Welcome to the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet.

The genesis of the Big Dummy's Guide was a few informal conversations,
which included Mitch Kapor of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and
Steve Cisler of Apple Computer, Inc. in June of 1991.  With the support of
Apple Computer, EFF hired a writer (Adam Gaffin) and actually took on the
project in September of 1991.

The idea was to write a guide to the Internet for folks who had little or
no experience with network communications.  We intended to post this Guide
to "the 'net" in ASCII and HyperCard formats and to give it away on disk,
as well as have a print edition available for a nominal charge.  With the
consolidation of our offices to Washington, DC, we were able to put the
Guide on a fast track.  You're looking at the realization of our dreams --
version one of the Guide.  At the time I'm writing this, we're still
fishing around for a book publisher, so the hard-copy version has not yet
been printed.  We're hoping to update this Guide on a regular basis, so
please feel free to send us your comments and corrections.

EFF would like to thanks the folks at Apple, especially Steve Cisler of the
Apple Library, for their supporting our efforts to bring this Guide to you.
We hope it helps you open up a whole new world, where new friends and
experiences are sure to be yours.  Enjoy!

Shari Steele
ssteele@eff.org
(> 140 pages printed)
Director of Legal Services and Community Outreach
Electronic Frontier Foundation
July 15, 1993
い
                             Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet
	    copyright Electronic Frontier Foundation 1993
                                   TABLE OF CONTENTS


Forward by Mitchell Kapor, co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Preface by Adam Gaffin, reporter, Middlesex News.

Chapter 1:  Setting up/getting connected/jacking in.
     A.  List of public-access sites.

Chapter 2:  E-mail.
     A.  Smileys.
     B.  Seven Unix commands you can't live without.

Chapter 3:  Usenet I -- the Global watering hole.

Chapter 4:  Usenet II
     A.  Flame, blather and spew and the First Amendment.
     B.  rn commands.
     C.  nn commands.
     D.  Usenet hints.
     E.  Cross posting
     F.  The brain-tumor boy and the modem tax.
     G.  The Big Sig.
     H.  Killfiles.
     I.  Usenet history.

Chapter 5:  Mailing lists and Bitnet.

Chapter 6:  Telnet (Mining the Net, part I)
     A.  Telnet sites.
     B.  Telnet BBSs.
     C.  Finger.

Chapter 7:  FTP (Mining the Net, part I)
     A.  The keyboard cabal.
     B.  FTP sites.

Chapter 8:  Gophers, WAISs and the World-Wide Web

Chapter 9:  Advanced E-mail.

Chapter 10:  News of the world.

Chapter 11:  IRC, MUDs and other things that are more fun than they sound.
     A.  IRC commands.

Chapter 12:  Education and the Net.

Conclusion:  The end?

Appendix A:  Lingo

Electronic Frontier Foundation Information

い

By Mitchell Kapor, 
co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.


          "As a net is made up of a series of ties, so everything in 
     this world is connected by a series of ties.  If anyone thinks 
     that the mesh of a net is an independent, isolated thing, he is 
     mistaken.  It is called a net because it is made up of a series 
     of interconnected meshes, and each mesh has its place and 
     responsibility in relation to other meshes." 

