 

     Edmonton.  PUCNet Computer Connections, (403) 484-5640. Log 

on as: guest. $0 setup fee; $25 for 20 hours a month plus $6.25 an hour 

for access to ftp and telnet.

     Voice: (403) 448-1901.

 

ARIZONA

     Tucson.  Data Basics, (602) 721-5887. $25 a month or $180 a year.  

     Voice: (602) 721-1988. 

     Phoenix/Tucson.  Internet Direct, (602) 274-9600 (Phoenix); (602) 

321-9600 (Tucson).  QWK offline reader. Log on as: guest. $20 a month. 

     Voice: (602) 274-0100 (Phoenix); (602) 324-0100 (Tucson). 

BRITISH COLUMBIA

     Victoria  Victoria Free-Net, (604) 595-2300.  Menus.  Access to all 

features requires completion of a written form.  Users can "link" to 

other Free-Net systems in Canada and the U.S. Free. Log on as: guest

     Voice: (604) 389-6026.

CALIFORNIA            

 

     Berkeley.  Holonet. Menus. For free trial, modem number is (510) 

704-1058. For information or local numbers, call number below. $60 a year 

for local access, $2 an hour during offpeak hours. 

     Voice:  (510) 704-0160. 

 

     Cupertino.  Portal.  Both Unix and menus.  (408) 725-0561 (2400 

bps); (408) 973-8091 (9600/14,400 bps). $19.95 setup fee, $19.95 a month.

     Voice: (408) 973-9111.

                                                                

     Irvine. Dial N' CERF.  See under San Diego.

 

     Los Angeles/Orange County.  Kaiwan Public Access Internet, (714) 

539-5726; (310) 527-7358.  $15 signup; $11 a month (credit card).

     Voice: (714) 638-2139.

     Los Angeles. Dial N' CERF.  See under San Diego.

 

     Oakland. Dial N' CERF.  See under San Diego.

     Pasadena. Dial N' CERF  See under San Diego.

     Palo Alto.  Institute for Global Communications., (415) 322-0284.  

Unix.  Local conferences on environmental/peace issues. Log on as: new. 

$10 a month and $3 an hour after first hour. 

     Voice: (415) 442-0220.

     San Diego. Dial N' CERF USA, run by the California Education and 

Research Federation. Provides local dial-up numbers in San Diego, Los 

Angeles, Oakland, Pasadena  and Irvine.  For more information, call voice 

(800) 876-CERF or (619) 534-5087.  $50 setup fee; $20 a month plus $5 an 

hour ($3 on weekends).

     Voice: (800) 876-2373.

     San Diego.  CTS Network Services, (619) 637-3660. Log on as: 

help. $15 set-up fee, monthly fee of $10 to $23 depending on services 

used. 

     Voice: (619) 637-3637.

     

     San Diego.  Cyberspace Station, (619) 634-1376.  Unix.  Log on as: 

guest.

     Charges: $10 sign-up fee; $15 a month or $60 for six months.

     San Francisco.  Pathways, call voice number below for number. 

Menus. $25 setup fee; $8 a month and $3 an hour.       

     Voice: (415) 346-4188.

     San Jose. Netcom, (510) 865-9004 or 426-6610; (408) 241-9760; 

(415) 424-0131, up to 9600 bps. Unix.  Maintains archives of Usenet 

postings.  Log on as: guest. $15 startup fee and then $17.50 a month for 

unlimited use if you agree to automatic billing of your credit-card 

account (otherwise $19.50 a month for a monthly invoice). 

     Voice: (408) 554-UNIX.                           

 

     San Jose.  A2i, (408) 293-9010. Log on as: guest. $20 a month; $45 

for three months; $72 for six months. 

 

     Sausalito.  The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), (415) 332-

6106. Uses moderately difficult Picospan software, which is sort of a 

cross between Unix and a menu system.  New users get a written manual.  

More than 200 WELL-only conferences.  Log on as: newuser. $15 a month 

plus $2 an hour.  Access through the nationwide CompuServe Packet Network 

available for another $4.50 an hour. 

     Voice: (415) 332-4335.  Recorded message about the system's 

current status: (800) 326-8354 (continental U.S. only).

 

COLORADO

 

     Colorado Springs/Denver. CNS, (719) 570-1700 (Colorado Springs); 

(303) 758-2656 (Denver).  Local calendar listings and ski and stock 

reports. Users can chose between menus or Unix. Log on as: new.  $35 

setup fee; $2.75 an hour (minimum fee of $10 a month). 

     Voice: (719) 592-1240

     Colorado Springs.  Old Colorado City Communications, (719) 632-

4111.  Log on as: newuser. $25 a month.

     Voice: (719) 632-4848.

     Denver.  Denver Free-Net, (303) 270-4865.  Menus.  Access to all 

services requires completion of a written form.  Users can "link" to 

other Free-Net systems across the country.  Free.  Log on as: guest. 

     Golden.  Colorado SuperNet.  Unix.  E-mail to fax service. 

Available only to Colorado residents. Local dial-in numbers available in 

several Colorado cities. For dial-in numbers, call the number below. $3 

an hour ($1 an hour between midnight and 6 a.m.); one-time $20 sign-up 

fee. 

     Voice: (303) 273-3471.

FLORIDA

     Talahassee.  Talahassee Free-Net, (904) 488-5056. Menus. Full access 

requires completion of a registration form.  Can "link" to other Free-Net 

systems around the country.

     Voice: (904) 488-5056.

ILLINOIS

     Champaign.  Prarienet Free-Net, (217) 255-9000.  Menus.  Log on as: 

visitor. Free for Illinois residents; $25 a year for others.

     Voice: (217) 244-1962.

     Chicago. MCSNet, (312) 248-0900.  $25/month or $65 for three months 

of unlimited access; $30 for three months of access at 15 hours a month. 

     Voice: (312) 248-UNIX.

 

     Peoria.  Peoria Free-Net, (309) 674-1100.  Similar to Cleveland 

Free-Net (see Ohio, below).  Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland 

system for access to Usenet and other services.  There are also Peoria 

Free-Net public-access terminals in numerous area libraries, 

other government buildings and senior-citizen centers.  Contact the 

number below for specific locations.  Full access (including access to 

e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Free. 

     Voice: (309) 677-2544.

 

MARYLAND

 

     Baltimore.  Express Access, (410) 766-1855; (301) 220-0462; (714) 

377-9784.  Log on as: new. $20 setup fee; $25 a month or $250 a year

     Voice: (800 969-9090.

     Baltimore.  Clarknet, (410) 730-9786; (410) 995-0271; (301) 596-

1626; (301) 854-0446.  Log on as: guest. $23 a month, $126 for six months 

or $228 a year. 

     Voice: (410) 730-9765.

 

MASSACHUSETTS

 

     Brookline.  The World, (617) 739-9753. Huge collection of MS-DOS 

files, "Online Book Initiative" collection of electronic books, poetry 

and other text files. Log on as: new. $5 a month plus $2 an hour or $20 

for 20 hours a month. Available nationwide through the CompuServe Packet 

Network for another $5.60 an hour. 

     Voice: (617) 739-0202.

 

     Lynn.  North Shore Access, (617) 593-4557.  Log on as: new. $10 for 

10 hours a month; $1 an hour after that. 

     Voice: (617) 593-3110.

 

     Worcester.  NovaLink, (508) 754-4009.  Log on as: info. $12.95 sign-

up (includes first two hours); $9.95 a month (includes five daytime 

hours), $1.80 an hour after that. 

     Voice: (800) 274-2814.

 

MICHIGAN

 

     Ann Arbor.  MSEN.  Contact number below for dial-in number.  

Unix.  

     Charges: $20 setup; $20 a month.

     Voice: (313) 998-4562.

 

     Ann Arbor. Michnet. Has local dial-in numbers in several Michigan 

numbers.  For local numbers, call voice number below. $35 a month plus 

one-time $40 sign-up fee.  Additional network fees for access through 

non-Michnet numbers. 

     Voice: (313) 764-9430.

 

NEW HAMPSHIRE

 

     MV Communications, Inc.  For local dial-up numbers call voice line 

below.  $5 a month mininum plus variable hourly rates depending on 

services used. 

     Voice: (603) 429-2223.

NEW JERSEY

     New Brunswick.  Digital Express, (908) 937-9481.  Log on as: new. 

$20 setup fee; $25 a month or $250 a year. 

     Voice: (800) 969-9090.

NEW YORK 

 

     New York. Panix, (212) 787-3100.  Unix or menus.  Log on as: 

newuser. $40 setup fee; $19 a month or $208 a year. 

     Voice:  (212) 877-4854.

 

      New York.  Echo, (212) 989-8411.  Unix, but with local 

conferencing software. Log on as: newuser.  $19.95 ($13.75 students and 

seniors) a month. 

      Voice:  (212) 255-3839.

 

     New York.  MindVox, (212) 989-4141.  Local conferences. Log on as: 

guest.  $10 setup fee for non-credit-card accounts; $15 a month.

     Voice: (212) 989-2418.

 

     New York.  Pipeline, (212) 267-8606 (9600 bps and higher); (212) 

267-7341 (2400 bps). Has graphical interface for Windows.  Log on as: 

guest. $20 a month and $2 an hour after first 20 hours or $35 a 

month unlimited hours.

     Voice: (212) 267-3636.

     

     New York.  Maestro, (212) 240-9700. Log on as: newuser. $12 a month 

or $140 a year. 

     Voice: (212) 240-9600.

NORTH CAROLINA

 

     Charlotte.  Vnet Internet Access, (704) 347-8839; (919) 406-1544.  

Log on as: new. $25 a month.     

     Voice: (704) 374-0779.

 

     Triangle Research Park.  Rock Concert Net.  Call number below for 

local modem numbers in various North Carolina cities.  $30 a month; one-

time $50 sign-up fee. 

     Voice: (919) 248-1999.

 

OHIO

 

     Cleveland.  Cleveland Free-Net, (216) 368-3888.  Ohio and US Supreme 

Court decisions, historical documents, many local conferences.  Full 

access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written 

application. Free. 

     Voice:  (216) 368-8737. 

     Cincinnati.  Tri-State Free-Net, (513) 579-1990.  Similar to 

Cleveland Free-Net. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires 

completion of a written application. Free.                       

 

     Cleveland.  Wariat, (216) 481-9436. Unix or menus. $20 setup fee; 

$35 a month. 

     Voice: (216) 481-9428.

     Dayton.  Freelance Systems Programming, (513) 258-7745. $20 setup 

fee; $1 an hour. 

     Voice: (513) 254-7246.

     Lorain.  Lorain County Free-Net, (216) 277-2359 or 366-9753.  

     Similar to Cleveland Free-Net.  Users can "link" to the larger 

Cleveland system for additional services.  Full access (including 

access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. Free.

     Voice: (216) 366-4200.

 

     Medina.  Medina Free-Net, (216) 723-6732, 225-6732 or 335-6732.  

Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland Free-Net for additional 

services.  Full access (including access to e-mail) requires 

completion of a written application. Free.                       

 

     Youngstown.  Youngstown Free-Net, (216) 742-3072.  Users can 

"link" to the Cleveland system for services not found locally.  Full 

access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written 

application. Free.

 

ONTARIO

 

     Ottawa.  National Capital FreeNet, (613) 780-3733 or (613) 564-3600.  

Free, but requires completion of a written form for access to all 

services.

     Toronto.  UUNorth.  Call voice number below for local dial-in 

numbers. $20 startup fee; $25 for 20 hours a month of offpeak use.

     Voice: (416) 225-8649.

 

     Toronto.  Internex Online, (416) 363-3783.  Both Unix and menus. $40 

a year for one hour a day. 

     Voice: (416) 363-8676.

OREGON

 

     Beaverton.  Techbook, (503) 220-0636 (2400 bps); (503) 220-1016 

(higher speeds).  $10 a month for 30 hours of "basic" Internet access or 

$90 a year; $15 a month for 30 hours of "deluxe" access or $150 a year. 

$10 sign-up fee for monthly accounts. 

 

     Portland.  Agora, (503) 293-1772 (2400 bps), (503) 293-2059 (9600 

bps or higher). Log on as: apply. $6 a month for one hour per day.

 

     Portland.  Teleport, (503) 220-0636 (2400 bps); (503) 220-1016 

(9600 and higher).  Log on as: new.  $10 a month for one hour per day.

     Voice: (503) 223-4245.

PENNSYLVANIA

 

     Pittsburgh.  Telerama, (412) 481-5302. $6 for 10 hours a month, 60 

cents for each additional hour. 

     Voice: (412) 481-3505.

QUEBEC

 

     Montreal.  Communications Accessibles Montreal, (514) 931-7178 (9600 

bps); (514) 931-2333 (2400 bps). $25 a month.

     Voice: (514) 931-0749.

 

RHODE ISLAND

 

     East Greenwich.  IDS World Network, (401) 884-9002.  In addition 

to Usenet, has conferences from the Fidonet and RIME networks.  

Supports QMAIL offline reader, which lets you read and respond to 

messages while not online.  $10 a month; $50 for six months; $100 for a 

year. 

     Providence/Seekonk.  Anomaly, (401) 331-3706.  $125 for six months  

or $200 a year. Educational rate of $75 for six months or $125 a year. 

     Voice: (401) 273-4669.

TEXAS

     Austin.  RealTime Communications, (512) 459-4391.  Log on as: new. 

$75 a year.

     Voice: (512) 451-0046.

     Dallas.  Texas Metronet, (214) 705-2901; (817) 261-1127.  Log on as: 

info or signup. $10 to $35 setup fee, depending on service; $10 to $45 a 

month, depending on service.

     Voice: (214) 705-2900 or (817) 543-8756.

     Houston.  The Black Box, (713) 480-2686.  $21.65 a month.

     Voice: (713) 480-2684.

VIRGINIA

 

     Norfolk/Peninsula.  Wyvern Technologies, (804) 627-1828 (Norfolk); 

(804) 886-0662 (Peninsula).  $10 startup fee; $15 a month or $144 a year. 

     Voice: (804) 622-4289.

 

WASHINGTON, DC

 

     The Meta Network.  Call voice number below for local dial-in 

numbers.  Caucus conferencing, menus. $15 setup fee; $20 a month.

     Voice: (703) 243-6622.

     CapAccess, (202), 784-1523.  Log on as guest with a password of 

visitor.  A Free-Net system (see under Cleveland, Ohio, for information).  

Free.

     Voice: (202) 994-4245.

 

     See also: listing under Baltimore, MD for Express Access and 

Clarknet.

 

WASHINGTON STATE

 

     Seattle. Halcyon, (206) 382-6245.  Users can choose between menus 

and Unix.  Log on as: new.  $10 setup fee; $60 a quarter or $200 a year. 

     Voice: (206) 955-1050.

 

     Seattle.  Eskimo North, (206) 367-3837 (all speeds), (206) 362-6731 

(9600/14.4K bps).  $10 a month or $96 a year.

     Voice: (206) 367-7457.

 

1.4 IF YOUR TOWN HAS NO DIRECT ACCESS

 

     If you don't live in an area with a public-access site, you'll still 

be able to connect to the Net.  Several of these services offer access 

through national data networks such as the CompuServe Packet Network and 

PC-Pursuit, which have dozens, even hundreds of local dial-in numbers 

across the country.  These include Holonet in Berkeley, Calf., Portal in 

Cupertino, Calf., the WELL in Sausalito, Calf., Dial 'N CERF in San 

Diego, Calf., the World in Brookline, Mass., and Michnet in Ann Arbor, 

Mich.  Dial 'N CERF offers access through an 800 number.  Expect to pay 

from $2 to $12 an hour to use these networks, above each provider's basic 

charges.  The exact amount depends on the network, time of day and type 

of modem you use.  For more information, contact the above services. 

     Three other providers deliver Net access to users across the 

country:

     Delphi, based in Cambridge, Mass., is a consumer-oriented network 

much like CompuServe or America On-Line -- only it now offers 

subscribers access to Internet services. 

     Charges: $3 a month for Internet access, in addition to standard 

charges.  These are $10 a month for four hours of off-peak (non-working 

hours) access a month and $4 an hour for each additional hour or $20 for 

20 hours of access a month and $1.80 an hour for each additional hour.  

For more information, call (800) 695-4005. 

     BIX (the Byte Information Exchange) offers FTP, Telnet and e-mail

access to the Internet as part of their basic service. Owned by the same 

company as Delphi, it also offers 20 hours of access a month for $20.  

For more information, call (800) 695-4775.              

     PSI, based in Reston, Va., provides nationwide access to Internet 

services through scores of local dial-in numbers to owners of IBM and 

compatible computers.  PSILink. which includes access to e-mail, 

Usenet and ftp, costs $29 a month, plus a one-time $19 registration 

fee.  Special software is required, but is available free from PSI. 

PSI's Global Dialup Service provides access to telnet for $39 a month 

plus a one-time $39 set-up fee.  For more information, call (800) 

82PSI82 or (703) 620-6651.

1.5  NET ORIGINS

     In the 1960s, researchers began experimenting with linking computers 

to each other and to people through telephone hook-ups, using funds from 

the U.S Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). 

     ARPA wanted to see if computers in different locations could be 

linked using a new technology known as packet switching. This technology, 

in which data meant for another location is broken up into little pieces, 

each with its own "forwarding address" had the promise of letting several 

users share just one communications line.  Just as important, from ARPA's 

viewpoint, was that this allowed for creation of networks that could 

automatically route data around downed circuits or computers.  ARPA's 

goal was not the creation of today's international computer-using 

community, but development of a data network that could survive a nuclear 

attack.

     Previous computer networking efforts had required a line between 

each computer on the network, sort of like a one-track train route. The 

packet system allowed for creation of a data highway, in which large 

numbers of vehicles could essentially share the same lane.  Each packet 

was given the computer equivalent of a map and a time stamp, so that it 

could be sent to the right destination, where it would then be 

reassembled into a message the computer or a human could use. 

     This system allowed computers to share data and the researchers to 

exchange electronic mail, or e-mail.  In itself, e-mail was something 

of a revolution, offering the ability to send detailed letters at the 

speed of a phone call. 

      As this system, known as ARPANet, grew, some enterprising college 

students (and one in high school) developed a way to use it to conduct 

online conferences.  These started as science-oriented discussions, but 

they soon branched out into virtually every other field, as people 

realized the power of being able to "talk" to hundreds, or even 

thousands, of people around the country. 

     In the 1970s, ARPA helped support the development of rules, or 

protocols, for transferring data between different types of computer 

networks.  These "internet" (from "internetworking") protocols made it 

possible to develop the worldwide Net we have today that links all sorts 

of computers across national boundaries.

     By the close of the 1970s, links developed between ARPANet and 

counterparts in other countries.  The world was now tied together in a 

computer web.  

     In the 1980s, this network of networks, which became known 

collectively as the Internet, expanded at a phenomenal rate.  Hundreds, 

then thousands, of colleges, research companies and government agencies 

began to connect their computers to this worldwide Net.  Some 

enterprising hobbyists and companies unwilling to pay the high costs of 

Internet access (or unable to meet stringent government regulations for 

access) learned how to link their own systems to the Internet, even if 

"only" for e-mail and conferences.  Some of these systems began 

offering access to the public. Now anybody with a computer and modem -- 

and persistence -- could tap into the world. 

     In the 1990s, the Net continues to grow at exponential rates.  Some 

estimates are that the volume of messages transferred through the Net 

grows 20 percent a month.  In response, government and other users have 

tried in recent years to expand the Net itself.  Once, the main Net 

"backbone" in the U.S. moved data at 56,000 bits per second. That proved 

too slow for the ever increasing amounts of data being sent over it, and 

in recent years the maximum speed was increased to 1.5 million and then 

45 million bits per second. Even before the Net was able to reach that 

latter speed, however, Net experts were already figuring out ways to pump 

data at speeds of up to 2 billion bits per second -- fast enough to send 

the entire Encyclopedia Britannica across the country in just one or two 

seconds.  Another major change has been the development of commercial 

services that provide internetworking services at speeds comparable to 

those of the government system.  In fact, by mid-1994, the U.S. 

government will remove itself from any day-to-day control over the 

workings of the Net, as regional and national providers continue to 

expand.

 

1.6  HOW IT WORKS

 

     The worldwide Net is actually a complex web of smaller regional 

networks.  

     To understand it, picture a modern road network of trans-

continental superhighways connecting large cities.  From these large 

cities come smaller freeways and parkways to link together small 

towns, whose residents travel on slower, narrow residential ways.  

     The Net superhighway is the high-speed Internet.  Connected to 

this are computers that use a particular system of transferring data 

at high speeds.  In the U.S., the major Internet "backbone" 

theoretically can move data at rates of 45 million bits per second 

(compare this to the average home modem, which has a top speed of roughly 

9,600 to 14,400 bits per second).  

     Connected to the backbone computers are smaller networks serving 

particular geographic regions, which generally move data at speeds 

around 1.5 million bits per second.

     Feeding off these in turn are even smaller networks or individual 

computers.

     Unlike with commercial networks such as CompuServe or Prodigy, there 

is no one central computer or computers running the Internet -- its 

resources are to be found among thousands of individual computers.  This 

is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.   The approach 

means it is virtually impossible for the entire Net to crash at once -- 

even if one computer shuts down, the rest of the network stays up.  The 

design also reduces the costs for an individual or organization to get 

onto the network.  But thousands of connected computers can also make it 

difficult to navigate the Net and find what you want -- especially as 

different computers may have different commands for plumbing their 

resources.  It is only recently that Net users have begun to develop the 

sorts of navigational tools and "maps" that will let neophytes get around 

without getting lost. 

     Nobody really knows how many computers and networks actually make 

up this Net.  Some estimates say there are now as many as 5,000 

networks connecting nearly 2 million computers and more than 15 million 

people around the world.  Whatever the actual numbers, however, it is 

clear they are only increasing.   

     The Net is more than just a technological marvel. It is human 

communication at its most fundamental level.  The pace may be a little 

quicker when the messages race around the world in a few seconds, but 

it's not much different from a large and interesting party. You'll see 

things in cyberspace that will make you laugh; you'll see things that 

will anger you.  You'll read silly little snippets and new ideas that 

make you think.  You'll make new friends and meet people you wish would 

just go away. 

     Major network providers continue to work on ways to make it 

easier for users of one network to communicate with those of another.  

Work is underway on a system for providing a universal "white pages" 

in which you could look up somebody's electronic-mail address, for 

example.  This connectivity trend will likely speed up in coming years 

as users begin to demand seamless network access, much as telephone 

users can now dial almost anywhere in the world without worrying about 

how many phone companies actually have to connect their calls. 

     And today, the links grow ever closer between the Internet and such 

commercial networks as CompuServe and Prodigy, whose users can now 

exchange electronic mail with their Internet friends.  Some commercial 

providers, such as Delphi and America Online, are working to bring their 

subscribers direct access to Internet services.

     And as it becomes easier to use, more and more people will join 

this worldwide community we call the Net. 

     Being connected to the Net takes more than just reading 

conferences and logging messages to your computer; it takes asking and 

answering questions, exchanging opinions -- getting involved. 

     If you chose to go forward, to use and contribute, you will become 

a citizen of Cyberspace.  If you're reading these words for the first 

time, this may seem like an amusing but unlikely notion -- that one 

could "inhabit" a place without physical space.  But put a mark beside 

these words.  Join the Net and actively participate for a year.  Then 

re-read this passage.  It will no longer seem so strange to be a 

"citizen of Cyberspace."  It will seem like the most natural thing in 

the world.   

     And that leads to another fundamental thing to remember:

 

                You can't break the Net!

 

     As you travel the Net, your computer may freeze, your screen may 

erupt into a mass of gibberish.  You may think you've just disabled a 

million-dollar computer somewhere -- or even your own personal 

computer.  Sooner or later, this feeling happens to everyone -- and 

likely more than once. But the Net and your computer are hardier than 

you think, so relax.  You can no more break the Net than you can the 

phone system.  If something goes wrong, try again.  If nothing at all 

happens, you can always disconnect.   If worse comes to worse, you can 

turn off your computer.  Then take a deep breath.  And dial right back 

in. Leave a note for the person who runs the computer to which you've 

connected to ask for advice.  Try it again. Persistence pays.  

     Stay and contribute.  The Net will be richer for it -- and so will 

you.        

1.7  WHEN THINGS GO WRONG 

 

     * Your computer connects with a public-access site and get gibberish 

on your screen.  If you are using parameters of 8-1-N, try 7-1-e (or 

vice-versa).  If that doesn't work, try another modem speed. 

     * You have your computer dial a public-access site, but nothing 

happens.  Check the phone number you typed in.  If correct, turn on your 

modem's speaker (on Hayes-compatible modems, you can usually do this by 

typing ATM1 in your communications software's "terminal mode").  If the 

phone just rings and rings, the public-access site could be down for 

maintenance or due to a crash or some other problem.  If you get a 

"connect" message, but nothing else, try hitting enter or escape a 

couple of times.  

     * You try to log in, but after you type your password, nothing 

happens, or you get a "timed out" message followed by a disconnect.  

Re-dial the number and try it again.

     * Always remember, if you have a problem that just doesn't go away,

ask! Ask your system administrator, ask a friend, but ask.  Somebody will

know what to do.

1.8  FYI

     The Net grows so fast that even the best guide to its resources 

would be somewhat outdated the day it was printed.  At the end of each 

chapter, however, you'll find FYI pointers to places on the Net where you 

can go for more information or to keep updated on new resources and 

services. 

     Peter Kaminski maintains a list of systems that provide public 

access to Internet services.  It's availble on the network itself, which 

obviously does you little good if you currently have no access, but which 

can prove invaluable should you move or want to find a new system.  Look 

for his "PDIAL" file in the alt.bbs.lists or news.answers newsgroups in 

Usenet (for information on accessing Usenet, see Chapter 3).

     Steven Levy's book, "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution," 

(Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984). describes the early culture and ethos 

that ultimately resulted in the Internet and Usenet. 

     John Quarterman's "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing 

Systems Worldwide" (Digital Press, 1990) is an exhaustive look at 

computer networks and how they connect with each other. 

     "FYI on Where to Start - A Bibliography of Internetworking 

Information,"  by Tracy LaQuey, Joyce K. Reynolds, Karen Roubicek, Mary 

Stahl and Aileen Yuan (August, 1990), is an excellent list of articles, 

books, newsletters and other sources of information about the Internet.  

It's available via ftp from nic.ddn.mil in the rfc directory as 

rfc1175.txt (see chapter 7 for information on how to retrieve such 

files).

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Chapter 2: E-MAIL

 

 

2.1  THE BASICS

     Electronic mail, or e-mail, is your personal connection to the 

world of the Net. 

     All of the millions of people around the world who use the 

Net have their own e-mail addresses.  A growing number of "gateways" tie 

more and more people to the Net every day.  When you logged onto the host 

system you are now using, it automatically generated an address for you, 

as well. 

    The basic concepts behind e-mail parallel those of regular mail.  

You send mail to people at their particular addresses.  In turn, they 

write to you at your e-mail address.  You can subscribe to the 

electronic equivalent of magazines and newspapers. You might even get 

electronic junk mail.

    E-mail has two distinct advantages over regular mail.  The 

most obvious is speed. Instead of several days, your message can reach 

the other side of the world in hours, minutes or even seconds (depending 

on where you drop off your mail and the state of the connections between 

there and your recipient).  The other advantage is that once you master 

the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to access databases and file 

libraries.  You'll see how to do this later, along with learning how to 

transfer program and data files through e-mail. 

    E-mail also has advantages over the telephone.  You send your 

message when it's convenient for you.  Your recipient responds at his 

convenience.  No more telephone tag.  And while a phone call across 

the country or around the world can quickly result in huge phone 

bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast amounts of mail for only a few 

pennies -- even if the other person is in New Zealand. 

    E-mail is your connection to help -- your Net lifeline.  The 

Net can sometimes seem a frustrating place!  No matter how hard you 

try, no matter where you look, you just might not be able to find the 

answer to whatever is causing you problems. But when you know how to 

use e-mail, help is often just a few keystrokes away: ask your system 

administrator or a friend for help in an e-mail message. 

    The quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a 

message.  Most public-access sites actually have several different types 

of mail systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. We'll 

start with the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," and 

then look at a couple of other interfaces. At your host system's command 

prompt, type this: 

 

             mail username 

 

where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on.  

Hit enter.  The computer might respond with 

    

             subject: 

 

     Type 

 

             test 

 

or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before 

you get to the end of the screen). Hit enter. 

     The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the 

actual message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all.  And here's 

where you hit your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you 

repeatedly: you have to hit enter before you get to the very end of the 

line.  Just like typewriters, many Unix programs have no word-wrapping 

(although there are ways to get some Unix text processors, such as emacs, 

to word-wrap). 

     When done with your message, hit return. Now hit control-D (the 

control and the D keys at the same time).  This is a Unix command that 

tells the computer you're done writing and that it should close your 

"envelope" and mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on 

a blank line, type a period at the beginning of the line and hit enter 

again). 

     You've just sent your first e-mail message.  And because you're 

sending mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the 

Net, your message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.

     If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on 

your own computer and then uploaded it into this electronic 

"envelope."  There are a couple of good reasons to do this with long 

or involved messages.  One is that once you hit enter at the end of a 

line in "mail" you can't readily fix any mistakes on that line (unless 

you use some special commands to call up a Unix text processor).  Also, 

if you are paying for access by the hour, uploading a prepared 

message can save you money.  Remember to save the document in ASCII or 

text format.  Uploading a document you've created in a word processor 

that uses special formatting commands (which these days means many 

programs) will cause strange effects.

     When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the 

message using the ASCII protocol.  Or you can copy and paste the text, 

if your software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above. 

     Now you have mail waiting for you.  Normally, when you log on, 

your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail 

waiting.  To open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type 

                 

          mail 

 

and hit enter. 

     When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it 

knows you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. 

Your screen, on a plain-vanilla Unix system will display:

 

         Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989  Type ? for help. 

         "/usr/spool/mail/adamg": 1 message 1 new 1 unread 

  

         >N 1 adamg              Sat Jan 15 20:04   12/290   test 

   

     Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the 

people who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit 

return, but unless you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see 

won't make much sense at this point.  

     The second line tells you the directory on the host system where 

your mail messages are put, which again, is not something you'll likely 

need to know.  The second line also tells you how many messages are in your 

mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how 

many messages you haven't read yet. 

     It's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who 

the message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters 

it takes up, and what the subject is.  The "N" means it is a new 

message -- it arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox.  

Hit enter. And there's your message -- only now it's a lot 

longer than what you wrote! 

 

        Message 1: 

        From adamg Jan 15 20:04:55 1994

        Received: by eff.org id AA28949 

        (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sat, 15 Jan 1994 20:04:55 -0400  

        (ident-sender: adamg@eff.org) 

        Date: Sat, 15 Jan 1994 21:34:55 -0400 

        From: Adam Gaffin <adamg> 

        Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org> 

        To: adamg 

        Subject: test 

        Status: R 

 

        This is only a test! 

 

     Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark 

gone mad.  Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of 

mail it handles, so do Net postal systems.  Only it's called a 

"header" instead of a postmark. Each system that handles or routes 

your mail puts its stamp on it.  Since many messages go through a 

number of systems on their way to you, you will often get messages 

with headers that seem to go on forever.  Among other things, a header 

will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received (even the 

difference between your local time and GMT -- as at the end of line 4 

above). 

     If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling 

across and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public-

access site have set it up to pause every 24 lines.  One way to deal 

with a message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication 

software's logging or text-buffer function.  Start it before you hit 

the number of the message you want to see.  Your computer will ask you 

what you want to call the file you're about to create. After you name 

the file and hit enter, type the number of the message you want to see 

and hit enter.  When the message finishes scrolling, turn off the 

text-buffer function, and the message is now saved in your computer.  

This way, you can read the message while not connected to the Net 

(which can save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a 

reply offline. 

     But in the meantime, now what?  You can respond to the message, 

delete it or save it.  To respond, type a lower-case "r" and hit 

enter.  You'll get something like this: 

 

          To: adamg 

          Subject: Re:  test 

 

     Note that this time, you don't have to enter a username.  The 

computer takes it from the message you're replying to and 

automatically addresses your message to its sender. The computer also 

automatically inserts a subject line, by adding "Re:" to the original 

subject.  From here, it's just like writing a new message. But say you 

change your mind and decide not to reply after all. How do you get out 

of the message? Hit control-C once. You'll get this: 

 

          (Interrupt -- one more to kill letter) 

 

If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll 

get back to your mail's command line. 

     Now, if you type a lower-case d and then hit enter, you'll 

delete the original message.  Type a lower-case q to exit your 

mailbox.  

     If you type a "q" without first hitting "d", your message is 

transferred to a file called mbox.  This file is where all read, but 

un-deleted messages go.  If you want to leave it in your mailbox for 

now, type a lower-case x and hit enter.  This gets you out of mail 

without making any changes. 

     The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox.  To access it, 

type 

   

           mail -f mbox 

 

at your host system's command line and hit enter.  

     You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which 

you can read these old messages, delete them or respond to them.  It's 

probably a good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from 

time to time, if only to keep them uncluttered. 

    Are there any drawbacks to e-mail?  There are a few.  One is that 

people seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in 

person, or over the phone.  Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit R 

and reply to a message without pausing and reflecting a moment.  

That's why we have smileys (see section 2.4)!  There's no online 

equivalent yet of a return receipt: chances are your message got to where 

it's going, but there's no absolute way for you to know for sure unless 

you get a reply from the other person.  Also, because computers are quite 

literal, you have to be very careful when addressing a message. Misplace 

a period or a single letter in the address, and your message could come 

back to you, undelivered. 

     So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net.  

Of course, you need somebody's address to send them mail.  How do you 

get it?  

     Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most 

elegant: you call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper 

and ask them.  Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning 

to develop the equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist 

today are far from complete (still, later on, in Chapter 6, we'll show 

you how to use some of these directories). 

     Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means 

you'll want to know how to address mail to them.  It's vital to know 

how to do this, because the smallest mistake -- using a comma when you 

should have used a period, for instance, can bounce the message back 

to you, undelivered.  In this sense, Net addresses are like phone 

numbers: one wrong digit and you get the wrong person.  Fortunately, 

most net addresses now adhere to a relatively easy-to-understand 

system. 

     Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-

name.  This was sort of like making a local phone call -- you didn't 

have to dial a 1 or an area code.  This also works for mail to anybody 

else who has an account on the same system as you. 

     Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use 

of the Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net 

address will look something like this: 

 

              tomg@world.std.com 

 

     Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a site 

(or in Internetese, a "domain") known as std.com.  Large organizations 

often have more than one computer linked to the Internet; in this case, 

the name of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice 

that, like boat owners, Internet computer owners always name their 

machines). 

     Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given 

e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S., 

what country it's located in.  Large organizations may have more than 

one computer or gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a 

two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain 

names. 

     In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix, 

such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. 

Other American suffixes include: 

          

          .com for businesses 

          .org for non-profit organizations 

          .gov and .mil for government and military agencies 

          .net for companies or organizations that run large networks.  

 

     Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that 

represents their country.  Most make sense, such as .ca for Canadian 

sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones.  Swiss sites end 

in .ch, while South African ones end in .za.  Some U.S. sites have 

followed this international convention (such as well.sf.ca.us).

    You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case.  

Unlike almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix, 

most Net mailing systems don't care about case, so you generally don't 

have to worry about capitalizing e-mail addresses.  Alas, there are a few 

exceptions -- some public-access sites do allow for capital letters in 

user names.  When in doubt, ask the person you want to write to, or let 

her send you a message first (recall how a person's e-mail address is 

usually found on the top of her message). 

   The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never 

has to be capitalized.               

     It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except, 

again, it's vital to get the address exactly right -- just as you have 

to dial a phone number exactly right.  Send a message to tomg@unm.edu 

(which is the University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to 

tomg@umn.edu (the University of Minnesota), and your letter will either 

bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person.

