Part 2 out of 2PSI maintains a directory of information on individuals. It will list the person's name, organization, and email address if it is given. Telnet to wp.psi.net and log in as fred. The White Pages Project also includes an interface to use Xwindows remotely. Faculty and Staff Listings Many universities offer access to information on current faculty and staff. Included are: Cornell Telnet to cuinfo.cornell.edu on port 3000. NC State Telnet to ccvax1.cc.ncsu.edu and log in as info. Rutgers Telnet to hangout.rutgers.edu on port 98. U of Maryland Telnet to umail.umd.edu and log in as lookup. UNC Chapel Hill Telnet to info.acs.unc.edu and log in as info. Yale Telnet to yalevm.ycc.yale.edu on port 300. Databases For information on database services, Commercial Databases. Not all databases on the Internet require payment for use, though. There do exist some, largely research-driven databases, which are publicly accessible. New ones spring up regularly. To find out more about the databases in this section, contact the people directly responsible for them. Their areas of concentration and the software used to implement them are widely disparate, and are probably beyond the author's expertise. Also, don't forget to check with your local library---the reference librarian there can provide information on conventional resources, and possibly even those available over the Internet (they are becoming more common). Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL) The Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (CARL), in association with CARL Systems Inc., operates a public access catalog of services. Offered are a number of library databases, including searches for government periodicals, book reviews, indices for current articles, and access to to other library databases around the country. Other services are available to CARL members including an online encyclopedia. Telnet to pac.carl.org, or write to help@carl.org for more details. PENpages PENpages is an agriculturally-oriented database administered by Pennsylvania State University. Information entered into PENpages is provided by numerous sources including the Pennsylvania Dept. of Agriculture, Rutgers University, and Penn State. Easy-to-use menus guide users to information ranging from cattle and agricultural prices to current weather information, from health information to agricultural news from around the nation. A keyword search option also allows users to search the database for related information and articles. The database is updated daily, and a listing of most recent additions is displayed after login. Telnet to psupen.psu.edu and log in as the user PNOTPA. Clemson Univ. Forestry & Agricultural Network Clemson maintains a database similar to PENpages in content, but the information provided tends to be localized to the Southeastern United States. A menu-driven database offers queries involving the weather, food, family, and human resources. Telnet to eureka.clemson.edu and log in as PUBLIC. You need to be on a good VT100 emulator (or a real VT terminal). University of Maryland Info Database The Computer Science department of the University of Maryland maintains a repository of information on a wide variety of topics. They wish to give a working example of how network technology can (and should) provide as much information as possible to those who use it. Telnet to info.umd.edu and log in as info. The information contained in the database is accessible through a screen-oriented interface, and everything therein is available via anonymous FTP. There is a mailing list used to discuss the UMD Info Database, welcoming suggestions for new information, comments on the interface the system provides, and other related topics. Send mail to listserv@umdd.umd.edu with a body of subscribe INFO-L Your Full Name Listservs for more information on using the Listserv system. University of Michigan Weather Underground The University of Michigan's Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic, & Space Sciences maintains a database of weather and related information for the United States and Canada. Available are current weather conditions and forecasts for cities in the U.S., a national weather summary, ski conditions, earthquake and hurricane updates, and a listing of severe weather conditions. Telnet to madlab.sprl.umich.edu on port 3000 to use the system. Geographic Name Server A geographic database listing information for cities in the United States and some international locations is maintained by Merit, Inc. The database is searchable by city name, zip code, etc. It will respond with a lot of information: the area code, elevation, time zone, and longitude and latitude are included. For example, a query of 19013 yields 0 Chester 1 42045 Delaware 2 PA Pennsylvania 3 US United States F 45 Populated place L 39 50 58 N 75 21 22 W P 45794 E 22 Z 19013 Z 19014 Z 19015 Z 19016 .. To use the server, telnet to martini.eecs.umich.edu on port 3000. The command help will yield further instructions, along with an explanation for each of the fields in a reponse. FEDIX---Minority Scholarship Information FEDIX is an on-line information service that links the higher education community and the federal government to facilitate research, education, and services. The system provides accurate and timely federal agency information to colleges, universities, and other research organizations. There are no registration fees and no access charges for FEDIX whatsoever. FEDIX offers the Minority On-Line Information Service (MOLIS), a database listing current information about Black and Hispanic colleges and universities. Daily information updates are made on federal education and research programs, scholarships, fellowships, and grants, available used research equipment, and general information about FEDIX itself. To access the database, telnet to fedix.fie.com and log in as fedix. Science & Technology Information System The STIS is maintained by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and provides access to many NSF publications. The full text of publications can be searched online and copied from the system, which can accommodate up to ten users at one time. Telnet to stis.nsf.gov and log in as public. Everything on the system is also available via anonymous FTP. For further information, contact: STIS, Office of Information Systems, Room 401 National Science Foundation 1800 G. Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20550 stis-request@nsf.gov (202) 357-7492 (202) 357-7663 (Fax) Ocean Network Information Center The University of Delaware College of Marine Studies offers access to an interactive database of research information covering all aspects of marine studies, nicknamed OCEANIC. This includes the World Oceanic Circulation Experiment (WOCE) information and program information, research ship schedules and information, and a Who's Who of email and mailing addresses for oceanic studies. Data from a variety of academic institutions based on research studies is also available. Telnet to delocn.udel.edu and log in as INFO. NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) The NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) is an ongoing project, funded by NASA, to make data and literature on extragalactic objects available over computer networks. NED is an object-oriented database which contains extensive information for nearly 132,000 extragalactic objects taken from about major catalogs of galaxies, quasars, infrared and radio sources. NED provides positions, names, and other basic data (e.g. magnitude types, sizes and redshifts as well as bibliographic references and abstracts). Searches can be done by name, around a name, and on an astronomical position. NED contains a tutorial which guides the user through the retrieval process. Telnet to ipac.caltech.edu and log in as ned. U.S. Naval Observatory Automated Data Service Operated by the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., this automated data service provides database access to information ranging from current navigational satellite positioning, astronomical data, and software utilities. A wide variety of databases can be searched and instructions for file transfer are given. Telnet to tycho.usno.navy.mil and log in as ads. ``My consciousness suddenly switched locations, for the first time in my life, from the vicinity of my head and body to a point about twenty feet away from where I normally see the world.'' Howard Rheingold, Virtual Reality p255 ----------------- Various Tools New and interesting ways to use the Internet are being dreamed up every day. As they gain wide-spread use, some methods become near-standard (or actual written standard) tools for Internet users to take advantage of. A few are detailed here; there are undoubtedly others, and new ideas spring up all the time. An active user of the Internet will discover most of the