                                                          -- Buddha

 
     New communities are being built today.  You cannot see them, except 
on a computer screen.  You cannot visit them, except through your 
keyboard.  Their highways are wires and optical fibers; their language a 
series of ones and zeroes.
     Yet these communities of cyberspace are as real and vibrant as any 
you could find on a globe or in an atlas.  Those are real people on the 
other sides of those monitors.  And freed from physical limitations, 
these people are developing new types of cohesive and effective 
communities - ones which are defined more by common interest and purpose 
than by an accident of geography, ones on which what really counts is 
what you say and think and feel, not how you look or talk or how old 
you are. 
     The oldest of these communities is that of the scientists, which 
actually predates computers.  Scientists have long seen themselves 
as an international community, where ideas were more important than 
national origin.  It is not surprising that the scientists were the 
first to adopt the new electronic media as their principal means of day-
to-day communication.  
     I look forward to a day in which everybody, not just scientists,  
can enjoy similar benefits of a global community.
     But how exactly does community grow out of a computer network? It 
does so because the network enables new forms of communication.
     The most obvious example of these new digital communications media 
is electronic mail, but there are many others.  We should begin to think 
of mailing lists, newsgroups, file and document archives, etc. as just 
the first generation of new forms of information and communications 
media.  The digital media of computer networks, by virtue of their 
design and the enabling technology upon which they ride, are 
fundamentally different than the now dominant mass media of television, 
radio, newspapers and magazines.  Digital communications media are 
inherently capable of being more interactive, more participatory, more 
egalitarian, more decentralized, and less hierarchical. 
     As such, the types of social relations and communities which can be 
built on these media share these characteristics.  Computer networks 
encourage the active participation of individuals rather than the 
passive non-participation induced by television narcosis.  
     In mass media, the vast majority of participants are passive 
recipients of information.  In digital communications media, the vast 
majority of participants are active creators of information as well as 
recipients.  This type of symmetry has previously only been found in 
media like the telephone.  But while the telephone is almost entirely a 
medium for private one-to-one communication, computer network 
applications such as electronic mailing lists, conferences, and bulletin 
boards, serve as a medium of group or "many-to-many" communication. 
     The new forums atop computer networks are the great levelers and 
reducers of organizational hierarchy.  Each user has, at least in 
theory, access to every other user, and an equal chance to be heard.  
Some U.S. high-tech companies, such as Microsoft and Borland, already 
use this to good advantage: their CEO's -- Bill Gates and Philippe Kahn 
-- are directly accessible to all employees via electronic mail.  This 
creates a sense that the voice of the individual employee really 
matters.  More generally, when corporate communication is facilitated by 
electronic mail, decision-making processes can be far more inclusive and 
participatory. 
     Computer networks do not require tightly centralized administrative 
control.  In fact, decentralization is necessary to enable rapid growth 
of the network itself.  Tight controls strangle growth.  This 
decentralization promotes inclusiveness, for it lowers barriers to entry 
for new parties wishing to join the network. 
     Given these characteristics, networks hold tremendous potential to 
enrich our collective cultural, political, and social lives and enhance 
democratic values everywhere.  
     And the Internet, and the UUCP and related networks connected to 
it, represents an outstanding example of a computer network with these 
qualities.  It is an open network of networks, not a single unitary 
network, but an ensemble interconnected systems which operate on the 
basis of multiple implementations of accepted, non-proprietary 
protocols, standards and interfaces. 
    One of its important characteristics is that new networks, host 
systems, and users may readily join the network -- the network is open 
to all.       
    The openness (in all senses) of the Internet reflects, I believe, 
the sensibilities and values of its architects.  Had the Internet 
somehow been developed outside the world of research and education, it's 
less likely to have had such an open architecture.  Future generations 
will be indebted to this community for the wisdom of building these 
types of open systems. 
     Still, the fundamental qualities of the Net, such as its 
decentralization, also pose problems.  How can full connectivity by 
maintained in the face of an ever-expanding number of connected 
networks, for example?  What of software bugs that bring down computers, 
or human crackers who try to do the same?  But these problems can and 
will be solved. 
     Digital media can be the basis of new forms of political discourse, 
in which citizens form and express their views on the important public 
issues of the day. There is more than one possible vision of such 
electronic democracy, however. Let's look at some examples of the 
potential power, and problems, of the new digital media. 
      The idea of something called an "electronic town meeting"  received 
considerable attention in 1992 with Ross Perot's presidential campaign 
(or, at least, its first incarnation).
     Perot's original vision, from 20 or so years ago,  was that viewers 
would watch a debate on television and fill out punch cards which would 
be mailed in and collated.  Now we could do it with 800 telephone 
numbers.
     In the current atmosphere of disaffection, alienation and cynicism, 
anything that promotes greater citizen involvement seems a good idea.  
People are turned off by politicians in general -- witness the original 
surge of support for Perot as outsider who would go in and clean up the 
mess -- and the idea of going right to the people is appealing,
     What's wrong with this picture? The individual viewer is a passive 
recipient of the views of experts.  The only action taken by the citizen 
is in expressing a preference for one of three pre-constructed 
alternatives.  While this might be occasionally useful, it's 
unsophisticated and falls far short of the real potential of electronic 
democracy. We've been reduced to forming our judgments on the basis of 
mass media's portrayal of the personality and character of the 
candidates. 
     All this is in contrast to robust political debates already found 
on various on-line computer systems, from CompuServe to Usenet.  
Through these new media, the issues of the day, ranging from national 
security in the post-Cold War era to comparative national health care 
systems, are fiercely discussed in a wide variety of bulletin boards, 
conferences, and newsgroups. 
     What I see in online debate are multiple active participants, not 
just experts, representing every point of view, in discussions that 
unfold over extended periods of time. What this shows is that, far from 
being alienated and disaffected from the political process, people like 
to talk and discuss -- and take action -- if they have the opportunity 
to do so.  Mass media don't permit that.  But these new media are more 
akin to a gathering around the cracker barrel at the general store -- 
only extended over hundreds, thousands of miles, in cyberspace, rather 
than in one physical location.                              
     Recent years have shown the potential power of these new media.     
We have also seen several of examples where talk translated into 
action. 
     In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission proposed changing 
the way certain online providers paid for access to local phone service.  
Online, this quickly became known as the "modem tax" and generated a 
storm of protest.  The FCC withdrew the idea, but not quickly enough: 
the "modem tax" has penetrated so deeply into the crevices of the Net 
that it has taken up a permanent and ghostly residence as a kind of 
virtual or cognitive virus, which periodically causes a re-infection of 
the systems and its users.  FCC commissioners continue to receive 
substantial mail on this even though the original issue is long dead; in 
fact, it has generated more mail than any other issue in the history of 
the FCC.
     More recently, Jim Manzi, chairman of Lotus Development Corp., 
received more than 30,000 e-mail messages when the company was getting 
ready to sell a database containing records on tens of millions of 
Americans.  The flood of electronic complaints about the threat to 
privacy helped force the company to abandon the project.
Issues of narrow but vital interest to the online community give a hint 
of the organizing power of the Net.  
     In August, 1991, the managers of a Soviet computer network known as 
Relcom stayed online during an abortive coup, relaying eyewitness 
accounts and news of actions against the coup to the West and to the 
rest of Russia.
     And many public interest non-profit organizations and special 
interest groups already use bulletin boards heavily as a means of 
communicating among their members and organizing political activity.
     But all is not perfect online.  The quality of discourse is often 
very low.  Discussion is often trivial and boring and bereft of 
persuasive reason.  Discourse often sinks to the level of "flaming," of 
personal attacks, instead of substantive discussion.  Flaming. Those 
with the most time to spend often wind up dominating the debate - a 
triumph of quantity of time available over quality of content. 
     It seems like no place for serious discussion. Information overload 
is also a problem.  There is simply far too much to read to keep up 
with.  It is all without organization.  How can this be addressed? 
     Recent innovations in the design of software used to connect 
people to the Net and the process of online discussion itself reveal 
some hope. 
     Flaming is universal, but different systems handle it in different 
ways.  Both the technology and cultural norms matter.
     On Usenet, for instance, most news reader applications support a 
feature known as a "killfile," which allows an individual to screen 
out postings by a particular user or on a particular subject.  It is 
also sometimes referred to as "the bozo filter."  This spares the user 
who is sufficiently sophisticated from further flamage, but it does 
nothing to stop the problem at its source. 
     Censorship would be one solution. But what else can be done without 
resorting to unacceptably heavy-handed tactics of censorship?  There is a 
great tradition of respect for free speech on these systems, and to 
censor public postings or even ban a poster for annoying or offensive 
content is properly seen as unacceptable, in my opinion. 
     Some systems use cultural norms, rather than software, to deal with 
flame wars.  These online communities have developed practices which 
rely more on a shared, internalized sense of appropriate behavior  than 
on censorship, for instance.  The WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link) is a 
relatively small online conferencing system based in the San Francisco 
Bay area.  On the WELL, individuals who get into a fight are encouraged 
to move the discussion out of the public conference and into e-mail.  
The encouragement is provided not only by the host of the conference, 
but also by the users.  It is part of the culture, not part of the 
technology. 
     WELL hosts are volunteers who facilitate the discussion of a 
particular subject.  While they have the power to censor individual 
postings, the power is very rarely used and only as a last resort, as it 
has been found that dispute resolution by talking it out among the 
parties is a superior method of problem solving in the long run. 
     It is not an accident that the WELL has a uniquely high quality 
of conversation.  Nor is it coincidental that it developed as a small 
and originally isolated community (now on the Net) which gave it a 
chance to develop its own norms or that key management of the system 
came from "The Farm," a large, successful commune of the 1960's and 
1970's led by Stephen Gaskin. 
     We still know very little about the facilitation of online 
conversations.  It is a subject well worth further formal study and 
experimentation. 
     Some problems have to do with the unrefined and immature format and 
structure of the discussion medium itself.  The undifferentiated stream 
of new messages marching along in 80 columns of ASCII text creates a 
kind of hypnotic trance.  Compare this with the typical multiplicity of 
type fonts, varied layouts, images, and pictures of the printed page. 
     New media take time to develop and to be shaped.  Reading text on a 
terminal reminds me of looking at the Gutenberg Bible. The modern book 
took a century to develop after the invention of printing with movable 
type and the first Western printed books.  Aldus Manutius and the 
inventions of modern typefaces, pagination, the table of contents, the 
index, all of which gave the book its modern form, came later, were done 
by different people, and were of a different order than the invention of 
printing with movable type itself.  The new electronic media are 
undergoing a similar evolution.
     Key inventions are occurring slowly, for example, development of 
software tools that will allow the dissemination of audio and video 
across the Net. This type of software has usually been sone so far by 
volunteers who have given away the results.  It's a great thing, but 
it's not sufficient, given how hard it is to develop robust software. 
Innovation in the application space will also be driven by entrepreneurs 
and independent software vendors at such point as they perceive a 
business opportunity to create such products (it would be nice if 
creators did it for art's sake but this seems unlikely).  
     There are some requirements to provide incentives to attract 
additional software development.  This requires a competitive free 
market in network services at all levels to serve the expanding user 
demand for network services. It requires a technologically mature 
network able to support these services.
     And there must be a user population, current or prospective, 
interested in paying for better applications -- and not just the current 
base of technically sophisticated users and students, though they will 
absolutely benefit.            
     There are multiple classes of new application opportunities.  E-mail 
is overloaded because there aren't readily available alternatives yet.  
New and different kinds of tools are needed for collaborative work.  
Computer conferencing, as it evolves, may be sufficient for discussion 
and debate.  But by itself, it cannot really support collaborative work, 
in the sense of readily enabling a group to make decisions efficiently, 
represent and track the status of its work process.  Trying to run an 
organization via email mailing list is very different than trying to 
have a discussion. 
     Computer networks can only fully realize their potential as 
innovative communications media in an environment which encourages free 
and open expression.
     In some countries, legal principles of free speech protect freedom 
of expression in traditional media such as the printed word.  But once 
communication moves to new digital media and across crosses 
international borders, such legal protections fall away.  As John Perry 
Barlow, the co-founder of EFF puts it: "In Cyberspace, the First 
Amendment is a local ordinance."  There is no international legal 
authority which protects free expression on trans-national networks.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights calls for the 
protection of free expression in all media, but the declaration falls 
far short of being binding. 
     And if we're to take seriously the idea of the electronic online 
forum, we have to deal with the access issue.  if the only people with 
access to the medium are well-educated, affluent, techno-literate elite, 
it won't be sufficiently inclusive to represent all points of view.  
     We also need, fundamentally, a better infrastructure (the highway 
system for information).  As we move from the high-speed Internet to the 
even more powerful National Research and Education Network, we need to 
look at how to bring the power of these new media into the homes of 
everybody who might want it.  Addressing this "last mile" problem (phone 
networks are now largely digitized, fiber-optic systems, except for the 
mile between your home and the nearest switching station) should be a 
prioarity.
     Computer networks will eventually become ubiquitous around the 
world.  We should therefore be concerned with the impact on society that 
they have, the opportunities to improve society, and the dangers that 
they pose.   Fundamentally, we are optimists who believe in the 
potential of networks to enhance democratic values of openness, 
diversity, and innovation. 
     Because the medium is so new, it is important now to develop 
policies at the national and international level that help achieve the 
potential of computer networks for society as a whole. By the time 
television was recognized as a vast wasteland it was already too late to 
change. There is a rare opportunity to develop policies in advance of a 
technologically and economically mature system which would be hard to 
change.
い
Preface
By Adam Gaffin,
Senior Reporter, Middlesex News, Framingham, Mass., adamg@world.std.com 