     If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll 

get an ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather 

benign Unix program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking 

header followed by the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell 

what went wrong by looking at the first few lines of the bounced 

message.  Besides an incorrect address, it's possible your host system 

does not have the other site in the "map" it maintains of other host 

systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to another network, such 

as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing requirements.

    Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating.  

But remember the prime Net commandment: Ask.  Send a message to your 

system administrator.  He or she might be able to help decipher the 

problem. 

    There is one kind of address that may give your host system 

particular problems.  There are two main ways that Unix systems 

exchange mail.  One is known as UUCP and started out with a different 

addressing system than the rest of the Net.  Most UUCP systems have 

since switched over to the standard Net addressing system, but a few 

traditional sites still cling to their original type, which tends to 

have lots of exclamation points in it, like this: 

 

               uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy 

 

     The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also 

known as "bangs") now mean something special in the more common systems 

or "shells" used to operate many Unix computers. This means that 

addressing mail to such a site (or even responding to a message you 

received from one) could confuse the poor computer to no end and your 

message never gets sent out. If that happens, try putting backslashes in 

front of each exclamation point, so that you get an address that looks 

like this: 

          

               uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy 

 

Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message 

by typing a lower-case "r"  -- you may get an error message and you'll 

have to create a brand-new message. 

    If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail,

start an e-mail message to

 

              almanac@oes.orst.edu

 

Leave the "subject:" line blank.  As a message, write this:

 

              send quote

 

Or, if you're feeling a little down, write this instead:

 

              send moral-support

 

     In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to 

a few hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet 

connection).  If you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a 

fortune-cookie-like saying.  If you asked for moral support, you'll also 

get back a fortune-cookie-like saying, only supposedly more uplifting.

      This particular "mail server" is run by Oregon State University. 

Its main purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural 

information via e-mail.  If you'd like to find out how to use the 

server's full range of services, send a message to the above address 

with this line in it:

 

              send help

 

You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's 

available and how to get it.

     Feeling opinionated?  Want to give the President of the United 

States a piece of your mind?  Send a message to president@whitehouse.gov.  

Or if the vice president will do, write vice-president@whitehouse.gov. 

     The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide 

standard, at least on Unix computers.  But it can be hard to figure 

out -- you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but 

these may be of limited use unless you're already familiar with Unix. 

Fortunately, there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier 

to use. 

2.2  ELM -- A BETTER WAY 

 

     Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses 

menus to help you navigate through mail.  Most Unix-based host systems 

now have it online. To use it, type 

  

                elm 

 

and hit enter.  You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a 

list of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:

 

 

       Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11]      

                                                                               

                                                                               

     1   Sep 1  Christopher Davis  (13)   here's another message.              

     2   Sep 1  Christopher Davis  (91)   This is a message from Eudora        

     3   Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161)  First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd)        

     4   Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69)   New File <UK077> University of Londo 

     5   Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64)   New File <DIR020> X.500 service at A 

     6   Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39)   New File <NET016> DATAPAC Informatio 

     7   Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67)   Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n 

     8   Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56)   New File <DIR019> JANET Public Acces 

     9   Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15)   Tuesday                              

     10  Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151)  Update <CWK004> Oxford University OU 

                                                                               

                                                                               

   You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character;  

 d)elete or u)ndelete mail,  m)ail a message,  r)eply or f)orward mail,  q)uit 

    To read a message, press <return>.  j = move down, k = move up, ? = help   

 

     Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, 

how many lines long the message is, and the message's subject.

     If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the 

menu with your up and down arrow keys.  Otherwise, type the line number 

of the message you want to read or delete and hit enter.

     When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of 

scrolling until it's done.  Hit the space bar to read the next page.  

You can type a lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" 

to get back to the menu (the I stands for "index").  

     At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter 

will let you start a message.  To delete a message, type a lower-case 

"d".  You can do this while reading the message.  Or, if you are in 

the menu, move the cursor to the message's line and then hit D. 

     When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q".  The program 

will ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, 

it will ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but 

haven't marked for deletion to a "received" file.  For now, hit your n

key.  

     Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text 

editor it generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is 

often a program called emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody 

else almost always finds it impossible.  Unfortunately, you can't 

always get away from it (or vi, another text editor often found on 

Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some basic commands that 

will keep you from going totally nuts. 

 

2.3  PINE -- AN EVEN BETTER WAY

 

     Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that 

make it an ideal mail system for beginners.   Like elm, pine starts 

you with a menu.  It also has an "address book" feature that is handy 

for people with long or complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the 

main menu puts you in the address book, where you can type in the 

person's first name (or nickname) followed by her address. Then, when 

you want to send that person a message, you only have to type in her 

first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her actual 

address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list.  This 

feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at 

once. 

     What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, 

which looks and feels a lot more like word-processing programs 

available for MS-DOS and Macintosh users.  Not only does it have 

word wrap (a revolutionary concept if ever there was one), it also has a 

spell-checker and a search command. Best of all, all of the commands 

you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each 

screen.  The commands look like this: 

 

               ^W Where is 

 

The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your 

keyboard.  To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd 

hit your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring 

up a prompt asking you for the word to look for. 

     Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page 

down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of 

emacs (which is utterly peculiar).  But again, all of the commands you 

need are listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you 

more than a couple of seconds to find the right one. 

     To use pine, type 

 

               pine 

 

at the command line and hit enter.  It's a relatively new program, so 

some systems may not yet have it online.  But it's so easy to use, you 

should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to 

get it! 

 

 

2.4  SMILEYS

 

 

    When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the 

smiles or shrugs that the other person might make in a live 

conversation to show he's only kidding.  But online, there's no body 

language. So what you might think is funny, somebody else might take as 

an insult.  To try to keep such misunderstandings from erupting into 

bitter disputes, we have smileys.  Tilt your head to the left and look at 

the following sideways. :-).  Or simply :).  This is your basic "smiley."

Use it to indicate people should not take that comment you just made as 

seriously as they might otherwise.  You make a smiley by typing a colon, 

a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some people prefer using the 

word "grin," usually in this form: 

 

          <grin>   

 

Sometimes, though, you'll see it as *grin* or even just <g> for short. 

 

Some other smileys include: 

 

          ;-)      Wink; 

          :-(      Frown; 

          :-O      Surprise; 

          8-)      Wearing glasses; 

          =|:-)=   Abe Lincoln. 

    

         OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus :-).

 

2.5  SENDING E-MAIL TO OTHER NETWORKS

 

 

     There are a number of computer networks that are not directly 

part of the Net, but which are now connected through "gateways" that 

allow the passing of e-mail.  Here's a list of some of the larger 

networks, how to send mail to them and how their users can send mail to 

you: 

 

America Online 

 

     Remove any spaces from a user's name and append "aol.com," to get 

 

               user@aol.com 

 

     America Online users who want to send mail to you need only put 

your Net address in the "to:" field before composing a message. 

 

 

ATTMail 

 

     Address your message to user@attmail.com. 

   

     From ATTMail, a user would send mail to you in this form: 

 

               internet!domain!user 

 

     So if your address were nancy@world.std.com, your correspondent 

would send a message to you at 

 

               internet!world.std.com!nancy 

 

 

Bitnet 

     

     Users of Bitnet (and NetNorth in Canada and EARN in Europe) often 

have addresses in this form: IZZY@INDVMS.  If you're lucky, all you'll 

have to do to mail to that address is add "bitnet" at the end, to get 

izzy@indvms.bitnet.  Sometimes, however, mail to such an address will 

bounce back to you, because Bitnet addresses do not always translate 

well into an Internet form.  If this happens, you can send mail 

through one of two Internet/Bitnet gateways. First, change the @ in 

the address to a %, so that you get username%site.bitnet.  Then add 

either @vm.marist.edu or @cunyvm.cuny.edu, so that, with the above 

example, you would get izzy%indyvms.bitnet@vm.marist.edu or 

izzy%indvyvms.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu 

      Bitnet users have it a little easier: They can usually send mail 

directly to your e-mail address without fooling around with it at all.  

So send them your address and they should be OK. 

 

 

CompuServe 

 

     CompuServe users have numerical addresses in this form: 

73727,545. To send mail to a CompuServe user, change the comma to a 

period and add "@compuserve.com"; for example: 

73727.545@compuserve.com. 

 

     If you know CompuServe users who want to send you mail, tell them 

to GO MAIL and create a mail message. In the address area, instead of 

typing in a CompuServe number, have them type your address in this 

form: 

 

               >INTERNET:YourID@YourAddress. 

 

     For example, >INTERNET:adamg@world.std.com.  Note that both the 

">" and the ":" are required. 

 

 

Delphi

 

     To send mail to a Delphi user, the form is username@delphi.com.

 

     

Fidonet 

 

    To send mail to somebody who uses a Fidonet BBS, you need the name 

they use to log onto that system and its "node number.''  Fidonet node 

numbers or addresses consist of three numbers, in this form: 

1:322/190.  The first number tells which of several broad geographic 

zones the BBS is in (1 represents the U.S. and Canada, 2 Europe and 

Israel, 3 Pacific Asia, 4 South America).  The second number 

represents the BBS's network, while the final number is the BBS's 

"FidoNode'' number in that network. If your correspondent only gives 

you two numbers (for example, 322/190), it means the system is in zone 

1.   

     Now comes the tricky part. You have to reverse the numbers and 

add to them the letters f, n and z (which stand for 

"FidoNode,''"network,'' and "zone'). For example, the address above 

would become 

 

               f190.n322.z1. 

 

     Now add "fidonet.org'' at the end, to get 

f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org. Then add "FirstName.LastName@', to get 

 

               FirstName.LastName@f190.n322.z1.fidonet.org. 

 

Note the period between the first and last names. Also, some countries 

now have their own Fidonet "backbone" systems, which might affect 

addressing.  For example, were the above address in Germany, you would 

end it with "fido.de" instead of "fidonet.org."

     Whew! 

     The reverse process is totally different. First, the person has 

to have access to his or her BBS's "net mail" area and know the 

Fidonet address of his or her local Fidonet/UUCP gateway (often their 

system operator will know it).  Your Fidonet correspondent should 

address a net-mail message to UUCP (not your name) in the "to:" field.  

In the node-number field, they should type in the node number of the 

Fidonet/UUCP gateway (if the gateway system is in the same regional 

network as their system, they need only type the last number, for 

example, 390 instead of 322/390).  Then, the first line of the message 

has to be your Internet address, followed by a blank line.  After 

that, the person can write the message and send it.  

     Because of the way Fidonet moves mail, it could take a day or two 

for a message to be delivered in either direction.  Also, because many 

Fidonet systems are run as hobbies, it is considered good form to ask 

the gateway sysop's permission if you intend to pass large amounts of 

mail back and forth. Messages of a commercial nature are strictly 

forbidden (even if it's something the other person asked for). Also, 

consider it very likely that somebody other than the recipient will 

read your messages. 

 

 

GEnie  

 

      To send mail to a GEnie user, add "@genie.com" to the end

of their GEnie user name, for example: walt@genie.com. 

 

MCIMail 

 

      To send mail to somebody with an MCIMail account, add 

"@mcimail.com to the end of their name or numerical address. For 

example: 

       

                555-1212@mcimail.com 

 

      or 

     

                jsmith@mcimail.com 

 

     Note that if there is more than one MCIMail subscriber with that 

name, you will get a mail message back from MCI giving you their names 

and numerical addresses. You'll then have to figure out which one you 

want and re-send the message. 

 

     From MCI, a user would type 

 

                Your Name (EMS) 

 

at the "To:" prompt.  At the EMS prompt, he or she would type 

 

                internet 

 

followed by your Net address at the "Mbx:" prompt. 

 

 

Peacenet 

 

     To send mail to a Peacenet user, use this form: 

 

                username@igc.org 

 

     Peacenet subscribers can use your regular address to send you 

mail. 

 

 

Prodigy 

 

     UserID@prodigy.com.  Note that Prodigy users must pay extra for 

Internet e-mail.

2.6  SEVEN UNIX COMMANDS YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT:

 

     If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll 

have to come to terms with Unix.  For better or worse, most Unix systems do 

NOT shield you from their inner workings -- if you want to copy a Usenet 

posting to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if 

you ever want to do anything with that file.

     Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how 

to do things.  Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more 

complex than MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands 

should be all you'll ever need. 

     If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will 

seem very familiar -- but watch out for the cd command, which works 

differently enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive 

you crazy.  Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive -- if you type 

commands or directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message. 

     If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix 

stores files in "directories" rather than "folders."  Unix directories are 

organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory, 

with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can 

have sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a 

folder within another folder. 

 

cat           Equivalent to the MS-DOS "type" command.  To pause a file 

              every screen, type

 

                        cat file |more

 

              where "file" is the name of the file you want to see.  

              Hitting control-C will stop the display.  Alternately,

              you could type

                     

                        more file

              

              to achieve the same result. You can also use cat for 

              writing or uploading text files to your name or home 

              directory (similar to the MS-DOS "copy con" command).  If 

              you type

 

                        cat>test

 

              you start a file called "test."  You can either write 

              something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and

              you have to hit return at the end of each line) or upload

              something into that file using your communications software's

              ASCII protocol).  To close the file, hit control-D.

 

cd            The "change directory" command.  To change from your present 

              directory to another, type

 

                        cd directory

 

              and hit enter. Unlike MS-DOS, which uses a \ to denote sub-

              directories (for example: \stuff\text), Unix uses a / (for 

              example: /stuff/text).  So to change from your present 

              directory to the stuff/text sub-directory,  you would type 

                

                        cd stuff/text

 

              and then hit enter. As in MS-DOS, you do not need the first 

              backslash if the subdirectory comes off the directory you're 

              already in.  To move back up a directory tree, you would type

                

                        cd ..

 

              followed by enter. Note the space between the cd and the two 

              periods -- this is where MS-DOS users will really go nuts.

 

cp            Copies a file. The syntax is

 

                        cp file1 file2

 

              which would copy file1 to file2 (or overwrite file2 with 

              file1).

 

ls            This command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the 

              directory, similar to the DOS dir command, except in 

              alphabetical order.

       

                        ls | more 

 

              will stop the listing every 24 lines -- handy if there are a 

              lot of things in the directory. The basic ls command does not 

              list "hidden" files, such as the .login file that controls 

              how your system interacts with Unix. To see these files, type 

 

                        ls -a      or    ls -a | more

 

              ls -l will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell 

              you when each was created or modified. 

 

mv            Similar to the MS-DOS rename command.

 

                        mv file1 file2

 

              will rename file1 as file2, The command can 

              also be used to move files between directories.

 

                        mv file1 News

 

              would move file1 to your News directory.

 

rm            Deletes a file.  Type

 

                        rm filename

 

              and hit enter (but beware: when you hit enter, it's gone for

              good).

               

     WILDCARDS:  When searching for, copying or deleting files, you can 

use "wildcards" if you are not sure of the file's exact name. 

 

              ls man*

 

 

would find the following files:

 

              manual, manual.txt, man-o-man.

 

Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters.  

For example, 

 

              ls man?

 

would find a file called mane, but not one called manual.

 

2.7  WHEN THINGS GO WRONG                  

 

     * You send a message but get back an ominous looking message from 

MAILER-DAEMON containing up to several dozen lines of computerese 

followed by your message.  Somewhere in those lines you can often find a 

clue to what went wrong.  You might have made a mistake in spelling the 

e-mail address.  The site to which you're sending mail might have been 

down for maintenance or a problem. You may have used the wrong 

"translation" for mail to a non-Internet network.

     * You call up your host system's text editor to write a message or 

reply to one and can't seem to get out.  If it's emacs, try control-X, 

control-C (in other words, hit your control key and your X key at the 

same time, followed by control and C).  If worse comes to worse, you can 

hang up. 

     * In Elm, you accidentally hit the D key for a message you want to 

save.  Type the number of the message, hit enter and then U, which will 

"un-delete" the message.  This works only before you exit Elm; once you 

quit, the message is gone.

     * You try to upload an ASCII message you've written on your own

computer into a message you're preparing in Elm or Pine and you get a

lot of left brackets, capital Ms, Ks and Ls and some funny-looking

characters.  Believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking

fine; all that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some Unix

text processors have with ASCII uploads.  But it will take much longer

for your upload to finish.  One way to deal with this is to call up the

simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you

upload a text file into a message.  Another way (which is better if your

prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text

file on your host system with cat, for example, 

 

          cat>file

 

and then upload your text into that.  Then, in Elm or Pine, you can insert

the message with a simple command (control-r in Pine, for example); only

this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff.

     *  You haven't cleared out your Elm mailbox in awhile, and you 

accidentally hit "y" when you meant to hit "n" (or vice-versa) when 

exiting and now all your messages have disappeared.  Look in your News 

directory (at the command line, type: cd News) for a file called 

recieved.  Those are all your messages.  Unfortunately, there's no way to 

get them back into your Elm mailbox -- you'll have to download the file 

or read it online.

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Chapter 3: USENET I

 

 

3.1  THE GLOBAL WATERING HOLE

     Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, 

as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board.  Or 

imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody 

can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold. 

     Unlike e-mail, which is "one-to-one,"  Usenet is "many-to-many." 

Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to meet 

their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer trends or 

talk about whatever's on their mind.  Jumping into a Usenet discussion 

can be a liberating experience.  Nobody knows what you look or sound 

like, how old you are, what your background is.  You're judged solely on 

your words, your ability to make a point. 

     To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused 

with Internet.  But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites 

CAN carry Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated 

Unix machines to old XT clones and Apple IIs. 

     Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from 

host system to host system, using one of several specific Net 

protocols.  Your host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one 

place, which everybody with an account on the system can access. That 

way, no matter how many people actually read a given message, each 

host system has to store only one copy of it. Many host systems "talk" 

with several others regularly in case one or another of their links goes 

down for some reason.  When two host systems connect, they basically 

compare notes on which Usenet messages they already have.  Any that one 

is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa.  Because they are 

computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even millions, of 

these comparisons every day. 

     Yes, millions.  For Usenet is huge.  Every day, Usenet users 

pump upwards of 40 million characters a day into the system -- roughly 

the equivalent of volumes A-G of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

     Obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of 

messages.  Let's look at how to find conferences and discussions of 

interest to you. 

     The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a 

collection of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these 

would be called conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest 

groups).  There are now more than 5,000 of these newsgroups, in several 

diferent languages, covering everything from art to zoology, from 

science fiction to South Africa.

     Some public-access systems, typically the ones that work through 

menus, try to make it easier by dividing Usenet into several broad 

categories.  Choose one of those and you're given a list of newsgroups in 

that category.  Then select the newsgroup you're interested in and start 

reading. 

     Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you 

only see messages in conferences you want.  In both cases, conferences 

are arranged in a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s.  

Newsgroup names start with one of a series of broad topic names.  For 

example, newsgroups beginning with "comp." are about particular computer-

related topics.  These broad topics are followed by a series of more 

focused topics (so that "comp.unix" groups are limited to discussion 

about Unix).  The main hierarchies are: 

 

             bionet          Research biology

             bit.listserv    Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists

             biz             Business

             comp            Computers and related subjects

             misc            Discussions that don't fit anywhere else

             news            News about Usenet itself

             rec             Hobbies, games and recreation

             sci             Science other than research biology

             soc             "Social" groups, often ethnically related

             talk            Politics and related topics

             alt             Controversial or unusual topics; not

                             carried by all sites

 

     In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular 

city, state or region.  For example, ne.housing is a newsgroup where 

New Englanders look for apartments.  A growing number also carry K12 

newsgroups, which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and 

students.  And a number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is 

actually a commercial service consisting of wire-service stories and 

a unique online computer news service (more on this in chapter 10). 

3.2 NAVIGATING USENET WITH nn

     How do you dive right in?  As mentioned, on some systems, it's all 

done through menus -- you just keep choosing from a list of choices until 

you get to the newsgroup you want and then hit the "read" command.  On 

Unix systems, however, you will have to use a "newsreader" program.  Two 

of the more common ones are known as rn (for "read news") and nn (for "no 

news" -- because it's supposed to be simpler to use). 

     For beginners, nn may be the better choice because it works with

menus -- you get a list of articles in a given newsgroup and then you 

choose which ones you want to see.  To try it out, connect to your host 

system and, at the command line, type 

 

               nn news.announce.newusers

 

and hit enter.  After a few seconds, you should see something like 

this:

 

Newsgroup: news.announce.newusers                     Articles: 22 of 22/1 NEW 

                                                                               

a Gene Spafford   776  Answers to Frequently Asked Questions                   

b Gene Spafford   362  A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community       

c Gene Spafford   387  Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette     

d Gene Spafford   101  Hints on writing style for Usenet                       

e Gene Spafford    74  Introduction to news.announce                           

f Gene Spafford   367  USENET Software: History and Sources                    

g Gene Spafford   353  What is Usenet?                                         

h taylor          241  A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists          

i Gene Spafford   585  Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I               

j Gene Spafford   455  >Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II             

k David C Lawrenc 151  How to Create a New Newsgroup                           

l Gene Spafford   106  How to Get Information about Networks                   

m Gene Spafford   888  List of Active Newsgroups                               

n Gene Spafford   504  List of Moderators                                      

o Gene Spafford  1051  Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I               

p Gene Spafford  1123  Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II              

q Gene Spafford  1193  >Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III            

r Jonathan Kamens 644  How to become a USENET site                             

s Jonathan Kamen 1344  List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I         

                                                                               

-- 15:52 -- SELECT -- help:? -----Top 85%-----                                 

Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated)                                

 

     Obviously, this is a good newsgroup to begin your exploration of 

Usenet!  Here's what all this means:  The first letter on each line is 

the letter you type to read that particular "article" (it makes sense 

that a "newsgroup" would have "articles").  Next comes the name of the 

person who wrote that article, followed by its length, in lines, and 

what the article is about. At the bottom, you see the local time at your 

access site, what you're doing right now (i.e., SELECTing articles), 

which key to hit for some help (the ? key) and how many of the articles 

in the newsgroup you can see on this screen. The "(moderated)" means the 

newsgroup has a "moderator" who is the only one who can directly post 

messages to it.  This is generally limited to groups such as this, which 

contain articles of basic information or for digests, which are 

basically online magazines (more on them in a bit). 

      Say you're particularly interested in what "Emily Postnews" has to 

say about proper etiquette on Usenet. Hit your c key (lower case!), and 

the line will light up.  If you want to read something else, hit the key 

that corresponds to it.  And if you want to see what's on the next page 

of articles, hit return or your space bar.

     But you're impatient to get going, and you want to read that 

article now.  The command for that in nn is a capital Z.  Hit it and 

you'll see something like this:

 

 

Gene Spafford: Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on NetiquetteSep 92 04:17 

Original-author: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)                           

Archive-name: emily-postnews/part1                                             

Last-change: 30 Nov 91 by brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)                  

                                                                               

                                                                               

**NOTE: this is intended to be satirical.  If you do not recognize             

  it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian.  The                  

  recommendations in this article should recognized for what                   

  they are -- admonitions about what NOT to do.                                

                                                                               

                                                                               

                        "Dear Emily Postnews"                                  

                                                                               

        Emily Postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour,            

        gives her advice on how to act on the net.                             

                                                                               

============================================================================   

                                                                               

Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@noisy          

                                                                               

A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you             

-- 09:57 --.announce.newusers-- LAST --help:?--Top 4%--                        

 

     The first few lines are the message's header, similar to the header 

you get in e-mail messages.  Then comes the beginning of the message.  

The last line tells you the time again, the newsgroup name (or part of 

it, anyway), the position in your message stack that this message 

occupies, how to get help, and how much of the message is on screen.  If 

you want to keep reading this message, just hit your space bar (not your 

enter key!) for the next screen and so on until done. When done, you'll 

be returned to the newsgroup menu.  For now hit Q (upper case this time), 

which quits you out of nn and returns you to your host system's command 

line. 

     To get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type

 

                nn comp.risks

 

and hit enter.  This newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a 

digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people 

who run and use them can go wrong.  Again, you read articles by 

selecting their letters.  If you're in the middle of an article and 

decide you want to go onto the next one, hit your n key.

     Now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of 

particular interest to you.  Unix host systems that have nn use a program 

called nngrep (ever get the feeling Unix was not entirely written in 

English?) that lets you scan newsgroups.  Exit nn and at your host 

system's command line, type 

 

                nngrep word

 

where word is the subject you're interested in.  If you use a Macintosh 

computer, you might try

 

                nngrep mac

 

     You'll get something that looks like this:

 

               alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace

               alt.religion.emacs

               comp.binaries.mac

               comp.emacs

               comp.lang.forth.mac

               comp.os.mach

               comp.sources.mac

               comp.sys.mac.announce

               comp.sys.mac.apps

               comp.sys.mac.comm

               comp.sys.mac.databases

               comp.sys.mac.digest

               comp.sys.mac.games

               comp.sys.mac.hardware

               comp.sys.mac.hypercard

               comp.sys.mac.misc

               comp.sys.mac.programmer

               comp.sys.mac.system

               comp.sys.mac.wanted

               gnu.emacs.announce

               gnu.emacs.bug

               gnu.emacs.gnews

               gnu.emacs.gnus

               gnu.emacs.help

               gnu.emacs.lisp.manual

               gnu.emacs.sources

               gnu.emacs.vm.bug

               gnu.emacs.vm.info

               gnu.emacs.vms

 

     Note that some of these obviously have something to do with 

Macintoshes while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system.  

If you want to get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host 

system, type 

 

                nngrep -a |more

 

or

                nngrep -a |pg

 

and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host 

system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't 

absolutely need the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list 

will keep scrolling, rather than pausing every 24 lines.  If you are in 

nn, hitting a capital Y will bring up a similar list. 

     Typing "nn newsgroup" for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring 

after awhile.  When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called 

.newsrc.  This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system 

along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all 

maintained by the computer).  You can also use this file to create a 

"reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to 

"subscribe."  To try it out, type 

 

                nn

 

without any newsgroup name, and hit enter.  

     Unfortunately, you will start out with a .newsrc file that has you 

"subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system!  To delete 

a newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is 

on the screen.  The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to 

"unsubscribe."  If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in 

the next group. 

     With many host systems carrying thousands of newsgroups, this will 

take you forever.  

     Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this.  Both 

involve calling up your .newsrc file in a word or text processor.  In a 

.newsrc file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the 

group's name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers.  

Newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those 

followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed."  To start with a 

clean slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation 

points. 

     If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the .newsrc file (you 

might want to make a copy of .newsrc first, just in case), and use the 

search-and-replace function to make the change.

    If you're not comfortable with these text processor, you can 

download the .newsrc file, make the changes on your own computer and 

then upload the revised file.  Before you download the file, however, 

you should do a couple of things.  One is to type

 

                cp .newsrc temprc

 

and hit enter.  You will actually download this temprc file (note the 

name does not start with a period -- some computers, such as those using 

MS-DOS, do not allow file names starting with periods).  After you 

download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its 

search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons. 

Be careful not to change anything else!  Save the document in ASCII or 

text format.  Dial back into your host system.  At the command line, 

type

 

                cp temprc temprc1

 

and hit enter.  This new file will serve as your backup .newsrc file 

just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your 

computer.  This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file.  Now 

type 

 

                cp temprc .newsrc

 

and hit enter.  You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading 

list.

3.3  nn COMMANDS

 

To mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in lower 

case).  To mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the letter 

and an asterisk, for example: 

 

          a* 

 

To un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case). 

 

C               Cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote.  

                Every article posted on Usenet has a unique ID number.  

                Hitting a capital C sends out a new message that tells host 

                systems that receive it to find earlier message and delete 

                it. 

 

F               To post a public response, or follow-up. If selected while 

                still on a newsgroup "page", asks you which article to 

                follow up.  If selected while in a specific article, will 

                follow up that article. In either case, you'll be asked if 

                you want to include the original article in yours. Caution:

                puts you in whatever text editor is your default.

 

N               Goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. 

 

P               Goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread 

                articles. 

 

G news.group    Goes to a specific newsgroup. Can be used to subscribe to 

                new newsgroups.  Hitting G brings up a sub-menu: 

 

                          u     Goes to the group and shows only un-read 

                                articles. 

 

                          a     Goes to the group and shows all articles, 

                                even ones you've already read. 

 

                          s     Will show you only articles with a specific 

                                subject. 

 

                          n     Will show you only articles from a specific 

                                person. 

 

M               Mails a copy of the current article to somebody.  You'll be 

                asked for the recipient's e-mail address and whether you 

                want to add any comments to the article before sending it 

                off.  As with F, puts you in the default editor.

 

:post           Post an article. You'll be asked for the name of the group. 

 

Q               Quit, or exit, nn. 

 

U               Un-subscribe from the current newsgroup. 

 

R               Responds to an article via e-mail. 

 

space           Hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles. 

 

X               If you have selected articles, this will show them to you 

                and then take you to the next subscribed newsgroup with 

                unread articles. If you don't have any selected articles, 

                it marks all articles as read and takes you to the next 

                unread subscribed newsgroup. 

 

=word           Finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a 

                specific word in the "subject:" line, for example: 

 

                          =modem 

 

Z               Shows you selected articles immediately and then returns 

                you to the current newsgroup. 

 

?               Brings up a help screen. 

 

<               Goes to the previous page in the newsgroup. 

 

>               Goes to the next page in the newsgroup. 

 

$               Goes to the last page in an article.

 

^               Goes to the first page in an article.

 

 

3.4  USING rn

     Some folks prefer this older newsreader.   

     If you type 

 

                rn news.announce.newusers

 

at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this:

 

    ********  21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq]

 

If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen.  If 

you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your 

computer's = key and you'll get something like this:

 

     152 Introduction to news.announce    

     153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community   

     154 What is Usenet?

     155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions               

     156 Hints on writing style for Usenet                   

     158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I           

     159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II               

     160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette      

     161 USENET Software: History and Sources                

     162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists           

     163 How to Get Information about Networks                    

     164 How to Create a New Newsgroup                       

     169 List of Active Newsgroups                           

     170 List of Moderators                                       

     171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I                

     172 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II               

     173 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III              

     174 How to become a USENET site      

     175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I     

     176 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II         

     177 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III

    End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq]        

 

     Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't 

tell you who sent them.  Article 154 looks interesting.  To read it, 

type in 154 and hit enter.  You'll see something like this:

 

   Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated):

   From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)

   Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers

   Subject: What is Usenet?

   Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT

   Followup-To: news.newusers.questions    

   Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.

   Lines: 353      

   Supersedes: <spaf-whatis_715578719@cs.purdue.edu>

 

   Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1                  

   Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)                            

   Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)

                                                                               

                                                                               

   The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely

   misunderstood.  Every day on Usenet, the "blind men and the elephant"

   phenomenon is evident, in spades.  In my opinion, more flame wars

   arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than

   from any other source.  And consider that such flame wars arise, of

   necessity, among people who are on Usenet.  Imagine, then, how poorly

   understood Usenet must be by those outside!

                                                                               

   --MORE--(7%)

 

     This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get 

in e-mail messages.  To keep reading, hit your space bar.  If you hit 

your n key (lower case), you'll go to the next message in the 

numerical order.

     To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until 

you get back to the command line.  Now let's set up your reading list.  

Because rn uses the same .newsrc file as nn, you can use one of the 

search-and-replace methods described above.  Or you can do this:  Type

 

                rn

 

and hit enter.  When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit 

your u key (in lower case).  Hit it again, and again, and again.  Or 

just keep it pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a 

couple of seconds).  Eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the 

newsgroups, and asked what you want to do next.  

     Here's where you begin entering newsgroups.  Type 

 

                g newsgroup

 

(for example, g comp.sys.mac.announce) and hit enter.  You'll be asked 

if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key.  Then type

 

                g next newsgroup

 

(for example, g comp.announce.newusers) and hit enter.  Repeat until 

done.  This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you 

prefer that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to 

subscribe?  Typing a lower-case l and then hitting enter will show you a 

list of all available newsgroups.  Again, since there could be more than 

2,000 newsgroups on your system, this might not be something you want to 

do.  Fortunately, you can search for groups with particular words in 

their names, using the l command.  Typing 

 

        l mac

 

followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters 

in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and 

the like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers).

     Because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, 

most systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks.  So if there's 

a message you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's 

screen capture or save it to a file which you can later download).  To 

save a message as a file in rn, type 

 

                s filename

 

where filename is what you want to call the file. Hit enter.  You'll be 

asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format."  In most cases, you 

can answer with an n (which will strip off the header).  The message 

will now be saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access 

by typing cd News and then hitting enter).  

     Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly -- go away for a 

couple of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles!  One 

way to deal with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer 

appear on your screen.  In nn, hit a capital J; in rn, a small c. 

3.5  rn COMMANDS

 

 

     Different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you 

are already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. At any point, 

typing a lower-case H will bring up a list of available commands and some 

terse instructions for using them. Here are some of them: 

 

After you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup:

 

c             Marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up")

              so that you don't have to see them again. The system will ask 

              you if you are sure. Can be done either when asked if you

              want to read a particular newsgroup or once in the newsgroup.

 

g             Goes to a newsgroup, in this form: 

     

                        g news.group 

      

              Use this both for going to groups to which you're already 

              subscribed and subscribing to new groups. 

 

h             Provides a list of available commands with terse 

              instructions.

 

l             Gives a list of all available newsgroups.

 

p             Goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read 

              articles. 

 

q             Quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. 

              If you are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to 

              the next subscribed newsgroup. 

 

Only within a newsgroup:

 

=             Gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup.

 

 

m             Marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" 

              again so that you can come back to them later. Typing

 

                        1700m

 

              and hitting enter would mark just that article as un-read. 

              Typing 

 

                        1700-1800m

 

              and hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un-

              read.

 

space         Brings up the next page of article listings.  If already on

              the last page, displays the first article in the newsgroup.

 

u             Un-subscribe from the newsgroup. 

 

/text/        Searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific

              word or phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current 

              article to the end of the newsgroup. For example, 

 

                        /EFF/

 

              would bring you to the first article with "EFF" in the 

              "subject:" line.

 

?text?        The same as above except it searches in reverse order from 

              the current article.

 

Only within a specific article:

 

e             Some newsgroups consist of articles that are binary files, 

              typically programs or graphics images.  Hitting e will convert 

              the ASCII characters within such an article into a file you

              can then download and use or view (assuming you have the proper

              computer and software).  Many times, such files will be split

              into several articles; just keep calling up the articles and

              hitting e until done.  You'll find the resulting file in your

              News subdirectory.

C             If you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call 

              it up on your host system and hit this.  The message will soon 

              begin disappearing on systems around the world. 

 

F             Post a public response in the newsgroup to the current 

              article.  Includes a copy of her posting, which you can then 

              edit down using your host system's text editor. 

 

f             The same as above except it does not include a copy of the 

              original message in yours.

 

m             Marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come 

              back to it later.  You do not have to type the article 

              number.       

 

Control-N     Brings up the first response to the article. If there is no 

              follow-up article, this returns you to the first unread article 

              in the newsgroup). 

 

Control-P     Goes to the message to which the current article is a reply.

 

n             Goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup. 

 

N             Takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've 

              already read it.

 

q             Quits, or exits, the current article. Leaves you in the current 

              newsgroup.

 

R             Reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article. 

              Includes a copy of his message in yours.

 

r             The same as above, except it does not include a copy of his 

              article.

 

s file        Copies the current article to a file in your News directory, 

              where "file" is the name of the file you want to save it to. 

              You'll be asked if you want to use "mailbox" format when 

              saving. If you answer by hitting your N key, most of the 

              header will not be saved. 

s|mail user   Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For "user" substitute

              her e-mail address. Does not let you add comments to the 

              message first, however.

 

space         Hitting the space bar shows the next page of the article, or, if 

              at the end, goes to the next un-read article.