more common ones in time. Usually, these services are free. Commercial Services for applications that are commercially available over the Internet. Usenet is often used to announce a new service or capability on the Internet. In particular, the groups comp.archives and comp.protocols.tcp-ip are good places to look. Information will drift into other areas as word spreads. Usenet News for information on reading news. Finger On many systems there exists the finger command, which yield information about each user that's currently logged in. This command also has extensions for use over the Internet, as well. Under normal circumstances, the command is simply finger for a summary of who's logged into the local system, or finger username for specific information about a user. It's also possible to go one step further and go onto the network. The general usage is finger @hostname To see who's currently logged in at Widener University, for instance, use % finger @cs.widener.edu [cs.widener.edu] Login Name TTY Idle When Where brendan Brendan Kehoe p0 Fri 02:14 tattoo.cs.widene sven Sven Heinicke p1 Fri 04:16 xyplex3.cs.widen To find out about a certain user, they can be fingered specifically (and need not be logged in): % finger bart@cs.widener.edu [cs.widener.edu] Login name: bart In real life: Bart Simpson Directory: /home/springfield/bart Shell: /bin/underachiever Affiliation: Brother of Lisa Home System: channel29.fox.org Last login Thu May 23 12:14 (EDT) on ttyp6 from channel29.fox.org. No unread mail Project: To become a "fluff" cartoon character. Plan: Don't have a cow, man. Please realize that some sites are very security conscious, and need to restrict the information about their systems and users available to the outside world. To that end, they often block finger requests from outside sites---so don't be surprised if fingering a computer or a user returns with Connection refused. Internet Relay Chat The Lamont View Server System On lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu in pub/gb.tar.Z. Ping The ping command allows the user to check if another system is currently ``up'' and running. The general form of the command is ping system. {The usage will, again, vary.} For example, ping cs.widener.edu will tell you if the main machine in Widener University's Computer Science lab is currently online (we certainly hope so!). Many implementations of ping also include an option to let you see how fast a link is running (to give you some idea of the load on the network). For example: % ping -s cs.swarthmore.edu PING cs.swarthmore.edu: 56 data bytes 64 bytes from 130.58.68.1: icmp_seq=0 ttl=251 time=66 ms 64 bytes from 130.58.68.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=251 time=45 ms 64 bytes from 130.58.68.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=251 time=46 ms ^C --- cs.swarthmore.edu ping statistics --- 3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss round-trip min/avg/max = 45/52/66 ms This case tells us that for cs.swarthmore.edu it takes about 46 milliseconds for a packet to go from Widener to Swarthmore College and back again. It also gives the average and worst-case speeds, and any packet loss that may have occurred (e.g. because of network congestion). While ping generally doesn't hurt network performance, you shouldn't use it too often---usually once or twice will leave you relatively sure of the other system's state. Talk Sometimes email is clumsy and difficult to manage when one really needs to have an interactive conversation. The Internet provides for that as well, in the form of talk. Two users can literally see each other type across thousands of miles. To talk with Bart Simpson at Widener, one would type talk bart@@cs.widener.edu which would cause a message similar to the following to be displayed on Bart's terminal: Message from Talk_Daemon@cs.widener.edu at 21:45 ... talk: connection requested by joe@ee.someplace.edu talk: respond with: talk joe@ee.someplace.edu Bart would, presumably, respond by typing talk joe@ee.someplace.edu. They could then chat about whatever they wished, with instantaneous response time, rather than the write-and-wait style of email. To leave talk, on many systems one would type Ctrl-C (hold down the Control key and press C). Check local documentation to be sure. There are two different versions of talk in common use today. The first, dubbed ``old talk,'' is supported by a set of Unix systems (most notably, those currently sold by Sun). The second, ntalk (aka ``new talk''), is more of the standard. If, when attempting to talk with another user, it responds with an error about protocol families, odds are the incompatibilities between versions of talk is the culprit. It's up to the system administrators of sites which use the old talk to install ntalk for their users. Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS) The WHOIS Database The main WHOIS database is run at the Network Information Center (NIC). The whois command will let you search a database of every registered domain (e.g. mit.edu) and of registered users. It's primarily used by system postmasters or listowners to find the Points of Contact for a site, to let them know of a problem or contact them for one reason or another. You can also find out their postal address. For example: % whois mit.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) MIT.EDU 18.72.2.1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-DOM) MIT.EDU Note that there are two entries for mit.edu; we'll go for the second. % whois mit-dom Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-DOM) Cambridge, MA 02139 Domain Name: MIT.EDU Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Schiller, Jeffrey I. (JIS) JIS@MIT.EDU (617) 253-8400 Record last updated on 22-Jun-88. Domain servers in listed order: STRAWB.MIT.EDU 18.71.0.151 W20NS.MIT.EDU 18.70.0.160 BITSY.MIT.EDU 18.72.0.3 LITHIUM.LCS.MIT.EDU 18.26.0.121 To see this host record with registered users, repeat the command with a star ('*') before the name; or, use '%' to show JUST the registered users. Much better! Now this information (sought, possibly, by a system administrator) can be used to find out how to notify MIT of a security issue or problem with connectivity. Queries can be made for individuals as well; the following would yield an entry for the author: % whois brendan Kehoe, Brendan (BK59) brendan@cs.widener.edu Widener University Department of Computer Science Kirkbride 219 P.O. Box 83 Widener University Chester, PA 19013 (215)/499-4011 Record last updated on 02-May-91. Included is the author's name, his handle (a unique sequence of letters and numbers), information on how to contact him, and the last time the record was modified in any way. Anyone can register with the whois database. People who are administrative or technical contacts for domains are registered automatically when their domain applications are processed. For normal users, one must simply fill out a form from the NIC. FTP to nic.ddn.mil and get the file netinfo/user-template.txt. The completed form should be mailed to registrar@nic.ddn.mil. Other Uses of WHOIS Also, many educational sites run WHOIS servers of their own, to offer information about people who may be currently on the staff or attending the institution. To specify a WHOIS server, many implementations include some sort of option or qualifier---in VMS under MultiNet, it's /HOST, in Unix -h. To receive information about using the Stanford server, one might use the command whois -h stanford.edu help A large list of systems offering WHOIS services is being maintained by Matt Power of MIT (mhpower@stan.mit.edu). It is available via anonymous FTP from sipb.mit.edu, in the directory pub/whois. The file is named whois-servers.list. The systems available include, but are certainly not limited to, Syracuse University (syr.edu), New York University (acfcluster.nyu.edu), the University of California at San Diego (ucsd.edu), and Stanford University (stanford.edu). ``Fingers were made before forks.'' Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation ------- Commercial Services Many services can be accessed through the Internet. As time progresses and more outlets for commercial activity appear, once-restricted traffic (by the NSFnet Acceptable Use Policy) may now flow freely. Now that there are other networks for that information to travel on, businesses are making their move. Internet Service Providers Providers (AlterNet, PSI, etc)... Supercomputers The Internet Resource Guide (IRG) contains a chapter on computer time that's available for a fee. Rather than reproduce it here, which would fast become out-of-date as well as triple the size of this guide, it's suggested that the reader consult the IRG if such services are of interest. Electronic Journals The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) publishes a hard-copy directory of electronic journals, newsletters, and scholarly discussion lists. It is a compilation of entries for hundreds of sts, dozens of journals and newsletters, and a many ``other'' titles, including newsletter-digests, into one reference source. Each entry includes instructions on how to access the referenced publication or list. The documents are available electronically by sending the commands get ejournl1 directry get ejournl2 directry to the server at LISTSERV@OTTAWA.BITNET. Listservs for further instructions on using a listserv. The directory, along with a compilation by Diane Kovacs called Directories of Academic E-Mail Conferences, is available in print and on diskette (DOS WordPerfect and MacWord) from: Office of Scientific & Academic Publishing Association of Research Libraries 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 ARLHQ@UMDC.BITNET (202) 232--2466 (202) 462--7849 (Fax) The ARL is a not-for-profit organization representing over one hundred research libraries in the United States and Canada. The publication is available to ARL members for $10 and to non-members for $20 (add $5 postage per directory for foreign addresses). Orders of six or more copies will receive a 10% discount; all orders must be prepaid and sent to the ARL. Commercial Databases The American Institute of Physics maintains the Physics Information Network. It contains the bibliographic SPIN and General Physics Advanced Abstracts databases. Also available is access to bulletin boards and several searchable lists (job notices, announcements, etc). Telnet to pinet.aip.org; new users must log in as NEW and give registration information. Some of the databases accessible through WAIS (WAIS) are available for a fee. Clarinet News Clarinet's an electronic publishing network service that provides professional news and information, including live UPI wireservice news, in the Usenet file format. Clarinet lets you read an ``electronic newspaper'' right on the local system; you can get timely industry news, technology related wirestories, syndicated columns and features, financial information, stock quotes and more. Clarinet's provided by using the Usenet message interchange format, and is available via UUCP and other delivery protocols, including NNTP. The main feature is ClariNews, an ``electronic newspaper,'' gathered live from the wire services of United Press International (UPI). ClariNews articles are distributed in 100 newsgroups based on their subject matter, and are keyworded for additional topics and the geographical location of the story. ClariNews includes headlines, industry news, box scores, network TV schedules, and more. The main products of ClariNews are: ClariNews General, the general news``paper'' with news, sports, and features, averaging about 400 stories per day. TechWire, special groups for stories on science, technology, and industry stories around them. ClariNews-Biz, business and financial stories. Newsbytes, a daily computer industry newsmagazine. Syndicated Columns, including Dave Barry (humor) and Mike Royko (opinion). Full information on ClariNet, including subscription information, is available from Clarinet Communications Corp. 124 King St. North Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2X8 info@@clarinet.com (800) USE-NETS or with anonymous FTP in the directory /Clarinet on ftp.uu.net (Anonymous FTP). ``Needless to say, Aristotle did not envisage modern finance.'' Frederick Copleston, S.J. A History of Philosophy: Vol 1 Greece & Rome Part II, p95 --------- Things You'll Hear About There are certain things that you'll hear about shortly after you start actively using the Internet. Most people assume that everyone's familiar with them, and they require no additional explanation. If only that were true! This section addresses a few topics that are commonly encountered and asked about as a new user explores Cyberspace. Some of them are directly related to how the networks are run today; other points are simply interesting to read about. The Internet Worm from a letter by Severo M. Ornstein, in ACM June 89 Vol32 No6 and the appeal notice On November 2, 1988, Robert Morris, Jr., a graduate student in Computer Science at Cornell, wrote an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program called a worm and injected it into the Internet. He chose to release it from MIT, to disguise the fact that the worm came from Cornell. Morris soon discovered that the program was replicating and reinfecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated---there was a bug. Ultimately, many machines at locations around the country either crashed or became ``catatonic.'' When Morris realized what was happening, he contacted a friend at Harvard to discuss a solution. Eventually, they sent an anonymous message from Harvard over the network, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late. Computers were affected at many sites, including universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. The estimated cost of dealing with the worm at each installation ranged from $200 to more than $53,000. {Derived in part from a letter by Severo M. Ornstein, in the Communications of the ACM, Vol 32 No 6, June 1989.} The program took advantage of a hole in the debug mode of the Unix sendmail program, which runs on a system and waits for other systems to connect to it and give it email, and a hole in the finger daemon fingerd, which serves finger requests (Finger). People at the University of California at Berkeley and MIT had copies of the program and were actively disassembling it (returning the program back into its source form) to try to figure out how it worked. Teams of programmers worked non-stop to come up with at least a temporary fix, to prevent the continued spread of the worm. After about twelve hours, the team at Berkeley came up with steps that would help retard the spread of the virus. Another method was also discovered at Purdue and widely published. The information didn't get out as quickly as it could have, however, since so many sites had completely disconnected themselves from the network. After a few days, things slowly began to return to normalcy and everyone wanted to know who had done it all. Morris was later named in The New York Times as the author (though this hadn't yet been officially proven, there was a substantial body of evidence pointing to Morris). Robert T. Morris was convicted of violating the computer Fraud and Abuse Act (Title 18), and sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050, and the costs of his supervision. His appeal, filed in December, 1990, was rejected the following March. The Cuckoo's Egg First in an article entitled ``Stalking the Wily Hacker,'' and later in the book The Cuckoo's Egg, Clifford Stoll detailed his experiences trying to track down someone breaking into a system at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California. {See the bibliography for full citations.} A 75-cent discrepancy in the Lab's accounting records led Stoll on a chase through California, Virginia, and Europe to end up in a small apartment in Hannover, West Germany. Stoll dealt with many levels of bureaucracy and red tape, and worked with the FBI, the CIA, and the German Bundespost trying to track his hacker down. The experiences of Stoll, and particularly his message in speaking engagements, have all pointed out the dire need for communication between parties on a network of networks. The only way everyone can peacefully co-exist in Cyberspace is by ensuring rapid recognition of any existing problems. Organizations The indomitable need for humans to congregate and share their common interests is also present in the computing world. User groups exist around the world, where people share ideas and experiences. Similarly, there are organizations which are one step ``above'' user groups; that is to say, they exist to encourage or promote an idea or set of ideas, rather than support a specific computer or application of computers. The Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (the ACM) was founded in 1947, immediately after Eckert and Mauchly unveiled one of the first electronic computers, the ENIAC, in 1946. Since then, the ACM has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming one of the leading educational and scientific societies in the computer industry. The ACM's stated purposes are: To advance the sciences and arts of information processing; To promote the free interchange of information about the sciences and arts of information processing both among specialists and among the public; To develop and maintain the integrity and competence of individuals engaged in the practices of the sciences and arts of information processing. Membership in the ACM has grown from seventy-eight in September, 1947, to over 77,000 today. There are local chapters around the world, and many colleges and universities endorse student chapters. Lecturers frequent these meetings, which tend to be one step above the normal ``user group'' gathering. A large variety of published material is also available at discounted prices for members of the association. The ACM has a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that concentrate on a certain area of computing, ranging from graphics to the Ada programming language to security. Each of the SIGs also publishes its own newsletter. There is a Usenet group, comp.org.acm, for the discussion of ACM topics. Usenet News for more information on reading news. For more information and a membership application, write to: Assocation for Computing Machinery 1515 Broadway New York City, NY 10036 ACMHELP@ACMVM.BITNET (212) 869-7440 Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility from their letter to prospective members The CPSR is an alliance of computer professionals concentrating on certain areas of the impact of computer technology on society. It traces its history to the fall of 1981, when several researchers in Palo Alto, California, organized a lunch meeting to discuss their shared concerns about the connection between computing and the nuclear arms race. Out of that meeting and the discussions which followed, CPSR was born, and has been active ever since. {This section is part of the CPSR's letter to prospective members.