     This book will help you join the global village known as Cyberspace 
or the Net.  Millions of people around the world already spend parts of 
their lives in this land without frontiers, 
     With this book, you will be able to use the Net to:

     = Stay in touch with friends, relatives and colleagues around the 
       world, at a fraction of the cost of phone calls or even air 
       mail. 

     = Discuss everything from archaeology to zoology with people from 
       around the world.

     = Tap into hundreds of information databases and libraries 
       worldwide.

     = Retrieve any of thousands of documents, journals, books and 
       computer programs.

     = Stay up to date with wire-service news and sports, and 
       government weather reports.

     = Play live, "real time" games with dozens of other people at once. 

     And you will have become the newest member of this ever growing 
community. If you stay and contribute, the Net will be richer for it -- 
and so will you.        
     But it will take a sense of adventure, a willingness to learn and 
an ability to take a deep breath every once in awhile.  
     Visiting the Net today is a lot like journeying to a foreign 
country.  You know there are many things to see and do, but everything 
at first will seem so, well, foreign.  
     When you first arrive, you won't be able to read the street signs.  
You'll get lost.  If you're unlucky, you may even run into some natives 
who'd just as soon you went back to where you came from.  If this 
weren't enough, the entire country is constantly under construction; 
every day, it seems like there's something new for you to figure out. 
     Here's where you take a deep breath.  Fortunately, most of the 
natives are actually friendly.  In fact, the Net actually has a rich 
tradition of helping out visitors and newcomers.  With few written 
guides for ordinary people, the Net has grown in large part one person 
at a time -- if somebody helps you learn your way around, it's almost 
expected you'll repay the favor some day by helping somebody else.  
     So when you connect, don't be afraid to ask for help.  You'll be 
surprised at how many people will try to direct you around.
     And that leads to another fundamental thing to remember:

                You can't break the Net!

     As you travel the Net, your computer may freeze, your screen may 
erupt into a mass of gibberish.  You may think you've just disabled a 
million-dollar computer somewhere -- or even your own personal 
computer.  Sooner or later, this feeling happens to everyone -- and 
likely more than once. But the Net and your computer are hardier than 
you think, so relax.  You can no more break the Net than you can the 
phone system.  You are always in the driver's seat.  If something goes 
wrong, try again.  If nothing at all happens, you can always disconnect.   
If worse comes to worse, you can turn off your computer.  Then take a 
deep breath.  And dial right back in. Leave a note for the person who 
runs the computer to which you've connected to ask for advice.  Try it 
again. Persistence pays.  

FIRST LINKS    

     In the 1960s, researchers began experimenting with linking 
computers to each other and to people through telephone hook-ups, 
using funds from the U.S Defense Department's Advanced Research 
Projects Agency (ARPA). 
     ARPA wanted to see if computers in different locations could be 
linked using a new technology known as packet switching, which had the 
promise of letting several users share just one communications line.  
Previous computer networking efforts had required a line between each 
computer on the network, sort of like a train track on which only one 
train can travel at a time.  The packet system allowed for creation of 
a data highway, in which large numbers of vehicles could essentially 
share the same lane.  Each packet was given the computer equivalent of 
a map and a time stamp, so that it could be sent to the right 
destination, where it would then be reassembled into a message the 
computer or a human could use. 
     This system allowed computers to share data and the researchers to 
exchange electronic mail, or e-mail.  In itself, e-mail was something 
of a revolution, offering the ability to send detailed letters at the 
speed of a phone call. 
      As this system, known as ARPANet, grew, some enterprising college 
students (and one in high school) developed a way to use it to conduct 
online conferences.  These started as science-oriented discussions, but 
they soon branched out into virtually every other field, as people 
realized the power of being able to "talk" to hundreds, or even 
thousands, of people around the country. 
     In the 1970s, ARPA helped support the development of rules, or 
protocols, for transferring data between different types of computer 
networks.  These "internet" (from "internetworking") protocols made it 
possible to develop the worldwide Net we have today. 
     By the close of the 1970s, links developed between ARPANet and 
counterparts in other countries.  The world was now tied together in a 
computer web.  
     In the 1980s, this network of networks, which became known 
collectively as the Internet, expanded at a phenomenal rate.  Hundreds, 
then thousands, of colleges, research companies and government agencies 
began to connect their computers to this worldwide Net.  Some 
enterprising hobbyists and companies unwilling to pay the high costs of 
Internet access (or unable to meet stringent government regulations for 
access) learned how to link their own systems to the Internet, even if 
"only" for e-mail and conferences.  Some of these systems began 
offering access to the public. Now anybody with a computer and modem -- 
and persistance -- could tap into the world. 
     In the 1990s, the Net grows at exponential rates.  Some estimates 
are that the volume of messages transferred through the Net grows 20 
percent a month.  In response, government and other users have tried in 
recent years to expand the Net itself.  Once, the main Net "backbone" in 
the U.S. moved data at 1.5 million bits per second.  That proved too 
slow for the ever increasing amounts of data being sent over it, and in 
recent years the maximum speed was increased to 45 million bits per 
second. Even before the Net was able to reach that speed, however, Net 
experts were already figuring out ways to pump data at speeds of up to 2 
billion bits per second -- fast enough to send the entire Encyclopedia 
Britannica across the country in just one or two seconds. 

