GOPHERS, WAISs AND THE WORLD-WIDE WEB 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 looking at ways to make it far easier to find all that data. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers (WAISs) are two programs that could ultimately make the Internet as easy to navigate as commercial networks like CompuServe or Prodigy. Both programs 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. Newer gophers even let you select files and programs from ftp sites this way. Let's look at gophers first. Many public-access sites now have gophers online. To use one, type gopher at the command line 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 Gophers are great for exploring. 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. Notice that one of your choices 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, again just by making a choice in a menu. 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 ftp. The letter u is an important one to remember while navigating a gopher -- it moves you back up a gopher directory tree, much like cd .. on an ftp site. In addition to ftp sites, there are now scores 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. Some gopher menu choices will end with a . This means that if you select it, you'll be starting up a simple database that can search through the given service by keyword. So many services are now available through gophers, that finding what you want has become difficult. Fortunately, you can use veronica, a laboriously constructed acronym that does for "gopherspace" what archie (there is no betty, yet) did for files. You'll usually find veronicas (there are now several) under "Other gopher and information services." When you call up a veronica, tell her (it?) the keyword or words you're interested in, and she/it will search all available databases for it. For example, say you want to impress company tonight and make cherries flambe. If you were to 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. 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 line 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: selects, w for keywords, arrows move, 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. But as more databases are added to WAIS programs, a problem arises that is similar to the one WAISs were supposed to solve: how do you find the specific databases you want? Scrolling through page after page of database listings becomes rather tedious rather quickly and you could wind up missing the one database you really need. That's the next step in WAIS research. WORLDWIDE WEB Developed by researchers at the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, the Worldwide 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 one article, see a reference that intrigues you and so you 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: 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, 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. CLIENTS If you are used to plain-vanilla Unix or MS-DOS, then the way these gophers and WAISs work seems quite straighforward. 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. 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. 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 your downloading a large file in one window, you can be chatting with a friend through an Internet chat program in another. These client programs have a couple of disadvantages. One is that you'll need a 9600-baud modem -- while it is possible to connect to the Net with them at lower speeds, you will likely find them painfully slow. Not all public-access sites are set up to allow such connections. And those that are usually charge far more for them. Your system administrator can give you more information on setting up one of these connections. ------------------------ FYI: The Usenet newsgroups comp.infosystems.gopher and comp.infosystems.wais are places to go for technical discussions about gophers and WAISs respectively. ADVANCED E-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. 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@pit-manager.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. 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). Exit mail 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 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. 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). 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@pit-manager.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. SENDING YOUR OWN FILES THROUGH THE MAIL The uuencode and uudecode programs will also come in handy if you ever want to send your own files to somebody else. If both you and your intended recipient communicate via Unix- based host systems, then it's pretty easy, because almost all Unix host systems will have encoder/decoder programs online. 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. 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 his mailbox, she should transfer it to her home directory. Then your friend 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. But 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 them via e-mail (how would they un-encode it?), you'll have to mail or give them a diskette with the program on it first. Then, they can get their message, run it through a text editor to delete the header, and finally decode the file. If they want to send you files in return, they'll also want an encoder 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. Once again, be careful with large files. 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. 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! NEWS OF THE WORLD Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. They may be interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at least, not what you'd think of as news. But there are several sources of news, sports and weather 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, in Usenet form. USA Today also has a presence on the Net, through the Cleveland Free-Net system, and we'll show you how to get news of eastern Europe and Brazil as well. 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 dispatches. 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. USA TODAY If your host system doesn't carry the clari 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. 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. THE WORLD TODAY 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. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Leave the subject line blank, and as a message, write: subscribe rferl-l Your Name 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 one, and don't capitalize anything, for example: get news.23oct92 ------------------------ 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. 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 uset telnet and ftp, chances are good you can use these services as well. 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. 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: If you receive a private message from somebody, his name will be between asterisks, like this: *tomg* For more information on using IRC, see the IRC command box. You can find discussions about IRC in the alt.irc newsgroup. MUDs Multiple-User Dimnesions 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 hobbes.cs.mcgill.ca 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: Your pager beeps twice, indicating no messages. 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 in Tanstaafl Towers, to the southwest of center. 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 pager To send him a message, type page name message where name is the wizard's name (it'll be in the original message). ther MUDs and MUCKs may have different commands, but generally use the same basic idea of letting you navigate through relatively simple English commands. 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. 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." 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. ------------------------ 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 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. -------------------- 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. 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). EDUCATION AND THE NET 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. 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 these resources: 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. SPACEMET: If your system doesn't carry K12, but has access to telnet, you can reach it 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. The address is spacemet.phast.umass.edu. When you connect, hit escape once. Like K12, 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. Today, there is a whole series of satellite SpaceMet BBSs in western Massachusetts and SpaceMet itself is now linked to Fidonet and Internet. 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. 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. HEALTH-ED: A mailing list for health educators. Send a request to health-ed-request@stjhmc.fidonet.org Hemingway: PAPA is a mailing list about Hemingway and his work. To get on the list, send a request to dgross@polyslo.calpoly.edu. 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: This is another BBS-like system, 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. FTP: 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. -------------------------- MORE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES ON THE NET 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. There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential interest to students and teachers. See Chapter 4 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 scimathl psuvm.bitnet Science and math education SS The revolution is just beginning. New communications systems and digital technologies have already meant dramatic changes in the way we live. Think of what is already routine that would have been considered impossible just ten years ago. You can browse through the holdings of your local library -- or of libraries halfway around the world -- do your banking and see if your neighbor has gone bankrupt, all through a computer and modem. Imploding costs coupled with exploding power are bringing ever more powerful computer and digital systems to ever growing numbers of people. The Net, with its rapidly expanding collection of databases and other information sources, is no longer limited to the industrialized nations of the West; today the web extends into once remote areas from Siberia to Zimbabwe. The cost of computers and modems used to plug into the Net, meanwhile, continue to plummet, making them ever more affordable. Cyberspace has become a vital part of millions of people's daily lives. People form relationships online, they fall in love, they get married, all because of initial contacts in cyberspace, that ephemeral ``place'' that transcends national and state boundaries. Business deals are transacted entirely in ASCII. Political and social movements begin online, coordinated by people who could be thousands of miles apart. Yet this is only the beginning. We live in an age of communication, yet, the various media we use to talk to one another remain largely separate systems. One day, however, your telephone, TV, fax machine and personal computer will be replaced by a single ``information processor'' linked to the worldwide Net by strands of optical fiber. Beyond databases and file libraries, power will be at your fingertips. Linked to thousands, even millions of like-minded people, you'll be able to participate in social and political movements across the country and around the world. How does this happen? In part, it will come about through new technologies. High-definition television will require the development of inexpensive computers that can process as much information as today's work stations. Telephone and cable companies will compete to see who can bring those fiber-optic cables into your home first. High- speed data networks, such as the Internet, will be replaced by even more powerful systems. Vice President Albert Gore, who successfully fought for a landmark funding bill for a new high-speed national computer network in 1990, talks of creating "information superhighways.'' Right now, we are in the network equivalent of the early 1950s, just before the creation of the Interstate highway system. Sure, there are plenty of interesting things out there, but you have to meander along two-lane roads, and have a good map, to get to them. Creation of this new Net will also require a new communications paradigm: the Net as information utility. The Net remains a somewhat complicated and mysterious place. To get something out of the Net today, you have to spend a fair amount of time with a Net veteran or a manual like this. You have to learn such arcana as the vagaries of the Unix cd command. Contrast this with the telephone, which now also provides access to large amounts of information through push buttons, or a computer network such as Prodigy, which one navigates through simple commands and mouse clicks. Internet system administrators have begun to realize that not all people want to learn the intricacies of Unix, and that that fact does not make them bad people. Coming years will see the development of simpler interfaces that will put the Net's power to use by millions of people, just as the number of host systems offering public access to the Net will skyrocket. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers have become two of the fastest growing applications on the Net. They are relatively simple to use and yet offer access to vast amounts of information. Mail programs and text editors such as Pico and Pine promise much of the power of older programs such as emacs at a fraction of the complexity. Some software engineers are looking at taking this even further, by creating graphical interfaces that will let somebody navigate the Internet just by clicking on the screen with a mouse or by calling up an easy text editor, sort of the way one can now navigate a Macintosh computer -- or a commercial online service such as Prodigy. Then there are the Internet services themselves. For every database now available through the Internet, there are probably three or four that are not. Government agencies are only slowing beginning to connect their storehouses of information to the Net. Several commercial vendors, from database services to booksellers, have made their services available through the Net. Few people now use one of the Net's more interesting applications. A standard known as MIME lets one send audio and graphics files in a message. Imagine opening your e-mail one day to hear your granddaughter's first words, or a "photo" of your friend's new house. Eventually, this standard could allow for distribution of even small video displays over the Net. All of this will require vast new amounts of Net power, to handle both the millions of new people who will jump onto the Net and the new applications they want. Replicating a moving image on a computer screen alone takes a phenomenal amount of computer bits, and computing power to arrange them. The legislation pushed by Gore in 1991 will eventually replace the existing Internet in the U.S. with the National Research and Education Network. At the center of NREN will be a "backbone" that, in one second, will be able to move as much as 3 billion bits of information from coast to coast -- the equivalent of shipping the contents of a large encyclopedia from New York to Los Angeles electronically. That seems like a silly thing to do. But that kind of speed allows for widespread distribution of complex files, such as video loops, without bogging down the entire Net. Its capacity will let millions more people onto the Net. As these "superhighways" grow, so will the "on ramps," for a high- speed road does you little good if you can't get to it. The costs of modems seem to fall as fast as those of computers. High-speed modems (9600 baud and up) are becoming increasingly affordable. At 9600 baud, you can download a satellite weather image of North America in less than two minutes, a file that, with a slower modem could take up to 20 minutes to download. Eventually, homes could be connected directly to a national digital network. Most long-distance phone traffic is already carried in digital form, through high-volume optical fibers. Phone companies are ever so slowly working to extend these fibers the "final mile" to the home. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is working to ensure these links are affordable. Beyond the technical questions are increasingly thorny social, political and economic issues. Who is to have access to these services, and at what cost? If we live in an information age, are we laying the seeds for a new information under class, unable to compete with those fortunate enough to have the money and skills needed to manipulate new communications channels? Who, in fact, decides who has access to what? As more companies realize the potential profits to be made in the new information infrastructure, what happens to such systems as Usenet, possibly the world's first successful anarchistic system, where everybody can say whatever they want? What are the laws of the electronic frontier? When national and state boundaries lose their meaning in cyberspace, the question might even be: WHO is the law? What if a practice that is legal in one country is "committed" in another country where it is illegal, over a computer network that crosses through a third country? Who goes after computer crackers? What role will you play in the revolution? Appendix A: Lingo 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 1000001, 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. 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 that beginners 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 compiliation 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. 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 Usenent 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. Often used derogatorily by net.veterans who have forgotten that, they, too, were once newbies who did not innately know the answer to everything. 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. NSF National Science Foundation. Funds the NSFNet, 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 has one 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, but which, if you like and use it, 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 derogatorally, for example: "the signal-to-noise ratio in this newsgroup is pretty low." Snail mail Mail that comes through a slot in your front door. Sysadmin/ The system administrator/system operator; the person sysop who runs a host system. TANSTAAFL There Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. TCP/IP 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. General Information About the Electronic Frontier Foundation ************************************************************************ 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. 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