} The national CPSR program focuses on the following project areas: Reliability and Risk This area reflects on the concern that overreliance on computing technology can lead to unacceptable risks to society. It includes, but isn't limited to, work in analyzing military systems such as SDI. Civil Liberties and Privacy This project is concerned with such topics as the FBI National Crime Information Center, the growing use of databases by both government and private industry, the right of access to public information, extension of First Amendment rights to electronic communication, and establishing legal protections for privacy of computerized information. Computers in the Workplace The CPSR Workplace Project has concentrated its attention on the design of software for the workplace, and particularly on the philosophy of ``participatory design,'' in which software designers work together with users to ensure that systems meet the actual needs of that workplace. The 21st Century Project This is a coalition with other professional organizations working towards redirecting national research priorities from concentrating on military issues to anticipating and dealing with future problems as science and technology enter the next century. For more information on the CPSR, contact them at: Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto, CA 94302 cpsr@csli.stanford.edu (415) 322--3778 (415) 322--3798 (Fax) The Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was established to help civilize the ``electronic frontier''---the Cyberspacial medium becoming ever-present in today's society; to make it truly useful and beneficial not just to a technical elite, but to everyone; and to do this in a way which is in keeping with the society's highest traditions of the free and open flow of information and communication. {This section was derived from eff.about, available along with other material via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org} The mission of the EFF is to engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications; to develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society; to raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media and, where necessary, support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology; to encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications; The Usenet newsgroups comp.org.eff.talk and comp.org.eff.news are dedicated to discussion concerning the EFF. They also have mailing list counterparts for those that don't have access to Usenet, eff-talk-request@eff.org and eff-news-request@eff.org. The first is an informal arena (aka a normal newsgroup) where anyone may voice his or her opinions. The second, comp.org.eff.news, is a moderated area for regular postings from the EFF in the form of EFFector Online. To submit a posting for the EFFector Online, or to get general information about the EFF, write to eff@eff.org. There is also a wealth of information available via anonymous FTP on ftp.eff.org. The EFF can be contacted at The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc. 155 Second St. #1 Cambridge, MA 02141 eff@eff.org (617) 864-0665 (617) 864-0866 (Fax) The Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation was started by Richard Stallman (creator of the popular GNU Emacs editor). It is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistributing, and modifying software. The word ``free'' in their name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you. The Foundation works to provide these freedoms by developing free compatible replacements for proprietary software. Specifically, they are putting together a complete, integrated software system called ``GNU'' that is upward-compatible with Unix. {As an aside, the editor of the GNU project, emacs, contains a built-in LISP interpreter and a large part of its functionality is written in LISP. The name GNU is itself recursive (the mainstay of the LISP language); it stands for ``Gnu's Not Unix.''} When it is released, everyone will be permitted to copy it and distribute it to others. In addition, it will be distributed with source code, so you will be able to learn about operating systems by reading it, to port it to your own machine, and to exchange the changes with others. For more information on the Free Software Foundation and the status of the GNU Project, or for a list of the current tasks that still need to be done, write to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu. The IEEE Need IEEE... The League for Programming Freedom The League for Programming Freedom is a grass-roots organization of professors, students, businessmen, programmers and users dedicated to ``bringing back'' the freedom to write programs, which they contend has been lost over the past number years. The League is not opposed to the legal system that Congress intended--copyright on individual programs. Their aim is to reverse the recent changes made by judges in response to special interests, often explicitly rejecting the public interest principles of the Constitution. The League works to abolish the new monopolies by publishing articles, talking with public officials, boycotting egregious offenders, and in the future may intervene in court cases. On May 24, 1989, the League picketed Lotus headquarters because of their lawsuits, and then again on August 2, 1990. These marches stimulated widespread media coverage for the issue. They welcome suggestions for other activities, as well as help in carrying them out. For information on the League and how to join, write to League for Programming Freedom 1 Kendall Square #143 P.O. Box 9171 Cambridge, MA 02139 league@prep.ai.mit.edu Networking Initiatives Research and development are two buzz words often heard when discussing the networking field---everything needs to go faster, over longer distances, for a lower cost. To ``keep current,'' one should read the various trade magazines and newspapers, or frequent the networking-oriented newsgroups of Usenet. If possible, attend trade shows and symposia like Usenix, Interop, et. al. ISDN NREN The National Research and Education Network (NREN) is a five-year project approved by Congress in the Fall of 1991. It's intended to create a national electronic ``super-highway.'' The NREN will be 50 times faster than the fastest available networks (at the time of this writing). Proponents of the NREN claim it will be possible to transfer the equivalent of the entire text of the Encyclopedia Britannica in one second. Further information, including the original text of the bill presented by Senator Al Gore (D--TN), is available through anonymous FTP to nis.nsf.net, in the directory nsfnet. In addition, Vint Cerf wrote on the then-proposed NREN in RFC-1167, Thoughts on the National Research and Education Network. RFCs for information on obtaining RFCs. A mailing list, nren-discuss@uu.psi.com, is available for discussion of the NREN; write to nren-discuss-request@uu.psi.com to be added. ``To talk in publick, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire, and to answer inquiries, is the business of a scholar.'' Samuel Johnson Chapter VIII The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia ----- Finding Out More Internet Resource Guide The NSF Network Service Center (NNSC) compiles and makes available an Internet Resource Guide (IRG). The goal of the guide is to increase the visibility of various Internet resources that may help users do their work better. While not yet an exhaustive list, the guide is a useful compendium of many resources and can be a helpful reference