HOW IT WORKS

     The worldwide Net is actually a complex web of smaller regional 
networks.  
     To understand it, picture a modern road network of trans-
continental superhighways connecting large cities.  From these large 
cities come smaller freeways and parkways to link together small 
towns, whose residents travel on slower, narrow residential ways.  
     The Net superhighway is the high-speed Internet.  Connected to 
this are computers that user a particular system of transferring data 
at high speeds.  In the U.S., the major Internet "backbone" 
theoretically can move data at rates of 45 million bits per second 
(compare this to the average home modem, which has a top speed of roughly 
2400 bits per second). This internetworking "protocol" lets network users 
connect to computers around the world.  
     Connected to the backbone computers are smaller networks serving 
particular geographic regions, which generally move data at speeds 
around 1.5 million bits per second.
     Feeding off these in turn are even smaller networks or individual 
computers.
     Nobody really knows how many computers and networks actually make 
up this Net.  Some estimates say there are now as many as 5,000 
networks connecting 350,000 computers and more than 3 million people 
around the world.  Whatever the actual numbers, however, it is clear 
they are only increasing.                     
     There is no one central computer or even group of computers running 
the Internet -- its resources are to be found among thousands of 
individual computers.  This is both its greatest strength and its 
greatest weakness.   The approach means it is virtually impossible for 
the entire Net to crash at once -- even if one computer shuts down, the 
rest of the network stays up.  But thousands of connected computers can 
also make it difficult to navigate the Net and find what you want.  It 
is only recently that Net users have begun to develop the sorts of 
navigational tools and "maps" that will let neophytes get around without 
getting lost. 
     The vast number of computers and links between them ensure that 
the network as a whole will likely never crash and means that network 
users have ready access to vast amounts of information.  But because 
resources are split among so many different sites, finding that 
information can prove to be a difficult task -- especially because 
each computer might have its own unique set of commands for bringing 
up that information. 
     While the Internet was growing, parallel networks developed.  
Large commercial services such as CompuServe and GEnie began to offer 
network services to individuals.  Phone companies developed their own 
electronic-mail services.  Some universities started their own 
international network. Hobbyists began networks such as Fidonet for MS-
DOS computers and UUCP for Unix machines.
     Today, almost all of these parallel networks are becoming 
connected.  It is now possible to send electronic mail from CompuServe 
to MCIMail, from Internet to Fidonet, from Bitnet to CompuServe.  In 
some cases, users of one network can now even participate in some of the 
public conferences of another. 
     But the Net is more than just a technological marvel. It is human 
communication at its most fundamental level.  The pace may be a little 
quicker when the messages race around the world in a few seconds, but 
it's not much different from a large and interesting party. You'll see 
things in cyberspace that will make you laugh; you'll see things that 
will anger you.  You'll read silly little snippets and new ideas that 
make you think.  You'll make new friends and meet people you wish would 
just go away. 
     Major network providers continue to work on ways to make it 
eaiser for users of one network to communicate with those of another.  
Work is underway on a system for providing a universal "white pages" 
in which you could look up somebody's electronic-mail address, for 
example.  This connectivity trend will likely speed up in coming years 
as users begin to demand seamless network access, much as telephone 
users can now dial almost anywhere in the world without worrying about 
how many phone companies actually have to connect their calls. 
     And as it becomes easier to use, more and more people will join 
this worldwide community we call the Net. 
     Being connected to the Net takes more than just reading 
conferences and logging messages to your computer; it takes asking and 
answering questions, exchanging opinions -- getting involved. 
     If you chose to go forward, to use and contribute, you will become 
a citizen of Cyberspace.  If you're reading thes words for the first 
time, this may seem like an amusing but unlikely notion -- that one 
could "inhaibit" a place withough physical space.  But put a mark beside 
these words.  Join the Net and actively participate for a year.  Then 
re-read this passage.  It will no longer seem so strange to be a 
"citizen of Cyberspace."  It will seem like the most natural thing in 
the world.   

--------------------

The following people, whether they know it or not, helped put this together.
My thanks, especially to Nancy!

Rhonda Chapman, Jim Cocks, Tom Czarnik, Christopher Davis, David DeSimone,
Jeanne deVoto, Phil Eschallier, Nico Garcia, Joe Granrose, Joe Ilacqua,
Jonathan Kamens, Peter Kaminski, Thomas A. Kreeger, Leanne Phillips,
Nancy Reynolds, Helen Trillian Rose, Barry Shein, Jennifer "Moira" Smith,
Gerard van der Leun, Scott Yanoff.


--------------------
FYI:
    
     Steven Levy's book, "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution," 
(Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984). describes the early culture and ethos 
that ultimately resulted in the Internet and Usenet. 
     John Quarterman's "The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing 
Systems Worldwide" (Digital Press, 1990) is an exhaustive look at 
computer networks and how they connect with each other. 
     "FYI on Where to Start - A Bibliography of Internetworking 
Information,"  by Tracy LaQuey, Joyce K. Reynolds, Karen Roubicek, Mary 
Stahl and Aileen Yuan (August, 1990), is an excellent list of articles, 
books, newsletters and other sources of information about the Internet.  
It's available via ftp from nic.ddn.mil in the rfc directory as 
rfc1175.txt (see the FTP chapter for information on getting documents 
through FTP).
い

Chapter 1:  SETTING UP         


     Connecting to the Net depends on where you are.  If you're a 
college student or work at a company with its own Net connections, 
chances are you can gain access simply by asking your organization's 
computing center or data-processing department -- they will then give 
you instructions on how to connect your already networked computer to 
the Internet.
     Otherwise, you'll need four things:  a computer, 
telecommunications software, a modem and a phone line to connect to 
the modem. 
     The phone line can be your existing voice line -- just remember 
that if you have any extensions, you (and everybody else in the house 
or office) won't be able to use them for voice calls while connected 
to the Net. 
     A modem is a sort of translator between computers and the phone 
system. It's needed because computers and the phone system process and 
transmit data, or information, in two different, and incompatible 
ways.  Computers "talk" digitally; that is, they store and process 
information as a series of discrete numbers.  The phone network relies 
on analog signals, which on an oscilloscope would look like a series 
of waves.  When your computer is ready to transmit data to another 
computer over a phone line, your modem converts the computer numbers 
into these waves (which sound like a lot of screeching) -- it 
"modulates" them.  In turn, when information waves come into your 
modem, it converts them into numbers your computer can process, by 
"demodulating" them. 
     Increasingly, computers come with modems already installed. If 
yours didn't, you'll have to decide what speed modem to get.  Modem 
speeds are judged in "baud rate" or bits per second.  One baud means 
the modem can transfer roughly one bit per second; the greater the 
baud rate, the more quickly a modem can send and receive information.  
A letter or character is made up of eight bits.  
     You can now buy a 2400-baud modem for well under $100 -- and most 
now come with the ability to handle fax messages as well.  For $300 
and up, you can buy a modem that can transfer data at 9600 baud (and 
often even faster, when using special compression techniques).  If you 
think you might be using the Net to transfer large numbers of files, a 
faster modem is always worth the price. It will dramatically reduce 
the amount of time your modem or computer is tied up transferring 
files and, if you are paying for Net access by the hour, save you 
quite a bit in online charges. 
     Like the computer to which it attaches, a modem is useless 
without software to tell it how to work.  Most modems today come with 
easy-to-install software.  Try the program out. If you find it 
difficult to use or understand, consider a trip to the local software 
store to find a better program.  You can spend several hundred dollars 
on a communications program, but unless you have very specialized 
needs, this will be a waste of money, as there are a host of excellent 
programs available for around $100 or sometimes even less.  Among the 
basic features you want to look for are a choice of different 
"protocols" (more on them in a bit) for transferring files to and from 
the Net and the ability to write "script" or "command" files that let 
you automate such steps as logging into a host system. 
     When you buy a modem and the software, ask the dealer how to 
install and use them.  Try out the software if you can.  If the dealer 
can't help you, find another dealer.  You'll not only save yourself a 
lot of frustration, you'll also have practiced the second Net 
Commandment: "Ask. People Know."
     To fully take advantage of the Net, you must spend a few minutes 
going over the manuals or documentation that comes with your software.  
There are a few things you should pay special attention to: uploading 
and downloading; screen capturing (sometimes called "screen dumping"); 
logging; how to change protocols; and terminal emulation.  It is also 
essential to know how to convert a file created with your word 
processing program into "ASCII" or "text" format, which will let you 
share your thoughts with others across the Net. 
    Uploading is the process of sending a file from your computer to a 
system on the Net. Downloading is retrieving a file from somewhere on 
the Net to your computer. In general, things in cyberspace go "up" to 
the Net and "down" to you. 
    Chances are your software will come with a choice of several 
"protocols" to use for these transfers.  These protocols are systems 
designed to ensure that line noise or static does not cause errors that 
could ruin whatever information you are trying to transfer.  
Essentially, when using a protocol, you are transferring a file in a 
series of pieces.  After each piece is sent or received, your computer 
and the Net system compare it. If the two pieces don't match exactly, 
they transfer it again, until they agree that the information they both 
have is identical.  If, after several tries, the information just 
doesn't make it across, you'll either get an error message or your 
screen will freeze.  In that case, try it again.  If, after five tries, 
you are still stymied, something is wrong with a) the file; b) the 
telephone line; c) the system you're connected to; or d)you own 
computer.
    From time to time, you will likely see messages on the Net that 
you want to save for later viewing -- a recipe, a particularly witty 
remark, something you want to write your Congressman about, whatever. 
This is where screen capturing and logging come in. 
    When you tell your communications software to capture a screen, it 
opens a file in your computer (usually in the same directory or folder 
used by the software) and "dumps" an image of whatever happens to be 
on your screen at the time. 
    Logging works a bit differently.  When you issue a logging 
command, you tell the software to open a file (again, usually in the 
same directory or folder as used by the software) and then give it a 
name. Then, until you turn off the logging command, everything that 
scrolls on your screen is copied into that file, sort of like 
recording on video tape.  This is useful for capturing long documents 
that scroll for several pages -- using screen capture, you would have 
to repeat the same command for each new screen. 
    Terminal emulation is a way for your computer to mimic, or 
emulate, the way other computers put information on the screen and 
accept commands from a keyboard.  In general, most systems on the Net 
use a system called VT100.  Fortunately, almost all communications 
programs now on the market support this system as well -- make sure 
yours does.
    You'll also have to know about protocols.  There are several 
different ways for computers to transmit characters.  Fortunately, 
there are only two protocols that you're likely to run across: 8-1-N 
(which stands for "8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity" -- yikes!) and 7-1-E 
(7 bits, 1 stop bit, even parity).  
     In general, Unix-based systems use 7-1-E, while MS-DOS-based 
systems use 8-1-N.  What if you don't know what kind of system you're 
connecting to?  Try one of the settings.  If you get what looks like 
gobbledegook when you connect, you may need the other setting.  
If so, you can either change the setting while connected, and then hit 
enter, or hang up and try again with the other setting.  It's also 
possible your modem and the modem at the other end can't agree on the 
right baud rate.  If changing the protocols doesn't work, try using 
another baud rate (but no faster than the one listed for your modem). 
Again, remember, you can't break anything.!  If something looks wrong, 
it probably is wrong.  Change your settings and try again.  Nothing is 
learned without trial, error and effort. 
     Those are the basics. Now onto the Net! 