3.6  ESSENTIAL NEWSGROUPS

     With so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own 

unique Usenet reading list.  But there are a few newsgroups that are 

particularly of interest to newcomers.  Among them:

     news.announce.newusers     This group consists of a series of

                                articles that explain various facets of

                                Usenet.

     news.newusers.questions    This is where you can ask questions 

                                (we'll see how in a bit) about how

                                Usenet works.

     news.announce.newsgroups   Look here for information about new or

                                proposed newsgroups.

     news.answers               Contains lists of "Frequently Asked

                                Questions"  (FAQs) and their answers from 

                                many different newsgroups.  Learn how to

                                fight jet lag in the FAQ from 

                                rec.travel.air; look up answers to common

                                questions about Microsoft Windows in

                                an FAQ from comp.os.ms-windows; etc.

     alt.internet.services      Looking for something in particular on 

                                the Internet?  Ask here.

     alt.infosystems.announce   People adding new information services to

                                the Internet will post details here.

3.7  SPEAKING UP

     "Threads" are an integral part of Usenet.  When somebody posts a 

message, often somebody else will respond.  Soon, a thread of 

conversation begins.  Following these threads is relatively easy.  In 

nn, related messages are grouped together.  In rn, when you're done 

with a message, you can hit control-N to read the next related 

message, or followup.  As you explore Usenet, it's probably a good 

idea to read discussions for awhile before you jump in.  This way, you 

can get a feel for the particular newsgroup -- each of which has its 

own rhythms.

     Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up.  There are two main 

ways to do this.  You join an existing conversation, or you can start 

a whole new thread.

     If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want 

to include portions of the message you are responding to in your 

message.  The reason to do this is so people can see what you're 

responding to, just in case the original message has disappeared from 

their system (remember that most Usenet messages have a short life span 

on the average host system) or they can't find it.  

     If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing 

conversation is similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done 

with a given article in the thread.  In rn, type a small f if you 

don't want to include portions of the message you're responding to; an 

upper-case F if you do. In nn, type a capital F.  You'll then be asked 

if you want to include portions of the original message. 

     And here's where you hit another Unix wall.  When you hit your F 

key, your host system calls up its basic Unix text editor.  If you're 

lucky, that'll be Pico, a very easy system.  More likely, however, 

you'll get dumped into emacs (or possibly vi), which you've already met 

in the chapter on e-mail.  

     The single most important emacs command is

 

               control-x control-c

 

     This means, depress your control key and hit x.  Then depress the 

control key and hit c.  Memorize this.  In fact, it's so important, it 

bears repeating: 

 

               control-x control-c

 

     These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs.  If it works well, 

you'll be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you 

were working on.  If it doesn't work well (say you accidentally hit some 

other weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and 

nothing seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs 

prompts on the bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should 

stop whatever emacs was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on 

the bottom of your screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. 

But if this still doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect 

and dial back in! 

     If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions 

of the original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire 

thing at the top of your message.  Use the arrow keys to move down to 

the lines you want to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one 

line at a time.

     You can then write your message.  Remember that you have to hit 

enter before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs 

does not have word wrapping.

     When done, hit control-x control-c.  You'll be asked the 

question about sending, editing, aborting, etc.  Chose one.  If you 

hit Y, your host system will start the process to sending your 

message across the Net. 

     The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting 

entirely new messages.  In nn, type

 

     :post

 

and hit enter in any newsgroup.  You'll be asked which newsgroup to 

post a message to.  Type in its name and hit enter.  Then you'll be 

asked for "keywords."  These are words you'd use to attract somebody 

scanning a newsgroup.  Say you're selling your car.  You might type 

the type of car here.  Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat 

similar.  Finally, you'll be asked for the message's "distribution."

This is where you put how widely you want your message disseminated.  

Think about this one for a second.  If you are selling your car, it 

makes little sense to send a message about it all over the world.  But 

if you want to talk about the environment, it might make a lot of 

sense.  Each host system has its own set of distribution 

classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for users of 

that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for 

the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans 

and Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: 

world).

     Which one to use?  Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will 

help you decide.  If you're selling your car, use your city or regional 

distribution -- people in Australia won't much care and may even get 

annoyed.  If you want to discuss presidential politics, using a USA 

distribution makes more sense.  If you want to talk about events in the 

Middle East, sending your message to the entire world is perfectly 

acceptable.

     Then you can type your message.  If you've composed your message 

offline (generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you 

can upload it now.  You may see a lot of weird looking characters as 

it uploads into emacs, but those will disappear when you hit control-X 

and then control-C.  Alternately: "save" the message (for example, by 

hitting m in rn), log out, compose your message offline, log back on and 

upload your message into a file on your host system.  Then call up 

Usenet, find the article you "saved." Start a reply, and you'll be asked 

if you want to include a prepared message.  Type in the name of the file 

you just created and hit enter.

     In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup 

to hit F, which will bring up a message-composing system.  

Alternately, at your host system's command line, you can type 

 

                Pnews

 

and hit enter.  You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn 

system, except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions.  

If you chose "world," you'll get this message:

 

                                                                               

This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire         

civilized world.  Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of  

dollars to send everywhere.  Please be sure you know what you are doing.       

                                                                               

Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny]                         

 

     Don't worry -- your message won't really cost the Net untold 

amounts, although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second 

whether your message really should go everywhere.

     If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of 

publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn.  In rn, as with follow-up 

articles, the upper-case key includes the original message in yours.

     Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message 

you post will eventually wind up on every host system within the 

geographic region you specified that carries that newsgroup.

     Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with 

comp.risks.  In these groups, messages are shipped to a single 

location where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, 

decides what actually gets posted.  In some cases, groups are 

moderated like scholarly journals.  In other cases, it's to try to cut 

down on the massive number of messages that might otherwise be posted.  

     You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy 

"signature" that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing 

and, almost incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address.  You 

too can have your own "signature" automatically appended to everything 

you post.  On your own computer, create a signature file.  Try to keep 

it to four lines or less, lest you annoy others on the Net.  Then, 

while connected to your host system, type 

 

               cat>.signature

 

and hit enter (note the period before the s).  Upload your signature 

file into this using your communications software's ASCII upload 

protocol.  When done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a 

file.  Now, every time you post a message, this will be appended to it. 

     There are a few caveats to posting.  Usenet is no different from 

a Town Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, 

whether that's posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal 

activities.  It is also not a place to try to sell products (except in 

certain biz. and for-sale newsgroups).

3.8  CROSS-POSTING

 

     Sometimes, you'll have an issue you think should be discussed in 

more than one Usenet newsgroup.  Rather than posting individual messages 

in each group, you can post the same message in several groups at once, 

through a process known as cross-posting. 

     Say you want to start a discussion about the political 

ramifications of importing rare tropical fish from Brazil.  People who 

read rec.aquaria might have something to say. So might people who read 

alt.politics.animals and talk.politics.misc.

     Cross-posting is easy.  It also should mean that people on other 

systems who subscribe to several newsgroups will see your message only 

once, rather than several times -- news-reading software can cancel out 

the other copies once a person has read the message.  When you get ready 

to post a message (whether through Pnews for rn or the :post command in 

nn), you'll be asked in which newsgroups.  Type the names of the various 

groups, separated by a comma, but no space, for example: 

 

          rec.aquaria,alt.politics.animals,talk.politics.misc

 

and hit enter.  After answering the other questions (geographic 

distribution, etc.), the message will be posted in the various 

groups (unless one of the groups is moderated, in which case the 

message goes to the moderator, who decides whether to make it public). 

     It's considered bad form to post to an excessive number of 

newsgroups, or inappropriate newsgroups.  Chances are, you don't really 

have to post something in 20 different places.  And while you may think 

your particular political issue is vitally important to the fate of the 

world, chances are the readers of rec.arts.comics will not, or at least 

not important enough to impose on them.  You'll get a lot of nasty e-

mail messages demanding you restrict your messages to the "appropriate" 

newsgroups.

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To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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Chapter 4: USENET II

 

 

4.1  FLAME, BLATHER AND SPEW

 

     Something about online communications seems to make some people 

particularly irritable.  Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity 

of it all.  Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will 

soon think seem to exist to make you miserable.

     Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do 

with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key 

and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them.  

Even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into 

raving madmen.  When this happens, flames erupt.  

     A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for 

something he or she has written.  

     Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that 

begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes 

several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they 

feel).  These can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in 

which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the 

relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs).  Often, just when they're 

dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets 

upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e-mail 

so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business 

is.  

     All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in 

which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the 

First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for 

impugning this poor soul...  You get the idea. 

     Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody 

predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole 

thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe 

even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved.  This brings what 

has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the 

network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: 

"Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11.'' 

     Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first.  They 

quickly grow boring, though.  And wait until the first time you're 

attacked!

     Flamers are not the only net.characters to watch out for.  

     Spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about 

either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the 

throats of people who don't seem to care -- as frequently as possible. 

     You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he 

posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which 

he then sends these articles -- both can reach well into double digits. 

Often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the 

world. Frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at 

hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts.  No matter.  If you 

try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will 

be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an 

insensitive racist/American/whatever or ignore your point entirely to 

bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of 

whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people. 

     Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who 

periodically inundate certain groups (such as soc.history) with long 

rants about how the Holocaust never really happened.  Some people 

attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only 

encourages them.

      Blatherers tend to be more benign.  Their problem is that they 

just can't get to the point -- they can wring three or four screenfuls 

out of a thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two.  A 

related condition is excessive quoting.  People afflicted with this will 

include an entire message in their reply rather than excising the 

portions not relevant to whatever point they're trying to make.  The 

worst quote a long message and then add a single line:

 

           "I agree!"

 

or some such, often followed by a monster .signature.

      There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to 

recognize.  Among them: 

     Net.weenies.  These are the kind of people who enjoy Insulting 

others, the kind of people who post nasty messages in a sewing 

newsgroup just for the hell of it. 

     Net.geeks.  People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what 

happens when they graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access. 

     Net.gods.  The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the 

keepers of its collective history. They were around when the Net 

consisted of a couple of computers tied together with baling wire.

     Lurkers.  Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but 

they are.  They're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or 

respond. 

     Wizards.  People who know a particular Net-related topic inside 

and out.  Unix wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating 

system, for example. 

     Net.saints.  Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share 

their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate 

the Net, they are not as rare as you might think.  Post a question 

about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses you 

get.

     The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition.  With 

few written guides, people have traditionally learned their way around 

the Net by asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on 

the Net itself.  That tradition continues: if you have a question, ask.

     Today, one of the places you can look for help is in the 

news.newusers.questions newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a 

place to learn more about Usenet.  But be careful what you post.  Some 

of the Usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to 

answer the same question over and over again. Oh, they'll eventually 

answer your question, but not before they tell you should have 

asked your host system administrator first or looked at the postings in 

news.announce.newusers.

 

4.2  KILLFILES, THE CURE FOR WHAT AILS YOU 

 

     As you keep reading Usenet, you are going to run across things or 

people that really drive you nuts -- or that you just get tired of 

seeing. 

     Killfiles are just the thing for you. When you start your 

newsreader, it checks to see if you have any lists of words, phrases 

or names you don't want to see.  If you do, then it blanks out any 

messages containing those words. 

     Such as cascades. 

     As you saw earlier, when you post a reply to a message and 

include parts of that message, the original lines show up with a > in 

front of them.  Well, what if you reply to a reply?  Then you get a >> 

in front of the line.  And if you reply to that reply? You get >>>.  

Keep this up, and soon you get a triangle of >'s building up in your 

message. 

     There are people who like building up these triangles, or 

cascades.  They'll "respond" to your message by deleting everything 

you've said, leaving only the "In message 123435, you said:" part and 

the last line of your message, to which they add a nonsensical 

retort.  On and on they go until the triangle has reached the right 

end of the page. Then they try to expand the triangle by deleting one 

> with each new line. Whoever gets to finish this mega-triangle wins.        

     There is even a newsgroup just for such folks: alt.cascade.  

Unfortunately, cascaders would generally rather cascade in other 

newsgroups. Because it takes a lot of messages to build up a completed 

cascade, the targeted newsgroup soon fills up with these messages. Of 

course, if you complain, you'll be bombarded with messages about the 

First Amendment and artistic expression -- or worse, with another 

cascade. The only thing you can do is ignore them, by setting up a 

killfile. 

     There are also certain newsgroups where killfiles will come in 

handy because of the way they are organized.  For example, readers of 

rec.arts.tv.soaps always use an acronym in their subject: line for 

the show they're writing about (AMC, for example, for "All My 

Children").  This way, people who only want to read about "One Life to 

Live" can blank out all the messages about "The Young and the 

Restless" and all the others (to keep people from accidentally 

screening out messages that might contain the letters "gh" in them, 

"General Hospital" viewers always use "gh:" in their subject lines). 

      Both nn and rn let you create killfiles, but in different ways. 

     To create a killfile in nn, go into the newsgroup with the 

offending messages and type a capital K.  You'll see this at the 

bottom of your screen: 

 

               AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days) 

                                                                               

If you hit return, nn will ask you which article's subject you're 

tired of. Chose one and the article and any follow-ups will disappear, 

and you won't see them again for 30 days. 

     If you type a lower-case k instead, you'll get this: 

 

               AUTO KILL on (s)ubject or (n)ame  (s) 

                                                                               

If you hit your S key or just enter,  you'll see this: 

                                                                               

               KILL Subject: (=/) 

 

Type in the name of the offending word or phrase and hit enter.  

You'll then be prompted: 

                                                                               

               KILL in (g)roup 'eff.test' or in (a)ll groups  (g) 

                                                                               

except that the name of the group you see will be the one you're 

actually in at the moment.  Because cascaders and other annoying 

people often cross-post their messages to a wide range of newsgroups, 

you might consider hitting a instead of g.  Next comes: 

 

               Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent  (30) 

 

The P key will screen out the offending articles forever, while 

hitting enter will do it for 30 days.  You can also type in a number 

of days for the blocking. 

     Creating killfiles in rn works differently -- its default 

killfile generator only works for messages in specific groups, rather 

than globally for your entire newsgroup list.  To create a global 

killfile, you'll have to write one yourself. 

     To create a killfile in rn, go into the newsgroup where the 

offending messages are and type in its number so you get it on your 

screen. Type a capital K.  From now on, any message with that subject 

line will disappear before you read the group. You should probably 

choose a reply, rather than the original message, so that you will get 

all of the followups (the original message won't have a "Re: " in its 

subject line). The next time you call up that newsgroup, rn will tell 

you it's killing messages. When it's done, hit the space bar to go 

back into reading mode. 

     To create a "global" kill file that will automatically wipe out 

articles in all groups you read, start rn and type control-K.  This 

will start your whatever text editor you have as your default on your 

host system and create a file (called KILL, in your News 

subdirectory).         

     On the first line, you'll type in the word, phrase or name you 

don't want to see, followed by commands that tell rn whether to search 

an entire message for the word or name and then what to do when it 

finds it. 

     Each line must be in this form 

 

               /pattern/modifier:j 

 

     "Pattern" is the word or phrase you want rn to look for.  It's 

case-insensitive: both "test" and "Test" will be knocked out.  The 

modifier tells rn whether to limit its search to message headers 

(which can be useful when the object is to never see messages from a 

particular person): 

 

               a:    Looks through an entire message 

               h:    Looks just at the header 

    

     You can leave out the modifier command, in which case rn will 

only look at the subject line of messages. The "j" at the end tells rn 

to screen out all articles with the offending word. 

     So if you never want to see the word "foo" in any header, ever again, 

type this: 

 

                /foo/h:j          

 

     This is particularly useful for getting rid of articles from 

people who post in more than one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since 

an article's newsgroup name is always in the header. 

     If you just want to block messages with a subject line about 

cascades, you could try: 

  

                 /foo/:j 

 

  To kill anything that is a followup to any article, use this 

pattern: 

 

                 /Subject: *Re:/:j 

 

When done writing lines for each phrase to screen, exit the text 

editor as you normally would, and you'll be put back in rn. 

     One word of caution: go easy on the global killfile.  An 

extensive global killfile, or one that makes frequent use of the a: 

modifier can dramatically slow down rn, since the system will now have 

to look at every single word in every single message in all the 

newsgroups you want to read. 

    If there's a particular person whose posts you never want to see 

again, first find his or address (which will be in the "from:" line of 

his postings) and then write a line in your killfile like this: 

 

                  /From: *name@address\.all/h:j

4.3  SOME USENET HINTS

 

     Case counts in Unix -- most of the time.  Many Unix commands, 

including many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case 

sensitive.  Hit a d when you meant a D and either nothing will happen, 

or something completely different from what you expected will happen.  

So watch that case! 

     In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark 

(the exception is when you are writing your own message, because then 

you are inside the text-processing program).  In rn, type a lower-case h 

at any prompt to get some online help.

     When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through 

the l command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to 

try several keywords.  For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to

the Grateful Dead, but you'd never find it if you tried, say, l grateful

dead, because the name is rec.music.gdead.  In general, try the smallest

possible part of the word or discussion you're looking for, for example,

use "trek" to find newsgroups about "Star Trek."  If one word doesn't

produce anything, try another.

4.4  THE BRAIN-TUMOR BOY, THE MODEM TAX AND THE CHAIN LETTER

     

                                 

     Like the rest of the world, Usenet has its share of urban legends 

and questionable activities.  There are three in particular that plague 

the network.  Spend more than, oh, 15 minutes within Usenet and you're 

sure to run into the Brain Tumor Boy, the plot by the evil FCC to tax 

your modem and Dave Rhode's miracle cure for poverty.  For the record, 

here's the story on all of them: 

     There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig 

Shergold who was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor.  As 

he lay dying, he wished only to have friends send him postcards.  The 

local newspapers got a hold of the tear-jerking story.  Soon, the boy's 

wish had changed: he now wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World 

Records for the largest postcard collection.  Word spread around the 

world. People by the millions sent him postcards. 

     Miraculously, the boy lived.  An American billionaire even flew 

him to the U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor.  And 

his wish succeeded beyond his wildest dreams -- he made the Guinness 

Book of World Records. 

     But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into 

a nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where 

he lives.  Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to 

die, inundating the post office with millions of cards every year.  

Just when it seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else 

who starts up a whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig 

post cards (or greeting cards or business cards -- Craig letters have 

truly taken on a life of their own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby 

has been powerless to make it stop!

     What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter 

seems to pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major 

corporations.  No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford 

posts periodic messages to ignore them or spend your money on something 

more sensible (a donation to the local Red Cross, say), somebody 

manages to post a letter asking readers to send cards to poor little 

Craig. 

     Don't send any cards to the Federal Communications Commission, 

either.

     In 1987, the FCC considered removing a tax break it had granted 

CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the 

national phone system.  The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users 

of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem 

tax." 

     Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message 

warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax.  This is 

NOT true.  The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story 

is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on 

KGO radio in San Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a 

story about the tax in the New York Times.  

     Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a 

specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments.

     Save that letter to your congressman for something else.

     Sooner or later, you're going to run into a message titled "Make 

Money Fast."  It's your basic chain letter.  The Usenet version is always 

about some guy named Dave Rhodes who was on the verge of death, or 

something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money 

-- by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. Yeah, 

right. 

4.5  BIG SIG

 

     There are .sigs and there are .sigs.  Many people put only bare-bones 

information in their .sig files -- their names and e-mail addresses, 

perhaps their phone numbers.  Others add a quotation they think is funny or 

profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer.

 Still others add some ASCII-art graphics.  And then there are 

those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, 

hideous ASCII "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could 

humanly need.  College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at 

these.   You can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord 

newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as:

 

 

___________________________________________________________________________

|#########################################################################|

|#|                                                                     |#|

|#|   *****  *    *  *****    *   *  *****  *****  *****                |#|

|#|     *    *    *  *        ** **  *      *      *   *                |#|

|#|     *    ******  ***      * * *  ***    *  **  *****   *****        |#|

|#|     *    *    *  *        *   *  *      *   *  *   *                |#|

|#|     *    *    *  *****    *   *  *****  *****  *   *                |#|

|#|                                                                     |#|

|#|   ****   *****  *****         *****  *****  *****    *****  *****   |#|

|#|   *  **    *    *             *        *    *        *      *   *   |#|

|#|   ****     *    *  **         *****    *    *  **    *      *   *   |#|

|#|   *  **    *    *   *     **      *    *    *   *    *      *   *   |#|

|#|   ****   *****  *****     **  *****  *****  *****    *****  *****   |#|

|#|                                                                     |#|

|#|            T-H-E  M-E-G-A  B-I-G  .S-I-G  C-O-M-P-A-N-Y             |#|

|#|                  ~-----------------------------~                    |#|

|#|  "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..."    |#|

|#|                                                                     |#|

|#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#|

|#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#|

|#|  least a bucket can be emptied.  Let me further illustrate my point |#|

|#|  by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts)  Here we have a |#|

|#|  user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow-   |#|

|#|  minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many   |#|

|#|  pages with useless quotes.  This also makes reading his frequented |#|

|#|  newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I  |#|

|#|  might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic  |#|

|#|  dump sites."                                                       |#|

|#|                     -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr                       |#|

|#|                        President of The Mega Big Sig Company        |#|

|#|                        September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm               |#|

|#|                        During his speech at the "Net.abusers        |#|

|#|                        Society Luncheon" during the                 |#|

|#|                        "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention"          |#|

|#|_____________________________________________________________________|#|

|#|                                                                     |#|

|#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales    |#|

|#|      __                                                             |#|

|#|  ==========    ______             Digital Widget Manufacturing Co.  |#|

|#|         \\     /                  1147 Complex Incorporated Drive   |#|

|#|        )-=======                  Suite 215                         |#|

|#|                                   Nostromo, VA 22550-1147           |#|

|#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :)          Phone # 804-844-2525              |#|

|#|    ----------------               Fax # 804-411-1115                |#|

|#| "Shut up, Wesley!"                Online Service # 804-411-1100     |#|

|#|                  -- Me            at 300-2400, and now 9600 baud!   |#|

|#|                                   PUNet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo      |#|

|#| Home address:                     InterNet: dvader@imperial.emp.com |#|

|#| Thomas Babbit, III                Prodigy: Still awaiting author-   |#|

|#| 104 Luzyer Way                             ization                  |#|

|#| Sulaco, VA 22545                  "Manufacturing educational widget |#|

|#| Phone # 804-555-1524               design for over 3 years..."      |#|

|#|=====================================================================|#|

|#|                                                                     |#|

|#|  Introducing:                                                       |#|

|#|                                 ______                              |#|

|#|  The  |\  /|                         /                              |#|

|#|       | \/ |                        /                               |#|

|#|       |    |                       /                                |#|

|#|       |    |                      /                                 |#|

|#|       |    | ETELHED             /_____ ONE                         |#|

|#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#|

|#| 50Megs Online!  The k00l BBS for rad teens!  Lots of games and many |#|

|#| bases for kul topix!  Call now and be validated to the Metelhed Zone|#|

|#|                      -- 804-555-8500 --                             |#|

|#|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\V/////////////////////////////////////|#|

|#| "This is the end, my friend..."      -- The Doors                   |#|

|#########################################################################|

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hit "b" to continue

 

Hahahha... fooled u!

4.6  THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS LOCAL ORDINANCE

 

 

     Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that 

have yet to be fully resolved.  Can a discussion or posting that is legal 

in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law?  

Does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border?  And 

what if that country is the only path to a third country where the 

message is legal as well?  Several foreign colleges and other 

institutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where Americans 

post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or 

alternative sexual practices.  Even in the U.S., some universities have 

discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive, 

again, usually in the alt. hierarchy. 

     An interesting example of this sort of question happened in 1993, 

when a Canadian court issued a gag order on Canadian reporters covering a 

particularly controversial murder case.  Americans, not bound by the gag 

order, began posting accounts of the trial -- which any Canadian with a 

Net account could promptly read.

4.7  USENET HISTORY  

 

      In the late 1970s, Unix developers came up with a new feature: a 

system to allow Unix computers to exchange data over phone lines.

        In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University in North 

Carolina, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, came up with the idea of using 

this system, known as UUCP (for Unix-to-Unix CoPy), to distribute 

information of interest to people in the Unix community.  Along with 

Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina 

and Steve Daniel, they wrote conferencing software and linked together 

computers at Duke and UNC. 

     Word quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley, 

Mark Horton and a nearby high school student, Matt Glickman, had 

released a new version that added more features and was able to handle 

larger volumes of postings -- the original North Carolina program was 

meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day. 

     Today, Usenet connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, 

from mainframes to Amigas.  With more than 3,000 newsgroups and untold 

thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer 

network. 

            

4.8 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

 

     * When you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus 

newsgroups" are present.  Within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked 

whether to keep these or delete them.  Delete them.  Bogus newsgroups 

are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has 

determined are no longer needed.

     * While in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping 

unavailable article."  This is usually an article that somebody posted 

and then decided to cancel.

4.9 FYI

 

      Leanne Phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked 

questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the 

news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups on Usenet.  Bill 

Wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the news.answers and 

news.software newsgroups.  Look in the news.announce.newusers and 

news.groups newsgroups on Usenet for "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and 

Mailing Lists,'' which gives brief summaries of the various soc. 

newsgroups. 

     "Managing UUCP and Usenet,' by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino 

(O'Reilly & Associates, 1992) is a good guide for setting up your own 

Usenet system.

From emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm  Thu Feb  3 23:24:52 1994 remote from awwe

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From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>

To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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Chapter 5: MAILING LISTS AND BITNET

 

 

5.1  INTERNET MAILING LISTS

     Usenet is not the only forum on the Net.  Scores of "mailing 

lists"  represent another way to interact with other Net users.  

Unlike Usenet messages,  which are stored in one central location on 

your host system's computer, mailing-list messages are delivered right 

to your e-mail box, unlike Usenet messages.

     You have to ask for permission to join a mailing list.  Unlike 

Usenet, where your message is distributed to the world, on a mailing 

list, you send your messages to a central moderator, who either re-mails 

it to the other people on the list or uses it to compile a periodic 

"digest" mailed to subscribers. 

     Given the number of newsgroups, why would anybody bother with a 

mailing list?  

    Even on Usenet, there are some topics that just might not generate 

enough interest for a newsgroup; for example, the Queen list, which is 

all about the late Freddie Mercury's band.  

    And because a moderator decides who can participate, a mailing list 

can offer a degree of freedom to speak one's mind (or not worry about 

net.weenies) that is not necessarily possible on Usenet.  Several 

groups offer anonymous postings -- only the moderator knows the real 

names of people who contribute. Examples include 12Step, where people 

enrolled in such programs as Alcoholics Anonymous can discuss their 

experiences, and sappho, a list limited to gay and bisexual women. 

       You can find mailing addresses and descriptions of these lists 

in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup with the subject of "Publicly 

Accessible Mailing Lists."  Mailing lists now number in the hundreds, 

so this posting is divided into three parts. 

        If you find a list to which you want to subscribe, send an e-

mail message to 

 

        list-request@address

 

where "list" is the name of the mailing list and "address" is the 

moderator's e-mail address, asking to be added to the list.  Include 

your full e-mail address just in case something happens to your 

message's header along the way, and ask, if you're accepted, for the 

address to mail messages to the list. 

5.2 BITNET

    

 

     As if Usenet and mailing lists were not enough, there are Bitnet 

"discussion groups" or "lists."  

     Bitnet is an international network linking colleges and 

universities, but it uses a different set of technical protocols for 

distributing information than the Internet or Usenet. 

     It offers hundreds of discussion groups, comparable in scope to 

Usenet newsgroups.         

     One of the major differences is the way messages are 

distributed.  Bitnet messages are sent to your mailbox, just as with a 

mailing list. However, where mailing lists are often maintained by a 

person, all Bitnet discussion groups are automated -- you subscribe to 

them through messages to a "listserver" computer.  This is a kind of 

robot moderator that controls distribution of messages on the list.  In 

many cases, it also maintains indexes and archives of past postings in a 

given discussion group, which can be handy if you want to get up to 

speed with a discussion or just search for some information related to 

it.

     Many Bitnet discussion groups are now "translated" into Usenet 

form and carried through Usenet in the bit.listserv hierarchy.  In 

general, it's probably better to read messages through Usenet if you 

can.  It saves some storage space on your host system's hard drives.  

     If 50 people subscribe to the same Bitnet list, that means 50 

copies of each message get stored on the system; whereas if 50 people 

read a Usenet message, that's still only one message that needs storage 

on the system.  It can also save your sanity if the discussion group 

generates large numbers of messages.  Think of opening your e-mailbox 

one day to find 200 messages in it -- 199 of them from a discussion 

group and one of them a "real" e-mail message that's important to you. 

     Subscribing and canceling subscriptions is done through an e-

mail message to the listserver computer.  For addressing, all 

listservers are known as "listserv" (yep) at some Bitnet address.  

This means you will have to add ".bitnet" to the end of the 

address, if it's in a form like this: listserv@miamiu. For example, if 

you have an interest in environmental issues, you might want to 

subscribe to the Econet discussion group.  To subscribe, send an e-mail 

message to

 

                listserv@miamiu.bitnet

 

Some Bitnet listservers are also connected to the Internet, so if you 

see a listserver address ending in ".edu", you can e-mail the 

listserver without adding ".bitnet" to the end. 

     Always leave the "subject:" line blank in a message to a 

listserver.  Inside the message, you tell the listserver what you 

want, with a series of simple commands: 

 

subscribe group Your Name    To subscribe to a list, where "group"

                             is the list name and "Your Name" is 

                             your full name, for example:

                             subscribe econet Henry Fielding

 

unsubscribe group Your Name  To discontinue a group, for example:

                             unsubscribe econet Henry Fielding

 

list global                  This sends you a list of all available 

                             Bitnet discussion groups.  But be careful 

                             -- the list is VERY long! 

 

get refcard                  Sends you a list of other commands you 

                             can use with a listserver, such as 

                             commands for retrieving past postings 

                             from a discussion group. 

 

     Each of these commands goes on a separate line in your message 

(and you can use one or all of them).  If you want to get a list of 

all Bitnet discussion groups, send e-mail to 

 

                listserv@bitnic.educom.edu

 

Leave the "subject:" line blank and use the list global command.

     When you subscribe to a Bitnet group, there are two important 

differences from Usenet.

     First, when you want to post a message for others to read in the 

discussion group, you send a message to the group name at its Bitnet 

address.  Using Econet as an example, you would mail the message to: 

 

                econet@miamiu.bitnet

 

     Note that this is different from the listserv address you used to 

subscribe to the group to begin with.  Use the listserv address ONLY 

to subscribe to or unsubscribe from a discussion group.  If you use the 

discussion-group address, your message will go out to every other 

subscriber, many of whom will think unkind thoughts, which they may 

share with you in an e-mail message). 

      The second difference relates to sending an e-mail message to the 

author of a particular posting.  Usenet newsreaders such as rn and nn 

let you do this with one key.  But if you hit your R key to respond to 

a discussion-group message, your message will go to the listserver, 

and from there to everybody else on the list!  This can prove 

embarrassing to you and annoying to others. To make sure your 

message goes just to the person who wrote the posting, take down his 

e-mail address from the posting and then compose a brand-new message 

to him.  Remember, also, that if you see an e-mail address like 

IZZY@INDYVMS, it's a Bitnet address.

        Two Bitnet lists will prove helpful for delving further into the 

network.  NEW-LIST tells you the names of new discussion groups. To 

subscribe, send a message to listserv@ndsuvm1.bitnet: 

 

                sub NEW-LIST Your Name

 

     INFONETS is the place to go when you have questions about Bitnet.  

It is also  first rate for help on questions about all major computer 

networks and how to reach them.  To subscribe, send e-mail to info-nets-

request@think.com: 

 

                sub INFONETS Your Name

 

     Both of these lists are also available on Usenet, the former as 

bit.listserv.new-list; the latter as bit.listserv.infonets (sometimes 

bit.listserv.info-nets).

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From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>

To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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Chapter 6: TELNET 

 

 

6.1  MINING THE NET

     Like any large community, cyberspace has its libraries, places you 

can go to look up information or take out a good book.  Telnet is one of 

your keys to these libraries. 

     Telnet is a program that lets you use the power of the Internet to 

connect you to databases, library catalogs, and other information 

resources around the world.  Want to see what the weather's like in 

Vermont? Check on crop conditions in Azerbaijan? Get more information 

about somebody whose name you've seen online? Telnet lets you do this, 

and more. 

     Alas, there's a big "but!''  Unlike the phone system, Internet is not 

yet universal;  not everybody can use all of its services.  Almost all 

colleges and universities on the Internet provide telnet access.   So do 

all of the for-fee public-access systems listed in Chapter 1. But the 

Free-Net systems do not give you access to every telnet system.  And if 

you are using a public-access UUCP or Usenet site, you will not have 

access to telnet. The main reason for this is cost.  Connecting to the 

Internet can easily cost $1,000 or more for a leased, high-speed phone 

line. Some databases and file libraries can be queried by e-mail, 

however; we'll show you how to do that later on. In the meantime, the 

rest of this chapter assumes you are connected to a site with at least 

partial Internet access. 

     Most telnet sites are fairly easy to use and have online help systems. 

Most also work best (and in some cases, only) with VT100 emulation.  

Let's dive right in and try one.

     At your host system's command line, type

 

          telnet access.usask.ca

 

and hit enter.  That's all you have to do to connect to a telnet site!  

In this case, you'll be connecting to a service known as Hytelnet, which 

is a database of computerized library catalogs and other databases 

available through telnet.  You should see something like this:

 

          Trying 128.233.3.1 ...

          Connected to access.usask.ca.

          Escape character is '^]'.

 

 

          Ultrix UNIX (access.usask.ca)

 

          login: 

 

 

     Every telnet site has two addresses -- one composed of words that 

are easier for people to remember; the other a numerical address better 

suited for computers.  The "escape character" is good to remember.  When 

all else fails, hitting your control key and the ] key at the same time 

will disconnect you and return you to your host system.  At the login 

prompt, type 

 

        hytelnet

 

and hit enter.  You'll see something like this:

 

                            Welcome to HYTELNET 

                                version 6.2  

                            ...................

                                                                               

   What is HYTELNET?         <WHATIS>     .        Up/Down arrows MOVE 

   Library catalogs          <SITES1>     .        Left/Right arrows SELECT

   Other resources           <SITES2>     .        ? for HELP anytime

   Help files for catalogs   <OP000>      .                

   Catalog interfaces        <SYS000>     .        m returns here

   Internet Glossary         <GLOSSARY>   .        q quits

   Telnet tips               <TELNET>     . 

   Telnet/TN3270 escape keys <ESCAPE.KEY> . 

   Key-stroke commands       <HELP.TXT>   . 

                                          

                                          

                          ........................

                      HYTELNET 6.2 was written by Peter Scott,

         U of Saskatchewan Libraries, Saskatoon, Sask, Canada.  1992

     Unix and VMS software by Earl Fogel, Computing Services, U of S 1992

                                                                       

      The first choice, "<WHATIS>" will be highlighted.  Use your down 

and up arrows to move the cursor among the choices.  Hit enter when you 

decide on one.  You'll get another menu, which in turn will bring up 

text files telling you how to connect to sites and giving any special 

commands or instructions you might need.  Hytelnet does have one quirk. 

To move back to where you started (for example, from a sub-menu to a 

main menu), hit the left-arrow key on your computer.  

     Play with the system.  You might want to turn on your computer's 

screen-capture, or at the very least, get out a pen and paper. You're 

bound to run across some interesting telnet services that you'll want to 

try -- and you'll need their telnet "addresses.''

     As you move around Hytelnet, it may seem as if you haven't left 

your host system -- telnet can work that quickly.  Occasionally, when 

network loads are heavy, however, you will notice a delay between the 

time you type a command or enter a request and the time the remote 

service responds. 

     To disconnect from Hytelnet and return to your system, hit your q 

key and enter. 

     Some telnet computers are set up so that you can only access them 

through a specific "port."  In those cases, you'll always see a number 

after their name, for example:  india.colorado.edu 13. It's important to 

include that number, because otherwise, you may not get in.

     In fact, try the above address. Type

 

                telnet india.colorado.edu 13

 

and hit enter.  You should see something like this:

 

                Trying 128.138.140.44 ...

 

Followed very quickly by this:

 

               telnet india.colorado.edu 13 

        

                Escape character is '^]'.

                Sun Jan 17 14:11:41 1994

                Connection closed by foreign host.