for a new user. Resources listed are grouped by types into sections. Current sections include descriptions of online library catalogs, data archives, online white pages directory services, networks, network information centers, and computational resources, such as supercomputers. Each entry describes the resource, identifies who can use the resource, explains how to reach the local network via the Internet, and lists contacts for more information. The list is distributed electronically by the NNSC. To receive a guide, or to get on a mailing list that alerts you to when it is updated, send a message to resource-guide-request@nnsc.nsf.net. The current edition of the IRG is available via anonymous FTP from nnsc.nsf.net, in the directory /resource-guide. Requests for Comments The internal workings of the Internet are defined by a set of documents called RFCs (Request for Comments). The general process for creating an RFC is for someone wanting something formalized to write a document describing the issue and mailing it to Jon Postel (postel@isi.edu). He acts as a referee for the proposal. It is then commented upon by all those wishing to take part in the discussion (electronically, of course). It may go through multiple revisions. Should it be generally accepted as a good idea, it will be assigned a number and filed with the RFCs. The RFCs can be divided into five groups: required, suggested, directional, informational and obsolete. Required RFCs (e.g., RFC-791, The Internet Protocol) must be implemented on any host connected to the Internet. Suggested RFCs are generally implemented by network hosts. Lack of them does not preclude access to the Internet, but may impact its usability. RFC-793, Transmission Control Protocol, is a must for those implementing TCP. Directional RFCs were discussed and agreed to, but their application has never come into wide use. This may be due to the lack of wide need for the specific application (RFC-937, The Post Office Protocol) or that, although technically superior, ran against other pervasive approaches (RFC-891, Hello). It is suggested that, should the facility be required by a particular site, an implementation be done in accordance with the RFC. This ensures that, should the idea be one whose time has come, the implementation will be in accordance with some standard and will be generally usable. Informational RFCs contain factual information about the Internet and its operation (RFC-990, Assigned Numbers). There is also a subset of RFCs called FYIs (For Your Information). They are written in a language much more informal than that used in the other, standard RFCs. Topics range from answers to common questions for new and experienced users to a suggested bibliography. Finally, as the Internet has grown and technology has changed, some RFCs become unnecessary. These obsolete RFCs cannot be ignored, however. Frequently when a change is made to some RFC that causes a new one to obsolete others, the new RFC only contains explanations and motivations for the change. Understanding the model on which the whole facility is based may involve reading the original and subsequent RFCs on the topic. RFCs and FYIs are available via FTP from many sources, including: The nic.ddn.mil archive, as /rfc/rfc-xxxx.txt, where xxxx is the number of the RFC. from ftp.uu.net, in the directory /RFC. They're also available through mail by writing to service@nic.ddn.mil, with a Subject: line of send RFC-xxxx.TXT, again with xxxx being the RFC number. ``Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.'' Samuel Johnson Letter to Lord Chesterfield February, 1755 a book of quotes said April 18, 1775 .. the book of Johnson's works said it's 1755; I'll go with the latter. ------- Conclusion This guide is far from complete---the Internet changes on a daily (if not hourly) basis. However, this booklet should provide enough information to make the incredible breadth and complexity of the Internet a mite less imposing. Coupled with some exploration and experimentation, every user has the potential to be a competent net citizen, using the facilities that are available to their fullest. You, the reader, are strongly encouraged to suggest improvements to any part of this booklet. If something was unclear, left you with doubts, or wasn't addressed, it should be fixed. If you find any problems, inaccuracies, spelling errors, etc., please report them to: Brendan Kehoe Department of Computer Science Widener University Chester, PA 19013 Internet: guide-bugs@cs.widener.edu UUCP: ...!widener!guide-bugs If you are interested in future updates to this guide (aside from normal new editions), discussion about information to be included or removed, etc., write to guide-request@cs.widener.edu to be placed on a mailing list for such things. @dots is actually `. . . .' ``I've seed de first an de last @dots I seed de beginnin, en now I sees de endin.'' William Faulkner The Sound & The Fury April 8, 1928 -------- Getting to Other Networks Inter-connectivity has been and always will be one of the biggest goals in computer networking. The ultimate desire is to make it so one person can contact anyone else no matter where they are. A number of ``gateways'' between networks have been set up. They include: AppleLink Quantum Services sells access to AppleLink, which is similar to QuantumLink for Commodore computers and PCLink for IBM PCs and compatibles. It also provides email access through the address user@applelink.apple.com. ATTMail AT&T sells a commercial email service called ATTMail. Its users can be reached by writing to user@attmail.com. BIX Users on BIX (the Byte Information eXchange) can be reached through the DAS gateway at user@cibix.das.net. CompuServe (CI$) To reach a user on the commercial service CompuServe, you must address the mail as xxxxx.xxx@compuserve.com, with xxxxx.xxx being their CompuServe user ID. Normally CompuServe ids are represented as being separated by a comma (like 71999,141); since most mailers don't react well to having commas in addresses, it was changed to a period. For the above address, mail would be sent to 71999.141@compuserve.com. EasyNet Digital sells a service called EasyNet; users that subscribe to it can be reached with the addresses user@host.enet.dec.com or user%host.enet@decwrl.dec.com. FidoNet The FidoNet computer network can be reached by using a special addressing method. If John Smith is on the node 1:2/3.4 on FidoNet, his or her email address would be john.smith@p4.f3.n2.z1.fidonet.org (notice how the numbers fall in place?). MCI Mail MCI also sells email accounts (similar to ATTMail). Users can be reached with user@mcimail.com. PeaceNet Users on the PeaceNet network can be reached by writing to user@igc.org. The Well Users on the service The Well can be reached by writing to user@well.sf.ca.us. The Well is directly connected to the Internet. This table is far from complete. In addition to sites not being listed, some services are not (nor do they plan to be) accessible from the ``outside'' (like Prodigy); others, like GEnie, are actively investigating the possibility of creating a gateway into their system. For the latest information, consult a list called the Inter-Network Mail Guide. It's available from a number of FTP sites, including UUNET; Anonymous FTP, for more information on getting a copy of it using anonymous FTP. Retrieving Files via Email For those who have a connection to the Internet, but cannot FTP, there do exist a few alternatives to get those files you so desperately need. When requesting files, it's imperative that you keep in mind the size of your request---odds are the other people who may be using your link won't be too receptive to sudden bursts of really heavy traffic on their normally sedate connection. Archive Servers An alternative to the currently well over-used FTPmail system is taking advantage of the many archive servers that are presently being maintained. These are programs that receive email messages that contain commands, and act on them. For example, sending an archive server the command help will usually yield, in the form of a piece of email, information on how to use the various commands that the server has available. One such archive server is service@nic.ddn.mil. Maintained by the Network Information Center (NIC) in Chantilly, VA, the server is set up to make all of the information at the NIC available for people who don't have access to FTP. This also includes the WHOIS service (Whois). Some sample Subject: lines for queries to the NIC server are: Subject: help Describes available commands. Subject: rfc 822 Sends a copy of RFC-822. Subject: rfc index Sends an index of the available RFCs. Subject: netinfo domain-template.txt Sends a domain application. Subject: whois widener Sends WHOIS information on `widener'. More information on using their archive server can be obtained by writing to their server address