JACKING IN


     Once, only people who studied or worked at an institution 
directly tied to the Net could connect to the world.  Today, though, 
an ever-growing number of "public-access" systems provide access for
everybody.  These systems can now be found in several states, and there 
are a couple of sites that can provide access across the country. 
     There are two basic kinds of these host systems.  The more common 
one is known as a UUCP site (UUCP being a common way to transfer 
information among computers using the Unix operating system) and 
offers acc ess to international electronic mail and conferences.  
     However, recent years have seen the growth of more powerful sites 
that let you tap into the full power of the Net.  These Internet sites 
not only give you access to electronic mail and conferences but to 
such services as databases, libraries and huge file and program 
collections around the world.  They are also fast -- as soon as you 
finish writing a message, it gets zapped out to its destination.
     Some sites are run by for-profit companies; others by non-profit 
organizations.  Some of these public-access, or host, systems, are 
free of charge.  Others charge a monthly or yearly fee for unlimited 
access.  And a few charge by the hour. 
     But cost should be only one consideration in chosing a host 
system.  Most systems let you look around before you sign up.  What is 
the range of their services?  How easy is it to use? What kind of 
support or help can you get from the system administrators? 
     The last two questions are particularly important because some 
systems provide no user interface at all; when you connect, you are 
dumped right into the Unix operating system.  If you're already 
familiar with Unix, or you want to learn how to use it, these systems 
offer phenomenal power -- in addition to Net access, most also let you 
tap into the power of Unix to do everything from compiling your own 
programs to playing online games. 
     But if you don't want to have to learn Unix, there are other 
public-access systems that work through menus (just like the ones in 
restaurants; you are shown a list of choices and then you make your 
selection of what you want), or which provide a "user interface" that 
is easier to figure out than the ever cryptic Unix. 
     If you don't want or need access to the full range of Internet 
services, a UUCP site makes good financial sense.  They tend to charge 
less than commercial Internet providers, although their messages may 
not go out as quickly.
     Some systems also have their own unique local services, which can 
range from extensive conferences to large file libraries. 
     Fortunately, almost all public-access systems let you look around 
for awhile before you have to decide whether to sign up.  Systems that 
charge for access will usually let you sign up online with a credit 
card.  Some also let you set up a billing system.  In Appendix X,  
you'll find a list of public-access Internet sites.

DIALING IN

     When you have your communications program dial one of these host 
systems, one of two things will happen when you connect.  You'll 
either see a lot of gibberish on your screen, or you'll be asked to 
log in.  If you see gibberish, chances are you have to change your 
software's parameters (to 7-1-E or 8-1-N as the case may be).  Hang 
up, make the change and then dial in again.
     When you've connected, chances are you'll see something like 
this:

               Welcome to THE WORLD
               Public Access UNIX for the '90s
               Login as 'new' if you do not have an account
   
               login: 

     That last line is a prompt asking you to do something.  Since 
this is your first call, type

                new

and hit enter.  Often, when you're asked to type something by a host 
system, you'll be told what to type in quotation marks (for example, 
the 'new' above).  Don't include the quotation marks.  Repeat: Don't 
include the quotation marks.
     What you see next depends on the system, but will generally 
consist of information about its costs and services (you might want to 
turn on your communication software's logging function, to save this 
information).  You'll likely be asked if you want to establish an 
account now or just look around the system.  
     You'll also likely be asked for your "user name."  This is not 
your full name, but a one-word name you want to use while online.  It 
can be any combination of letters or numbers, all in lower case.  Many
people use their first initial and last name (for example, 
"jdoe"); their first name and the first letter of their last name 
(for example, "johnd"); or their initials ("jxd").  Others use a 
nickname.  You might want to think about this for a second, because this 
user name will become part of your electronic-mail address (see chapter 
3 for more on that).  The one exception are the various Free-Net 
systems, all of which assign you a user name consisting of an arbitrary 
sequence of letters and numbers. 
     You are now on the Net.  Look around the system.  See if there 
are any help files for you to read.  If it's a menu-based host system, chose 
different options just to see what happens.  Remember: you can't break 
anything.  The more you play, the more comfortable you'll be.


------------------------
PUBLIC-ACCESS INTERNET SITES                            

     What follows is a list of public-access Internet sites, which are 
computer systems that offer access to the Net.  All offer international 
e-mail and Usenet (international conferences).  In addition, they offer:
   
               FTP: File-transfer protocol -- access to scores of file 
               libraries (everything from computer software to historical 
               documents to song lyrics).  You'll be able to transfer 
               these files from the Net to your own computer.

               Telnet: Access to databases, computerized library card 
               catalogs, weather reports and other information services, 
               as well as live, online games that let you compete with 
               players from around the world. 

     Additional services that may be offered include:

                WAIS:  Wide-area Information Server; a program that 
                can search dozens of databases in one search. 