 

     

     What we want is the middle line, which tells you the exact 

Mountain Standard Time, as determined by a government-run atomic clock 

in Boulder, Colo. 

                   

 

6.2  LIBRARY CATALOGS

     

     Several hundred libraries around the world, from the Snohomish 

Public Library in Washington State to the Library of Congress are now 

available to you through telnet. You can use Hytelnet to find their 

names, telnet addresses and use instructions. 

     Why would you want to browse a library you can't physically get to?  

Many libraries share books, so if yours doesn't have what you're looking 

for, you can tell the librarian where he or she can get it.  Or if you live 

in an area where the libraries are not yet online, you can use telnet to do 

some basic bibliographic research before you head down to the local branch. 

     There are several different database programs in use by online 

libraries.  Harvard's is one of the easier ones to use, so let's try it.

     Telnet to hollis.harvard.edu.  When you connect, you'll see:

 

   *****************        H A R V A R D   U N I V E R S I T Y                

   *****************         OFFICE FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY                 

   ***    ***    ***                                                           

   *** VE *** RI ***                                                           

   ***    ***    ***         HOLLIS    (Harvard OnLine LIbrary System)         

    *****     *****                                                            

     **** TAS ****           HUBS      (Harvard University Basic Services)     

       ***   ***                                                               

         *****               IU        (Information Utility)                   

          ***                                                                  

                             CMS       (VM/CMS Timesharing Service)            

                                                                               

                                                                               

             ** HOLLIS IS AVAILABLE WITHOUT ACCESS RESTRICTIONS **             

     Access to other applications is limited to individuals who have been      

     granted specific permission by an authorized person.                      

                                                                               

     To select one of the applications above, type its name on the command     

     line followed by your user ID, and press RETURN.                          

                    ** HOLLIS DOES NOT REQUIRE A USERID **                     

                                                                               

     EXAMPLES:   HOLLIS (press RETURN)  or  HUBS userid (press RETURN)         

===>                                                                           

 

Type

 

              hollis

 

and hit enter.  You'll see several screens flash by quickly until finally the 

system stops and you'll get this: 

 

                          WELCOME TO HOLLIS                                    

              (Harvard OnLine Library Information System)                      

                                                                               

 To begin, type one of the 2-character database codes listed below:            

                                                                               

        HU      Union Catalog of the Harvard libraries                         

        OW      Catalog of Older Widener materials                             

        LG      Guide to Harvard Libraries and Computing Resources             

                                                                               

        AI      Expanded Academic Index (selective 1987-1988, full 1989-  )    

        LR      Legal Resource Index (1980-  )                                 

        PA      PAIS International (1985-  )                                   

                                                                               

 To change databases from any place in HOLLIS, type CHOOSE followed by a       

 2-character database code, as in:    CHOOSE HU                                

                                                                               

 For general help in using HOLLIS, type HELP.   For HOLLIS news, type          

 HELP NEWS.   For HOLLIS hours of operation, type HELP HOURS.                  

     

        ALWAYS PRESS THE ENTER OR RETURN KEY AFTER TYPING YOUR COMMAND         

 

     The first thing to notice is the name of the system: Hollis. 

Librarians around the world seem to be inordinately found of cutesy, 

anthropomorphized acronyms for their machines (not far from Harvard, the 

librarians at Brandeis University came up with Library On-Line User 

Information Service, or Louis; MIT has Barton). 

     If you want to do some general browsing, probably the best bet on the 

Harvard system is to chose HU, which gets you access to their main 

holdings, including those of its medical libraries.  Chose that, and you'll 

see this:

                                                  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                          

              THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY UNION CATALOG                     

                                                                               

 To begin a search, select a search option from the list below and type its    

 code on the command line.  Use either upper or lower case.                    

                                                                               

                  AU           Author search                                   

                  TI           Title search                                    

                  SU           Subject search                                  

                  ME           Medical subject search                          

                  KEYWORD      Keyword search options                          

                  CALL         Call number search options                      

                  OTHER        Other search options                            

                                                                               

 For information on the contents of the Union Catalog, type HELP.              

 To exit the Union Catalog, type QUIT.                                         

                                                                               

 A search can be entered on the COMMAND line of any screen.                    

                                                                               

          ALWAYS PRESS THE ENTER OR RETURN KEY AFTER TYPING YOUR COMMAND.      

 

     Say you want to see if Harvard has shed the starchy legacy of the 

Puritans, who founded the school.  Why not see if they have "The Joy of 

Sex" somewhere in their stacks? Type

 

               TI Joy of Sex

 

and hit enter. This comes up:

 

HU: YOUR SEARCH RETRIEVED NO ITEMS.  Enter new command or HELP.      You typed:

 TI JOY OF SEX                                                                 

*******************************************************************************

                                                                               

                                                                               

 

 

                                                                               

                                                                               

                                                                               

                                                                               

                                                                               

          ALWAYS PRESS THE ENTER OR RETURN KEY AFTER TYPING YOUR COMMAND.      

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OPTIONS: FIND                          START - search options           HELP   

                                       QUIT - exit database                    

COMMAND?                                                                       

 

 

 

Oh, well!  Do they have anything that mentions "sex" in the title?  Try 

another TI search, but this time just: TI sex.  You get:

 

 HU GUIDE: SUMMARY OF SEARCH RESULTS        2086 items retrieved by your search:

FIND TI SEX                                                                    

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

   1    SEX                                                                    

   2    SEX A                                                                  

 823    SEXA                                                                   

 827    SEXBO                                                                  

 831    SEXCE                                                                  

 833    SEXDR                                                                  

 834    SEXE                                                                   

 879    SEXIE                                                                  

 928    SEXJA                                                                  

 929    SEXLE                                                                  

 930    SEXO                                                                   

 965    SEXPI                                                                  

 968    SEXT                                                                   

1280    SEXUA                                                                  

2084    SEXWA                                                                  

2085    SEXY                                                                   

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OPTIONS: INDEX (or I 5 etc) to see list of items         HELP                  

                                                         START - search options

         REDO - edit search                              QUIT - exit database  

COMMAND?                                                                       

 

If you want to get more information on the first line, type 1 and hit enter:

 

 HU INDEX: LIST OF ITEMS RETRIEVED          2086 items retrieved by your search:

FIND TI SEX                                                                    

------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

SEX                                                                            

   1 geddes patrick sir 1854 1932/ 1914  bks                                   

                                                                               

SEX A Z                                                                        

   2 goldenson robert m/ 1987  bks                                             

                                                                               

SEX ABUSE HYSTERIA SALEM WITCH TRIALS REVISITED                                

   3 gardner richard a/ 1991  bks                                              

                                                                               

SEX AETATES MUNDI ENGLISH AND IRISH                                            

   4 irish sex aetates mundi/ 1983  bks                                        

                                                                               

SEX AFTER SIXTY A GUIDE FOR MEN AND WOMEN FOR THEIR LATER YEARS                

   5 butler robert n 1927/ 1976  bks                                           

                                                                               

                                                                               

------------------------------------------------------ (CONTINUES) ------------

OPTIONS: DISPLAY 1 (or D 5 etc) to see a record          HELP                  

         GUIDE                   MORE - next page        START - search options

         REDO - edit search                              QUIT - exit database  

COMMAND?                                                                       

 

 

     Most library systems give you a way to log off and return to your host 

system.  On Hollis, hit escape followed by 

 

          xx

 

     One particularly interesting system is the one run by the Colorado 

Alliance of Research Libraries, which maintains databases for libraries 

throughout Colorado, the West and even in Boston.

     Telnet pac.carl.org.

     Follow the simple log-in instructions. When you get a menu, type 72 

(even though that is not listed), which takes you to the Pikes Peak Library 

District, which serves the city of Colorado Springs.

     Several years ago, its librarians realized they could use their 

database program not just for books but for cataloging city records and 

community information, as well.  Today, if you want to look up municipal 

ordinances or city records, you only have to type in the word you're 

looking for and you'll get back cites of the relevant laws or decisions.

     Carl will also connect you to the University of Hawaii library, which, 

like the one in Colorado Springs, has more than just bibliographic material 

online.  One of its features is an online Hawaiian almanac that can tell 

you everything you ever wanted to know about Hawaiians, including the 

number injured in boogie-board accidents each year (seven).

6.3  SOME INTERESTING TELNET SITES

 

 

AGRICULTURE

 

     PENPages, run by Pennsylvania State University's College of 

Agricultural Sciences, provides weekly world weather and crop reports 

from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These reports detail 

everything from the effect of the weather on palm trees in Malaysia to 

the state of the Ukrainian wheat crop. Reports from Pennsylvania 

country extension officers offer tips for improving farm life. One 

database lists Pennsylvania hay distributors by county -- and rates 

the quality of their hay! 

     The service lets you search for information two different ways. A 

menu system gives you quick access to reports that change frequently, 

such as the weekly crop/weather reports. An index system lets you 

search through several thousand online documents by keyword. At the 

main menu, you can either browse through an online manual or chose 

"PENPages,'' which puts you into the agriculture system. 

     Telnet: psupen.psu.edu

     User name: PNOTPA

 

     California State University's Advanced Technology Information 

Network provides similar information as PENPages, only focusing on 

California crops. It also maintains lists of upcoming California trade 

shows and carries updates on biotechnology. 

     Telnet:  caticsuf.cati.csufresno.edu 

     Log in:  public 

 

    You will then be asked to register and will be given a user name 

and password.  Hit "a'' at the main menu for agricultural information.  

Hit "d'' to call up a menu that includes a biweekly biotechnology 

report. 

 

 

AIDS

 

     The University of Miami maintains a database of AIDS health 

providers in southern Florida.

     Telnet:  callcat.med.miami.edu

     Log in:  library

 

     At the main menu, select P (for "AIDS providers" and you'll be able 

to search for doctors, hospitals and other providers that care for 

patients with AIDS.  You can also search by speciality.

 

     See also under Health and Conversation.

 

 

AMATEUR RADIO:

 

     The National Ham Radio Call-Sign Callbook lets you search for 

American amateur operators by callsign, city, last name or Zip code. A 

successful search will give you the ham's name, address, callsign, 

age, type of license and when they got it. 

     Telnet:  callsign.cs.buffalo.edu 2000 or ham.njit.edu 2000.

     When you connect, you tell the system how you want to search and 

what you're looking for. For example, if you want to search for hams 

by city, you would type 

 

          city city name 

 

and hit enter (for example: city Kankakee).

     Other search choices are "call" (after which you would type a 

ham's name), "name," and "zip" (which you would follow with a Zip 

code).  Be careful when searching for hams in a large city; there 

doesn't seem to be anyway to shut off the list once it starts except 

by using control-]. Otherwise, when done, type 

 

               quit 

 

and hit enter to disconnect. 

 

 

ANIMALS

 

     See under Health.

 

ART

 

     The National Gallery of Art in Washington maintains a database of 

its holdings, which you can search by artist (Van Gogh, for example) or 

medium (watercolor, say). You can see when specific paintings were 

completed, what medium they are in, how large they are and who donated 

it to the gallery.

     Telnet:  ursus.maine.edu

     Login: ursus

     At the main menu, hit your b key and then 4 to connect to the 

gallery database.

     

CALCULATORS

 

     Hewlett-Packard maintains a free service on which you can seek 

advice about their line of calculators. 

     Telnet: hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com

     No log-in is needed.

 

CONGRESS

 

     The Library of Congress Information Service lets you search current

and past legislation (dating to 1982).

     Telnet: locis.loc.gov

     Password: none needed.

     When you connect, you'll get a main menu that lets you select 

from several databases, including the Library of Congress card catalog 

(with book entries dating to 1978) and a database of information on 

copyright laws.

     For the congressional database, select the number next to its 

entry and hit enter.  You'll then be asked to choose which legislative year 

to search. After that, a menu similar to this will come up:

 

  ***C103- THE LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION FILE FOR THE 103RD CONGRESS,

           which was updated on 05/10/93 and contains 4,044 records, 

           is now available for your search.

                                                                               

   CURRENCY: All information is NOT current through the above date, which is 

             machine generated when ANY information is added to the file.

             Bill numbers, official titles, sponsors, and status (STEP) added

             within 48 hours.  Indexing terms and digests added later, in 

             some cases several weeks after the bill is added to the file.

                                                                               

    TO START   RETRIEVE to find:                    EXAMPLES: 

    SEARCH:    member name  -------------->    retrieve rep gingrich 

                                               retrieve sen kennedy 

               bill number  -------------->    retrieve h.r. 1 

               subject keywords  --------->    retrieve day care

                                                                               

    FOR HELP:  Type the word HELP and press the ENTER key. 

                                                                               

                                                                               

    READY FOR NEW COMMAND:

 

CONVERSATION

    

     Communications Canada, a Canadian government agency is developing 

Conversational Hypertext Access Technology (CHAT) is a system being 

developed by Communications Canada to provide easy database access to 

people with little or no computer experience, using what are known as 

hypertext links.  Instead of cryptic computer commands, users type 

questions in English. 

    Telnet:  debra.doc.ca 

    Log in:  chat 

    You chose one of the three databases now online, one on AIDS, and 

then ask questions in English. 

    Ask the AIDS database, "When was AIDS first discovered?'' and it 

answers: 

    "The first case of AIDS in North America was diagnosed in 1979.  

Before that, it existed in Africa, probably beginning in the 1950's.  

AIDS was discovered in North America when a number of young men with a 

history of homosexuality developed a rare type of cancer called 

Kaposi's sarcoma.'' 

    Sometimes, you do have to rephrase your question. For example, 

when asked "What is the link between AIDS and drug use?'' the computer 

responds: 

    "I know two things about drugs: the drugs that are used to treat 

people with AIDS, and the risks that drug users have in getting AIDS.  

Please ask about treatments or drug users.'' 

 

COPYRIGHT LAW

 

     See under Congress.

 

CURRENT EVENTS

 

     Every year, the CIA publishes a Fact Book that is essentially an 

almanac of all the world's countries and international organizations, 

including such information as major products, type of government and 

names of its leaders.  It's available for searching through the 

University of Maryland Info Database. 

     Telnet: info.umd.edu

     Chose a terminal type and hit enter (or just hit enter if you are 

using VT100).  At the main menu, choose the number next to "Educational

Resources." Then select the number next to "International," followed by 

"Factbook." You can then search by country or agency. 

     This site also maintains copies of the U.S. budget, documents related 

to the North American Free Trade Agreement and other government 

initiatives. At the "Educational Resources" menu, select the number next to 

"United States" and then the one next to "Government."

     The Access Legislative Information Service lets you browse through

and look up bills before the Hawaiian legislature.

     Telnet: access.uhcc.hawaii.edu

 

ENVIRONMENT

 

     Envirolink is a large database and conference system about the 

environment, based in Pittsburgh.

     Telnet: envirolink.org

     Log on: gopher

     The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency maintains online 

databases of materials related to hazardous waste, the Clean Lakes 

program and cleanup efforts in New England.  The agency plans to 

eventually include cleanup work in other regions, as well.  The 

database is actually a computerized card catalog of EPA documents -- 

you can look the documents up, but you'll still have to visit your 

regional EPA office to see them. 

     Telnet: epaibm.rtpnc.epa.gov

     No password or user name is needed.  At the main menu, type

 

          public

 

and hit enter (there are other listed choices, but they are only for 

use by EPA employees).  You'll then see a one-line menu.  Type 

   

          ols 

 

and hit enter, and you'll see something like this:

 

 NET-106 Logon to TSO04    in progress.

 

    DATABASES:

        N     NATIONAL CATALOG         CH    CHEMICAL COLL. SYSTEM

        H     HAZARDOUS WASTE          1     REGION I

        L     CLEAN LAKES

 

    OTHER OPTIONS:

        ?     HELP

        Q     QUIT

 

  ENTER SELECTION -->

 

     Choose one and you'll get a menu that lets you search by document 

title, keyword, year of publication or corporation.  After you enter 

the search word and hit enter, you'll be told how many matches were 

found.  Hit 1 and then enter to see a list of the entries.  To view 

the bibliographic record for a specific entry, hit V and enter and 

then type the number of the record. 

 

     The University of Michigan maintains a database of newspaper and 

magazine articles related to the environment, with the emphasis on 

Michigan, dating back to 1980.

     Telnet:  hermes.merit.edu

     Host:  mirlyn

     Log in: meem  

 

GEOGRAPHY

 

     The University of Michigan Geographic Name Server can provide 

basic information, such as population, latitude and longitude of U.S. 

cities and many mountains, rivers and other geographic features. 

     Telnet: martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000 

     No password or user name is needed. Type in the name of a city, a 

Zip code or a geographic feature and hit enter.  The system doesn't like 

names with abbreviations in them (for example, Mt. McKinley), so spell 

them out (for example, Mount McKinley).

     By typing in a town's name or zip code, you can find out a 

community's county, Zip code and longitude and latitude. Not all 

geographic features are yet included in the database. 

 

GOVERNMENT

 

     See under Current Events and Congress.

 

HEALTH

 

      The U.S. Food and Drug Administration runs a database of health-

related information. 

      Telnet:  fdabbs.fda.gov

      Log in:  bbs

 

      You'll then be asked for your name and a password you want to use 

in the future.  After that, type

 

           topics

 

and hit enter.  You'll see this:

 

     TOPICS       DESCRIPTION

                                                                               

     *  NEWS         News releases

     *  ENFORCE      Enforcement Report

     *  APPROVALS    Drug and Device Product Approvals list

     *  CDRH         Centers for Devices and Radiological Health Bulletins

     *  BULLETIN     Text from Drug Bulletin                             

     *  AIDS         Current Information on AIDS

     *  CONSUMER     FDA Consumer magazine index and selected articles

     *  SUBJ-REG     FDA Federal Register Summaries by Subject       

     *  ANSWERS      Summaries of FDA information    

     *  INDEX        Index of News Releases and Answers

     *  DATE-REG     FDA Federal Register Summaries by Publication Date

     *  CONGRESS     Text of Testimony at FDA Congressional Hearings

     *  SPEECH       Speeches Given by FDA Commissioner and Deputy

     *  VETNEWS      Veterinary Medicine News

     *  MEETINGS     Upcoming FDA Meetings

     *  IMPORT       Import Alerts 

     *  MANUAL       On-Line User's Manual

                                                                               

     You'll be able to search these topics by key word or 

chronologically. It's probably a good idea, however, to capture a copy 

of the manual, first, because the way searching works on the system is a 

little odd.  To capture a copy, type

 

          manual

 

and hit enter.  Then type

 

         scan

 

and hit enter.  You'll see this:

 

     FOR LIST OF AVAILABLE TOPICS TYPE TOPICS

     OR ENTER THE TOPIC YOU DESIRE ==>

 

     MANUAL

     BBSUSER    

     08-OCT-91  

     1  BBS User Manual 

                                                                               

At this point, turn on your own computer's screen-capture or logging 

function and hit your 1 key and then enter.  The manual will begin to 

scroll on your screen, pausing every 24 lines.

 

HIRING AND COLLEGE PROGRAM INFORMATION

 

     The Federal Information Exchange in Gaithersburg, MD, runs two 

systems at the same address: FEDIX and MOLIS. FEDIX offers research, 

scholarship and service information for several federal agencies, 

including NASA, the Department of Energy and the Federal Aviation 

Administration. Several more federal agencies provide minority hiring 

and scholarship information. MOLIS provides information about minority 

colleges, their programs and professors. 

     Telnet: fedix.fie.com 

     User name:  fedix (for the federal hiring database) or

                 molis (for the minority-college system)

     Both use easy menus to get you to information.

 

HISTORY

 

     Stanford University maintains a database of documents related to 

Martin Luthor King.

     Telnet:  forsythetn.stanford.edu

     Account: socrates

 

     At the main menu, type

 

        select mlk

 

and hit enter.

 

SKI REPORTS

 

     See under weather.

 

SPACE

 

     NASA Spacelink in Huntsville, Ala.,  provides all sorts of 

reports and data about NASA, its history and its various missions, 

past and present.  You'll find detailed reports on every single probe, 

satellite and mission NASA has ever launched along with daily updates 

and lesson plans for teachers. 

     The system maintains a large file library of GIF-format space 

graphics, but  you can't download these through telnet. If you want 

them, you have to dial the system directly, at (205) 895-0028. 

     Telnet: spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov 

     When you connect, you'll be given an overview of the system and 

asked to register and chose a password. 

 

     The NED-NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database lists data on more than 

100,000 galaxies, quasars and other objects outside the Milky Way. 

     Telnet:  ipac.caltech.edu. 

     Log in:  ned

 

     You can learn more than you ever wanted to about quasars, novae and 

related objects on a system run by the Smithsonian Astrophysical 

Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.

     Telnet:  cfa204.harvard.edu

     Log in:  einline

 

     The physics department at the University of Massachusetts at 

Amherst runs a bulletin-board system that provides extensive conferences 

and document libraries related to space.

     Telnet: spacemet.phast.umass.edu

     Log on with your name and a password.

 

SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

 

     The University of Maryland Info Database maintains U.S. Supreme 

Court decisions from 1991 on.

     Telnet:  info.umd.edu

     Chose a terminal type and hit enter (or just hit enter if you are 

using VT100).  At the main menu, choose the number next to "Educational 

Resources" and hit enter. One of your options will then be for "United 

States."  Select that number and then, at the next menu, choose the one 

next to "Supreme Court." 

 

TELNET

 

     Hytelnet, at the University of Saskatchewan, is an online guide to 

hundreds of telnet sites around the world.

     Telnet:  access.usask.ca

     Log in:  hytelnet.

      

TIME

 

     To find out the exact time:

 

     Telnet: india.colorado.edu 13 

 

     You'll see something like this:

 

   

                Escape character is '^]'.

                Sun Apr  5 14:11:41 1992

                Connection closed by foreign host.

 

     The middle line tells you the date and exact Mountain Standard

     Time, as determined by a federal atomic clock.

 

TRANSPORTATION

     The Subway Navigator in Paris can help you learn how long it will 

take to get from point A to point B on subway systems around the world.

     Telnet: metro.jussieu.fr 10000

     No log-in is needed.

     When you connect, you'll be asked to choose a language in which to 

search (you can choose English or French) and then a city to search.  

You'll be asked for the station you plan to leave from and the station 

you want to get to.

WEATHER

 

     The University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric, Oceanographic 

and Space Sciences supplies weather forecasts for U.S. and foreign cities, 

along with skiing and hurricane reports. 

     Telnet: madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000 (note the 3000).

     No log-in name is needed.

     Also see under Weather in the FTP list for information on downloading

satellite and radar weather images.

 

6.4  TELNET BULLETIN-BOARD SYSTEMS

 

 

     You might think that Usenet, with its hundreds of newsgroups, 

would be enough to satisfy the most dedicated of online communicators. 

     But there are a number of "bulletin-board" and other systems that 

provide even more conferences or other services, many not found 

directly on the Net.  Some are free; others charge for access.  They 

include: 

 

     Bookstacks Unlimited is a Cleveland bookstore that uses the Internet

to advertise its services.  Its online system features not only a catalog, 

however, but conferences on books and literature.

     Telnet: books.com

     Log in with your own name and select a password for future connections.

     Cimarron.  Run by the Instituto Technical in Monterey, Mexico, 

this system has Spanish conferences, but English commands, as you can 

see from this menu of available conferences: 

                                                                               

          List of Boards

            Name                 Title 

            General              Board general

            Dudas                Dudas de Cimarron 

            Comentarios          Comentarios al SYSOP

            Musica               Para los afinados........

            Libros               El sano arte de leer.....

            Sistemas             Sistemas Operativos en General.

            Virus                Su peor enemigo......

            Cultural             Espacio Cultural de Cimarron

            NeXT                 El Mundo de NeXT

            Ciencias             Solo apto para Nerds.

            Inspiracion          Para los Romanticos e Inspirados.

            Deportes             Discusiones Deportivas

 

     To be able to write messages and gain access to files, you have 

to leave a note to SYSOP with your name, address, occupation and phone 

number.  To do this, at any prompt, hit your M key and then enter, 

which will bring up the mail system. Hitting H brings up a list of 

commands and how to use them. 

     Telnet: bugs.mty.itesm.mx (8 p.m. to 10 a.m., Eastern time, only).

     At the "login:" prompt, type

 

               bbs

 

and hit enter.

 

    Cleveland Free-Net.  The first of a series of Free-nets, this 

represents an ambitious attempt to bring the Net to the public. 

Originally an in-hospital help network, it is now sponsored by Case 

Western Reserve University, the city of Cleveland, the state of Ohio 

and IBM. It uses simple menus, similar to those found on CompuServe, 

but organized like a city: 

 

          <<< CLEVELAND FREE-NET DIRECTORY >>> 

                                                                               

            1 The Administration Building

            2 The Post Office

            3 Public Square

            4 The Courthouse & Government Center

            5 The Arts Building 

            6 Science and Technology Center

            7 The Medical Arts Building 

            8 The Schoolhouse (Academy One)

            9 The Community Center & Recreation Area

           10 The Business and Industrial Park

           11 The Library

           12 University Circle

           13 The Teleport 

           14 The Communications Center

           15 NPTN/USA TODAY HEADLINE NEWS

          ------------------------------------------------

          h=Help, x=Exit Free-Net, "go help"=extended help

                                                                               

          Your Choice ==>

 

     The system has a vast and growing collection of public documents, 

from copies of U.S. and Ohio Supreme Court decisions to the Magna 

Carta and the U.S. Constitution.  It links residents to various 

government agencies and has daily stories from USA Today. Beyond 

Usenet (found in the Teleport area), it has a large collection of 

local conferences on everything from pets to politics.  And yes, it's 

free! 

     Telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or

             freenet-in-b.cwru.edu or

             freenet-in-c.cwru.edu

 

     When you connect to Free-Net, you can look around the system.  

However, if you want to be able to post messages in its conferences or 

use e-mail, you will have to apply in writing for an account.  

Information on this is available when you connect. 

                                    

 

     DUBBS.  This is a bulletin-board system in Delft in the 

Netherlands. The conferences and files are mostly in Dutch, but the 

help files and the system commands themselves are in English. 

     Telnet: tudrwa.tudelft.nl

 

 

     ISCA BBS.  Run by the Iowa Student Computer Association, it has 

more than 100 conferences, including several in foreign languages.  

After you register, hit K for a list of available conferences and then 

J to join a particular conference (you have to type in the name of the 

conference, not the number next to it).  Hitting H brings up 

information about commands. 

     Telnet bbs.isca.uiowa.edu

     At the "login:" prompt, type

 

                bbs

 

and hit enter.

 

     Youngstown Free-Net.  The people who created Cleveland Free-Net 

sell their software for $1 to anybody willing to set up a similar 

system. A number of cities now have their own Free-Nets, including 

Youngstown, Ohio. Telnet: yfn.ysu.edu At the "login:" prompt, type 

 

               visitor

 

and hit enter.              

 

6.5  PUTTING THE FINGER ON SOMEONE

 

     Finger is a handy little program which lets you find out more about 

people on the Net -- and lets you tell others on the Net more about 

yourself. 

     Finger uses the same concept as telnet or ftp. But it works with 

only one file, called .plan (yes, with a period in front).  This is a 

text file an Internet user creates with a text editor in his home 

directory.  You can put your phone number in there, tell a little bit 

about yourself, or write almost anything at all.

     To finger somebody else's .plan file, type this at the command 

line:

 

     finger email-address

 

where email-address is the person's e-mail address.  You'll get back a 

display that shows the last time the person was online, whether 

they've gotten any new mail since that time and what, if anything, is 

in their .plan file.

     Some people and institutions have come up with creative uses for 

these .plan files, letting you do everything from checking the weather 

in Massachusetts to getting the latest baseball standings.  Try 

fingering these e-mail addresses:

 

weather@cirrus.mit.edu            Latest National Weather Service weather 

                                  forecasts for regions in Massachusetts.

 

quake@geophys.washington.edu      Locations and magnitudes of recent 

                                  earthquakes around the world. 

 

jtchern@ocf.berkeley.edu          Current major-league baseball standings and 

                                  results of the previous day's games.

 

nasanews@space.mit.edu            The day's events at NASA.

 

coke@cs.cmu.edu                   See how many cans of each type of soda

                                  are left in a particular soda machine

                                  in the computer-science department of

                                  Carnegie-Mellon University.

6.6  FINDING SOMEONE ON THE NET

 

     So you have a friend and you want to find out if he has an Internet 

account to which you can write?  The quickest way may be to just pick up 

the phone, call him and ask him.  Although there are a variety of "white 

pages" services available on the Internet, they are far from complete -- 

college students, users of commercial services such as CompuServe and 

many Internet public-access sites, and many others simply won't be 

listed.  Major e-mail providers are working on a universal directory 

system, but that could be some time away.

     In the meantime, a couple of "white pages" services might give you 

some leads, or even just entertain you as you look up famous people or 

long-lost acquaintances.

     The whois directory provides names, e-mail and postal mail address 

and often phone numbers for people listed in it.  To use it, telnet to

 

     internic.net

 

No log-on is needed.  The quickest way to use it is to type

 

     whois name

 

at the prompt, where "name" is the last name or organization name you're 

looking for.

     Another service worth trying, especially since it seems to give 

beginners fewer problems, is the Knowbot Information Service reachable by 

telnet at

 

     info.cnri.reston.va.us 185

Again, no log-on is needed.  This service actually searches through a 

variety of other "white pages" systems, including the user directory for 

MCIMail.  To look for somebody, type

 

     query name

 

where "name" is the last name of the person you're looking for.  You can 

get details of other commands by hitting a question mark at the prompt. 

You can also use the knowbot system by e-mail.  Start a message to

     netaddress@info.cnri.reston.va.us

 

You can leave the "subject:" line blank. As your message, type

     query name

for the simplest type of search.  If you want details on more complex

searches, add another line:

 

     man

     Another way to search is via the Usenet name server. This is a 

system at MIT that keeps track of the e-mail addresses of everybody who 

posts a Usenet message that appears at MIT. It works by e-mail.  Send a 

message to 

     

          mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu

Leave the "subject:" line blank. As your message, write 

           send usenet-addresses/lastname

where "lastname" is the last name of the person you're looking for.

 

6.7  WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

 

     * Nothing happens when you try to connect to a telnet site.  The 

site could be down for maintenance or problems.

     * You get a "host unavailable" message.  The telnet site is down 

for some reason.  Try again later. 

     * You get a "host unknown" message.  Check your spelling of the 

site name.

     * You type in a password on a telnet site that requires one, and 

you get a "login incorrect" message.  Try logging in again.  If you get 

the message again, hit your control and ] keys at the same time to 

disengage and return to your host system.

     * You can't seem to disconnect from a telnet site.  Use control-] 

to disengage and return to your host system.

6.8  FYI

 

     The Usenet newsgroups alt.internet.services and alt.bbs.internet 

can provide pointers to new telnet systems.  Scott Yanoff periodically 

posts his "Updated Internet Services List" in the former; Thomas Kreeger 

periodically posts "Zamfield's Wonderfully Incomplete, Complete Internet 

BBS List" in the latter newsgroup.   The alt.bbs.internet newsgroup is 

also where you'll find Aydin Edguer's compendium of FAQs related to 

Internet bulletin-board systems.                 

     Peter Scott, who maintains the Hytelnet database, runs a 

mailing list about new telnet services and changes in existing ones.   

To get on the list, send him a note at scott@sklib.usask.ca.

     Gleason Sackman is a vetern net.surfer who maintains another mailing 

list dedicated to new Internet services and news about the new uses to 

which the Net is being put.  To subscribe, send a message to 

listserv@internic.net. Leave the "subject:" line blank, and as your 

message, write: Sub net-happenings Your Name. 

rsity Circle

           13 The Teleport 

           14 The Communications Center

           15 NPTN/USA TODAY HEADLINE NEWS

          ------------------------------------------------

          h=Help, x=Exit Free-Net, "go help"=extended help

                                                                               

          Your Choice ==>

 

     The system has a vast and growing collection of public documents, 

from copies of U.S. and Ohio Supreme Court decisions to the Magna 

Carta and the U.S. Constitution.  It

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Chapter 7: FTP

 

 

7.1  TONS OF FILES

     Hundreds of systems connected to Internet have file libraries, or 

archives, accessible to the public. Much of this consists of free or low-

cost shareware programs for virtually every make of computer.  If you 

want a different communications program for your IBM, or feel like 

playing a new game on your Amiga, you'll be able to get it from the Net. 

     But there are also libraries of documents as well.  If you 

want a copy of a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, you can find it on 

the Net.  Copies of historical documents, from the Magna Carta to the 

Declaration of Independence are also yours for the asking, along with a 

translation of a telegram from Lenin ordering the execution of 

rebellious peasants.  You can also find song lyrics, poems, even 

summaries of every "Lost in Space" episode ever made.  You can also find 

extensive files detailing everything you could ever possibly want to know 

about the Net itself.  First you'll see how to get these files; then 

we'll show you where they're kept.

     The commonest way to get these files is through the file transfer 

protocol, or ftp.  As with telnet, not all systems that connect to the 

Net have access to ftp.  However, if your system is one of these, you'll 

be able to get many of these files through e-mail (see the next chapter). 

     Starting ftp is as easy as using telnet. At your host system's command

line, type 

 

          ftp site.name

 

and hit enter, where "site.name" is the address of the ftp site you want 

to reach.  One major difference between telnet and ftp is that it is 

considered bad form to connect to most ftp sites during their business 

hours (generally 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time).  This is because 

transferring files across the network takes up considerable computing 

power, which during the day is likely to be needed for whatever the 

computer's main function is.  There are some ftp sites that are 

accessible to the public 24 hours a day, though.  You'll find these noted 

in the list of ftp sites.

7.2  YOUR FRIEND ARCHIE

     How do you find a file you want, though?

     Until a few years ago, this could be quite the pain -- there was 

no master directory to tell you where a given file might be stored on 

the Net. Who'd want to slog through hundreds of file libraries looking 

for something? 

     Alan Emtage, Bill Heelan and Peter Deutsch, students at McGill 

University in Montreal, asked the same question.  Unlike the weather, 

though, they did something about it.

     They created a database system, called archie, that would 

periodically call up file libraries and basically find out what they had 

available.  

     In turn, anybody could dial into archie, type in a file name, and 

see where on the Net it was available. Archie currently catalogs close to 

1,000 file libraries around the world. 

     Today, there are three ways to ask archie to find a file for you: 

through telnet, "client" Archie program on your own host system or e-

mail.  All three methods let you type in a full or partial file name and 

will tell you where on the Net it's stored. 

 If you have access to telnet, you can telnet to one of the following 

addresses: archie.mcgill.ca; archie.sura.net; archie.unl.edu; 

archie.ans.net; or archie.rutgers.edu.  If asked for a log-in name, type

 

           archie

 

and hit enter.

     When you connect, the key command is prog, which you use in this 

form: 

 

            prog filename

 

followed by enter, where "filename" is the program or file you're 

looking for. If you're unsure of a file's complete name, try typing in 

part of the name. For example, "PKZIP" will work as well as 

"PKZIP204.EXE."  The system does not support DOS or Unix wildcards.  

If you ask archie to look for "PKZIP*," it will tell you it couldn't 

find anything by that name.  One thing to keep in mind is that a file is 

not necessarily the same as a program -- it could also be a document.  

This means you can use archie to search for, say, everything online 

related to the Beetles, as well as computer programs and graphics files.

     A number of Net sites now have their own archie programs that 

take your request for information and pass it onto the nearest archie 

database -- ask your system administrator if she has it online. These 

"client" programs seem to provide information a lot more quickly than the 

actual archie itself!  If it is available, at your host system's command 

line, type 

 

     archie -s filename

 

where filename is the program or document you're looking for, and hit 

enter.  The -s tells the program to ignore case in a file name and lets 

you search for partial matches. You might actually want to type it this 

way: 

 

          archie -s filename|more

 

which will stop the output every screen (handy if there are many sites 

that carry the file you want).  Or you could open a file on your computer 

with your text-logging function. 

      The third way, for people without access to either of the above, is e-

mail.