service@nic.ddn.mil with a Subject: of help. There are different ``brands'' of archive server, each with its own set of commands and services. Among them there often exists a common set of commands and services (e.g. index, help, etc). Be that as it may, one should always consult the individual help for a specific server before assuming the syntax---100K surprises can be hard on a system. FTP-by-Mail Servers Some systems offer people the ability to receive files through a mock-FTP interface via email. Anonymous FTP for a general overview of how to FTP. The effects of providing such a service varies, although a rule of thumb is that it will probably use a substantial amount of the available resources on a system. The ``original'' FTP-by-Mail service, BITFTP, is available to BITNET users from the Princeton node PUCC. It was once accessible to anyone, but had to be closed out to non-BITNET users because of the heavy load on the system. In response to this closure, Paul Vixie designed and installed a system called FTPmail on one of Digital's gateway computers, decwrl.dec.com. Write to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com with help in the body of the letter for instructions on its use. The software is undergoing constant development; once it reaches a stable state, other sites will be encouraged to adopt it and provide the service also. Newsgroup Creation Everyone has the opportunity to make a Call For Votes on the Usenet and attempt to create a newsgroup that he/she feels would be of benefit to the general readership. The rules governing newsgroup creation have evolved over the years into a generally accepted method. They only govern the ``world'' groups; they aren't applicable to regional or other alternative hierarchies. Discussion A discussion must first take place to address issues like the naming of the group, where in the group tree it should go (e.g. rec.sports.koosh vs rec.games.koosh?), and whether or not it should be created in the first place. The formal Request For Discussion (RFD) should be posted to news.announce.newgroups, along with any other groups or mailing lists at all related to the proposed topic. news.announce.newgroups is moderated. You should place it first in the Newsgroups: header, so that it will get mailed to the moderator only. The article won't be immediately posted to the other newsgroups listed; rather, it will give you the opportunity to have the moderator correct any inconsistencies or mistakes in your RFD. He or she will take care of posting it to the newsgroups you indicated. Also the Followup-To: header will be set so that the actual discussion takes place only in news.groups. If a user has difficulty posting to a moderated group, he or she may mail submissions intended for news.announce.newgroups to the address announce-newgroups@rpi.edu. The final name and charter of the group, and whether it will be moderated or unmoderated, will be determined during the discussion period. If it's to be moderated, the discussion will also decide who the moderator will be. If there's no general agreement on these points among those in favor of a new group at the end of 30 days, the discussion will be taken into mail rather than continued posting to news.groups; that way, the proponents of the group can iron out their differences and come back with a proper proposal, and make a new Request For Discussion. Voting After the discussion period (which is mandatory), if it's been determined that a new group really is desired, a name and charter are agreed upon, and it's been determined whether the group will be moderated (and by whom), a Call For Votes (CFV) should be posted to news.announce.newgroups, along with any other groups that the original Request For Discussion was posted to. The CFV should be posted (or mailed to the news.announce.newgroups moderator) as soon as possible after the discussion ends (to keep it fresh in everyone's mind). The Call for Votes should include clear instructions on how to cast a vote. It's important that it be clearly explained how to both vote for and against a group (and be of equivalent difficulty or ease). If it's easier for you or your administrator, two separate addresses can be used to mail yes and no votes to, providing that they're on the same machine. Regardless of the method, everyone must have a very specific idea of how to get his/her vote counted. The voting period can last between 21 and 31 days, no matter what the preliminary results of the vote are. A vote can't be called off simply because 400 ``no'' votes have come in and only two ``yes'' votes. The Call for Votes should include the exact date that the voting period will end---only those votes arriving on the vote-taker's machine before this date can be counted. To keep awareness high, the CFV can be repeated during the vote, provided that it gives the same clear, unbiased instructions for casting a vote as the original; it also has to be the same proposal as was first posted. The charter can't change in mid-vote. Also, votes that're posted don't count---only those that were mailed to the vote-taker can be tallied. Partial results should never be included; only a statement of the specific proposal, that a vote is in progress on it, and how to cast a vote. A mass acknowledgement (``Mass ACK'' or ``Vote ACK'') is permitted; however, it must be presented in a way that gives no indication of which way a person voted. One way to avoid this is to create one large list of everyone who's voted, and sort it in alphabetical order. It should not be two sorted lists (of the yes and no votes, respectively). Every vote is autonomous. The votes for or against one group can't be transferred to another, similar proposal. A vote can only count for the exact proposal that it was a response to. In particular, a vote for or against a newsgroup under one name can't be counted as a vote for or against another group with a different name or charter, a different moderated/unmoderated status, or, if it's moderated, a different moderator or set of moderators. Whew! Finally, the vote has to be explicit; they should be of the form I vote for the group foo.bar as proposed or I vote against the group foo.bar as proposed. The wording doesn't have to be exact, your intention just has to be clear. The Result of a Vote At the end of the voting period, the vote-taker has to post (to news.announce.newgroups) the tally and email addresses of the votes received. Again, it can also be posted to any of the groups listed in the original CFV. The tally should make clear which way a person voted, so the results can be verified if it proves necessary to do so. After the vote result is posted to news.announce.newgroups, there is a mandatory five-day waiting period. This affords everyone the opportunity to correct any errors or inconsistencies in the voter list or the voting procedure. Creation of the Group If, after the waiting period, there are no serious objections that might invalidate the vote, the vote is put to the ``water test.'' If there were 100 more valid YES/create votes than NO/don't create votes, and at least two-thirds of the total number of votes are in favor of creation, then a newgroup control message can be sent out (often by the moderator of news.announce.newgroups). If the 100-vote margin or the two-thirds percentage isn't met, the group has failed and can't be created. If the proposal failed, all is not lost---after a six-month waiting period (a ``cooling down''), a new Request For Discussion can be posted to news.groups, and the whole process can start over again. If after a couple of tries it becomes obvious that the group is not wanted or needed, the vote-taker should humbly step back and accept the opinion of the majority. (As life goes, so goes Usenet.) -------- Glossary This glossary is only a tiny subset of all of the various terms and other things that people regularly use on The Net. For a more complete (and very entertaining) reference, it's suggested you get a copy of The New Hacker's Dictionary, which is based on a VERY large text file called the Jargon File. Edited by Eric Raymond (eric@snark.thyrsus.com), it is available from the MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02142; its ISBN number is 0-262-68069-6. Also see RFC-1208, A Glossary of Networking Terms. :-) This odd symbol is one of the ways a person can portray ``mood'' in the very flat medium of computers---by using ``smilies.'' This is `metacommunication', and there are literally hundreds of them, from the obvious to the obscure. This particular example expresses ``happiness.'' Don't see it? Tilt your head to the left 90 degrees. Smilies are also used to denote sarcasm. Network addresses are usually of two types: the physical or hardware address of a network interface card; for ethernet this 48-bit address might be 0260.8C00.7666. The hardware address is used to forward packets within a physical