                Gopher:  A program that gives you easy access to dozens 
                of other online databases and services by making 
                selections on a menu. You'll also be able to use these
                to copy text files and some programs to your mailbox.

                IRC:  Internet Relay Chat, a CB simulator that lets 
                you have live keyboard chats with people around the 
                world. 

                Clarinet:  News, sports, feature stories and columns 
                from Universal Press International; Newsbytes computer 
                news. 

     However, even on systems that do not provide these services 
directly, you will be able to use a number of them through telnet (see 
the TELNET chapter for more information on telnet).   Systems marked 
"Unix"  dump you right into Unix (a.k.a. "DOS with a college degree").  
In most cases, this means you can also use the host system's various 
Unix functions.  The other systems use menus, which are generally much 
easier for beginners to navigate -- they are just like menus in 
restaurants, in which you decide what you want from a list of options.  
Any unique features of a given system are noted. Some of these systems 
require you to use paramaters of 7-1-E, so if you get gibberish when 
you connect, try that. Most let you look around for awhile before you 
have to sign up. 
     Several of these sites are available nationwide through national 
data networks such as the CompuServe Packet Network and PC-Pursuit.
     Please note that all listed charges are subject to change.


CALIFORNIA            

     Berkeley.  Holonet. For free trial, modem number is (510) 704-1058.
Boardwatch online news, USA Today.  For information or local numbers, 
call number below. 
     Charges: $60 a year for local access, $2 an hour during offpeak 
hours.
     Voice help:  (510) 704-0160.

     Cupertino.  Portal.  Both Unix and menus.  (408) 725-0561, 725-1724 
or (408) 973-8091.
     Charges: $19.95 set-up fee, $19.95 a month.
     Voice help: (408) 973-9111.

     Encinitas.  Cyber Station, (619) 634-1376.  Unix.  Log on as: 
guest. 
     Charges: $20 a month for one hour a day; $10 setup fee.
                                                                
     Irvine. Dial N' CERF.  See under San Diego.

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

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

     San Diego. Dial N' CERF USA, run by the California Education and 
Research Federation. Provides local dial-up numbers in San Diego, Los 
Angeles, Oakland and Irvine.  For more information, call voice (800) 
876-CERF or (619) 534-5087.   
     Charges:  $20 a month plus $10 an hour, with a one-time 
installation fee of $50.             

     San Jose. Netcom, (510) 865-9004 or 426-6860; (408) 241-9760; 
(415) 424-0131, up to 9600 baud. Unix.  Maintains archives of Usenet 
postings.  Log on as: guest.                 
     New users get a written guide to using Netcom and the Net in 
general.  However, access to Net services beyond Usenet requires 
signature on a written "Network Agreement Form." 
     Charges: $15 start-up fee and then $17.50 a month for 
unlimited use if you agree to automatic billing of your credit-card 
account (otherwise $19.50 a month for a monthly invoice). 
     Voice help: (408) 554-UNIX.                           

     San Jose.  A2i, (408) 293-9010. Unix. Log on as: guest.
     Charges: $20 a month; $45 for three months; $72 for six months.

     Sausalito.  The Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link (WELL), (415) 332-
6106, up to 2400 baud.  Uses moderately difficult Picospan software, 
which is sort of a cross between Unix and a menu system.  New users 
get a written manual.  More than 200 WELL-only conferences.  Log on 
as: newuser. 
     Charges: $15 a month plus $2 an hour.  Access through 
the nationwide CompuServe Packet Network available for another $4.50 
an hour.
     Voice help: (415) 332-4335.  Recorded message about the system's 
current status: (800) 326-8354 (continental U.S. only).


COLORADO

     Colorado Springs. CNS, (719) 570-1700.  Local calendar listings 
and ski and stock reports. USA Today.  Users can chose between menus 
or Unix. Log on as: new. 
     Charges: $1 an hour (minimum fee of $10 a month); one-time $35 
set-up fee. 
     Voice help: (719) 579-9120.

     Golden.  Colorado SuperNet.  Unix.  E-mail to fax service. 
Available only to Colorado residents. Local dial-in numbers  currently 
available in Ft. Collins, Denver/Boulder and Colorado Springs.  For 
dial-in numbers, call the number below. 
     Charges: $2 an hour ($1 an hour between midnight and 6 a.m.); 
one-time $20 sign-up fee. 
     Voice help: 303-273-3471.


ILLINOIS

     Peoria.  Peoria Free-Net, (309) 674-1100.  Similar to Cleveland 
Free-Net (see Ohio, below).  Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland 
system for access to Usenet and other services.  There are also Peoria 
Free-Net public-access terminals in numerous area libraries, 
other government buildings and senior-citizen centers.  Contact the 
number below for specific locations.  Full access (including access to 
e-mail) requires completion of a written application. 
     Charges: None.
     Voice help: (309) 677-2544.


MARYLAND

     Baltimore.  Express Access, (410) 220-0462 or (301) 220-0462. 
Unix.  Log on as: new.
     Charges: $15 a month or $150 a year for e-mail and Usenet; $25 a 
month or $250 a year for complete Internet services (FTP, telnet, IRC, 
etc.).  This allows unlimitated use between 3 a.m. and 3 p.m. and one
hour between 3 p.m and 3 a.m.  Access to Usenet, e-mail and Unix shell
only is $15 a month/$150 a year.
     Voice help: (301) 220-2020.


MASSACHUSETTS

     Brookline.  The World,  (617) 739-9753. Unix, but with a large 
number of understandable online help files.  Huge collection of MS-DOS 
files, "Online Book Initiative" collection of electronic books, poetry 
and other text files.
     Charges: $5 a month plus $2 an hour or $20 for 20 hours a month. 
Available nationwide through the Compuserve Packet Network for 
another $5.60 an hour. 
     Voice help: (617) 739-0202.


MICHIGAN

     Ann Arbor.  MSEN.  Contact number below for dial-in number.  
Unix.  
     Charges: $5 a month and $2 an hour, or $20 a month for 20 hours.
     Voice help: (313) 741-1120.

     Ann Arbor. Michnet. Unix. Has local dial-in numbers in several 
Michigan numbers.  For local numbers, call voice number below.
     Charges: $35 a month plus one-time $40 sign-up fee.  Additional 
network fees for access through non-Michnet numbers.
     Voice help: (313) 764-9430.


NEW YORK 

     New York. Panix, (212) 787-3100.  Unix or menus.  Log on as: 
newuser. 
     Charges: $10 a month or $100 a year; one-time $40 fee.
     Voice help:  (212) 877-4854.

     New York.  MindVox, (212) 988-5030.  Log on as: guest. Local 
conferences.
     Charges: $15 a month; $10 set-up fee for non-credit card accounts.
     Voice help: (212) 988-5987.

NORTH CAROLINA

     Triangle Research Park.  Rock Concert Net.  Call number below for 
modem number.  Unix.
     Charges: $30 a month; one-time $50 sign-up fee.
     Voice help: (919) 248-1999.


OHIO

     Cleveland.  Cleveland Free-Net, (216) 368-3888.  IRC. USA Today, 
Ohio and US Supreme Court decisions, historical documents, many local 
conferences.  Full access (including access to e-mail) requires 
completion of a written application.
     Charges: None.
     Voice help:  (216) 368-8737. 
     Cincinnati.  Tri-State Free-Net, (513) 579-1990.  Similar to 
Cleveland Free-Net. Full access (including access to e-mail) requires 
completion of a written application. 
     Charges: None.

     Lorain.  Lorain County Free-Net, (216) 277-2359 or 366-9753.  
     Similar to Cleveland Free-Net.  Users can "link" to the larger 
Cleveland system for additional services.  Full access (including 
access to e-mail) requires completion of a written application. 
     Charges: None.
     Voice help: (216) 366-4200.