     Send a message to archie@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca. You can leave the 

subject line blank.  Inside the message, type 

 

          prog filename

 

where filename is the file you're looking for.  You can ask archie to 

look up several programs by putting their names on the same "prog" line, 

like this:

                       

          prog file1 file2 file3

      

     Within a few hours, archie will write back with a list of the 

appropriate sites. 

       In all three cases, if there is a system that has your file, 

you'll get a response that looks something like this:

 

 Host sumex-aim.stanford.edu

 

     Location: /info-mac/comm

            FILE -rw-r--r--     258256  Feb 15 17:07  zterm-09.hqx

     Location: /info-mac/misc

            FILE -rw-r--r--       7490  Sep 12 1991  zterm-sys7-color-icons.hqx

 

 

     Chances are, you will get a number of similar looking responses 

for each program.  The "host" is the system that has the file.  The 

"Location" tells you which directory to look in when you connect to 

that system.  Ignore the funny-looking collections of r's and hyphens 

for now.  After them, come the size of the file or directory listing 

in bytes, the date it was uploaded, and the name of the file.  

7.3  GETTING THE FILES

     Now you want to get that file.

     Assuming your host site does have ftp, you connect in a similar 

fashion to telnet, by typing: 

 

          ftp sumex-aim.stanford.edu

 

(or the name of whichever site you want to reach). Hit enter.  If the 

connection works, you'll see this: 

 

  Connected to sumex-aim.stanford.edu.

  220 SUMEX-AIM FTP server (Version 4.196 Mon Jan 13 13:52:23 PST 1992) ready.

  Name (sumex-aim.stanford.edu:adamg): 

 

     If nothing happens after a minute or so, hit control-C to return 

to your host system's command line.  But if it has worked, type

 

          anonymous

 

and hit enter.  You'll see a lot of references on the Net to 

"anonymous ftp." This is how it gets its name -- you don't really have 

to tell the library site what your name is. The reason is that these 

sites are set up so that anybody can gain access to certain public 

files, while letting people with accounts on the sites to log on and 

access their own personal files.  Next, you'll be asked for your 

password.  As a password, use your e-mail address.  This will then come 

up: 

     

          230 Guest connection accepted. Restrictions apply.

          Remote system type is UNIX.

          Using binary mode to transfer files.

          ftp>

 

 

Now type 

         

          ls

 

and hit enter.  You'll see something awful like this: 

 

          200 PORT command successful.

          150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.

          total 2636

          -rw-rw-r--  1 0        31           4444 Mar  3 11:34 README.POSTING

          dr-xr-xr-x  2 0        1             512 Nov  8 11:06 bin

          -rw-r--r--  1 0        0        11030960 Apr  2 14:06 core

          dr--r--r--  2 0        1             512 Nov  8 11:06 etc

          drwxrwsr-x  5 13       22            512 Mar 19 12:27 imap

          drwxr-xr-x 25 1016     31            512 Apr  4 02:15 info-mac

          drwxr-x---  2 0        31           1024 Apr  5 15:38 pid

          drwxrwsr-x 13 0        20           1024 Mar 27 14:03 pub

          drwxr-xr-x  2 1077     20            512 Feb  6  1989 tmycin

          226 Transfer complete.

          ftp> 

 

     Ack! Let's decipher this Rosetta Stone.

     First, ls is the ftp command for displaying a directory (you can 

actually use dir as well, but if you're used to MS-DOS, this could lead 

to confusion when you try to use dir on your host system, where it won't 

work, so it's probably better to just remember to always use ls for a 

directory while online).                          

     The very first letter on each line tells you whether the listing is 

for a directory or a file. If the first letter is a ``d,'' or an "l", 

it's a directory. Otherwise, it's a file. 

     The rest of that weird set of letters and dashes consist of "flags" 

that tell the ftp site who can look at, change or delete the file. You 

can safely ignore it. You can also ignore the rest of the line until you 

get to the second number, the one just before the date. This tells you 

how large the file is, in bytes. If the line is for a directory, the 

 number gives you a rough indication of how many items are in that 

directory  -- a directory listing of 512 bytes is relatively small. Next 

comes the date the file or directory was uploaded, followed (finally!) by 

its name. 

     Notice the README.POSTING file up at the top of the directory. Most 

archive sites have a "read me" document, which usually contains some 

basic information about the site, its resources and how to use them. 

Let's get this file, both for the information in it and to see how to 

transfer files from there to here. At the ftp> prompt, type 

 

          get README

 and hit enter. Note that ftp sites are no different from Unix sites in 

general: they are case-sensitive. You'll see something like this: 

  200 PORT command successful. 

  150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for README (4444 bytes). 

  226 Transfer complete. 4444 bytes received in 1.177seconds (3.8 Kbytes/s)

 

And that's it! The file is now located in your home directory on your host 

system, from which you can now download it to your own computer. The 

simple "get" command is the key to transferring a file from an archive 

site to your host system. 

     If the first letter on the line starts with a "d", then that is a 

directory you can enter to look for more files.  If it starts with an 

"r", then it's a file you can get.  The next item of interest is the 

fifth column, which tells you how large the item is in bytes.  That's 

followed by the date and time it was loaded to the archive, followed, 

finally, by its name.   Many sites provide a "README" file that lists 

simple instructions and available files.  Some sites use files named 

"Index" or "INDEX" or something similar.

     If you want to download more than one file at a time (say a series

of documents, use mget instead of get; for example:

         mget *.txt

This will transfer copies of every file ending with .txt in the given

directory.  Before each file is copied, you'll be asked if you're sure

you want it.  Despite this, mget could still save you considerable 

time -- you won't have to type in every single file name. If you want to

save even more time, and are sure you really want ALL of the given files, 

type

          prompt

before you do the mget command. This will turn off the prompt, and all 

the files will be zapped right into your home directory.

        There is one other command to keep in mind.  If you want to get a 

copy of a computer program, type

 

         bin

 

and hit enter.  This tells the ftp site and your host site that you are 

sending a binary file, i.e., a program.  Most ftp sites now use binary 

format as a default, but it's a good idea to do this in case you've 

connected to one of the few that doesn't. 

     To switch to a directory, type 

 

          cd directory-name

 

(substituting the name of the directory you want to access) and hit 

enter. Type 

 

          ls 

 

and hit enter to get the file listing for that particular directory.  

To move back up the directory tree, type 

 

          cd .. 

 

(note the space between the d and the first period) and hit enter.  Or 

you could type 

 

         cdup 

 

and hit enter.  Keep doing this until you get to the directory of 

interest.  Alternately, if you already know the directory path of the 

file you want (from our friend archie), after you connect, you could 

simply type

 

        get directory/subdirectory/filename

 

     On many sites, files meant for public consumption are in the pub 

or public directory; sometimes you'll see an info directory.

     Almost every site has a bin directory, which at first glance 

sounds like a bin in which interesting stuff might be dumped.  But it 

actually stands for "binary" and is simply a place for the system 

administrator to store the programs that run the ftp system. Lost+found 

is another directory that looks interesting but actually never has 

anything of public interest in them.

     Before, you saw how to use archie.  From our example, you can see 

that some system administrators go a little berserk when naming files. 

Fortunately, there's a way for you to rename the file as it's being 

transferred. Using our archie example, you'd type 

 

            get zterm-sys7-color-icons.hqx zterm.hqx

 

and hit enter.  Instead of having to deal constantly with a file called 

zterm-sys7-color-icons.hqx, you'll now have one called, simply, 

zterm.hqx.

    Those last three letters bring up something else: Many program files 

are compressed to save on space and transmission time.  In order to 

actually use them, you'll have to use an un-compress program on them first.

7.4  ODD LETTERS -- DECODING FILE ENDINGS

      There are a wide variety of compression methods in use.  You can 

tell which method was used by the last one to three letters at the end of 

a file. Here are some of the more common ones and what you'll need to un-

compress the files they create (most of these decompression programs can 

be located through archie). 

.txt or .TXT  By itself, this means the file is a document, rather than a 

              program. 

.ps or .PS    A PostScript document (in Adobe's page description 

              language).  You can print this file on any PostScript 

              capable printer, or use a previewer, like GNU project's 

              GhostScript. 

.doc or .DOC  Another common "extension" for documents.  No decompression 

              is needed, unless it is followed by:

.Z            This indicates a Unix compression method. To uncompress, 

              type

                   uncompress filename.Z

              and hit enter at your host system's command line. If the

              file is a compressed text file, you can read it online by

              instead typing

                   zcat filename.txt.Z |more

              u16.zip is an MS-DOS program that will let you download 

              such a file and uncompress it on your own computer. The

              Macintosh equivalent program is called MacCompress (use

              archie to find these).

.zip or .ZIP  These indicate the file has been compressed with a common

              MS-DOS compression program, known as PKZIP (use archie to

              find PKZIP204.EXE).  Many Unix systems will let you un-ZIP

              a file with a program called, well, unzip.

.gz           A Unix version of ZIP.  To uncompress, type

                   gunzip filename.gz

              at your host system's command line.

.zoo or .ZOO  A Unix and MS-DOS compression format.  Use a program called 

              zoo.

.Hqx or .hqx  Mactintosh compression format. Requires the BinHex program.

.shar or      Another Unix format. Use unshar to uncompress.

.Shar

.tar          Another Unix format, often used to compress several related

              files into one large file. Most Unix systems will have a 

              program called tar for "un-tarring" such files.  Often, a 

              "tarred" file will also be compressed with the gz method,

              so you first have to use uncompress and then tar.

.sit or .Sit  A Mactinosh format that requires the StuffIt program.

.ARC          Another MS-DOS format, which requires the use of the ARC

              or ARCE programs.

.LHZ          Another MS-DOS format; requires the use of LHARC.

     A few last words of caution: Check the size of a file before you get 

it. The Net moves data at phenomenal rates of speed.  But that 500,000-

byte file that gets transferred to your host system in a few seconds 

could take more than an hour or two to download to your computer if 

you're using a 2400-baud modem.  Your host system may also have limits on 

the amount of bytes you can store online at any one time.  Also, although 

it is really extremely unlikely you will ever get a file infected with a 

virus, if you plan to do much downloading over the Net, you'd be wise to 

invest in a good anti-viral program, just in case.

7.5  THE KEYBOARD CABAL

 

 

    System administrators are like everybody else -- they try to make 

things easier for themselves.  And when you sit in front of a keyboard 

all day, that can mean trying everything possible to reduce the number 

of keys you actually have to hit each day.

     Unfortunately, that can make it difficult for the rest of us.

     You've already read about bin and lost+found directories. Etc is 

another seemingly interesting directory that turns out to be another 

place to store files used by the ftp site itself.  Again, nothing of any

real interest.

     Then, once you get into the actual file libraries, you'll find that

in many cases, files will have such non-descriptive names as V1.1-

AK.TXT.  The best known example is probably a set of several hundred 

files known as RFCs, which provide the basic technical and 

organizational information on which much of the Internet is built.  

These files can be found on many ftp sites, but always in a form such as 

RFC101.TXT, RFC102.TXT and so on, with no clue whatsoever as to what 

information they contain.

     Fortunately, almost all ftp sites have a "Rosetta Stone" to help 

you decipher these names.  Most will have a file named README (or some 

variant) that gives basic information about the system.  Then, most 

directories will either have a similar README file or will have an index 

that does give brief descriptions of each file.  These are usually the 

first file in a directory and often are in the form 00INDEX.TXT.  Use 

the ftp command to get this file.  You can then scan it online or 

download it to see which files you might be interested in. 

     Another file you will frequently see is called ls-lR.Z.  This contains

a listing of every file on the system, but without any descriptions (the

name comes from the Unix command ls -lR, which gives you a listing of all

the files in all your directories).  The Z at the end means the file has

been compressed, which means you will have to use a Unix un-compress command

before you can read the file.

     And finally, we have those system administrators who almost seem to

delight in making things difficult -- the ones who take full advantage of

Unix's ability to create absurdly long file names.  On some FTP sites, you

will see file names as long as 80 characters or so, full of capital letters,

underscores and every other orthographic device that will make it almost

impossible for you to type the file name correctly when you try to get it.

Your secret weapon here is the mget command.  Just type mget, a space, and

the first five or six letters of the file name, followed by an asterisk, for

example:

 

          mget This_F*

 

The FTP site will ask you if you want to get the file that begins with that 

name. If there are several files that start that way, you might have to 

answer 'n' a few times, but it's still easier than trying to recreate a 

ludicrously long file name.

7.6  SOME INTERESTING FTP SITES

 

     What follows is a list of some interesting ftp sites, arranged by 

category. With hundreds of ftp sites now on the Net, however, this list 

barely scratches the surface of what is available.  Liberal use of archie 

will help you find specific files.                  

     The times listed for each site are in Eastern time and represent 

the periods during which it is considered acceptable to connect. 

 

AMIGA 

 

     ftp.uu.net  Has Amiga programs in the systems/amiga directory. 

     Available 24 hours.

     wuarchive.wustl.edu.  Look in the pub/aminet directory.

     Available 24 hours.

ATARI

 

     atari.archive.umich.edu  Find almost all the Atari files you'll ever 

need, in the atari directory. 

     7 p.m. - 7 a.m.

 

BOOKS 

 

     rtfm.mit.edu   The pub/usenet/rec.arts.books directories has 

reading lists for various authors as well as lists of recommended 

bookstores in different cities.  Unfortunately, this site uses incredibly 

long file names -- so long they may scroll off the end of your screen if 

you are using an MS-DOS or certain other computers.  Even if you want 

just one of the files, it probably makes more sense to use mget than get.  

This way, you will be asked on each file whether you want to get it; 

otherwise you may wind up frustrated because the system will keep telling 

you the file you want doesn't exist (since you may miss the end of its 

name due to the scrolling problem). 

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

                       

     mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu  Project Gutenberg is an effort to translate 

paper texts into electronic form.  Already available are more than 100 

titles, from works by Lewis Carrol to Mark Twain; from "A Tale of Two 

Cities" to "Son of Tarzan."  Look in the /etext/etext92 and 

/etext/etext93 directories.

      6 p.m. - 9 a.m.

COMPUTER ETHICS

 

     ftp.eff.org  The home of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Use cd 

to get to the pub directory and then look in the EFF, SJG and CPSR 

directories for documents on the EFF itself and various issues related to 

the Net, ethics and the law.

     Available 24 hours.

 

CONSUMER

 

     rtfm.mit.edu  The pub/usenet/misc.consumers directory has 

documents related to credit.  The pub/usenet/rec.travel.air directory 

will tell you how to deal with airline reservation clerks, find the best 

prices on seats, etc.  See under Books for a caveat in using this ftp 

site.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

COOKING

 

     wuarchive.wustl.edu  Look for recipes and recipe directories in the 

usenet/rec.food.cooking/recipes directory. 

 

     gatekeeper.dec.com  Recipes are in the pub/recipes directory.

 

ECONOMICS

     neeedc.umesbs.maine.edu  The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston uses 

this site (yes, there are three 'e's in "neeedc") to house all sorts of 

data on the New England economy.  Many files contain 20 years or more of 

information, usually in forms that are easily adaptable to spreadsheet or 

database files.  Look in the frbb directory.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

     town.hall.org.  Look in the edgar directory for the beginnings of a 

system to distribute annual reports and other data publicly held 

companies are required to file with the Securities and Exchange 

Commission.  The other/fed directory holds various statistical files from 

the Federal Reserve Board.

FTP

 

     iraun1.ira.uka.de  Run by the computer-science department of the 

University of Karlsruhe in Germany, this site offers lists of anonymous-

FTP sites both internationally (in the anon.ftp.sites directory) and in 

Germany (in anon.ftp.sites.DE). 

     12 p.m. to 2 a.m.

 

     ftp.netcom.com  The pub/profiles directory has lists of ftp sites.

 

GOVERNMENT

 

     ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu  The SENATE directory contains bibliographic 

records of U.S. Senate hearings and documents for the past several 

Congresses.  Get the file README.DOS9111, which will explain the cryptic 

file names.  

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

     nptn.org  The General Accounting Office is the investigative wing of 

Congress.  The pub/e.texts/gao.reports directory represents an experiment 

by the agency to use ftp to distribute its reports.  

     Available 24 hours.

     info.umd.edu  The info/Government/US/Whitehouse directory has copies

of press releases and other documents from the Clinton administration.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

     See also under law.

HISTORY

 

     nptn.org  This site has a large, growing collecting of text files.  

In the pub/e.texts/freedom.shrine directory, you'll find copies of 

important historical documents, from the Magna Carta to the Declaration 

of Independence and the Emancipation Proclamation.  

     Available 24 hours.

 

     ra.msstate.edu  Mississippi State maintains an eclectic database of 

historical documents, detailing everything from Attilla's battle strategy 

to songs of soldiers in Vietnam, in the docs/history directory.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

     seq1.loc.gov  The Library of Congress has acquired numerous 

documents from the former Soviet government and has translated many of 

them into English.  In the pub/soviet.archive/text.english directory, 

you'll find everything from  telegrams from Lenin ordering the death of

peasants to Khrushhchev's response to Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis.

The README file in the pub/soviet.archive directory provides an

index to the documents.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

HONG KONG

 

      nok.lcs.mit.edu  GIF pictures of Hong Kong pop stars, buildings 

and vistas are available in the pub/hongkong/HKPA directory.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

INTERNET

 

     ftp.eff.org The pub/Net_info directory has a number of sub-

directories containing various Internet resources guides and information 

files, including the latest online version of the Big Dummy's Guide. 

     Available 24 hours.

 

     nic.ddn.mil The internet-drafts directory contains information about 

Internet, while the scc directory holds network security bulletins. 

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

     

LAW

 

     info.umd.edu  U.S. Supreme Court decisions from 1989 to the present 

are stored in the info/Government/US/SupremeCt directory.  Each term has 

a separate directory (for example, term1992).  Get the README and Index 

files to help decipher the case numbers.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

     ftp.uu.net  Supreme Court decisions are in the court-opinions 

directory.  You'll want to get the index file, which tells you which file 

numbers go with which file names.  The decisions come in WordPerfect and 

Atex format only. 

     Available 24 hours a day.

 

LIBRARIES

 

     ftp.unt.edu  The library directory contains numerous lists of 

libraries with computerized card catalogs accessible through the Net.  

 

LITERATURE

 

     nptn.org  In the pub/e.texts/gutenberg/etext91 and etext92 

directories, you can get copies of Aesop's Fables, works by Lewis Carroll 

and other works of literature, as well as the Book of Mormon.  

     Available 24 hours.

 

     world.std.com  The obi directory has everything from online fables 

to accounts of Hiroshima survivors.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

MACINTOSH 

 

     sumex-aim.stanford.edu  This is the premier site for Macintosh 

software.  After you log in, switch to the info-mac directory, which will 

bring up a long series of sub-directories of virtually every free and 

shareware Mac program you could ever want. 

     9 p.m. - 9 a.m.

 

     ftp.uu.net   You'll find lots of Macintosh programs in the 

systems/mac/simtel20 directory. 

     Available 24 hours a day.

 

MOVIE REVIEWS

 

     lcs.mit.edu  Look in the movie-reviews directory.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

     world.std.com.  The periodicals/Middlesex-News/movies directory

has reviews written by the staff of the Middlesex News in Framingham, Mass.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

MS-DOS 

 

     wuarchive.wustl.edu  This carries one of the world's largest 

collections of MS-DOS software. The files are actually copied, or 

"mirrored"  from a computer at the U.S. Army's White Sands Missile Range 

(which uses ftp software that is totally incomprehensible).  It also 

carries large collections of Macintosh, Windows, Atari, Amiga, Unix, OS9, 

CP/M and Apple II software.  Look in the mirrors and systems directories.  

The gif directory contains a large number of GIF graphics images. 

     Accessible 24 hours.

 

     ftp.uu.net   Look for MS-DOS programs and files in the 

systems/msdos/simtel20 directory.          

     Available 24 hours a day.

 

MUSIC

 

     cs.uwp.edu  The pub/music directory has everything from lyrics of 

 contemporary songs to recommended CDs of baroque music. It's a little 

 different - and easier to navigate - than other ftp sites.  File and 

 directory names are on the left, while on the right, you'll find a brief 

 description of the file or directory, like this: 

 

 

SITES              1528  Other music-related FTP archive sites                 

classical/            -  (dir) Classical Buying Guide                          

database/             -  (dir) Music Database program                          

discog/               =  (dir) Discographies                                   

faqs/                 =  (dir) Music Frequently Asked questions files          

folk/                 -  (dir) Folk Music Files and pointers                   

guitar/               =  (dir) Guitar TAB files from ftp.nevada.edu            

info/                 =  (dir) rec.music.info archives                         

interviews/           -  (dir) Interviews with musicians/groups                

lists/                =  (dir) Mailing lists archives                          

lyrics/               =  (dir) Lyrics Archives                                 

misc/                 -  (dir) Misc files that don't fit anywhere else         

pictures/             =  (dir) GIFS, JPEGs, PBMs and more.                     

press/                -  (dir) Press Releases and misc articles                

programs/             -  (dir) Misc music-related programs for various machines

releases/             =  (dir) Upcoming USA release listings                   

sounds/               =  (dir) Short sound samples                             

226 Transfer complete.                                                         

ftp>    

        

     When you switch to a directory, don't include the /.

     7 p.m. - 7 a.m.

 

     potemkin.cs.pdx.edu  The Bob Dylan archive.  Interviews, notes, 

year-by-year accounts of his life and more, in the pub/dylan directory. 

     9 p.m. - 9 a.m.

 

     ftp.nevada.edu  Guitar chords for contemporary songs are in the 

pub/guitar directory, in subdirectories organized by group or artist. 

 

NATIVE AMERICANS

      pines.hsu.edu  Home of IndianNet, this site contains a variety 

of directories and files related to Indians and Eskimos, including 

federal census data, research reports and a tribal profiles database. 

Look in the pub and indian directories.

PETS

 

     rtfm.mit.edu The pub/usenet/rec.pets.dogs and 

pub/usenet.rec.pets.cats directories have documents on the respective 

animals.  See under Books for a caveat in using this ftp site.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

PICTURES

 

     wuarchiv.wustl.edu  The graphics/gif directory contains hundreds of 

GIF photographic and drawing images, from cartoons to cars, space images 

to pop stars.  These are arranged in a long series of subdirectories.

 

PHOTOGRAPHY

 

     ftp.nevada.edu  Photolog is an online digest of photography news, in 

the pub/photo directory.

 

RELIGION 

 

     nptn.org  In the pub/e.texts/religion directory, you'll find 

subdirectories for chapters and books of both the Bible and the Koran. 

     Available 24 hours.

 

SEX

 

     rtfm.mit.edu  Look in the pub/usenet/alt.sex and 

pub/usenet/alt.sex.wizards directories for documents related to all 

facets of sex.  See under Books for a caveat in using this ftp site.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

SCIENCE FICTION

 

     elbereth.rutgers.edu  In the pub/sfl directory, you'll find plot 

summaries for various science-fiction TV shows, including Star Trek (not 

only the original and Next Generation shows, but the cartoon version as 

well), Lost in Space, Battlestar Galactica, the Twilight Zone, the 

Prisoner and Doctor Who.  There are also lists of various things related 

to science fiction and an online science-fiction fanzine.    

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

SHAKESPEARE

 

     atari.archive.umich.edu  The shakespeare directory contains most of 

the Bard's works.  A number of other sites have his works as well, but 

generally as one huge mega-file.  This site breaks them down into various 

categories (comedies, poetry, histories, etc.) so that you can download 

individual plays or sonnets. 

 

SPACE

 

     ames.arc.nasa.gov  Stores text files about space and the history of 

the NASA space program in the pub/SPACE subdirectory.  In the pub/GIF 

and pub/SPACE/GIF directories, you'll find astronomy- and NASA-related 

GIF files, including pictures of planets, satellites and other celestial 

objects.

     9 p.m. - 9 a.m.

 

SPAIN

 

     goya.dit.upm.es  This Spanish site carries an updated list of 

bulletin-board systems in Spain, as well as information about European 

computer networks, in the info/doc/net subdirectory, mostly in Spanish.  

The BBS list is bbs.Z, which means you will have to uncompress it to read 

it.  

     Available 24 hours.                   

 

TV

 

     coe.montana.edu  The pub/TV/Guides directory has histories and other 

information about dozens of TV shows.  Only two anonymous-ftp log-ins are 

allowed at a time, so you might have to try more than once to get in.

     8 p.m. - 8 a.m.

 

     ftp.cs.widener.edu  The pub/simpsons directory has more files than 

 anybody could possibly need about Bart and family.  The pub/strek 

 directory has files about the original and Next Generation shows as well 

 as the movies.

      See also under Science Fiction.

 

TRAVEL

 

     nic.stolaf.edu  Before you take that next overseas trip, you might 

want to see whether the State Department has issued any kind of advisory 

for the countries on your itinerary.  The advisories, which cover 

everything from hurricane damage to civil war, are in the pub/travel-

advisories/advisories directory, arranged by country.

     7 p.m. - 7 a.m.

 

USENET

 

     ftp.uu.net  In the usenet directory, you'll find "frequently asked 

questions" files, copied from rtfm.mit.edu. The communications 

directory holds programs that let MS-DOS users connect directly with UUCP 

sites. In the info directory, you'll find information about ftp and ftp 

sites.  The inet directory contains information about Internet. 

     Available 24 hours.

 

     rtfm.mit.edu  This site contains all available "frequently 

asked questions" files for Usenet newsgroups in the pub/usenet directory.  

See under Books for a caveat in using this ftp site.

     6 p.m. - 6 a.m.

 

VIRUSES 

     

     ftp.unt.edu  The antivirus directory has anti-virus programs for MS-

DOS and Macintosh computers. 

     7 p.m. - 7 a.m.

 

WEATHER

 

     wuarchive.wustl.edu   The /multimedia/images/wx directory contains GIF 

weather images of North America.  Files are updated hourly and take this 

general form: CV100222.  The first two letters tell the type of file: CV 

means it is a visible-light photo taken by a weather satellite.  CI 

images are similar, but use infrared light.  Both these are in black and 

white.  Files that begin with SA are color radar maps of the U.S. that 

show severe weather patterns but also fronts and temperatures in major 

cities.  The numbers indicate the date and time (in GMT - five hours 

ahead of EST) of the image: the first two numbers represent the month, 

the next two the date, the last two the hour. The file WXKEY.GIF explains 

the various symbols in SA files.

 

7.7  ncftp -- NOW YOU TELL ME!

     

     If you're lucky, the people who run your host system or public-

access site have installed a program called ncftp, which takes some of 

the edges off the ftp process.

     For starters, when you use ncftp instead of plain old ftp, you no 

longer have to worry about misspelling "anonymous" when you connect.  The 

program does it for you.  And once you're in, instead of getting line 

after line filled with dashes, x's, r's and d's, you only get listings of 

the files or directories themselves (if you're used to MS-DOS, the 

display you get will be very similar to that produced by the dir/w 

command).  The program even creates a list of the ftp sites you've used 

most recently, so you can pick from that list, instead of trying to 

remember some incredibly complex ftp site name.

     Launching the program, assuming your site has it, is easy.  At the 

command prompt, type

        ncftp sitename

where "sitename" is the site you want to reach (alternately, you could 

type just ncftp and then use its open command).  Once connected, you can 

use the same ftp commands you've become used to, such as ls, get and 

mget.  Entries that end in a / are directories to which you can switch 

with cd; others are files you can get. A couple of useful ncftp commands 

include type, which lets you change the type of file transfer (from ASCII 

to binary for example) and size, which lets you see how large a file is 

before you get it, for example

        size declaration.txt

would tell you how large the declaration.txt file is before you get it.  

When you say "bye" to disconnect from a site, ncftp remembers the last 

directory you were in, so that the next time you connect to the site, you 

are put back into that directory automatically. If you type 

        help

you'll get a list of files you can read to extend the power of the 

program even further.

7.8 PROJECT GUTENBERG -- ELECTRONIC BOOKS

     Project Gutenberg, coordinated by Michael Hart, has a fairly 

ambitious goal: to make more than 10,000 books and other documents 

available electronically by the year 2001.  In 1993, the project uploaded 

an average of four books a month to its ftp sites; in 1994, they hope to 

double the pace.

     Begun in 1971, the project already maintains a "library" of hundreds 

of books and stories, from Aesop's Fables to "Through the Looking Glass" 

available for the taking.  It also has a growing number of current-

affairs documents, such as the CIA's annual "World Factbook" almanac.

     Besides nptn.org, Project Gutenberg texts can be retrieved from 

mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu in the etext directory.

7.9  WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

 

     * You get a "host unavailable" message.  The ftp site is down for 

some reason.  Try again later.

     * You get a "host unknown" message.  Check your spelling of the 

site name.

     * You misspell "anonymous" when logging in and get a message 

telling you a password is required for whatever you typed in.  Type 

something in, hit enter, type bye, hit enter, and try again. Alternately,

try typing "ftp" instead of "anonymous."  It will work on a surprising 

number of sites. Or just use ncftp, if your site has it, and never worry 

about this again.

7.10  FYI

 

     Liberal use of archie will help you find specific files or 

documents.  For information on new or interesting ftp sites, try the 

comp.archives newsgroup on Usenet.  You can also look in the comp.misc, 

comp.sources.wanted or news.answers newsgroups on Usenet for lists of ftp 

sites posted every month by Tom Czarnik and Jon Granrose. 

     The comp.archives newsgroup carries news of new ftp sites and 

interesting new files on existing sites.                                   

     In the comp.virus newsgroup on Usenet, look for postings that list 

ftp sites carrying anti-viral software for Amiga, MS-DOS, Macintosh, 

Atari and other computers. 

     The comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest and comp.sys.mac.digest newsgroups 

provide information about new MS-DOS and Macintosh programs as well as 

answers to questions from users of those computers.

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Chapter 8:  GOPHERS, WAISs AND THE WORLDWIDE WEB

 

 

8.1.  GOPHERS

     Even with tools like Hytelnet and archie, telnet and ftp can still 

be frustrating.  There are all those telnet and ftp addresses to 

remember.  Telnet services often have their own unique commands.  And, 

oh, those weird directory and file names!

     But now that the Net has become a rich repository of information, 

people are developing ways to make it far easier to find and retrieve 

information and files. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers (WAISs) 

are two services that could ultimately make the Internet as easy to 

navigate as commercial networks such as CompuServe or Prodigy.

     Both gophers and WAISs essentially take a request for information 

and then scan the Net for it, so you don't have to.  Both also work 

through menus -- instead of typing in some long sequence of characters, 

you just move a cursor to your choice and hit enter.  Gophers even 

let you select files and programs from ftp sites this way. 

     Let's first look at gophers (named for the official mascot of the 

University of Minnesota, where the system was developed).

     Many public-access sites now have gophers online.  To use one, type

 

          gopher

 

at the command prompt and hit enter.  If you know your site does not have 

a gopher, or if nothing happens when you type that, telnet to

 

          consultant.micro.umn.edu

 

At the log-in prompt, type

 

          gopher

 

and hit enter.  You'll be asked what type of terminal emulation you're 

using, after which you'll see something like this:

 

                    Internet Gopher Information Client v1.03                   

                                                                               

                    Root gopher server: gopher.micro.umn.edu                   

                                                                               

 -->  1.  Information About Gopher/

      2.  Computer Information/    

      3.  Discussion Groups/                                                   

      4.  Fun & Games/  

      5.  Internet file server (ftp) sites/

      6.  Libraries/

      7.  News/     

      8.  Other Gopher and Information Servers/

      9.  Phone Books/            

      10. Search lots of places at the U of M  <?>

      11. University of Minnesota Campus Information/ 

 

Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu                        Page: 1/1

 

     Assuming you're using VT100 or some other VT emulation, you'll be 

able to move among the choices with your up and down arrow keys.  When 

you have your cursor on an entry that looks interesting, just hit enter, 

and you'll either get a new menu of choices, a database entry form, or a 

text file, depending on what the menu entry is linked to (more on how to 

tell which you'll get in a moment).

     Gophers are great for exploring the resources of the Net.  Just keep 

making choices to see what pops up.  Play with it; see where it takes 

you.  Some choices will be documents.  When you read one of these and 

either come to the end or hit a lower-case q to quit reading it, you'll 

be given the choice of saving a copy to your home directory or e-mailing 

it to yourself.  Other choices are simple databases that let you enter a 

word to look for in a particular database.  To get back to where you 

started on a gopher, hit your u key at a menu prompt, which will move you 

back "up" through the gopher menu structure (much like "cd .." in ftp).

     Notice that one of your choices above is "Internet file server (ftp) 

sites."  Choose this, and you'll be connected to a modified archie 

program -- an archie with a difference.  When you search for a file 

through a gopher archie, you'll get a menu of sites that have the file 

you're looking for, just as with the old archie.  Only now, instead of 

having to write down or remember an ftp address and directory, all you 

have to do is position the cursor next to one of the numbers in the menu 

and hit enter.  You'll be connected to the ftp site, from which you can 

then choose the file you want.  This time, move the cursor to the file 

you want and hit a lower-case s.  You'll be asked for a name in your home 

directory to use for the file, after which the file will be copied to 

your home system.  Unfortunately, this file-transfer process does not yet 

work with all public-access sites for computer programs and compressed 

files.  If it doesn't work with yours, you'll have to get the file the 

old-fashioned way, via anonymous ftp. 

     In addition to ftp sites, there are hundreds of databases and 

libraries around the world accessible through gophers.  There is not yet 

a common gopher interface for library catalogs, so be prepared to follow 

the online directions more closely when you use gopher to connect to 

one. 

     Gopher menu entries that end in a / are gateways to another menu of 

options.  Entries that end in a period are text, graphics or program 

files, which you can retrieve to your home directory (or e-mail to 

yourself or to somebody else).  A line that ends in <?> or <CSO> 

represents a request you can make to a database for information.  The 

difference is that <?> entries call up one-line interfaces in which you 

can search for a keyword or words, while <CSO> brings up an electronic 

form with several fields for you to fill out (you might see this in 

online "White Pages" directories at colleges).

     Gophers actually let you perform some relatively sophisticated 

Boolean searches.  For example, if you want to search only for files that 

contain the words "MS-DOS" and "Macintosh," you'd type

        ms-dos and macintosh

(gophers are not case-sensitive) in the keyword field.  Alternately, if 

you want to get a list of files that mention either "MS-DOS" or 

"Macintosh," you'd type

        ms-dos or macintosh

8.2  BURROWING DEEPER

     As fascinating as it can be to explore "gopherspace," you might one 

day want to quickly retrieve some information or a file.  Or you might 

grow tired of calling up endless menus to get to the one you want. 

Fortunately,  there are ways to make even gophers easier to use. 

     One is with archie's friend, veronica (it allegedly is an acronym, 

but don't believe that for a second), who does for gopherspace what 

archie does for ftp sites. 

     In most gophers, you'll find veronica by selecting "Other gopher and 

information services" at the main menu and then "Searching through 

gopherspace using veronica."  Select this and you'll get something like 

this: 

                    Internet Gopher Information Client v1.1

                  Search titles in Gopherspace using veronica

 -->  1.                                                             .

      2.  FAQ:  Frequently-Asked Questions about veronica  (1993/08/23).

      3.  How to compose  veronica queries (NEW June 24) READ ME!!.

      4.  Search Gopher Directory Titles at PSINet <?>

      5.  Search Gopher Directory Titles at SUNET <?>

      6.  Search Gopher Directory Titles at U. of Manitoba <?>

      7.  Search Gopher Directory Titles at University of Cologne <?>

      8.  Search gopherspace at PSINet <?>

      9.  Search gopherspace at SUNET <?>

      10. Search gopherspace at U. of Manitoba <?>

      11. Search gopherspace at University of Cologne <?>

Press ? for Help, q to Quit, u to go up a menu                        Page: 1/1

     A few choices there!  First, the difference between searching 

directory titles and just plain ol' gopherspace.  If you already know the 

sort of directory you're looking for (say a directory containing MS-DOS 

programs), do a directory-title search.  But if you're not sure what kind 

of directory your information might be in, then do a general 

gopherspace search. In general, it doesn't matter which of the particular 

veronicas you use -- they should all be able to produce the same results.  