network. Fortunately, network users do not have to be concerned about hardware addresses since they are automatically handled by the networking software. The logical or Internet address is used to facilitate moving data between physical networks. The 32-bit Internet address is made up of a network number, a subnetwork number, and a host number. Each host computer on the Internet, has a unique address. For example, all Internet addresses at Colorado State have a network number of 129.82, a subnet number in the range of 1-254, and a host number in the range of 1-254. All Internet hosts have a numeric address and an English-style name. For example, the Internet address for UCC's CYBER 840 is 129.82.103.96; its Internet name is csugreen.UCC.ColoState.EDU. address resolution Conversion of an Internet address to the corresponding physical address. On an ethernet, resolution requires broadcasting on the local area network. administrivia Administrative tasks, most often related to the maintenance of mailing lists, digests, news gateways, etc. anonymous FTP Also known as ``anon FTP''; a service provided to make files available to the general Internet community---Anonymous FTP. ANSI The American National Standards Institute disseminates basic standards like ASCII, and acts as the United States' delegate to the ISO. Standards can be ordered from ANSI by writing to the ANSI Sales Department, 1430 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, or by telephoning (212) 354-3300. archie A service which provides lookups for packages in a database of the offerings of countless of anonymous FTP sites. archie for a full description. archive server An email-based file transfer facility offered by some systems. ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) Former name of DARPA, the government agency that funded ARPAnet and later the DARPA Internet. ARPAnet A pioneering long haul network funded by ARPA. It served as the basis for early networking research as well as a central backbone during the development of the Internet. The ARPAnet consisted of individual packet switching computers interconnected by leased lines. The ARPAnet no longer exists as a singular entity. asynchronous Transmission by individual bytes, not related to specific timing on the transmitting end. auto-magic Something which happens pseudo-automatically, and is usually too complex to go into any further than to say it happens ``auto-magically.'' backbone A high-speed connection within a network that connects shorter, usually slower circuits. Also used in reference to a system that acts as a ``hub'' for activity (although those are becoming much less prevalent now than they were ten years ago). bandwidth The capacity of a medium to transmit a signal. More informally, the mythical ``size'' of The Net, and its ability to carry the files and messages of those that use it. Some view certain kinds of traffic (FTPing hundreds of graphics images, for example) as a ``waste of bandwidth'' and look down upon them. BITNET (Because It's Time Network) An NJE-based international educational network. bounce The return of a piece of mail because of an error in its delivery. btw An abbreviation for ``by the way.'' CFV (Call For Votes) Initiates the voting period for a Usenet newsgroup. At least one (occasionally two or more) email address is customarily included as a repository for the votes. See Newsgroup Creation for a full description of the Usenet voting process. ClariNews The fee-based Usenet newsfeed available from ClariNet Communications. client The user of a network service; also used to describe a computer that relies upon another for some or all of its resources. Cyberspace A term coined by William Gibson in his fantasy novel Neuromancer to describe the ``world'' of computers, and the society that gathers around them. datagram The basic unit of information passed across the Internet. It contains a source and destination address along with data. Large messages are broken down into a sequence of IP datagrams. disassembling Converting a binary program into human-readable machine language code. DNS (Domain Name System) The method used to convert Internet names to their corresponding Internet numbers. domain A part of the naming hierarchy. Syntactically, a domain name consists of a sequence of names or other words separated by dots. dotted quad A set of four numbers connected with periods that make up an Internet address; for example, 147.31.254.130. The vernacular abbreviation for electronic mail. email address The UUCP or domain-based address that a user is referred to with. For example, the author's address is brendan@cs.widener.edu. ethernet A 10-million bit per second networking scheme originally developed by Xerox Corporation. Ethernet is widely used for LANs because it can network a wide variety of computers, it is not proprietary, and components are widely available from many commercial sources. FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) An emerging standard for network technology based on fiber optics that has been established by ANSI. FDDI specifies a 100-million bit per second data rate. The access control mechanism uses token ring technology. flame A piece of mail or a Usenet posting which is violently argumentative. FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) The FQDN is the full site name of a system, rather than just its hostname. For example, the system lisa at Widener University has a FQDN of lisa.cs.widener.edu. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) The Internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files from one computer to another. FYI An abbreviation for the phrase ``for your information.'' There is also a series of RFCs put out by the Network Information Center called FYIs; they address common questions of new users and many other useful things. RFCs for instructions on retrieving FYIs. gateway A special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two or more networks and routes packets from one network to the other. In particular, an Internet gateway routes IP datagrams among the networks it connects. Gateways route packets to other gateways until they can be delivered to the final destination directly across one physical network. header The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses and error-checking fields. Also part of a message or news article. hostname The name given to a machine. (See also FQDN.) IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) This usually accompanies a statement that may bring about personal offense or strong disagreement. Internet A concatenation of many individual TCP/IP campus, state, regional, and national networks (such as NSFnet, ARPAnet, and Milnet) into one single logical network all sharing a common addressing scheme. Internet number The dotted-quad address used to specify a certain system. The Internet number for the site cs.widener.edu is 147.31.254.130. A resolver is used to translate between hostnames and Internet addresses. interoperate The ability of multi-vendor computers to work together using a common set of protocols. With interoperability, PCs, Macs, Suns, Dec VAXen, CDC Cybers, etc, all work together allowing one host computer to communicate with and take advantage of the resources of another. ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Coordinator of the main networking standards that are put into use today. kernel The level of an operating system or networking system that contains the system-level commands or all of the functions hidden from the user. In a Unix system, the kernel is a program that contains the device drivers, the memory management routines, the scheduler, and system calls. This program is always running while the system is operating. LAN (Local Area Network) Any physical network technology that operates at high speed over short distances (up to a few thousand meters). mail gateway A machine that connects to two or more electronic mail systems (especially dissimilar mail systems on two different networks) and transfers mail messages among them. mailing list A possibly moderated discussion group, distributed via email from a central computer maintaining the list of people involved in the discussion. mail path A series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one user to another. medium The material used to support the transmission of data. This can be copper wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber, or electromagnetic wave (as in microwave). multiplex The division of a single transmission medium into multiple logical channels supporting many simultaneous sessions. For example, one network may have simultaneous FTP, telnet, rlogin, and SMTP connections, all going at the same time. net.citizen An inhabitant of Cyberspace. One usually tries to be a good net.citizen, lest one be flamed. netiquette A pun on ``etiquette''; proper behavior on The