The reason there is more than one is because the Internet has become so 

popular that only one veronica (or one gopher or one of almost anything) 

would quickly be overwhelmed by all the information requests from around 

the world.  

     You can use veronica to search for almost anything.  Want to find 

museums that might have online displays from their exhibits?  Try 

searching for "museum."  Looking for a copy of the Declaration of 

Independence?  Try "declaration." 

     In many cases, your search will bring up a new gopher menu of 

choices to try.

     Say yo want to impress those guests coming over for dinner on 

Friday by cooking cherries flambe. If you were to call up veronica and 

type in "flambe" after calling up veronica, you would soon get a menu 

listing several flambe recipes, including one called "dessert flambe."  

Put your cursor on that line of the menu and hit enter, and you'll find 

it's a menu for cherries flambe.  Then hit your q key to quit, and gopher 

will ask you if you want to save the file in your home directory on your 

public-access site or whether you want to e-mail it somewhere. 

     As you can see, you can use veronica as an alternative to archie, 

which, because of the Internet's growing popularity, seems to take longer 

and longer to work.

     In addition to archie and veronica, we now also have jugheads (no 

bettys yet, though).  These work the same as veronicas, but their 

searches are limited to the specific gopher systems on which they reside.

     If there are particular gopher resources you use frequently, there 

are a couple of ways to get to them even more directly.

     One is to use gopher in a manner similar to the way you can use 

telnet. If you know a particular gopher's Internet address (often the 

same as its telnet or ftp address), you can connect to it directly, 

rather than going through menus.  For example, say you want to use the 

gopher at info.umd.edu.  If your public-access site has a gopher system 

installed, type this at your command prompt

           

         gopher info.umd.edu

and you'll be connected.

     But even that can get tedious if there are several gophers you use 

frequently. That's where bookmarks come in.  Gophers let you create a 

list of your favorite gopher sites and even database queries.  Then, 

instead of digging ever deeper into the gopher directory structure, you 

just call up your bookmark list and select the service you want.

     To create a bookmark for a particular gopher site, first call up 

gopher.  Then go through all the gopher menus until you get to the menu 

you want.  Type a capital A. You'll be given a suggested name for the 

bookmark enty, which you can change if you want by backspacing over the 

suggestion and typing in your own.  When done, hit enter.  Now, whenever 

you're in gopherspace and want to zip back to that particular gopher 

service, just hit your V key (upper- or lower-case; in this instance, 

gopher doesn't care) anywhere within gopher.  This will bring up a list 

of your bookmarks. Move to the one you want and hit enter, and you'll be 

connected. 

     Using a capital A is also good for saving particular database or 

veronica queries that you use frequently (for example, searching for 

news stories on a particular topic if your public-access site maintains 

an indexed archive of wire-service news).

    Instead of a capital A, you can also hit a lower-case a.  This will 

bring you to the particular line within a menu, rather than show you the 

entire menu.  

    If you ever want to delete a bookmark, hit V within gopher, select 

the item you want to get rid of, and then hit your D key.

    One more hint:

    If you want to find the address of a particular gopher service, hit 

your = key after you've highlighted its entry in a gopher menu.  You'll 

get back a couple of lines, most of which will be technicalese of no 

immediate value to most folks, but some of which will consist of the 

site's address.

8.3.  GOPHER COMMANDS

a       Add a line in a gopher menu to your bookmark list.

A       Add an entire gopher menu or a database query to your bookmark 

        list. 

d       Delete an entry from your bookmark list (you have to hit v 

        first).

q       Quit, or exit, a gopher.  You'll be asked if you really want to.

Q       Quit, or exit, a gopher without being asked if you're sure.

s       Save a highlighted file to your home directory.

u       Move back up a gopher menu structure

v       View your bookmark list.

=       Get information on the originating site of a gopher entry.

>       Move ahead one screen in a gopher menu.

<       Move back one screen in a gopher menu.

8.4.  SOME INTERESTING GOPHERS

     There are now hundreds of gopher sites around the world.  What 

follows is a list of some of them.  Assuming your site has a gopher 

"client" installed, you can reach them by typing 

     gopher sitename

at your command prompt. Can't find what you're looking for? Remember to 

use veronica to look up categories and topics! 

AGRICULTURE

cyfer.esusda.gov         More agricultural statistics and regulations 

                         most people will ever need.        

usda.mannlib.cornell.edu More than 140 different types of agricultural 

                         data, most in Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet format.

ANIMALS

saimiri.primate.wisc.edu Information on primates and animal-welfare 

                         laws.

ARCHITECTURE

libra.arch.umich.edu     Maintains online exhibits of a variety of

                         architectural images.

ART

seq1.loc.gov             The Library of Congress runs several online 

                         "galleries" of images from exhibits at the

                         library.  Many of these pictures, in GIF or JPEG 

                         format, are HUGE, so be careful what you get 

                         first. Exhibits include works of art from the 

                         Vatican, copies of once secret Soviet documents 

                         and pictures of artifacts related to Columbus's

                         1492 voyage.

galaxy.ucr.edu           The California Museum of Photography maintains its

                         own online galery here.  At the main menu,

                         select "Campus Events," then "California

                         Museum of Photography," then "Network Ex-

                         hibitions."

ASTRONOMY

cast0.ast.cam.ac.uk      A gopher devoted to astronomy, run by the

                         Institute of Astronomy and the Royal Greenwich

                         Observatory, Cambridge, England.

CENSUS

bigcat.missouri.edu      You'll find detailed federal census data for

                         communities of more than 10,000 people, as well

                         as for states and counties here.  At the main

                         menu, select "Reference and Information Center,"

                         then "United States and Missouri Census

                         Information" and "United States Census."

COMPUTERS

wuarchive.wustl.edu      Dozens of directories with software for all sorts

                         of computers.  Most programs have to be 

                         "un-compressed" before you can use them.

sumex-aim.stanford.edu   A similar type of system, with the emphasis on 

                         Macintosh programs and files.

ENVIRONMENT 

 

ecosys.drdr.virginia.edu Copies of Environmental Protection Agency

                         factsheets on hundreds of chemicals, searchable

                         by keyword.  Select "Education" and then

                         "Environmental fact sheets."

envirolink.org           Dozens of documents and files related to 

                         environmental activism around the world.

ENTOMOLOGY

spider.ento.csiro.au     All about creepy-crawly things, both the good 

                         and the bad ones.

GEOLOGY

gopher.stolaf.edu        Select "Internet Resources" and then "Weather

                         and geography" for information on recent 

                         earthquakes.

GOVERNMENT

marvel.loc.gov           Run by the Library of Congress, this site

                         provides numerous resources, including access

                         to the Library card catalog and all manner of

                         information about the U.S. Congress.

gopher.lib.umich.edu     Wide variety of government information, from

                         Congressional committee assignments to economic

                         statistics and NAFTA information.

 

ecix.doc.gov             Information on conversion of military 

                         installations to private uses.

sunsite.unc.edu          Copies of current and past federal budgets can 

                         be found by selecting "Sunsite archives," then

                         "Politics," then "Sunsite politcal science 

                         archives."

wiretap.spies.com        Documents related to Canadian government can be

                         found in the "Government docs" menu.        

stis.nih.gov             Select the "Other U.S. government gopher 

                         servers" for access to numerous other federal

                         gophers.

HEALTH

odie.niaid.nih.gov       National Institutes of Health databases on AIDS,

                         in the "AIDS related information" menu.

helix.nih.gov            For National Cancer Institute factsheets on 

                         different cancers, select "Health and clinical

                         information" and then "Cancernet information."

nysernet.org             Look for information on breast cancer in the

                         "Special Collections: Breast Cancer" menu.

welchlink.welch.jhu.edu  This is Johns Hopkins University's medical 

                         gopher.

HISTORY

                         See under Art.

INTERNET

gopher.lib.umich.edu     Home to several guides to Internet resources

                         in specific fields, for example, social 

                         sciences.  Select "What's New & Featured

                         Resources" and then "Clearinghouse."

ISRAEL

      

jerusalem1.datasrv.co.il This Israeli system offers numerous documents

                         on Israel and Jewish life.

JAPAN

gopher.ncc.go.jp         Look in the "Japan information" menu for 

                         documents related to Japanese life and culture.

MUSIC

mtv.com                  Run by Adam Curry, an MTV video jock, this site

                         has music news and Curry's daily "Cybersleaze" 

                         celebrity report.

NATURE

ucmp1.berkeley.edu       The University of California at Berkeley's 

                         Museum of Paleontology runs several online

                         exhibits here. You can obtain GIF images of

                         plants and animals from the "Remote Nature" menu.

                         The "Origin of the Species" menu lets you read

                         Darwin's work or search it by keyword.

SPORTS

culine.colorado.edu      Look up schedules for teams in various professional

                         sports leagues here, under "Professional Sports

                         Schedules."

WEATHER

wx.atmos.uiuc.edu        Look up weather forecasts for North America or

                         bone up on your weather facts.

8.5.  WIDE-AREA INFORMATION SERVERS

 

     Now you know there are hundreds of databases and library catalogs 

you can search through.  But as you look, you begin to realize that each 

seems to have its own unique method for searching.  If you connect to 

several, this can become a pain.  Gophers reduce this problem somewhat.

     Wide-area information servers promise another way to zero in on 

information hidden on the Net. In a WAIS, the user sees only one 

interface -- the program worries about how to access information on 

dozens, even hundreds, of different databases.  You tell give a WAIS a 

word and it scours the net looking for places where it's mentioned.  You 

get a menu of documents, each ranked according to how relevant to your 

search the WAIS thinks it is.

     Like gophers, WAIS "client" programs can already be found on many 

public-access Internet sites. If it does, type 

 

        swais

 

at the command prompt and hit enter (the "s" stands for "simple").  If it 

doesn't, telnet to bbs.oit.unc.edu, which is run by the University of North 

Carolina  At the "login:" prompt, type 

 

               bbs

 

and hit enter.  You'll be asked to register and will then get a list of 

"bulletins,'' which are various files explaining how the system works. 

When done with those, hit your Q key and you'll get another menu.  Hit 4 

for the "simple WAIS client," and you'll see something like this:

 

SWAIS                           Source Selection                   Sources: 23#

               Server                          Source                      Cost

001:   [           archie.au]  aarnet-resource-guide                       Free

002:   [    archive.orst.edu]  aeronautics                                 Free

003:   [nostromo.oes.orst.ed]  agricultural-market-news                    Free

004:   [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu]  alt-sys-sun                                 Free

005:   [    archive.orst.edu]  alt.drugs                                   Free

006:   [    wais.oit.unc.edu]  alt.gopher                                  Free

007:   [sun-wais.oit.unc.edu]  alt.sys.sun                                 Free

008:   [    wais.oit.unc.edu]  alt.wais                                    Free

009:   [    archive.orst.edu]  archie-orst.edu                             Free

010:   [           archie.au]  archie.au-amiga-readmes                     Free

011:   [           archie.au]  archie.au-ls-lRt                            Free

012:   [           archie.au]  archie.au-mac-readmes                       Free

013:   [           archie.au]  archie.au-pc-readmes                        Free

014:   [ pc2.pc.maricopa.edu]  ascd-education                              Free

015:   [           archie.au]  au-directory-of-servers                     Free

016:   [   cirm2.univ-mrs.fr]  bib-cirm                                    Free

017:   [  cmns-sun.think.com]  bible                                       Free

018:   [      zenon.inria.fr]  bibs-zenon-inria-fr                         Free

                                                                               

Keywords:                                                                      

                                                                               

<space> selects, w for keywords, arrows move, <return> searches, q quits, or ? 

                                         

Each line represents a different database (the .au at the end of some of 

them means they are in Australia; the .fr on the last line represents a 

database in France).  And this is just the first page!  If you type a 

capital K, you'll go to the next page (there are several pages).  

Hitting a capital J will move you back a page. 

     The first thing you want to do is tell the WAIS program which 

databases you want searched.  To select a database, move the cursor bar 

over the line you want (using your down and up arrow keys) and hit your 

space bar.  An asterisk will appear next to the line number.  Repeat this 

until you've selected all of the databases you want searched.  Then hit 

your W key, after which you'll be prompted for the key words you're 

looking for.  You can type in an entire line of these words -- separate 

each with a space, not a comma.

    Hit return, and the search begins.  

    Let's say you're utterly fascinated with wheat.  So you might select 

agricultural-market-news to find its current world price.  But you also 

want to see if it has any religious implications, so you choose the 

Bible and the Book of Mormon.  What do you do with the stuff?  Select 

recipes and usenet-cookbook. Are there any recent Supreme Court 

decisions involving the plant? Chose supreme-court.  How about synonyms? 

Try roget-thesaurus and just plain thesaurus. 

    Now hit w and type in wheat.  Hit enter, and the WAIS program begins 

its search.  As it looks, it tells you whether any of the databases are 

offline, and if so, when they might be ready for a search.  In about a 

minute, the program tells you how many hits it's found.  Then you get a new 

menu, that looks something like this:

 

 

Keywords:

 

  #    Score     SourceTitleLines

001:   [1000] (roget-thesaurus)       #465. [results of comparison. 1] Di    19

002:   [1000] (roget-thesaurus)       #609. Choice. -- N. choice, option;    36

003:   [1000] (roget-thesaurus)       #465. [results of comparison. 1] Di    19

004:   [1000] (roget-thesaurus)       #609. Choice. -- N. choice, option;    36

005:   [1000] (recipes)  aem@mthvax Re: MONTHLY: Rec.Food.Recipes   425

006:   [1000] ( Book_of_Mormon)  Mosiah 9:96

007:   [1000] ( Book_of_Mormon)  3 Nephi 18:185

008:   [1000] (agricultural-ma)  Re:    JO GR115, WEEKLY GRAIN82

009:   [ 822] (agricultural-ma)  Re:    WA CB351 PROSPECTIVE PLANTINGS      552

010:   [ 800] (        recipes)  kms@apss.a Re: REQUEST: Wheat-free, Suga    35

011:   [ 750] (agricultural-ma)  Re:    WA CB101 CROP PRODUCTION258

012:   [ 643] (agricultural-ma)  Re:    SJ GR850 DAILY NAT GRN SUM72

013:   [ 400] (        recipes)  pat@jaamer Re: VEGAN: Honey Granola63

014:   [ 400] (        recipes)  jrtrint@pa Re: OVO-LACTO: Sourdough/Trit   142

 

Each of these represents an article or citing that contains the word wheat, 

or some related word.  Move the cursor bar (with the down and up arrow 

keys) to the one you want to see, hit enter, and it will begin to appear 

on your screen.  The "score" is a WAIS attempt to gauge how closely the 

citing matches your request.  Doesn't look like the Supreme Court has had 

anything to say about the plant of late!

     Now think of how much time you would have spent logging onto various 

databases just to find these relatively trivial examples. 

 

8.6.  THE WORLD-WIDE WEB

 

     Developed by researchers at the European Particle Physics 

Laboratory in Geneva, the World-Wide Web is somewhat similar to a WAIS.  

But it's designed on a system known as hypertext.  Words in one document 

are "linked" to other documents.  It's sort of like sitting with an 

encyclopedia -- you're reading an article, see a reference that 

intrigues you and so flip the pages to look up that reference.

     To try the Worldwide Web, telnet to

 

          info.cern.ch

 

No log in is needed.  When you connect, you'll see something like:

 

 

                                                                Welcome to CERN

The World-Wide Web: CERN entry point                                           

                                                                               

   CERN is the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland.    

   Select by number information here, or elsewhere.                            

                                                                               

  Help[1]                 About this program                                   

                                                                               

  World-Wide Web[2]       About the W3 global information initiative.          

                                                                               

  CERN information[3]     Information from and about this site                 

                                                                               

  Particle Physics[4]     Other HEP sites with information servers             

                                                                               

  Other Subjects[5]       Catalogue of all online information by subject. Also:

                         by server type[6] .                                   

                                                                               

   ** CHECK OUT X11 BROWSER "ViolaWWW": ANON FTP TO info.cern.ch in            

   /pub/www/src *** Still beta, so keep bug reports calm :-)                   

                                                                               

   If you use this service frequently, please install this or any W3 browser on

   your own machine (see instructions[7] ). You can configure it to start      

1-7, <RETURN> for more, Quit, or Help:                                         

 

 

     You navigate the web by typing the number next to a given 

reference.  So if you want to know more about the web, hit 2.  This is 

another system that bears playing with.

 

8.7. CLIENTS, OR HOW TO SNARE MORE ON THE WEB

     If you are used to plain-vanilla Unix or MS-DOS, then the way these 

gophers and WAISs work seems quite straightforward.  But if you're used 

to a computer with a graphical interface, such as a Macintosh, an IBM 

compatible with Windows or a Next, you'll probably regard their 

interfaces as somewhat primitive. And even to a veteran MS-DOS user, the 

World-Wide Web interface is rather clunky (and some of the documents and 

files on the Web now use special formatting that would confuse your poor 

computer). 

     There are, however, ways to integrate these services into your 

graphical user interface.  In fact, there are now ways to tie into the 

Internet directly, rather than relying on whatever interface your 

public-access system uses, through what are known as "client" programs.  

These programs provide graphical interfaces for everything from ftp to 

the World-Wide Web.  

     There is now a growing number of these "client" programs for 

everything from ftp to gopher.  PSI of Reston, Va., which offers 

nationwide Internet access, in fact, requires its customers to use these 

programs.

     Using protocols known as SLIP and PPP, these programs communicate 

with the Net using the same basic data packets as much larger computers 

online. 

     Beyond integration with your own computer's "desktop,'' client 

programs let you do more than one thing at once on the net -- while you're 

downloading a large file in one window, you can be chatting with a 

friend through an Internet chat program in another.

     Unfortunately, using a client program can cost a lot of money.  Some 

require you to be connected directly to the Internet through an Ethernet 

network for example.  Others work through modem protocols, such as SLIP, 

but public-access sites that allow such access may charge anywhere from 

$25 to $200 a month extra for the service.

     Your system administrator can give you more information on setting 

up one of these connections.

8.8.  WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

     As the Internet grows ever more popular, its resources come under 

more of a strain.  If you try to use gopher in the middle of the day, at 

least on the East Coast of the U.S., you'll sometimes notice that it 

takes a very long time for particular menus or database searches to come 

up.  Sometimes, you'll even get a message that there are too many people 

connected to whichever service you're trying to use and so you can't get 

in.  The only alternative is to either try again in 20 minutes or so, or 

wait until later in the day, when the load might be lower.  When this 

happens in veronica, try one of the other veronica entries.

     When you retrieve a file through gopher, you'll sometimes be asked 

if you want to store it under some ludicrously long name (there go our 

friends the system administrators again, using 128 characters just 

because Unix lets them).  With certain MS-DOS communications programs, if 

that name is longer than one line, you won't be able to backspace all the 

way back to the first line if you want to give it a simpler name.  

Backspace as far as you can.  Then, when you get ready to download it to 

your home computer, remember that the file name will be truncated on your 

end, because of MS-DOS's file-naming limitations.  Worse, your computer

might even reject the whole thing. What to do? Instead of saving it to

your home directory, mail it to yourself.  It should show up in your mail

by the time you exit gopher.  Then, use your mail command for saving it

to your home directory -- at which point you can name it anything you want.

Now you can download it.

8.9 FYI

 

     David Riggins maintains a list of gophers by type and category. You 

can find the most recent one at the ftp site ftp.einet.net, in the pub 

directory.  Look for a file with a name like "gopher-jewels.txt." 

Alternately, you can get on a mailing list to get the latest version sent 

to your e-mailbox automatically. Send a mail message to gopherjewelslist-

request@tpis.cactus.org (yep, that first part is all one word).  Leave 

the "subject:" line blank, and as a message, write SUBSCRIBE. 

     Blake Gumprecht maintains a list of gopher and telnet sites related 

to, or run by, the government. He posts it every three weeks to the 

news.answers and soc.answers newsgroups on Usenet. It can also be 

obtained via anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu, as 

/pub/usenet/news.answers/us-govt-net-pointers. 

     Students at the University of Michigan's School of Information and 

Library Studies, recently compiled separate lists of Internet resources 

in 11 specific areas, from aeronautics to theater.  They can be obtained 

via gopher at gopher.lib.umich.edu, in the "What's New and Featured 

Resources" menu.

     The Usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.gopher and 

comp.infosystems.wais are places to go for technical discussions about 

gophers and WAISs respectively.

     The Interpedia project is an attempt to take gopher one step 

further, by creating an online repository of all of the interesting and 

useful information availble on the Net and from its users. To get on the 

mailing list for the project, send an e-mail message, with a "subject:" 

of "subscribe" to interpedia-request@telerama.lm.com.  You can get 

supporting documentation for the project via anonymous ftp at ftp.lm.com 

in the pub/interpedia directory.

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To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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Chapter 9: ADVANCED E-MAIL

 

 

 

9.1  THE FILE'S IN THE MAIL

     E-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be 

sending e-mail messages all over the place.  You might even be on a 

mailing list or two. But there is a lot more to e-mail than just 

sending messages.  If your host system does not have access to ftp, 

or it doesn't have access to every ftp site on the Net, you can have 

programs and files sent right to your mailbox.  And using some simple 

techniques, you can use e-mail to send data files such as spreadsheets, 

or even whole programs, to friends and colleagues around the world. 

     A key to both is a set of programs known as encoders and 

decoders.  For all its basic power, Net e-mail has a big problem: it 

can't handle graphics characters or the control codes found in even 

the simplest of computer programs. Encoders however, can translate 

these into forms usable in e-mail, while decoders turn them back into 

a form that you can actually use. If you are using a Unix-based host 

system, chances are it already has an encoder and decoder online that 

you can use. These programs will also let you use programs posted in 

several Usenet newsgroups, such as comp.binaries.ibm.pc. 

    If both you and the person with whom you want to exchange files use 

Unix host systems, you're in luck because virtually all Unix 

host systems have encoder/decoder programs online.  For now, let's 

assume that's the case. First, upload the file you want to send to your 

friend to your host site (ask your system administrator how to upload a 

file to your name or "home" directory if you don't already know how).  

Then type 

 

                uuencode file file > file.uu

 

and hit enter. "File" is the name of the file you want to prepare for 

mailing, and yes, you have to type the name twice!  The > is a Unix 

command that tells the system to call the "encoded" file "file.uu" 

(you could actually call it anything you want). 

     Now to get it into a mail message.  The quick and dirty way is to 

type 

 

                mail friend

 

where "friend" is your friend's address.  At the subject line, tell 

her the name of the enclosed file.  When you get the blank line, type 

 

                ~r file.uu

 

or whatever you called the file, and hit enter. (on some systems, the ~ 

may not work; if so, ask your system administrator what to use).  This 

inserts the file into your mail message.  Hit control-D, and your file 

is on its way! 

     On the other end, when your friend goes into her mailbox,  she 

should transfer it to her home directory.  Then she should type 

 

                uudecode file.name

 

and hit enter.  This creates a new file in her name directory with 

whatever name you originally gave it.  She can then download it to her 

own computer.  Before she can actually use it, though, she'll have to 

open it up with a text processor and delete the mail header that has 

been "stamped" on it.  If you use a mailer program that automatically 

appends a "signature," tell her about that so she can delete that as 

well. 

9.2  RECEIVING FILES

    If somebody sends you a file through the mail, you'll have to go 

through a couple of steps to get it into a form you can actually use.  If 

you are using the simple mail program, go into mail and type 

 

                w # file.name

 

where # is the number of the message you want to transfer and 

file.name is what you want to call the resulting file.  In pine, call 

up the message and hit your O key and then E.  You'll then be asked 

for a file name. In elm, call up the message and hit your S key.  

You'll get something that looks like this: 

 

                =file.request

 

     Type a new file name and hit enter (if you hit enter without 

typing a file name, the message will be saved to another mail folder, 

not your home directory). 

    In all three cases, exit the mail program to return to your host 

system's command line. Because the file has been encoded for mail 

delivery, you now have to run a decoder.  At the command line, type 

 

                uudecode file.name

 

where file.name is the file you created while in mail. Uudecode will 

create a new, uncompressed binary file.  In some cases, you may have to 

run it through some other programs (for example, if it is in "tar" form), 

but generally it should now be ready for you to download to your own 

computer (on which you might then have to run a de-compressor program 

such as PKXZIP).

     

9.3  FILES TO NON-INTERNET SITES

                                  

    What if your friend only connects with a non-Unix system, such as 

CompuServe or MCIMail?  There are programs available for MS-DOS, Apple 

and Amiga computers that will encode and decode files.  Of course, since 

you can't send one of these programs to your friend via e-mail (how would 

she un-encode it?), you'll have to mail (the old-fashioned way) or give 

her a diskette with the program on it first.   Then, she can get the file 

by e-mail and go through the above process (only on her own computer) to 

get a usable file.  Remember to give her an encoder program as well, if 

she wants to send you files in return. 

     For MS-DOS machines, you'll want to get uunecode.com and 

uudecode.com.  Both can be found through anonymous ftp at 

wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /mirrors/msdos/starter directory. The MS-

DOS version is as easy to use as the Unix one: Just type 

 

                uudecode filename.ext

 

and hit enter.

     Mac users should get a program called uutool, which can be found 

in the info-mac/util directory on sumex-aim.stanford.edu. 

     Think twice before sending somebody a giant file. Although large 

sites connected directly to the Internet can probably handle mega-files, 

many smaller systems cannot. Some commercial systems, such as CompuServe 

and MCIMail, limit the size of mail messages their users can receive.  

Fidonet doesn't even allow encoded messages.  In general, a file size of 

30,000 or so bytes is a safe upper limit for non-Internet systems. 

9.4  GETTING FTP FILES VIA E-MAIL

    To help people without ftp access, a number of ftp sites have set up 

mail servers (also known as archive servers) that allow you to get files 

via e-mail.  You send a request to one of these machines and they send 

back the file you want.  As with ftp, you'll be able to find everything 

from historical documents to software (but please note that if you do 

have access to ftp, that method is always quicker and ties up fewer 

resources than using e-mail). 

      Some interesting or useful mail servers include:

      mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu  Files of "frequently asked questions" 

related to Usenet; state-by-state lists of U.S. representatives and 

Senators and their addresses and office phone numbers. 

      archive-server@eff.org  Information about the Electronic Frontier 

Foundation; documents about legal issues on the Net. 

      archive-server@cs.widener.edu  Back copies of the Computer 

Underground Digest and every possible fact you could want to know about 

"The Simpsons." 

      netlib@uunet.uu.net  Programs for many types of personal computers; 

archives of past postings from many Usenet newsgroups. 

      archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov  Space-related text and graphics 

(GIF-format) files. 

      service@nic.ddn.mil  Detailed information about Internet. 

      Most mail servers work pretty much the same -- you send an e-mail 

message that tells them what file you want and how you want it sent to 

you.  The most important command is "send," which tells the computer you 

want it to send you a particular file. 

     First, though, you'll need to know where the mail server stores 

that file, because you have to tell it which directory or sub-

directory it's in.  There are a couple of ways to do this. You can 

send an e-mail message to the archive-server that consists of one 

line: 

 

                index

 

     The server will then send you a directory listing of its main, or 

root directory.  You'll then have to send a second message to the 

archive server with one line: 

 

                index directory/subdirectory

 

where that is the directory or directory path for which you want a 

listing.  An alternative is to send an e-mail message to our old 

friend archie, which should send you back the file's exact location on 

the archive-server (along with similar listings for all the other 

sites that may have the file, however)

     Once you have the file name and its directory path, compose a 

message to the archive server like this:

 

                send directory/subdirectory/file 

  

     Send off the message and, anywhere from a few minutes to a couple 

of days later, you'll find a new message in your mailbox: a copy of the 

file you requested.  The exact time it will take a file to get to you 

depends on a variety of factors, including how many requests are in line 

before yours (mail servers can only process so many requests at a time) 

and the state of the connections between the server and you. 

     Seems simple enough. It gets a little more complicated when you 

request a program rather than a document.  Programs or other files that 

contain unusual characters or lines longer than 130 characters (graphics 

files, for example) require special processing by both the mail server 

to ensure they are transmitted via e-mail.  Then you'll have to run them 

through at least one converter program to put them in a form you can 

actually use.  To ensure that a program or other "non-mailable" file 

actually gets to you, include another line in your e-mail message to the 

server: 

                                            

                encoder                      

 

This converts the file into an encoded form.  To decode it, you'll 

first have to transfer the file message into a file in your home 

directory.  

     One further complication comes when you request a particularly 

long file.  Many Net sites can only handle so much mail at a time.  To 

make sure you get the entire file, tell the mail server to break it up 

into smaller pieces, with another line in your e-mail request like 

this: 

 

                size 100000

 

     This gives the mail server the maximum size, in bytes, of each 

file segment.  This particular size is good for UUCP sites. Internet 

and Bitnet sites can generally go up to 300000.  When you get all of 

these files in mail, transfer them to your home directory.  Exit mail 

and call up each file in your host system's text processor and delete 

each one's entire header and footer (or "signature" at the end).  When 

done with this, at your host system's command line, type 

 

                cat file1 file2 > bigfile

 

where file1 is the first file, file2 the second file, and so on.  The > 

tells your host system to combine them into a new megafile called 

bigfile (or whatever you want to call it).  After you save the file to 

your home directory (see section 9.2 above), you can then run uudecode, 

tar, etc. One word of caution, though: if the file you want is long 

enough that it has to be broken into pieces, think of how much time it's 

going to take you to download the whole thing -- especially if you're 

using a 2400-baud modem! 

     There are a number of other mail servers.  To get a list, send an 

e-mail message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu: 

 

send usenet/comp.sources.wanted/How_to_find_sources_(READ_THIS_BEFORE_POSTING)

 

     You'll have to spell it exactly as listed above.  Some mail 

servers use different software, which will require slightly different 

commands than the ones listed here.  In general, if you send a message 

to a mail server that says only 

 

                help

 

you should get back a file detailing all of its commands. 

     But what if the file you want is not on one of these mail 

servers?  That's where ftpmail comes in.  Run by Digital Equipment 

Corp. in California, this service can connect to almost any ftp site 

in the world, get the file you want and then mail it to you. Using it 

is fairly simple -- you send an e-mail message to ftpmail that 

includes a series of commands telling the system where to find the 

file you want and how to format it to mail to you. 

     Compose an e-mail message to

 

                ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com

 

     Leave the "subject:" line blank.  Inside the message, there are 

several commands you can give.  The first line should be 

 

                reply address

 

where "address" is your e-mail address. The next line should be 

 

                connect host

 

where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example: 

wuarchive.wustl.edu). Other commands you should consider using are 

"binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file 

size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file 

so you can do something with it when it arrives).  The last line of 

your message should be the word "quit".  

     Let's say you want a copy of the U.S. constitution.  Using archie, 

you've found a file called, surprise, constitution, at the ftp site 

archive.cis.ohio-state.edu, in the /pub/firearms/politics/rkba 

directory. You'd send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com that looks 

like this: 

 

                reply adamg@world.std.com

                connect archive.cis.ohio-state.edu

                binary

                compress

                uuencode

                get pub/firearms/politics/rkba/constitution

                quit

 

     When you get the file in your mailbox, use the above procedure 

for copying it to a file.  Run it through uudecode.  Then type 

 

                uncompress file.name

 

to make it usable.

     Since this was a text file, you could have changed the "binary" to 

"ascii" and then eliminated the "uuencode" file.  For programs, though, 

you'll want to keep these lines.  One caveat with ftpmail: it has become 

such a popular service that it could take a week or more for your 

requested files to arrive.

 

9.5  THE ALL KNOWING ORACLE

      One other thing you can do through e-mail is consult with the 

Usenet Oracle.  You can ask the Oracle anything at all and get back an 

answer (whether you like the answer is another question). 

      First, you'll want to get instructions on how to address the Oracle 

(he, or she, or it, is very particular about such things and likes being 

addressed in august, solemn and particularly sycophantic tones).  Start 

an e-mail message to 

 

                oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu 

 

      In the "subject:" line, type 

 

                help 

  

and hit enter.  You don't actually have to say anything in the message 

itself -- at least not yet.  Hit control-D to send off your request 

for help.  Within a few hours, the Oracle will mail you back detailed 

instructions.  It's a fairly long file, so before you start reading 

it, turn on your communications software's logging function, to save 

it to your computer (or save the message to a file on your host system's 

home directory and then download the file).  After you've digested it, 

you can compose your question to the Oracle.  Mail it to the above 

address, only this time with a subject line that describes your 

question.  Expect an answer within a couple of days. And don't be 

surprised if you also find a question in your mailbox -- the Oracle 

extracts payment by making seekers of knowledge answer questions as 

well!

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Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:17:36 -0500 (EST)

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To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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Chapter 10: NEWS OF THE WORLD

 

     

10.1   Clarinet: UPI, Dave Barry and Dilbert.

 

     Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer.  They may be 

interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, 

at least, not the way most people would think of them. But there are several 

sources of news and sports on the Net.  

     One of the largest is Clarinet, a company in Cupertino, Calf., that 

distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service 

devoted to computers and even the Dilbert comic strip, in Usenet form.  

     Distributed in Usenet form, Clarinet stories and columns are 

organized into more than 100 newsgroups (in this case, a truly 

appropriate name), some of them with an extremely narrow focus, for 

example, clari.news.gov.taxes.  The general news and sports come from 

United Press International; the computer news from the NewsBytes 

service; the features from several syndicates. 

     Because Clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems 

carry its articles. Those that do carry them as Usenet groups starting 

with "clari."  As with other Usenet hierarchies, these are named starting 

with broad area and ending with more specific categories.  Some of these 

include business news (clari.biz); general national and foreign news, 

politics and the like (clari.news), sports (clari.sports); columns by 

Mike Royko, Miss Manners, Dave Barry and others (clari.feature); and 

NewsBytes computer and telecommunications reports (clari.nb).  Because 

Clarinet started in Canada, there is a separate set of clari.canada 

newsgroups.  The clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer 

types (clari.nb.apple, for example). 

     Clari news groups feature stories updated around the clock.  There 

are even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking stories: 

clari.news.bulletin and clari.news.urgent.  Clarinet also sets up new 

newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major 

natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like). 

     Occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just 

don't seem to belong there.  Stories about former Washington, D.C. mayor 

Marion Barry, for example, often wind interspersed among columns by Dave 

Barry.

     This happens because of the way wire services work.  UPI uses 

three-letter codes to route its stories to the newspapers and radio 

stations that make up most of its clientele, and harried editors on 

deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code.

 

10.2  REUTERS

     This is roughly the British equivalent of UPI or Associated Press. 

Msen, a public-access site in Michigan, currently feeds Reuters 

dispatches into a series of Usenet-style conferences.  If your site 

subscribes to this service, look for newsgroups with names that begin in 

msen.reuters.

10.3  USA TODAY

 

     If your host system doesn't carry the clari or msen.reuters 

newsgroups, you might be able to keep up with the news a different way 

over the Net.  USA Today has been something of an online newspaper 

pioneer, selling its stories to bulletin-board and online systems across 

the country for several years.  Cleveland Free-Net provides the online 

version of USA Today (along with all its other services) for free.  

Currently, the paper only publishes five days a week, so you'll have to 

get your weekend news fix elsewhere. 

 

          Telnet: freenet-in-a.cwru.edu or

                  freenet-in-b.cwru.edu

 

     After you connect and log in, look for this menu entry: NPTN/USA 

TODAY HEADLINE NEWS.  Type the number next to it and hit enter.  You'll 

then get a menu listing a series of broad categories, such as sports and 

telecommunications.  Choose one, and you'll get a yet another menu, 

listing the ten most recent dates of publication.  Each of these 

contains one-paragraph summaries of the day's news in that particular 

subject.

 

 

10.4  THE WORLD TODAY, FROM BELARUS TO BRAZIL

 

     Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty are American radio stations 

that broadcast to the former Communist countries of eastern Europe.  

Every day, their news departments prepare a summary of news in those 

countries, which is then disseminated via the Net, through a Bitnet 

mailing list and a Usenet newsgroup.

     To have the daily digests sent directly to your e-mailbox, send a 

message to 

          

          listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu

 

Leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write:

 

          subscribe rferl-l Your Name

Alternately, look for the bulletins in the Usenet newsgroup misc.news-

east-europe.rferl.

     Daily Brazilian news updates are available (in Portuguese) from the 

University of Sao Paulo.  Use anonymous ftp to connect to

 

          uspif.if.usp.br

 

Use cd to switch to the whois directory.  The news summaries are stored 

in files with this form: NEWS.23OCT92;1.  But to get them, leave off the 

semicolon and the 1, and don't capitalize anything, for example:

 

          get news.23oct92

 

     Daily summaries of news reports from France (in French) are availble 

on the National Capital FreeNet in Ottawa, Ont. Telnet to 

          freenet.carleton.ca

and log on as: guest.  At the main menu, select the number for "The 

Newsstand" and then "La presse de France."

     

10.5  E-MAILING NEWS ORGANIZATIONS

     A number of newspapers, television stations and networks and other 

news organizations now encourage readers and viewers to communicate with 

them electronically, via Internet e-mail addresses.  They include:

     The Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass.  sysop@news.ci.net

     The Boston Globe                       voxbox@globe.com

     WCVB-TV, Boston, Mass.                 wcvb@aol.com

     NBC News, New York, N.Y.               nightly@nbc.com

     The Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa, Ont.       ottawa-citizen@freenet.carleton.ca

     CJOH-TV, Ottawa, Ont.                  ab363@freenet.carleton.ca

     St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times            73174.3344@compuserve.com

     Illinois Issues, Springfield, Ill.     gherardi@sangamon.edu

     WTVF-TV, Nashville, Tenn.              craig.ownsby@nashville.com

10.6  FYI

 

     The clari.net.newusers newsgroup on Usenet provides a number of 

articles about Clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest 

to you.

     To discuss the future of newspapers and newsrooms in the new 

electronic medium, subscribe to the Computer Assisted Reporting and 

Research mailing list on Bitnet.  Send a mail message of

          Subscribe carr-l Your Name

to listserv@ulkyvm.bitnet.

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Chapter 11: IRC, MUDs AND OTHER THINGS THAT ARE MORE FUN THAN THEY SOUND

 

 

 

 

     Many Net systems provide access to a series of interactive 

services that let you hold live "chats" or play online games with 

people around the world.  To find out if your host system offers 

these, you can ask your system administrator or just try them -- if 

nothing happens, then your system does not provide them.  In general, 

if you can use telnet and ftp, chances are good you can use these 

services as well.

 

 

11.1  TALK

 

 

     This is the Net equivalent of a telephone conversation and 

requires that both you and the person you want to talk to have access 

to this function and are online at the same time.  To use it, type 

 

                talk user@site.name

 

where that is the e-mail address of the other person.  She will see 

something like this on her screen:

 

                talk: connection requested by yourname@site.name

                talk: respond with:  talk yourname@site.name

                                                                               

To start the conversation, she should then type (at her host system's 

command line):

   

                talk yourname@site.name

 

where that is your e-mail address.  Both of you will then get a top 

and bottom window on your screen.  She will see everything you type in 

one window; you'll see everything she types in the other.  To 

disconnect, hit control-C.

     One note: Public-access sites that use Sun computers sometimes have 

trouble with the talk program.  If talk does not work, try typing

 

     otalk

 

or

 

     ntalk

 

instead.  However, the party at the other end will have to have the same 

program online for the connection to work.

 

 

11.2  INTERNET RELAY CHAT

 

 

     IRC is a program that lets you hold live keyboard conversations 

with people around the world.  It's a lot like an international CB 

radio  - it even uses "channels."  Type something on your computer and 

it's instantly echoed around the world to whoever happens to be on the 

same channel with you.  You can join in existing public group chats or 

set up your own.  You can even create a private channel for yourself 

and as few as one or two other people.  And just like on a CB radio, 

you can give yourself a unique "handle" or nickname.

     IRC currently links host systems in 20 different countries, from 

Australia to Hong Kong to Israel.  

     Unfortunately, it's like telnet -- either your site has it or it 

doesn't.  If your host system does have it,  Just type

     

               irc

 

and hit enter.  You'll get something like this:

 

 

*** Connecting to port 6667 of server world.std.com                            

*** Welcome to the Internet Relay Network, adamg                               

*** Your host is world.std.com, running version 2.7.1e+4                       

*** You have new mail.                                                         

*** If you have not already done so, please read the new user information with 

+/HELP NEWUSER                                                                 

*** This server was created Sat Apr 18 1992 at 16:27:02 EDT                    

*** There are 364 users on 140 servers                                         

*** 45 users have connection to the twilight zone                              

*** There are 124 channels.                                                    

*** I have 1 clients and 3 servers                                             

MOTD - world.std.com Message of the Day -                                      

MOTD - Be careful out there...                                                 

MOTD -                                                                         

MOTD - ->Spike                                                                 

* End of /MOTD command.                                                        

                                                                               

                                                                               

                                                                               

                                                                               

                                                                              

                                                                               

 23:13 [1] adamg [Mail: 32] * type /help for help                              

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

     You are now in channel 0, the "null" channel, in which you can look 

up various help files, but not much else. As you can see, IRC takes over 

your entire screen.  The top of the screen is where messages will 

appear.  The last line is where you type IRC commands and messages.  All 

IRC commands begin with a /.  The slash tells the computer you are about 

to enter a command, rather than a message. To see what channels are 

available, type 

 

                /list

 

and hit enter.  You'll get something like this:

 

 

*** Channel    Users  Topic                                                    

*** #Money     1      School CA$H (/msg SOS_AID help)                          

*** #Gone      1      ----->> Gone with the wind!!!  ------>>>>>               

*** #mee       1                                                               

*** #eclipse   1                                                               

*** #hiya      2                                                               

*** #saigon    4                                                               

*** #screwed   3                                                               

*** #z         2                                                               

*** #comix     1      LET'S TALK 'BOUT COMIX!!!!!                              

*** #Drama     1                                                               

*** #RayTrace  1      Rendering to Reality and Back                            

*** #NeXT      1                                                               

*** #wicca     4      Mr. Potato Head, R. I. P.                                

*** #dde^mhe`  1      no'ng chay? mo*? ...ba` con o*iiii                       

*** #jgm       1                                                               

*** #ucd       1                                                               

*** #Maine     2                                                               

*** #Snuffland 1                                                               

*** #p/g!      4                                                               

*** #DragonSrv 1                                                               

 

     Because IRC allows for a large number of channels, the list might 

scroll off your screen, so you might want to turn on your computer's 

screen capture to capture the entire list.  Note that the channels 

always have names, instead of numbers.  Each line in the listing tells 

you the channel name, the number of people currently in it, and whether 

there's a specific topic for it.  To switch to a particular channel, 

type 

 

                /join #channel

 

where "#channel" is the channel name and hit enter.  Some "public" 

channels actually require an invitation from somebody already on it.  To 

request an invitation, type

 

                /who #channel-name

 

where channel-name is the name of the channel, and hit enter.  Then ask 

someone with an @ next to their name if you can join in.  Note that 

whenever you enter a channel, you have to include the #.  Choose one 

with a number of users, so you can see IRC in action. 

     If it's a busy channel, as soon as you join it, the top of your 

screen will quickly be filled with messages.  Each will start with a 

person's IRC nickname, followed by his message.

     It may seem awfully confusing at first.  There could be two or 

three conversations going on at the same time and sometimes the 

messages will come in so fast you'll wonder how you can read them all.  

     Eventually, though, you'll get into the rhythm of the channel and 

things will begin to make more sense.  You might even want to add your 

two cents (in fact, don't be surprised if a message to you shows up on 

your screen right away; on some channels, newcomers are welcomed 

immediately).  To enter a public message, simply type it on that bottom 

line (the computer knows it's a message because you haven't started the 

line with a slash) and hit enter.                             

     Public messages have a user's nickname in brackets, like this:

 

                <tomg>

 

     If you receive a private message from somebody, his name will be 

between asterisks, like this:

 

                *tomg*

 

 

11.3  IRC COMMANDS

 

 

Note: Hit enter after each command.

 

 

/away         When you're called away to put out a grease fire 

              in the kitchen, issue this command to let others know 

              you're still connected but just away from your terminal 

              or computer for awhile. 

 

 

/help         Brings up a list of commands for which there is a help 

              file. You will get a "topic:" prompt.  Type in the 

              subject for which you want information and hit enter.  

              Hit enter by itself to exit help. 

 

/invite       Asks another IRC to join you in a conversation.

 

                        /invite fleepo #hottub

 

              would send a message to fleepo asking him to join you on 

              the #hottub channel.  The channel name is optional.

 

 

 

/join         Use this to switch to or create a particular channel, 

              like this: 

 

                        /join #hottub        

 

              If one of these channels exists and is not a private 

              one, you will enter it.  Otherwise, you have just 

              created it. Note you have to use a # as the first 

              character.

 

 

/list         This will give you a list of all available public 

              channels, their topics (if any) and the number of users 

              currently on them.  Hidden and private channels are not 

              shown. 

 

/m name       Send a private message to that user.

 

/mode         This lets you determine who can join a channel you've 

              created.  

 

                        /mode #channel +s

 

              creates a secret channel.

 

 

                        /mode #channel +p

 

              makes the channel private

 

/nick         This lets you change the name by which others see you.

 

                        /nick fleepo

 

              would change your name for the present session to 

              fleepo. People can still use /whois to find your e-mail

              address.  If you try to enter a channel where somebody 

              else is already using that nickname, IRC will ask you to 

              select another name.

 

/query        This sets up a private conversation between you and 

              another IRC user.  To do this, type

 

                        /query nickname

 

              Every message you type after that will go only to that 

              person.  If she then types

 

                        /query nickname

 

              where nickname is yours, then you have established a 

              private conversation.  To exit this mode, type

 

                        /query

 

              by itself.  While in query mode, you and the other 

              person can continue to "listen" to the discussion on 

              whatever public channels you were on, although neither 

              of you will be able to respond to any of the messages 

              there. 

 

/quit         Exit IRC.

 

/signoff      Exit IRC.

 

/summon       Asks somebody connected to a host system with IRC to 

              join you on IRC. You must use the person's entire e-mail

              address.

 

                        /summon fleepo@foo.bar.com

 

              would send a message to fleepo asking him to start IRC.  

              Usually not a good idea to just summon people unless you 

              know they're already amenable to the idea; otherwise you 

              may wind up annoying them no end. This command does not

              work on all sites.

 

/topic        When you've started a new channel, use this command to let

              others know what it's about.

 

                        /topic #Amiga

 

               would tell people who use /list that your channel is meant

               for discussing Amiga computers.

 

/who <chan>   Shows you the e-mail address of people on a particular 

              channel.

 

                        /who #foo

 

              would show you the addresses of everybody on channel foo.

 

                       /who

 

              by itself shows you every e-mail address for every person 

              on IRC at the time, although be careful: on a busy night

              you might get a list of 500 names!

 

/whois        Use this to get some information about a specific IRC 

              user or to see who is online.  

 

                        /whois nickname

 

              will give you the e-mail address for the person using 

              that nickname.  

 

                        /whois *

 

              will list everybody on every channel.

 

/whowas       Similar to /whois; gives information for people who 

              recently signed off IRC.

 

 

11.4  IRC IN TIME OF CRISIS

     IRC has become a new medium for staying on top of really big 

breaking news.  In 1993, when Russian lawmakers barricaded themselves 

inside the parliament building, some enterprising Muscovites and a couple 

of Americans set up a "news channel" on IRC to relay first-person 

accounts direct from Moscow. The channel was set up to provide a 

continuous loop of information, much like all-news radio stations that 

cycle through the day's news every 20 minutes.  In 1994, Los Angeles 

residents set up a similar channel to relay information related to the 

Northridge earthquake.  In both cases, logs of the channels were archived 

somewhere on the Net, for those unable to "tune in" live.

     How would you find such channels in the future?  Use the /list 

command to scroll through the available channels.  If one has been set up 

to discuss a particular breaking event, chances are you'll see a brief 

description next to the channel name that will tell you that's the place 

to tune.

11.5  MUDs

 

 

     Multiple-User Dimensions or Dungeons (MUDs) take IRC into the 

realm of fantasy.  MUDs are live, role-playing games in which you 

enter assume a new identity and enter an alternate reality through 

your keyboard.  As you explore this other world, through a series of 

simple commands (such as "look," "go" and "take"), you'll run across 

other users, who may engage you in a friendly discussion, enlist your 

aid in some quest or try to kill you for no apparent reason. 

     Each MUD has its own personality and creator (or God) who was 

willing to put in the long hours required to establish the particular 

MUD's rules, laws of nature and information databases.  Some MUDs 

stress the social aspects of online communications -- users frequently 

gather online to chat and join together to build new structures or 

even entire realms.  Others are closer to "Dungeons and Dragons" and 

are filled with sorcerers, dragons and evil people out to keep you 

from completing your quest -- through murder if necessary. 

     Many MUDs (there are also related games known as MUCKs and MUSEs) 

require you to apply in advance, through e-mail, for a character name 

and password.  One that lets you look around first, though, is 

HoloMuck at McGill University in Montreal.  The premise of this game 

is that you arrive in the middle of Tanstaafl, a city on the planet 

Holo.  You have to find a place to live (else you get thrown into the 

homeless shelter) and then you can begin exploring.  Magic is allowed 

on this world, but only outside the city limits.  Get bored with the 

city and you can roam the rest of the world or even take a trip into 

orbit (of course, all this takes money; you can either wait for your 

weekly salary or take a trip to the city casino).  Once you become 

familiar with the city and get your own character, you can even begin 

erecting your own building (or subway line, or almost anything else). 

     To connect, telnet to 

 

                collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu 5757

 

     When you connect, type

 

                connect guest guest

 

     and hit enter.  This connects you to the "guest" account, which 

has a password of "guest."        

You'll see this:

 

The Homeless Shelter(#22Rna)                                                   

You wake up in the town's Homeless Shelter, where vagrants are put for         

protective holding.  Please don't sleep in public places-- there are plenty of 

open apartments available.  Type 'apartments' to see how to get to an          

apartment building with open vacancies.                                        

There is a small sign on the wall here, with helpful information.  Type 'look  

sign' to read it.                                                              

The door is standing open for your return to respectable society.  Simply walk 

'out' to the center.                                                           

     Of course, you want to join respectable society, but first you 

want to see what that sign says.  So you type 

 

                look sign

 

and hit enter, which brings up a list of some basic commands.  Then 

you type 

 

                out

 

followed by enter, which brings up this:

 

You slip out the door, and head southeast...                                   

Tanstaafl Center                                                               

This is the center of the beautiful town of Tanstaafl.  High Street runs north 

and south into residential areas, while Main Street runs east and west into    

business districts.                                                            

SW: is Tanstaafl Towers.  Please claim an apartment... no sleeping in public!  

SE: the Public Library offers both information and entertainment.              

NW: is the Homeless Shelter, formerly the Town Jail.                           

NE: is Town Hall, site of several important services, including: Public        

Message Board, Bureau of Land Management (with maps and regulations), and      

other governmental/ bureaucratic help.                                         

Down: Below a sign marked with both red and blue large letter 'U's, a          

staircase leads into an underground subway passage.                            

(Feel free to 'look' in any direction for more information.)                   

[Obvious exits: launch, d, nw, se, w, e, n, s, ne, sw]                         

Contents:                                                                      

Instructions for newcomers                                                     

Directional signpost                                                           

Founders' statue                                                               

 

     To see "Instructions for newcomers", type

 

                look Instructions for newcomers

 

and hit enter.  You could do the same for "Directional signpost" and 

"Founders' statue."  Then type

 

                SW

 

and enter to get to Tanstaafl Towers, the city housing complex, where 

you have to claim an apartment (you may have to look around; many will 

already) be occupied.  And now it's off to explore Holo!  One command 

you'll want to keep in mind is "take." Periodically, you'll come 

across items that, when you take them will confer certain abilities or 

powers on you.  If you type

 

                help

 

and enter, you'll get a list of files you can read to learn more about 

the MUD's commands.

     The "say" command lets you talk to other players publicly. For 

example, 

 

                say Hey, I'm here!

 

would be broadcast to everybody else in the room with you.  If you 

want to talk to just one particular person, use "whisper" instead of 

"say."

        whisper agora=Hey, I'm here!                                           

 

would be heard only by agora.  Another way to communicate with 

somebody regardless of where on the world they are is through your 

pager.  If you suddenly see yours go off while visiting, chances are 

it's a wizard checking to see if you need any help.  To read his 

message, type

 

                page

 

To send him a message, type

 

                page name=message

 

where name is the wizard's name (it'll be in the original message).

      Other MUDs and MUCKs may have different commands, but generally 

use the same basic idea of letting you navigate through relatively 

simple English commands.   

     When you connect to a MUD, choose your password as carefully as 

you would one for your host system; alas, there are MUD crackers who 

enjoy trying to break into other people's MUD accounts.  And never, 

never use the same password as the one you use on your host system!

     MUDs can prove highly addicting.  "The jury is still out on 

whether MUDding is 'just a game'  or 'an extension of real life with 

gamelike qualities'," says Jennifer Smith, an active MUD player who 

wrote an FAQ on the subject. 

     She adds one caution: "You shouldn't do anything that you 

wouldn't do in real life, even if the world is a fantasy world.  The 

important thing to remember is that it's the fantasy world of possibly 

hundreds of people, and not just yours in  particular.  There's a 

human being on the other side of each and every wire!  Always remember 

that you may meet these other people some day,  and they may break 

your nose.  People who treat others badly gradually build up bad 

reputations and eventually receive the NO FUN Stamp of Disapproval." 

 

 

11.6  GO, GO, GO (AND CHESS, TOO)!

     Fancy a good game of go or chess?  You no longer have to head for 

the nearest park with a board in hand.  The Internet has a couple of 

machines that let you engage people from around the world in your 

favorite board games.  Or, if you prefer, you can watch matches in 

progress.

     To play go, 

        telnet hellspark.wharton.upenn.edu 6969

        log on as: guest

You'll find prompts to various online help files to get you started. 

     For a chess match, 

                        

        telnet news.panix.com 5000

        log on as: guest

You'll find prompts for online help files on the system, which lets you 

choose your skill level.

11.7  THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

 

     All is not fun and games on the Net.  Like any community, the Net 

has its share of obnoxious characters who seem to exist only to make 

your life miserable (you've already met some of them in the chapter on 

Usenet).  There are people who seem to spend a bit more time on 

the Net than many would find healthy.  It also has its criminals.  

Clifford Stoll writes in "The Cuckoo's Egg" how he tracked a team of 

German hackers who were breaking into U.S. computers and selling the 

information they found to the Soviets.  Robert Morris, a Cornell 

University student, was convicted of unleashing a "worm" program that 

effectively disabled several thousand computers connected to the 

Internet.  

     Of more immediate concern to the average Net user are crackers 

who seek to find other's passwords to break into Net systems and people 

who infect programs on ftp sites with viruses.

    There is a widely available program known as "Crack" that can 

decipher user passwords composed of words that might be found in a 

dictionary (this is why you shouldn't use such passwords).  Short of 

that, there are the annoying types who, as mentioned above, take a 

special thrill in trying to make you miserable.  The best advice in 

dealing with them is to count to 10 and then ignore them -- like 

juveniles everywhere, most of their fun comes in seeing how upset you 

can get. 

    Meanwhile, two Cornell University students pled guilty in 1992 to 

uploading virus-infected Macintosh programs to ftp sites.  If you plan 

to try out large amounts of software from ftp sites, it might be wise to 

download or buy a good anti-viral program.

    But can law enforcement go too far in seeking out the criminals?  

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in large part in 

response to a series of government raids against an alleged gang of 

hackers.  The raids resulted in the near bankruptcy of one game

company never alleged to have had anything to do with the hackers, 

when the government seized its computers and refused to give them 

back.  The case against another alleged participant collapsed in court 

when his attorney showed the "proprietary" and supposedly hacked 

information he printed in an electronic newsletter was actually 

available via an 800 number for about $13 -- from the phone company 

from which that data was taken.

11.8  FYI

 

     You can find discussions about IRC in the alt.irc newsgroup. 

     "A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing," by Darren Reed 

(May, 1992), provides a theoretical background on why conferencing 

systems such as IRC are a Good Thing.  It's available through ftp at 

nic.ddn.mil in the rfc directory as rfc1324.txt.

     Every Friday, Scott Goehring posts a new list of  MUDs and related 

games and their telnet addresses in the newsgroup rec.games.mud.announce. 

There are several other mud newsgroups related to specific types of MUDs, 

including rec.games.mud.social, rec.games.mud.adventure, 

rec.games.mud.tiny, rec.games.mud.diku and rec.games.mud.lp. 

     For a good overview of the impact on the Internet of the Morris 

Worm, read "Virus Highlights Need for Improved Internet Management," by 

the U.S. General Accounting Office (June, 1989).  You can get a copy via 

ftp from cert.sei.cmu.edu in the pub/virus-l/docs directory.  It's 

listed as gao_rpt. 

     Clifford Stoll describes how the Internet works and how he tracked 

a group of KGB-paid German hackers through it, in "The Cuckoo's Egg: 

Tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage," Doubleday 

(1989).

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Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:18:16 -0500 (EST)

From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>

To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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Chapter 12: EDUCATION AND THE NET 

 

 

 

12.1  THE NET IN THE CLASSROOM

     If you're a teacher, you've probably already begun to see the 

potential the Net has for use in the class.  Usenet, ftp and telnet have 

tremendous educational potential, from keeping up with world events to 

arranging international science experiments. 

     Because the Net now reaches so many countries and often stays 

online even when the phones go down, you and your students can  "tune 

in" to first-hand accounts during international conflicts.  Look at 

your system's list of Usenet soc.culture groups to see if there is one 

about the country or region you're interested in.  Even in peacetime, 

these newsgroups can be great places to find people from countries you 

might be studying. 

     The biggest problem may be getting accounts for your students, if 

you're not lucky enough to live within the local calling area of a 

Free-Net system. Many colleges and universities, however, are willing 

to discuss providing accounts for secondary students at little or no 

cost.  Several states, including California and Texas, have Internet-

linked networks for teachers and students. 

12.2  SOME SPECIFIC RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

     In addition, there are a number of resources on the Internet aimed 

specifically at elementary and secondary students and teachers.  You 

can use these to set up science experiments with classes in another 

country, learn how to use computers in the classroom or keep up with the 

latest advances in teaching everything from physics to physical 

education.

     Among them:

                           

AskERIC         Run by the Educational Resource and Information Center, 

                AskERIC provides a way for educators, librarians and 

                others interested in K-12 education to get more 

                information about virtually everything.  The center 

                maintains an e-mail address (askeric@ericir.syr.edu) for 

                questions and promises answers within 48 hours.  It also 

                maintains a gopher site that contains digests of 

                questions and answers, lesson plans in a variety of 

                fields and other educationally related information.  The 

                gopher address is ericir.syr.edu. 

Health-Ed:      A mailing list for health educators.  Send a request to 

                health-ed-request@stjhmc.fidonet.org 

 

K12Net:         Begun on the Fidonet hobbyist network, K12Net is now also 

                carried on many Usenet systems and provides a host of 

                interesting and valuable services.  These include 

                international chat for students, foreign-language 

                discussions (for example, there are French and German-

                only conference where American students can practice 

                those languages with students from Quebec and German).  

                There are also conferences aimed at teachers of specific 

                subjects, from physical education to physics. The K12 

                network still has limited distribution, so ask your 

                system administrator if your system carries it. 

 

Kidsphere:      Kidsphere is a mailing list for elementary and secondary 

                teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and 

                discuss educational telecommunications.  You will find 

                news of new software, lists of sites from which you can 

                get computer-graphics pictures from various NASA 

                satellites and probes and other news of interest to 

                modem-using teachers.  

                     To subscribe, send a request by e-mail to kidsphere-

                request@vms.cis.pitt.edu or joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu and 

                you will start receiving messages within a couple of 

                days. 

                     To contribute to the discussion, send messages to 

                kidsphere@vms.cis.pitt.edu. 

                     KIDS is a spin-off of KIDSPHERE just for students 

                who want to contact students.  To subscribe, send a 

                request to joinkids@vms.cis.pitt.edu, as above.  To 

                contribute, send messages to kids@vms.cist.pitt.edu. 

Knoxville       Using the newspaper in the electronic classroom.  This

News-           gopher site lets students and teachers connect to

Sentinel        the newspaper, and provides resources for them derived

Online          from the newsroom.  Use gopher to connect to

                gopher.opup.org

MicroMUSE       This is an online, futuristic city, built entirely by

                participants (see chapter 11 for information on MUSEs

                and MUDs in general).  Hundreds of students from all

                over have participated in this educational exercise,

                coordinated by MIT. Telnet to michael.ai.mit.edu.

                Log on as guest and then follow the prompts for more 

                information. 

NASA Spacelink: This system, run by NASA in Huntsville, Ala., 

                provides all sorts of reports and data about NASA, its 

                history and its various missions, past and present.  

                Telnet spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov or 128.158.13.250. 

                     When you connect, you'll be given an overview of the 

                system and asked to register. The system maintains a 

                large file library of GIF-format space graphics, but note 

                that you can't download these through telnet. If you want 

                to, you have to dial the system directly, at (205) 895-

                0028.  Many can be obtained through ftp from 

                ames.arc.nasa.gov, however. 

Newton:          Run by the Argonne National Laboratory, it offers 

                conferences for teachers and students, including one 

                called "Ask a Scientist."  

 

                     Telnet: newton.dep.anl.gov.  

                     Log in as: cocotext 

 

                You'll be asked to provide your name and address.  When 

                you get the main menu, hit 4 for the various conferences.  

                The "Ask a Scientist" category lets you ask questions of 

                scientists in fields from biology to earth science.  

                Other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and 

                computer networks. 

 

OERI:           The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational 

                Resources and Improvement runs a gopher system that 

                provides numerous educational resources, information and 

                statistics for teachers.  Use gopher to connect to

                     gopher.ed.gov. 

Spacemet Forum: If your system doesn't carry the K12 conferences, but 

                does provide you with telnet, you can reach the 

                conferences through SpaceMet Forum, a bulletin-board 

                system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the 

                physics and astronomy department at the University of 

                Massachusetts at Amherst.  

                

                     Telnet: spacemet.phast.umass.edu. 

                

                When you connect, hit escape once, after which you'll be 

                asked to log on. Like K12Net, SpaceMet Forum began as a 

                Fidonet system, but has since grown much larger.  Mort 

                and Helen Sternheim, professors at the university, 

                started SpaceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system 

                several years ago to help bolster middle-school science 

                education in nearby towns. 

                     In addition to the K12 conferences, SpaceMet carries 

                numerous educationally oriented conferences.  It also has 

                a large file library of interest to educators and 

                students, but be aware that getting files to your site 

                could be difficult and maybe even impossible.  Unlike 

                most other Internet sites, Spacemet does not use an ftp 

                interface. The Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over 

                the network, but don't count on it. 

 

12.3  USENET AND BITNET IN THE CLASSROOM

     There are numerous Usenet newsgroups of potential interest to 

teachers and students.  

     As you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. You can find 

these by typing l sci. in rn or using nngrep sci. for nn. There are now 

close to 40, with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the 

"dismal science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the 

construction of microscopically small machines).

     One thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups: 

science is not just dull, boring facts.  Science is argument and standing 

your ground and making your case.  The Usenet sci. groups encourage 

critical thinking. 

     Beyond science, social-studies and history classes can keep busy 

learning about other countries, through the soc.culture newsgroups.

     Most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a 

given country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture.  In 

times of crisis, however, these groups often become places to 

disseminate information from or into the country and to discuss what is 

happening.  From Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, close to 50 countries are 

now represented on Usenet.   

     To see which groups are available, use l soc.culture. in rn or 

nngrep soc.culture. for nn.

     Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions, 

but teachers should screen them first before recommending them to 

students.  They range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to 

talk.politics.space and talk.environment.

     One caveat:  Teachers might want to peruse particular newsgroups 

before setting their students loose in them.  Some have higher levels of 

flaming and blather than others.

     There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential 

interest to students and teachers.  See Chapter 5 for information on 

finding and subscribing to Bitnet discussion groups.  Some with an 

educational orientation include:

 

biopi-l     ksuvm.bitnet        Secondary biology education

chemed-l    uwf.bitnet          Chemistry education

dts-l       iubvm.bitnet        The Dead Teacher's Society list

phys-l      uwf.bitnet          Discussions for physics teachers

physhare    psuvm.bitnet        Where physics teachers share resources

scimath-l   psuvm.bitnet        Science and math education

     To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the GIF 

graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. Switch to the 

/pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt.  Among the 

sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the 

Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures. 

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From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>

To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>

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CHAPTER 13:  Business on the Net

13.1  SETTING UP SHOP

     Back in olden days, oh, before 1990 or so, there were no markets in 

the virtual community -- if you wanted to buy a book, you still had to 

jump in your car and drive to the nearest bookstore.

     This was because in those days, the Net consisted mainly of a series 

of government-funded networks on which explicit commercial activity was 

forbidden.  Today, much of the Net is run by private companies, which 

generally have no such restrictions, and a number of companies have begun 

experimenting with online "shops" or other services.  Many of these shops 

are run by booksellers, while the services range from delivery of indexed 

copies of federal documents to an online newsstand that hopes to entice 

you to subscribe to any of several publications (of the printed on paper 

variety).  A number of companies also use Usenet newsgroups (in the biz 

hierarchy) to distribute press releases and product information.

     Still, commercial activity on the remains far below that found on 

other networks, such as CompuServe, with its Electronic Mall, or Prodigy, 

with its advertisements on every screen.  In part that's because of the 

newness and complexity of the Internet as a commercial medium.  In part, 

however, that is because of security concerns.  Companies worry about 

such issues as crackers getting into their system over the network, and 

many people do not like the idea of sending a credit-card number via the 

Internet (an e-mail message could be routed through several sites to get 

to its destination).  These concerns could disappear as Net users turn to 

such means as message encryption and "digital signatures." In the 

meantime, however, businesses on the Net can still consider themselves 

something of Internet pioneers. 

     A couple of public-access sites and a regional network have set up 

"marketplaces" for online businesses. 

     The World in Brookline, Mass., currently rents "space" to several 

bookstores and computer-programming firms, as well as an "adult toy 

shop."  To browse their offerings, use gopher to connect to

        world.std.com

At the main menu, select "Shops on the World."

     Msen in Ann Arbor provides its "Msen Marketplace," where you'll find 

a travel agency and an "Online Career Center" offering help-wanted ads 

from across the country.  Msen also provides an "Internet Business 

Pages," an online directory of companies seeking to reach the Internet 

community.  You can reach Msen through gopher at 

        gopher.msen.com

At the main menu, select "Msen Marketplace."

     The Nova Scotia Technology Network runs a "Cybermarket" on its 

gopher service at

        nstn.ns.ca

There, you'll find an online bookstore that lets you order books through 

e-mail (to which you'll have to trust your credit-card number) and a 

similar "virtual record store.'' Both let you search their wares by 

keyword or by browsing through catalogs.

     Other online businesses include:

Bookstacks Unlimited    This Cleveland bookstore offers a keyword-

                        searchable database of thousands of books for 

                        sale.  

                                Telnet: books.com 

Counterpoint Publishing Based in Cambridge, Mass., this company's main

                        Internet product is indexed versions of federal

                        journals, including the Federal Register (a daily

                        compendium of government contracts, proposed 

                        regulations and the like).  Internet users can

                        browse through recent copies, but complete access

                        will run several thousand dollars a year.  Use

                        gopher to connect to

                                enews.com

                        and select "Counterpoint Publishing"

Dialog                  The national database company can be reached 

                        through telnet at

                                dialog.com

                        To log on, however, you will have first had to

                        set up a Dialog account.

Dow Jones News          A wire service run by the information company

Retrieval               that owns the Wall Street Journal.  Available

                        via telnet at

                                djnr.dowjones.com

                        As with Dialog, you need an account to log on.

Infinity Link           Browse book, music, software, video-cassette and

                        laser-disk catalogs through this system based in

                        Malvern, Penn.  Use gopher to connect to

                                columbia.ilc.com

                        Log on as: cas

The Internet Company    Sort of a service bureau, this company, based in

                        Hudson, Mass., is working with several publishers

                        on Internet-related products.  Its Electronic

                        Newsstand offers snippets and special 

                        subscription rates to a number of national 

                        magazines, from the New Republic to the New 

                        Yorker.  Use gopher to connect to

                                enews.com

MarketBase              You can try the classified-ads system developed

                        by this company in Santa Barbara, Calif., by 

                        gopher to connect to

                                mb.com

O'Reilly and Associates Best known for its "Nutshell" books on Unix, 

                        O'Reilly runs three Internet services.  The gopher

                        server, at

                                ora.com

                        provides information about the company and its

                        books.  It posts similar information in the

                        biz.oreilly.announce Usenet newsgroup.  Its 

                        Global Network Navigator, accessible through the 

                        World-Wide Web, is a sort of online magazine that 

                        lets users browse through interesting services 

                        and catalogs. 

13.2  FYI

     The com-priv mailing list is the place to discuss issues surrounding 

the commercialization and the privatization of the Internet.  To 

subscribe (or un-subscribe), send an e-mail request to com-priv-

request@psi.com.

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     Welcome to the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet, version 2.0.

     The genesis of the Big Dummy's Guide was a few informal 

conversations, which included Mitch Kapor of the Electronic Frontier 

Foundation (EFF) and Steve Cisler of Apple Computer, Inc., in June of 

1991.  With the support of Apple Computer, EFF hired a writer (Adam 

Gaffin) and actually took on the project in September of 1991. 

     The idea was to write a guide to the Internet for folks who had 

little or no experience with network communications.  We intended to post 

this Guide to "the Net" in ASCII and HyperCard formats and to give it 

away on disk, as well as have a print edition available for a nominal 

charge.  With the consolidation of our offices to Washington, DC, we were 

able to put the Guide on a fast track.  You're looking at the realization 

of our dreams --version one of the Guide.  At the time I'm writing this, 

we're still fishing around for a book publisher, so the hard-copy version 

has not yet been printed.  We're hoping to update this Guide on a regular 

basis, so please feel free to send us your comments and corrections. 

     EFF would like to thanks the folks at Apple, especially Steve Cisler 

of the Apple Library, for their support of our efforts to bring this 

Guide to you. We hope it helps you open up a whole new world, where new 

friends and experiences are sure to be yours.  Enjoy! 

     Shari Steele

     ssteele@eff.org

     Director of Legal Services and Community Outreach

     Electronic Frontier Foundation

     Jan. 15, 1994

 

                     Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet

           copyright Electronic Frontier Foundation 1993, 1994

                             TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

 

Foreword by Mitchell Kapor, co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

 

Preface by Adam Gaffin, senior writer, Network World.

 

Chapter 1:  Setting up and jacking in

     1.1  Ready, set...

     1.2  Go!

     1.3  Public-access Internet providers

     1.4  If your town doesn't have direct access

     1.5  Net origins

     1.6  How it works

     1.7  When things go wrong

     1.8  FYI

 

Chapter 2: E-mail

     2.1. The basics

     2.2  Elm -- a better way

     2.3  Pine -- even better than Elm

     2.4  Smileys

     2.5  Sending e-mail to other networks

     2.6  Seven Unix commands you can't live without

Chapter 3:  Usenet I

     3.1  The global watering hole 

     3.2  Navigating Usenet with nn

     3.3  nn commands

     3.4  Using rn

     3.5  rn commands

     3.6  Essential newsgroups

     3.7  Speaking up

     3.8  Cross-posting

Chapter 4:  Usenet II

     4.1  Flame, blather and spew

     4.2  Killfiles, the cure for what ails you

     4.3  Some Usenet hints

     4.4  The Brain-Tumor Boy, the modem tax and the chain letter

     4.5  Big Sig

     4.6  The First Amendment as local ordinance

     4.7  Usenet history

     4.8  When things go wrong

     4.9  FYI

 

Chapter 5:  Mailing lists and Bitnet

     5.1  Internet mailing lists

     5.2  Bitnet

 

Chapter 6:  Telnet 

     6.1  Mining the Net

     6.2  Library catalogs

     6.3  Some interesting telnet sites

     6.4  Telnet bulletin-board systems

     6.5  Putting the finger on someone

     6.6  Finding someone on the Net

     6.7  When things go wrong

     6.8  FYI

 

Chapter 7:  FTP 

     7.1  Tons of files

     7.2  Your friend archie

     7.3  Getting the files

     7.4  Odd letters -- decoding file endings

     7.5  The keyboard cabal

     7.6  Some interesting ftp sites

     7.7  ncftp -- now you tell me!