Net. Usenet Netiquette. network A group of machines connected together so they can transmit information to one another. There are two kinds of networks: local networks and remote networks. NFS (Network File System) A method developed by Sun Microsystems to allow computers to share files across a network in a way that makes them appear as if they're ``local'' to the system. NIC The Network Information Center. node A computer that is attached to a network; also called a host. NSFnet The national backbone network, funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by the Merit Corporation, used to interconnect regional (mid-level) networks such as WestNet to one another. packet The unit of data sent across a packet switching network. The term is used loosely. While some Internet literature uses it to refer specifically to data sent across a physical network, other literature views the Internet as a packet switching network and describes IP datagrams as packets. polling Connecting to another system to check for things like mail or news. postmaster The person responsible for taking care of mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site. protocols A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet). recursion The facility of a programming language to be able to call functions from within themselves. resolve Translate an Internet name into its equivalent IP address or other DNS information. RFD (Request For Discussion) Usually a two- to three-week period in which the particulars of newsgroup creation are battled out. route The path that network traffic takes from its source to its destination. router A dedicated computer (or other device) that sends packets from one place to another, paying attention to the current state of the network. RTFM (Read The Fantastic Manual). This anacronym is often used when someone asks a simple or common question. The word `Fantastic' is usually replaced with one much more vulgar. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The Internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail messages from one computer to another. SMTP specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control messages they exchange to transfer mail. server A computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files, with other computers on the network. An example of this is a Network File System (NFS) server which shares its disk space with other computers. signal-to-noise ratio When used in reference to Usenet activity, signal-to-noise ratio describes the relation between amount of actual information in a discussion, compared to their quantity. More often than not, there's substantial activity in a newsgroup, but a very small number of those articles actually contain anything useful. signature The small, usually four-line message at the bottom of a piece of email or a Usenet article. In Unix, it's added by creating a file ..signature in the user's home directory. Large signatures are a no-no. summarize To encapsulate a number of responses into one coherent, usable message. Often done on controlled mailing lists or active newsgroups, to help reduce bandwidth. synchronous Data communications in which transmissions are sent at a fixed rate, with the sending and receiving devices synchronized. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) A set of protocols, resulting from ARPA efforts, used by the Internet to support services such as remote login (telnet), file transfer (FTP) and mail (SMTP). telnet The Internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection service. Telnet allows a user at one site to interact with a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal were connected directly to the remote computer. terminal server A small, specialized, networked computer that connects many terminals to a LAN through one network connection. Any user on the network can then connect to various network hosts. TeX A free typesetting system by Donald Knuth. twisted pair Cable made up of a pair of insulated copper wires wrapped around each other to cancel the effects of electrical noise. UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) A store-and-forward system, primarily for Unix systems but currently supported on other platforms (e.g. VMS and personal computers). WAN (Wide-Area Network) A network spanning hundreds or thousands of miles. workstation A networked personal computing device with more power than a standard IBM PC or Macintosh. Typically, a workstation has an operating system such as unix that is capable of running several tasks at the same time. It has several megabytes of memory and a large, high-resolution display. Examples are Sun workstations and Digital DECstations. worm A computer program which replicates itself. The Internet worm (The Internet Worm) was perhaps the most famous; it successfully (and accidentally) duplicated itself on systems across the Internet. wrt With respect to. ``I hate definitions.'' Benjamin Disraeli Vivian Grey, bk i chap ii ------ Bibliography What follows is a compendium of sources that have information that will be of use to anyone reading this guide. Most of them were used in the writing of the booklet, while others are simply noted because they are a must for any good net.citizen's bookshelf. Books Comer, Douglas E. Internetworking With TCP/IP, 2nd ed., 2v Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1991 Davidson, John An Introduction to TCP/IP Springer-Verlag Berlin 1988 Frey, Donnalyn, and Adams, Rick !@%:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks O'Reilly and Associates Newton, MA 1989 Gibson, William Neuromancer Ace New York, NY 1984 LaQuey, Tracy Users' Directory of Computer Networks Digital Press Bedford, MA 1990 Levy, Stephen Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution Anchor Press/Doubleday Garden City, NY 1984 Partridge, Craig Innovations in Internetworking ARTECH House Norwood, MA 1988 Quarterman, John S. The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide Digital Press Bedford, MA 1989 Raymond, Eric (ed) The New Hacker's Dictionary MIT Press Cambridge, MA 1991 Stoll, Clifford The Cuckoo's Egg Doubleday New York 1989 Tanenbaum, Andrew S. Computer Networks, 2d ed Prentice-Hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1988 Todinao, Grace Using UUCP and USENET: A Nutshell Handbook O'Reilly and Associates Newton, MA 1986 The Waite Group Unix Communications, 2nd ed. Howard W. Sams & Company Indianapolis 1991 Periodicals & Papers magazine: Barlow, J Coming Into The Country Communications of the ACM 34:3 2 March 1991 Addresses ``Cyberspace''---John Barlow was a co-founder of the EFF. proceedings: Collyer, G., and Spencer, H News Need Not Be Slow Proceedings of the 1987 Winter USENIX Conference 181--90 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA January 1987 magazine: Denning, P The Internet Worm American Scientist 126--128 March--April 1989 magazine: The Science of Computing: Computer Networks American Scientist 127--129 March--April 1985 magazine: Frey, D., and Adams, R USENET: Death by Success? UNIX REVIEW 55--60 August 1987 magazine: Gifford, W. S ISDN User-Network Interfaces IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 343--348 May 1986 magazine: Ginsberg, K Getting from Here to There UNIX REVIEW 45 January 1986 magazine: Hiltz, S. R The Human Element in Computerized Conferencing Systems Computer Networks 421--428 December 1978 proceedings: Horton, M What is a Domain? Proceedings of the Summer 1984 USENIX Conference 368--372 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA June 1984 magazine: Jacobsen, Ole J Information on TCP/IP ConneXions---The Interoperability Report 14--15 July 1988 magazine: Jennings, D., et al Computer Networking for Scientists Science 943--950 28 February 1986 paper: Markoff, J ``Author of computer `virus' is son of U.S. electronic security expert.'' New York Times Nov. 5, 1988 A1 paper: ``Computer snarl: A `back door' ajar.'' New York Times Nov. 7, 1988 B10 magazine: McQuillan, J. M., and Walden, D. C The ARPA Network Design Decisions Computer Networks 243--289 1977 magazine: Ornstein, S. M A letter concerning the Internet worm Communications of the ACM 32:6 June 1989 proceedings: Partridge, C Mail Routing Using Domain Names: An Informal Tour Proceedings of the 1986 Summer USENIX Conference 366--76 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA June 1986 magazine: Quarterman, J Etiquette and Ethics ConneXions---The Interoperability Report 12--16 March 1989 magazine: Notable Computer Networks Communications of the ACM 29:10 October 1986 This was the predecessor to The Matrix. magazine: Raeder, A. W., and Andrews, K. 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Paul Verlaine The Sun, New York While he was city editor in 1873--1890. -- Bill Walther, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada
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