     7.8  Project Gutenberg -- electronic books

     7.9  When things go wrong

     7.10 FYI

Chapter 8:  Gophers, WAISs and the World-Wide Web

     8.1  Gophers

     8.2  Burrowing deeper

     8.3  Gopher commands

     8.4  Some interesting gophers

     8.5  Wide-Area Information Servers

     8.6  The World-Wide Web

     8.7  Clients, or how to snare more on the Web

     8.8  When things go wrong

     8.9  FYI

Chapter 9:  Advanced E-mail

     9.1  The file's in the mail

     9.2  Receiving files

     9.3  Sending files to non-Internet sites

     9.4  Getting ftp files via e-mail

     9.5  The all knowing Oracle

Chapter 10:  News of the world

     10.1 Clarinet: UPI, Dave Barry and Dilbert

     10.2 Reuters

     10.3 USA Today

     10.4 The World Today: From Belarus to Brazil

     10.5 E-mailing news organizations

     10.6 FYI

Chapter 11:  IRC, MUDs and other things that are more fun than they sound

     11.1 Talk

     11.2 Internet Relay Chat

     11.3 IRC commands

     11.4 IRC in times of crisis

     11.5 MUDs

     11.6 Go, go, go (and chess, too)!

     11.7 The other side of the coin

     11.8 FYI

 

Chapter 12:  Education and the Net

     12.1 The Net in the Classroom

     12.2 Some specific resources for students and teachers

     12.3 Usenet and Bitnet in the classroom

Chapter 13: Business on the Net

     13.1 Setting up shop

     13.2 FYI

Conclusion:  The end?

 

Appendix A:  Lingo

 

Appendix B: Electronic Frontier Foundation Information

Foreword 

By Mitchell Kapor, 

Co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

 

 

          "As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in 

     this world is connected by a series of ties.  If anyone thinks 

     that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is 

     mistaken.  It is called a net because it is made up of a series 

     of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and 

     responsibility in relation to other meshes." 

 

                                                          -- Buddha

 

 

     New communities are being built today.  You cannot see them, except 

on a computer screen.  You cannot visit them, except through your 

keyboard.  Their highways are wires and optical fibers; their language a 

series of ones and zeroes.

     Yet these communities of cyberspace are as real and vibrant as any 

you could find on a globe or in an atlas.  Those are real people on the 

other sides of those monitors.  And freed from physical limitations, 

these people are developing new types of cohesive and effective 

communities - ones which are defined more by common interest and purpose 

than by an accident of geography, ones on which what really counts is 

what you say and think and feel, not how you look or talk or how old 

you are. 

     The oldest of these communities is that of the scientists, which 

actually predates computers.  Scientists have long seen themselves 

as an international community, where ideas were more important than 

national origin.  It is not surprising that the scientists were the 

first to adopt the new electronic media as their principal means of day-

to-day communication.  

     I look forward to a day in which everybody, not just scientists,  

can enjoy similar benefits of a global community.

     But how exactly does community grow out of a computer network? It 

does so because the network enables new forms of communication.

     The most obvious example of these new digital communications media 

is electronic mail, but there are many others.  We should begin to think 

of mailing lists, newsgroups, file and document archives, etc. as just 

the first generation of new forms of information and communications 

media.  The digital media of computer networks, by virtue of their 

design and the enabling technology upon which they ride, are 

fundamentally different from the now dominant mass media of television, 

radio, newspapers and magazines.  Digital communications media are 

inherently capable of being more interactive, more participatory, more 

egalitarian, more decentralized, and less hierarchical. 

     As such, the types of social relations and communities which can be 

built on these media share these characteristics.  Computer networks 

encourage the active participation of individuals rather than the 

passive non-participation induced by television narcosis.  

     In mass media, the vast majority of participants are passive 

recipients of information.  In digital communications media, the vast 

majority of participants are active creators of information as well as 

recipients.  This type of symmetry has previously only been found in 

media like the telephone.  But while the telephone is almost entirely a 

medium for private one-to-one communication, computer network 

applications such as electronic mailing lists, conferences, and bulletin 

boards, serve as a medium of group or "many-to-many" communication. 

     The new forums atop computer networks are the great levelers and 

reducers of organizational hierarchy.  Each user has, at least in 

theory, access to every other user, and an equal chance to be heard.  

Some U.S. high-tech companies, such as Microsoft and Borland, already 

use this to good advantage: their CEO's -- Bill Gates and Philippe Kahn 

-- are directly accessible to all employees via electronic mail.  This 

creates a sense that the voice of the individual employee really 

matters.  More generally, when corporate communication is facilitated by 

electronic mail, decision-making processes can be far more inclusive and 

participatory. 

     Computer networks do not require tightly centralized administrative 

control.  In fact, decentralization is necessary to enable rapid growth 

of the network itself.  Tight controls strangle growth.  This 

decentralization promotes inclusiveness, for it lowers barriers to entry 

for new parties wishing to join the network. 

     Given these characteristics, networks hold tremendous potential to 

enrich our collective cultural, political, and social lives and enhance 

democratic values everywhere.  

     And the Internet, and the UUCP and related networks connected to 

it, represents an outstanding example of a computer network with these 

qualities.  It is an open network of networks, not a single unitary 

network, but an ensemble of interconnected systems which operate on the 

basis of multiple implementations of accepted, non-proprietary 

protocols, standards and interfaces. 

    One of its important characteristics is that new networks, host 

systems, and users may readily join the network -- the network is open 

to all.       

    The openness (in all senses) of the Internet reflects, I believe, 

the sensibilities and values of its architects.  Had the Internet 

somehow been developed outside the world of research and education, it's 

less likely to have had such an open architecture.  Future generations 

will be indebted to this community for the wisdom of building these 

types of open systems. 

     Still, the fundamental qualities of the Net, such as its 

decentralization, also pose problems.  How can full connectivity be 

maintained in the face of an ever-expanding number of connected 

networks, for example?  What of software bugs that bring down computers, 

or human crackers who try to do the same?  But these problems can and 

will be solved. 

     Digital media can be the basis of new forms of political discourse, 

in which citizens form and express their views on the important public 

issues of the day. There is more than one possible vision of such 

electronic democracy, however. Let's look at some examples of the 

potential power, and problems, of the new digital media. 

      The idea of something called an "electronic town meeting"  received 

considerable attention in 1992 with Ross Perot's presidential campaign 

(or, at least, its first incarnation).

     Perot's original vision, from 20 or so years ago,  was that viewers 

would watch a debate on television and fill out punch cards which would 

be mailed in and collated.  Now we could do it with 800 telephone 

numbers.

     In the current atmosphere of disaffection, alienation and cynicism, 

anything that promotes greater citizen involvement seems a good idea.  

People are turned off by politicians in general -- witness the original 

surge of support for Perot as outsider who would go in and clean up the 

mess -- and the idea of going right to the people is appealing,

     What's wrong with this picture? The individual viewer is a passive 

recipient of the views of experts.  The only action taken by the citizen 

is in expressing a preference for one of three pre-constructed 

alternatives.  While this might be occasionally useful, it's 

unsophisticated and falls far short of the real potential of electronic 

democracy. We've been reduced to forming our judgments on the basis of 

mass media's portrayal of the personality and character of the 

candidates. 

     All this is in contrast to robust political debates already found 

on various on-line computer systems, from CompuServe to Usenet.  

Through these new media, the issues of the day, ranging from national 

security in the post-Cold War era to comparative national health care 

systems, are fiercely discussed in a wide variety of bulletin boards, 

conferences, and newsgroups. 

     What I see in online debate are multiple active participants, not 

just experts, representing every point of view, in discussions that 

unfold over extended periods of time. What this shows is that, far from 

being alienated and disaffected from the political process, people like 

to talk and discuss -- and take action -- if they have the opportunity 

to do so.  Mass media don't permit that.  But these new media are more 

akin to a gathering around the cracker barrel at the general store -- 

only extended over hundreds, thousands of miles, in cyberspace, rather 

than in one physical location.                              

     Recent years have shown the potential power of these new media.     

We have also seen several examples of where talk translated into 

action. 

     In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission proposed changing 

the way certain online providers paid for access to local phone service.  

Online, this quickly became known as the "modem tax" and generated a 

storm of protest.  The FCC withdrew the idea, but not quickly enough: 

the "modem tax" has penetrated so deeply into the crevices of the Net 

that it has taken up a permanent and ghostly residence as a kind of 

virtual or cognitive virus, which periodically causes a re-infection of 

the systems and its users.  FCC commissioners continue to receive 

substantial mail on this even though the original issue is long dead; in 

fact, it has generated more mail than any other issue in the history of 

the FCC.

     More recently, Jim Manzi, chairman of Lotus Development Corp., 

received more than 30,000 e-mail messages when the company was getting 

ready to sell a database containing records on tens of millions of 

Americans.  The flood of electronic complaints about the threat to 

privacy helped force the company to abandon the project.

Issues of narrow but vital interest to the online community give a hint 

of the organizing power of the Net.  

     In August, 1991, the managers of a Soviet computer network known as 

Relcom stayed online during an abortive coup, relaying eyewitness 

accounts and news of actions against the coup to the West and to the 

rest of Russia.

     And many public interest non-profit organizations and special 

interest groups already use bulletin boards heavily as a means of 

communicating among their members and organizing political activity.

     But all is not perfect online.  The quality of discourse is often 

very low.  Discussion is often trivial and boring and bereft of 

persuasive reason.  Discourse often sinks to the level of "flaming," of 

personal attacks, instead of substantive discussion.  Flaming. Those 

with the most time to spend often wind up dominating the debate - a 

triumph of quantity of time available over quality of content. 

     It seems like no place for serious discussion. Information overload 

is also a problem.  There is simply far too much to read to keep up 

with.  It is all without organization.  How can this be addressed? 

     Recent innovations in the design of software used to connect 

people to the Net and the process of online discussion itself reveal 

some hope. 

     Flaming is universal, but different systems handle it in different 

ways.  Both the technology and cultural norms matter.

     On Usenet, for instance, most news reader applications support a 

feature known as a "killfile," which allows an individual to screen 

out postings by a particular user or on a particular subject.  It is 

also sometimes referred to as "the bozo filter."  This spares the user 

who is sufficiently sophisticated from further flamage, but it does 

nothing to stop the problem at its source. 

     Censorship would be one solution. But what else can be done without 

resorting to unacceptably heavy-handed tactics of censorship?  There is a 

great tradition of respect for free speech on these systems, and to 

censor public postings or even ban a poster for annoying or offensive 

content is properly seen as unacceptable, in my opinion. 

     Some systems use cultural norms, rather than software, to deal with 

flame wars.  These online communities have developed practices which 

rely more on a shared, internalized sense of appropriate behavior  than 

on censorship, for instance.  The WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) is a 

relatively small online conferencing system based in the San Francisco 

Bay area.  On the WELL, individuals who get into a fight are encouraged 

to move the discussion out of the public conference and into e-mail.  

The encouragement is provided not only by the host of the conference, 

but also by the users.  It is part of the culture, not part of the 

technology. 

     WELL hosts are volunteers who facilitate the discussion of a 

particular subject.  While they have the power to censor individual 

postings, the power is very rarely used and only as a last resort, as it 

has been found that dispute resolution by talking it out among the 

parties is a superior method of problem solving in the long run. 

     It is not an accident that the WELL has a uniquely high quality 

of conversation.  Nor is it coincidental that it developed as a small 

and originally isolated community (now on the Net) which gave it a 

chance to develop its own norms or that key management of the system 

came from "The Farm," a large, successful commune of the 1960's and 

1970's led by Stephen Gaskin. 

     We still know very little about the facilitation of online 

conversations.  It is a subject well worth further formal study and 

experimentation. 

     Some problems have to do with the unrefined and immature format and 

structure of the discussion medium itself.  The undifferentiated stream 

of new messages marching along in 80 columns of ASCII text creates a 

kind of hypnotic trance.  Compare this with the typical multiplicity of 

type fonts, varied layouts, images, and pictures of the printed page. 

     New media take time to develop and to be shaped.  Reading text on a 

terminal reminds me of looking at the Gutenberg Bible. The modern book 

took a century to develop after the invention of printing with movable 

type and the first Western printed books.  Aldus Manutius and the 

inventions of modern typefaces, pagination, the table of contents, the 

index, all of which gave the book its modern form, came later, were done 

by different people, and were of a different order than the invention of 

printing with movable type itself.  The new electronic media are 

undergoing a similar evolution.

     Key inventions are occurring slowly, for example, development of 

software tools that will allow the dissemination of audio and video 

across the Net. This type of software has usually been done so far by 

volunteers who have given away the results.  It's a great thing, but 

it's not sufficient, given how hard it is to develop robust software. 

Innovation in the application space will also be driven by entrepreneurs 

and independent software vendors at such point as they perceive a 

business opportunity to create such products (it would be nice if 

creators did it for art's sake but this seems unlikely).  

     There are some requirements to provide incentives to attract 

additional software development.  This requires a competitive free 

market in network services at all levels to serve the expanding user 

demand for network services. It requires a technologically mature 

network able to support these services.

     And there must be a user population, current or prospective, 

interested in paying for better applications -- and not just the current 

base of technically sophisticated users and students, though they will 

absolutely benefit.            

     There are multiple classes of new application opportunities.  E-mail 

is overloaded because there aren't readily available alternatives yet.  

New and different kinds of tools are needed for collaborative work.  

Computer conferencing, as it evolves, may be sufficient for discussion 

and debate.  But by itself, it cannot really support collaborative work, 

in the sense of readily enabling a group to make decisions efficiently, 

represent and track the status of its work process.  Trying to run an 

organization via e-mail mailing list is very different than trying to 

have a discussion. 

     Computer networks can only fully realize their potential as 

innovative communications media in an environment which encourages free 

and open expression.

     In some countries, legal principles of free speech protect freedom 

of expression in traditional media such as the printed word.  But once 

communication moves to new digital media and across crosses 

international borders, such legal protections fall away.  As John Perry 

Barlow, the co-founder of EFF puts it: "In Cyberspace, the First 

Amendment is a local ordinance."  There is no international legal 

authority which protects free expression on trans-national networks.

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls for the 

protection of free expression in all media, but the declaration falls 

far short of being binding. 

     And if we're to take seriously the idea of the electronic online 

forum, we have to deal with the access issue.  If the only people with 

access to the medium are well-educated, affluent, techno-literate elite, 

it won't be sufficiently inclusive to represent all points of view.  

     We also need, fundamentally, a better infrastructure (the highway 

system for information).  As we move from the high-speed Internet to the 

even more powerful National Research and Education Network, we need to 

look at how to bring the power of these new media into the homes of 

everybody who might want it.  Addressing this "last mile" problem (phone 

networks are now largely digitized, fiber-optic systems, except for the 

mile between your home and the nearest switching station) should be a 

priority.

     Computer networks will eventually become ubiquitous around the 

world.  We should therefore be concerned with the impact on society that 

they have, the opportunities to improve society, and the dangers that 

they pose.   Fundamentally, we are optimists who believe in the 

potential of networks to enhance democratic values of openness, 

diversity, and innovation. 

     Because the medium is so new, it is important now to develop 

policies at the national and international level that help achieve the 

potential of computer networks for society as a whole. By the time 

television was recognized as a vast wasteland it was already too late to 

change. There is a rare opportunity to develop policies in advance of a 

technologically and economically mature system which would be hard to 

change.

 

 

Preface

By Adam Gaffin,

Senior Writer, Network World, Framingham, Mass.

 

     Welcome to the Internet! You're about to start a journey through a 

unique land without frontiers, a place that is everywhere at once -- even 

though it exists physically only as a series of electrical impulses.  

You'll be joining a growing community of millions of people around the 

world who use this global resource on a daily basis.

     With this book, you will be able to use the Internet to:

     = Stay in touch with friends, relatives and colleagues around the 

       world, at a fraction of the cost of phone calls or even air 

       mail. 

 

     = Discuss everything from archaeology to zoology with people in 

       several different languages.    

 

     = Tap into thousands of information databases and libraries 

       worldwide.

 

     = Retrieve any of thousands of documents, journals, books and 

       computer programs.

 

     = Stay up to date with wire-service news and sports and 

       with official weather reports.

 

     = Play live, "real time" games with dozens of other people at once. 

 

     Connecting to "the Net" today, takes something of a sense of 

adventure, a willingness to learn and an ability to take a deep breath 

every once in awhile. Visiting the Net today is a lot like journeying to 

a foreign country.  There are so many things to see and do, but 

everything at first will seem so, well, foreign.  

     When you first arrive, you won't be able to read the street signs.  

You'll get lost.  If you're unlucky, you may even run into some locals 

who'd just as soon you went back to where you came from.  If this 

weren't enough, the entire country is constantly under construction; 

every day, it seems like there's something new for you to figure out. 

     Fortunately, most of the locals are actually friendly.  In fact, the 

Net actually has a rich tradition of helping out visitors and newcomers.  

Until very recently, there were few written guides for ordinary people, 

and the Net grew largely through an "oral" tradition in which the old-

timers helped the newcomers. 

     So when you connect, don't be afraid to ask for help.  You'll be 

surprised at how many people will lend a hand!

     Without such folks, in fact, this guide would not be possible. My 

thanks to all the people who have written with suggestion, additions and 

corrections since the Big Dummy's Guide first appeared on the Internet in 

1993.

    Special thanks go to the following people, who, whether they know it 

or not, provided particular help -- and to my loving wife Nancy:

    Rhonda Chapman, Jim Cocks, Tom Czarnik, Christopher Davis, David 

DeSimone, Jeanne deVoto, Phil Eschallier, Nico Garcia, Joe Granrose, 

Joerg Heitkoetter, Joe Ilacqua, Jonathan Kamens, Peter Kaminski, Thomas 

A. Kreeger, Stanton McCandlish, Leanne Phillips, Nancy Reynolds, Helen 

Trillian Rose, Barry Shein, Jennifer "Moira" Smith, Gerard van der Leun 

and Scott Yanoff. 

    If you have any suggestions or comments on how to make this guide 

better, I'd love to hear them.  You can reach me via e-mail at 

adamg@world.std.com. 

    Boston, Mass., January, 1994.

     And that leads to another fundamental thing to remember:

 

                You can't break the Net!

 

     As you travel the Net, your computer may freeze, your screen may 

erupt into a mass of gibberish.  You may think you've just disabled a 

million-dollar computer somewhere -- or even your own personal 

computer.  Sooner or later, this feeling happens to everyone -- and 

likely more than once. But the Net and your computer are hardier than 

you think, so relax.  You can no more break the Net than you can the 

phone system.  If something goes wrong, try again.  If nothing at all 

happens, you can always disconnect.   If worse comes to worse, you can 

turn off your computer.  Then take a deep breath.  And dial right back 

in. Leave a note for the person who runs the computer to which you've 

connected to ask for advice.  Try it again. Persistence pays.  

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Appendix A: THE LINGO

        As has any community, the Net has developed its own language.  

What follows is a glossary of some of the more common phrases you'll 

likely run into.  But it's only a small subset of net.speak.  You an find 

a more complete listing in "The New Hacker's Dictionary," compiled by 

Eric Raymond (MIT Press).  Raymond's work is based on an online reference 

known as "The Jargon File," which you can get through anonymous ftp from 

ftp.gnu.mit.ai.mit as jarg300.txt.gz in the pub/gnu directory (see 

chapter 7 for information on how to un-compress a .gz file). 

 

ASCII           Has two meanings.  ASCII is a universal computer code 

                for English letters and characters.  Computers store 

                all information as binary numbers. In ASCII, the 

                letter "A" is stored as 01000001, whether the computer 

                is made by IBM, Apple or Commodore.  ASCII also refers 

                to a method, or protocol, for copying files from one 

                computer to another over a network, in which neither 

                computer checks for any errors that might have been 

                caused by static or other problems.

 

ANSI            Computers use several different methods for deciding 

                how to put information on your screen and how your 

                keyboard interacts with the screen.  ANSI is one of 

                these "terminal emulation" methods.  Although most 

                popular on PC-based bulletin-board systems, it can also 

                be found on some Net sites.  To use it properly, you 

                will first have to turn it on, or enable it, in your 

                communications software.

 

 

ARPANet         A predecessor of the Internet.  Started in 1969 with 

                funds from the Defense Department's Advanced Projects 

                Research Agency. 

 

backbone        A high-speed network that connects several powerful 

                computers.  In the U.S., the backbone of the Internet is 

                often considered the NSFNet, a government funded link 

                between a handful of supercomputer sites across the 

                country. 

 

Baud            The speed at which modems transfer data.  One baud is 

                roughly equal to one bit per second.  It takes eight 

                bits to make up one letter or character.  Modems rarely 

                transfer data at exactly the same speed as their listed 

                baud rate because of static or computer problems. More 

                expensive modems use systems, such as Microcom Network 

                Protocol (MNP), which can correct for these errors or 

                which "compress" data to speed up transmission.

 

BITNet          Another, academically oriented, international computer 

                network, which uses a different set of computer 

                instructions to move data.  It is easily accessible to 

                Internet users through e-mail, and provides a large 

                number of conferences and databases.  Its name comes from 

                "Because It's Time." " 

 

Bounce          What your e-mail does when it cannot get to its 

                recipient -- it bounces back to you -- unless it goes 

                off into the ether, never to be found again.

 

Command line    On Unix host systems, this is where you tell the 

                machine what you want it to do, by entering commands.

 

Communications  A program that tells a modem how to work.

software   

 

Daemon          An otherwise harmless Unix program that normally works 

                out of sight of the user. On the Internet, you'll most 

                likely encounter it only when your e-mail is not 

                delivered to your recipient -- you'll get back your 

                original message plus an ugly message from a "mailer 

                daemon. 

 

Distribution    A way to limit where your Usenet postings go.  Handy for 

                such things as "for sale" messages or discussions of 

                regional politics. 

 

Domain          The last part of an Internet address, such as "news.com."

 

Dot             When you want to impress the net veterans you meet at 

                parties, say "dot" instead of "period," for example: "My 

                address is john at site dot domain dot com." 

 

Dot file        A file on a Unix public-access system 

                that alters the way you or your messages interact with 

                that system.  For example, your .login file contains 

                various parameters for such things as the text editor you 

                get when you send a message.   When you do an ls command, 

                these files do not appear in the directory listing; do ls 

                -a to list them. 

 

Down            When a public-access site runs into technical trouble, 

                and you can no longer gain access to it, it's down.

 

Download        Copy a file from a host system to your computer.  There 

                are several different methods, or protocols, for 

                downloading files, most of which periodically check the 

                file as it is being copied to ensure no information is 

                inadvertently destroyed or damaged during the process. 

                Some, such as XMODEM, only let you download one file at 

                a time.  Others, such as batch-YMODEM and ZMODEM, let 

                you type in the names of several files at once, which 

                are then automatically downloaded. 

 

EMACS           A standard Unix text editor preferred by Unix types

                that beginners tend to hate.                

 

E-mail          Electronic mail -- a way to send a private message to 

                somebody else on the Net. Used as both noun and verb.

 

Emoticon        See smiley.

 

F2F             Face to Face.  When you actually meet those people you 

                been corresponding with/flaming.

 

FAQ             Frequently Asked Questions.  A compilation of answers to 

                these.  Many Usenet newsgroups have these files, which 

                are posted once a month or so for beginners. 

 

Film at 11      One reaction to an overwrought argument: "Imminent death 

                of the Net predicted. Film at 11."

 

Finger          An Internet program that lets you get some bit of 

                information about another user, provided they have first 

                created a .plan file. 

 

Flame           Online yelling and/or ranting directed at somebody else.  

                Often results in flame wars, which occasionally turn into 

                holy wars (see). 

 

Followup        A Usenet posting that is a response to an earlier 

                message.

 

Foo/foobar      A sort of online algebraic place holder, for example: "If 

                you want to know when another site is run by a for-

                profit company, look for an address in the form of 

                foo@foobar.com." 

 

Fortune cookie  An inane/witty/profund comment that can be found around 

                the net.  

 

Freeware        Software that doesn't cost anything.

 

FTP             File-transfer Protocol.  A system for transferring files 

                across the Net.

 

Get a life      What to say to somebody who has, perhaps, been spending a 

                wee bit too much time in front of a computer.

 

GIF             Graphic Interchange Format.  A format developed in the 

                mid-1980s by CompuServe for use in photo-quality graphics 

                images.  Now commonly used everywhere online. 

 

GNU             Gnu's Not Unix.  A project of the Free Software 

                Foundation to write a free version of the Unix operating 

                system. 

Hacker          On the Net, unlike among the general public, this is not

                a bad person; it is simply somebody who enjoys stretching

                hardware and software to their limits, seeing just what 

                they can get their computers to do.  What many people 

                call hackers, net.denizens refer to as crackers.

Handshake       Two modems trying to connect first do this to agree on 

                how to transfer data.

 

Hang            When a modem fails to hang up.

 

Holy war        Arguments that involve certain basic tenets of faith, 

                about which one cannot disagree without setting one of 

                these off.  For example: IBM PCs are inherently superior to 

                Macintoshes.                     

         

Host system     A public-access site; provides Net access to people 

                outside the research and government community.

 

IMHO            In My Humble Opinion.

 

Internet        A worldwide system for linking smaller computer 

                networks together.  Networks connected through the 

                Internet use a particular set of communications 

                standards to communicate, known as TCP/IP.

 

Killfile        A file that lets you filter Usenet postings to some 

                extent, by excluding messages on certain topics or from 

                certain people. 

 

Log on/log in   Connect to a host system or public-access site.

 

Log off         Disconnect from a host system.

 

Lurk            Read messages in a Usenet newsgroup without ever saying 

                anything.

 

Mailing list    Essentially a conference in which messages are delivered 

                right to your mailbox, instead of to a Usenet newsgroup.  

                You get on these by sending a message to a specific e-

                mail address, which is often that of a computer that 

                automates the process. 

 

MOTSS           Members of the Same Sex.  Gays and Lesbians online.  

                Originally an acronym used in the 1980 federal census.

 

Net.god         One who has been online since the beginning, who knows 

                all and who has done it all.

 

Net.personality Somebody sufficiently opinionated/flaky/with plenty of 

                time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of 

                different Usenet newsgroups, whose presence is known to 

                thousands of people.

 

Net.police      Derogatory term for those who would impose their 

                standards on other users of the Net.  Often used in 

                vigorous flame wars (in which it occasionally mutates to 

                net.nazis). 

 

Netiquette      A set of common-sense guidelines for not annoying others.

 

Network         A communications system that links two or more 

                computers. It can be as simple as a cable strung 

                between two computers a few feet apart or as complex 

                as hundreds of thousands of computers around the world 

                linked through fiber optic cables, phone lines and 

                satellites.

 

Newbie          Somebody new to the Net.  Sometimes used derogatorily by 

                net.veterans who have forgotten that, they, too, were 

                once newbies who did not innately know the answer to 

                everything. "Clueless newbie" is always derogatory.

 

Newsgroup       A Usenet conference.

 

NIC             Network Information Center.  As close as an Internet-

                style network gets to a hub; it's usually where you'll 

                find information about that particular network. 

 

NSA line eater  The more aware/paranoid Net users believe that the 

                National Security Agency has a super-powerful computer 

                assigned to reading everything posted on the Net.   They 

                will jokingly (?) refer to this line eater in their 

                postings. Goes back to the early days of the Net when

                the bottom lines of messages would sometimes disappear

                for no apparent reason.

 

NSF             National Science Foundation.  Funds the NSFNet, a 

                high-speed network that once formed the backbone of the 

                Internet in the U.S. 

 

Offline         When your computer is not connected to a host system 

                or the Net, you are offline. 

 

Online          When your computer is connected to an online service, 

                bulletin-board system or public-access site.

 

Ping            A program that can trace the route a message takes from 

                your site to another site.

 

.plan file      A file that lists anything you want others on the Net to 

                know about you.  You place it in your home directory on 

                your public-access site.  Then, anybody who fingers (see) 

                you, will get to see this file. 

 

Post            To compose a message for a Usenet newsgroup and then send 

                it out for others to see.

 

Postmaster      The person to contact at a particular site to ask for 

                information about the site or complain about one of 

                his/her user's behavior. 

 

Protocol        The method used to transfer a file between a host 

                system and your computer. There are several types, 

                such as Kermit,  YMODEM and ZMODEM.                             

 

Prompt          When the host system asks you to do something and 

                waits for you to respond.  For example, if you see 

                "login:" it means type your user name. 

 

README files    Files found on FTP sites that explain what is in a given 

                FTP directory or which provide other useful information 

                (such as how to use FTP). 

 

Real Soon Now   A vague term used to describe when something will 

                actually happen.

 

RFC             Request for Comments.  A series of documents that 

                describe various technical aspects of the Internet.

 

ROTFL           Rolling on the Floor Laughing.  How to respond to a 

                particularly funny comment.

 

ROT13           A simple way to encode bad jokes, movie reviews that give 

                away the ending, pornography, etc.  Essentially, each 

                letter in a message is replace by the letter 13 spaces 

                away from it in the alphabet.  There are online decoders 

                to read these; nn and rn have them built in. 

 

RTFM            Read the, uh, you know, Manual.  Often used in flames 

                against people who ask computer-related questions that 

                could be easily answered with a few minutes with a 

                manual. More politely: RTM.

 

Screen capture  A part of your communications software that 

                opens a file on your computer and saves to it whatever 

                scrolls past on the screen while connected to a host 

                system. 

 

Server          A computer that can distribute information or files 

                automatically in response to specifically worded e-mail 

                requests. 

 

Shareware       Software that is freely available on the Net.  If you 

                like and use the software, you should send in the fee

                requested by the author, whose name and address will be 

                found in a file distributed with the software. 

 

.sig file       Sometimes, .signature file.  A file that, when placed in 

                your home directory on your public-access site, will 

                automatically be appended to every Usenet posting you 

                write. 

 

.sig quote      A profound/witty/quizzical/whatever quote that you 

                include in your .sig file.

 

Signal-to-noise The amount of useful information to be found in a given

ratio           Usenet newsgroup.  Often used derogatorily, for example: 

                "the signal-to-noise ratio in this newsgroup is pretty low."

 

SIMTEL20        The White Sands Missile Range used to maintain a giant 

                collection of free and low-cost software of all kinds, 

                which was "mirrored" to numerous other ftp sites on the

                Net.  In the fall of 1993, the Air Force decided it had

                better things to do than maintain a free software library

                and shut it down.  But you'll still see references to

                the collection, known as SIMTEL20, around the Net.

Snail mail      Mail that comes through a slot in your front door or a

                box mounted outside your house.

 

Sysadmin        The system administrator; the person who runs a host 

                system or public-access site.

TANSTAAFL       There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.  

 

TCP/IP          Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. The 

                particular system for transferring information over a 

                computer network that is at the heart of the Internet.

 

Telnet          A program that lets you connect to other computers on 

                the Internet.

 

Terminal        There are several methods for determining how your 

emulation       keystrokes and screen interact with a public-access 

                site's operating system.  Most communications programs 

                offer a  choice of "emulations" that let you mimic the 

                keyboard that would normally be attached directly to 

                the host-system computer. 

 

UUCP            Unix-to-Unix CoPy.  A method for transferring Usenet 

                postings and e-mail that requires far fewer net resources 

                than TCP/IP, but which can result in considerably slower 

                transfer times.

 

Upload          Copy a file from your computer to a host system.

 

User name       On most host systems, the first time you connect you 

                are asked to supply a one-word user name.  This can be 

                any combination of letters and numbers. 

 

VT100           Another terminal-emulation system.  Supported by many 

                communications program, it is the most common one in 

                use on the Net.  VT102 is a newer version. 

Appendix B: ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION INFORMATION

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a membership organization that

was founded in July of 1990 to ensure that the principles embodied in the

Constitution and the Bill of Rights are protected as new communications

technologies emerge.

 

From the beginning, EFF has worked to shape our nation's communications

infrastructure and the policies that govern it in order to maintain and

enhance First Amendment, privacy and other democratic values.  We believe

that our overriding public goal must be the creation of Electronic

Democracy, so our work focuses on the establishment of:

 

o       new laws that protect citizens' basic Constitutional rights as they

use new communications technologies,

 

o       a policy of common carriage requirements for all network providers

so that all speech, no matter how controversial, will be carried without

discrimination, 

 

o       a National Public Network where voice, data and video services are

accessible to all citizens on an equitable and affordable basis, and

 

o       a diversity of communities that enable all citizens to have a voice

in the information age.

 

 

Join us!

 

I wish to become a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  I enclose:

 

$__________  Regular membership -- $40

$__________  Student membership -- $20

 

 

Special Contribution

 

I wish to make a tax-deductible donation in the amount of $__________ to

further support the activities of EFF and to broaden participation in the

organization.

 

 

Documents Available in Hard Copy Form

 

The following documents are available free of charge from the Electronic

Frontier Foundation.  Please indicate any of the documents you wish to

receive.

 

___  Open Platform Proposal - EFF's proposal for a national

telecommunications infrastructure.  12 pages.  July, 1992

 

___  An Analysis of the FBI Digital Telephony Proposal - Response of

EFF-organized coalition to the FBI's digital telephony proposal of Fall,

1992.  8 pages.  September, 1992.

 

___  Building the Open Road:  The NREN and the National Public Network - A

discussion of the National Research and Education Network as a prototype

for a National Public Network.  20 pages.  May, 1992.

 

___  Innovative Services Delivered Now:  ISDN Applications at Home, School,

the Workplace and Beyond - A compilation of ISDN applications currently in

use.  29 pages.  January, 1993.

 

___  Decrypting the Puzzle Palace - John Perry Barlow's argument for strong

encryption and the need for an end to U.S. policies preventing its

development and use. 13 pages.  May, 1992.

 

___  Crime and Puzzlement - John Perry Barlow's piece on the founding of

the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the world of hackers, crackers and

those accused of computer crimes. 24 pages.  June, 1990.

 

___  Networks & Policy - A quarterly newsletter detailing EFF's activities

and achievements.

 

 

Your Contact Information:

 

Name:  __________________________________________________________

 

Organization:  ____________________________________________________

 

Address:  ________________________________________________________

 

               ________________________________________________________

 

Phone:  (____)  _______________  FAX:  (____)  _______________  (optional)

 

E-mail address:  ___________________________________________________

 

 

Payment Method

 

___ Enclosed is a check payable to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

 

___ Please charge my:   

        ___ MasterCard  ___ Visa  ___ American Express

 

                Card Number:  ___________________________________________

 

                Expiration Date:  _________________________________________

 

                Signature:  ______________________________________________

 

 

Privacy Policy

 

EFF occasionally shares our mailing list with other organizations promoting

similar goals.  However, we respect an individual's right to privacy and

will not distribute your name without explicit permission.

 

___ I grant permission for the EFF to distribute my name and contact

information to organizations sharing similar goals.

 

 

Print out and mail to: 

     Membership Coordinator

     Electronic Frontier Foundation

     1001 G Street, N.W.

     Suite 950 East

     Washington, DC  20001

     202/347-5400 voice

     202/393-5509 fax

 

 

 

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization

supported by contributions from individual members, corporations and

private foundations.  Donations are tax-deductible.