     Medina.  Medina Free-Net, (216) 723-6732, 225-6732 or 335-6732.  
Users can "link" to the larger Cleveland Free-Net for additional 
services.  Full access (including access to e-mail) requires 
completion of a written application.
     Charges: None.

     Youngstown.  Youngstown Free-Net, (216) 742-3072.  Users can 
"link" to the Cleveland system for services not found locally.  Full 
access (including access to e-mail) requires completion of a written 
application. 
     Charges: None.


OREGON

     Beaverton.  Techbook, (503) 220-0636.
     Charges: $90 a year.


PENNSYLVANIA

     Pittsburgh.  Telerama, (412) 481-5302.  Unix. 
     Charges:  $6 for 10 hours a month, 60 cents for each additional hour.


RHODE ISLAND
 
     East Greenwich.  IDS World Network, (401) 884-9002.  In addition 
to Usenet, has conferences from the Fidonet and RIME networks.  
Supports QMAIL offline reader, which lets you read and respond to 
messages while not online.  
     Charges: $10 a month; $50 for six months; $100 for a year.


WASHINGTON, DC

     See listing under Baltimore, MD for Express Access.


WASHINGTON STATE

     Seattle. Halcyon, (206) 382-6245.  Users can choose between menus 
and Unix.  Log on as: bbs. 
     Charges: $10 a month for Usenet and e-mail; $15 a month or $150 a 
year for these and other Internet services (FTP, IRC, telnet, etc.).
     Voice help: (206) 426-9298


--------------------

     If you don't live in a city with a public-access site, you'll 
still be able to connect to the Net.  Several of these services offer 
access through national data networks such as the CompuServe Packet 
Network and PC-Pursuit, which have dozens, even hundreds of local 
dial-in numbers across the country.  These include Holonet in 
Berkeley, Calf., Portal in Cupertino, Calf., the WELL in Sausalito, 
Calf., Dial 'N CERF in San Diego, Calf., the World in Brookline, 
Mass., and Michnet in Ann Arbor, Mich.  Dial 'N CERF offers access 
through an 800 number.  Expect to pay from $2 to $12 an hour to use 
these networks, above each provider's basic charges.  The exact amount 
depends on the network, time of day and type of modem you use.  For 
more information, contact the above services. 
     Two other providers deliver Net access to users across the 
country:
     Delphi, based in Cambridge, Mass., is a consumer-oriented network 
much like CompuServe or America On-Line -- only it now offers 
subscribers full access to Internet services. 
     Charges: $10 a month for four hours of off-peak (non-working 
hours) access a month and $4 an hour for each additional hour or $20 
for 20 hours of access a month and $1.80 an hour for each additional 
hour.  For more information, call (800) 695-4005.
     PSI, based in Reston, Va., provides nationwide access to Internet 
services through scores of local dial-in numbers to owners of IBM and 
compatible computers.  PSILink. which includes access to e-mail, 
Usenet and ftp, costs $29 a month, plus a one-time $19 registration 
fee.  Special software is required, but is available free from PSI. 
PSI's Global Dialup Service provides access to telnet for $39 a month 
plus a one-time $39 set-up fee.  For more information, call (800) 
82PSI82 or (703) 620-6651.


--------------------
THINGS THAT CAN GO WRONG

     * Your computer connects with a public-access site and get 
gibberish on your screen.  If you are using parameters of 8-1-N, try 7-
1-e (or vice-versa).  If that doesn't work, try another modem speed. 
     * You have your computer dial a public-access site, but nothing 
happens.  Check the phone number you typed in.  If correct, turn on your 
modem's speaker (on Hayes-compatible modems, you can usually do this by 
typing ATM1 in your communications software's "terminal mode."  If the 
phone just rings and rings, the public-access site could be down for 
maintenance or do to a crash or some other problem.  If you get a 
"connect" message, but nothing else, try hitting enter or escape a 
couple of times.  
     * You try to log in, but after you type your password, nothing 
happens, or you get a "timed out" message followed by a disconnect.  
Re-dial the number and try it again.
     * Always remember, if you have a problem that just doesn't go away,
ask! Ask your system administrator, ask a friend, but ask.  Somebody will
know what to do.

E-MAIL



     Electronic mail, or e-mail, is your personal connection to the 
world of the Net. 
     Every one of the millions of people around the world who use the 
Net have their own e-mail address.  A growing number of "gateways" tie 
more and more people to the Net every day.  When you logged onto the 
host system you are now using, it automatically generated an address 
for you, as well. 
    The basic concepts behind e-mail parallel those of regular mail.  
You send mail to people at their particular addresses.  In turn, they 
write to you at your e-mailbox address.  You can subscribe to the 
electronic equivalent of magazines and newspapers. There is even  
electronic junk mail.
    E-mail has two distinct advantages over regular mail.  The 
most obvious is speed. Instead of several days, your message can reach 
the other side of the world in hours or even minutes (depending on 
where you drop off your mail and the state of the connections between 
there and your recipient).  The other advantage is that once you master 
the basics, you'll be able to use e-mail to access databases and file 
libraries.  You'll see how to do this later, along with learning how to 
transfer program and data files through e-mail. 
    E-mail also has advantages over the telephone.  You send your 
message when it's convenient for you.  Your recipient responds at his 
convenience.  No more telephone tag.  And while a phone call across 
the country or around the world can quickly result in huge phone 
bills, e-mail lets you exchange vast amounts of mail for only a few 
pennies -- even if the other person is in New Zealand. 
    E-mail is your connection to help -- your Net lifeline.  The 
Net can sometimes seem a frustrating place!  No matter how hard you 
try, no matter where you look, you just might not be able to find the 
answer to whatever is causing you problems. But when you know how to 
use e-mail, help is often just a few keystrokes away: ask your system 
administrator or a friend for help in an e-mail message. 
    The quickest way to start learning e-mail is to send yourself a 
message.  Most public-access sites actually have several different types of 
mail systems, all of which let you both send and receive mail. We'll 
start with the simplest one, known, appropriately enough, as "mail," 
and then look at a couple of other interfaces. At your host system's 
command prompt, type this: 

             mail username 

where username is the name you gave yourself when you first logged on.  
Hit enter.  The computer might respond with 
    
             subject: 

     Type 

             test 

or, actually, anything at all (but you'll have to hit enter before 
you get to the end of the screen). Hit enter. 
     The cursor will drop down a line. You can now begin writing the 
actual message. Type a sentence, again, anything at all.  And here's 
where you hit your first Unix frustration, one that will bug you 
repeatedly: you have to hit enter before you get to the very end of 
the line.  Just like typewriters, many Unix programs have no word-
wrapping. 
     When done with your message, hit return. Now hit control-D (the 
control and the D keys at the same time).  This is a Unix command that 
tells the computer you're done writing and that it should close your 
"envelope" and mail it off (you could also hit enter once and then, on 
a blank line, type a period at the beginning of the line and hit enter 
again). 
     You've just sent your first e-mail message.  And because you're 
sending mail to yourself, rather than to someone somewhere else on the 
Net, your message has already arrived, as we'll see in a moment.
     If you had wanted, you could have even written your message on 
your own computer and then uploaded it into this electronic 
"envelope."  There are a couple of good reasons to do this with long 
or involved messages.  One is that once you hit enter at the end of a 
line in "mail" you can't readily fix any mistakes on that line (unless 
you use some special commands to call up a Unix text processor.  Also, 
if you are paying for access by the hour, uploading a prepared 
message can save you money.  Remember to save the document in ASCII or 
text format.  Uploading a document you've created in a word processor 
that uses special formatting commands (which these days means many 
programs) will cause strange effects.
     When you get that blank line after the subject line, upload the 
message using the ASCII protocol.  Or you can copy and paste the text, 
if your software allows that. When done, hit control-D as above. 
     Now you have mail waiting for you.  Normally, when you log on, 
your public-access site will tell you whether you have new mail 
waiting.  To open your mailbox and see your waiting mail, type 
                 
          mail 

and hit enter. 
     When the host system sees "mail" without a name after it, it 
knows you want to look in your mailbox rather than send a message. 
Your screen, on a plain-vanilla Unix system will display:

         Mail version SMI 4.0 Mon Apr 24 18:34:15 PDT 1989  Type ? for help. 
         "/usr/spool/mail/adamg": 1 message 1 new 1 unread 
  
         >N 1 adamg              Sun Mar 22 20:04   12/290   test 
   
     Ignore the first line; it's just computerese of value only to the 
people who run your system. You can type a question mark and hit 
return, but unless you're familiar with Unix, most of what you'll see 
won't make much sense at this point.  
     The second line tells you the directory on the host system where 
your mail messages are put.  This is your "home directory."  It's a 
good name to remember.  Later, when you start transferring files across 
the Net, this is where they will usually wind up, or from where you'll 
send them.  The second line also tells you how many messages are in your 
mailbox, how many have come in since the last time you looked and how 
many messages you haven't read yet. 
     It's the third line that is of real interest -- it tells you who 
the message is from, when it arrived, how many lines and characters 
it takes up, and what the subject is.  The "N" means it is a new 
message -- it arrived after the last time you looked in your mailbox.  
Hit enter. And there's your message -- only now it's a lot 
longer than what you wrote! 

        Message 1: 
        From adamg Mar 22 20:04:55 1992 
        Received: by eff.org id AA28949 
        (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4/pen-ident for adamg); Sun, 22 Mar 1992 20:04:55 -0400  
        (ident-sender: adamg@eff.org) 
        Date: Sun, 26 Apr 1992 21:34:55 -0400 
        From: Adam Gaffin <adamg> 
        Message-Id: <199204270134.AA28949@eff.org> 
        To: adamg 
        Subject: test 
        Status: R 

        This is only a test! 

     Whoa! What is all that stuff? It's your message with a postmark 
gone mad.  Just as the postal service puts its marks on every piece of 
mail it handles, so do Net postal systems.  Only it's called a 
"header" instead of a postmark. Each system that handles or routes 
your mail puts its stamp on it.  Since many messages go through a 
number of systems on their way to you, you will often get messages 
with headers that seem to go on forever.  Among other things, a header 
will tell you exactly when a message was sent and received (even the 
difference between your local time and GMT -- as at the end of line 4 
above). 
     If this had been a long message, it would just keep scrolling 
across and down your screen -- unless the people who run your public-
access site have set it up to pause every 24 lines.  One way to deal 
with a message that doesn't stop is to use your telecommunication 
software's logging or text-buffer function.  Start it before you hit 
the number of the message you want to see.  Your computer will ask you 
what you want to call the file you're about to create. After you name 
the file and hit enter, type the number of the message you want to see 
and hit enter.  When the message finishes scrolling, turn off the 
text-buffer function, and the message is now saved in your computer.  
This way, you can read the message while not connected to the Net 
(which can save you money if you're paying by the hour) and write a 
reply offline. 
     But in the meantime, now what?  You can respond to the message, 
delete it or save it.  To respond, type a lower-case "r" and hit 
enter.  You'll get something like this: 

          To: adamg 
          Subject: Re:  test 

     Note that this time, you don't have to enter a username.  The 
computer takes it from the message you're replying to and 
automatically addresses your message to its sender. The computer also 
automatically inserts a subject line, by adding "RE:" to the original 
subject.  From here, it's just like writing a new message. But say you 
change your mind and decide not to reply after all. How do you get out 
of the message? Hit control-C once. You'll get this: 

          (Interrupt -- one more to kill letter) 

If you hit control-C once more, the message will disappear and you'll 
get back to your mail's command line. 
     Now, if you type a lower-case "d" and then hit enter, you'll 
delete the original message.  Type a lower-case "q" to exit your 
mailbox.  
     If you type a "q" without first hitting "d", your message is 
transferred to a file called mbox.  This file is where all read, but 
un-deleted messages go.  If you want to leave it in your mailbox for 
now, type a lower-case "x" and hit enter.  This gets you out of mail 
without making any changes. 
     The mbox file works a lot like your mailbox.  To access it, 
type 
   
           mail -f mbox 

at your host system's command line and hit enter.  
     You'll get a menu identical to the one in your mailbox from which 
you can read these old messages, delete them or respond to them.  It's 
probably a good idea to clear out your mailbox and mbox file from 
time to time, if only to keep them uncluttered. 
    Are there any drawbacks to e-mail?  There are a few.  One is that 
people seem more willing to fly off the handle electronically than in 
person, or over the phone.  Maybe it's because it's so easy to hit R 
and reply to a message without pausing and reflecting a moment.  
That's why we have smileys!  There's no online equivalent yet of a 
return receipt: chances are your message got to where it's going, but 
there's no absolute way for you to know for sure unless you get a 
reply from the other person.  Also, because computers are quite 
literal, you have to be very careful when addressing a message. 
Misplace a period or a single letter in the address, and your message 
could come back to you, undelivered. 
     So now you're ready to send e-mail to other people on the Net.  
Of course, you need somebody's address to send them mail.  How do you 
get it?  
     Alas, the simplest answer is not what you'd call the most 
elegant: you call them up on the phone or write them a letter on paper 
and ask them.  Residents of the electronic frontier are only beginning 
to develop the equivalent of phone books, and the ones that exist 
today are far from complete (still, later on, we'll show you how to 
use some of these directories). 
     Eventually, you'll start corresponding with people, which means 
you'll want to know how to address mail to them.  It's vital to know 
how to do this, because the smallest mistake -- using a comma when you 
should have used a period, for instance, can bounce the message back 
to you, undelivered.  In this sense, Net addresses are like phone 
numbers: one wrong digit and you get the wrong person.  Fortunately, 
most net addresses now adhere to a relatively easy-to-understand 
system. 
     Earlier, you sent yourself a mail message using just your user-
name.  This was sort of like making a local phone call -- you didn't 
have to dial a 1 or an area code.  This also works for mail to anybody 
else who has an account on the same system as you. 
     Sending mail outside of your system, though, will require the use 
of the Net equivalent of area codes, called "domains." A basic Net 
address will look something like this: 

              tomg@world.std.com 

     Tomg is somebody's user ID, and he is at (hence the @ sign) a 
site or "domain" known as std.com.  Large organizations often have 
more than one computer linked to the Internet; in this case, the name 
of the particular machine is world (you will quickly notice that, like 
boat owners, Internet computer owners always name their machines).
     Domains tell you the name of the organization that runs a given 
e-mail site and what kind of site it is or, if it's not in the U.S., 
what country it's located in.  Large organizations may have more than 
one computer or gateway tied to the Internet, so you'll often see a 
two-part domain name; and sometimes even three- or four-part domain 
names. 
     In general, American addresses end in an organizational suffix, 
such as ".edu," which means the site is at a college or university. 
Other American suffixes include: 
          
          .com for businesses 
          .org for non-profit organizations 
          .gov and .mil for government and military agencies 
          .net for companies or organizations that run large networks.  

     Sites in the rest of the world tend to use a two-letter code that 
represents their country.  Most make sense, such as .ca for Canadian 
sites, but there are a couple of seemingly odd ones.  Swiss sites end 
in .ch, while South African ones end in .za.  Some smaller U.S. sites 
are beginning to follow this international convention (such as 
unixland.natick.ma.us). 
    You'll notice that the above addresses are all in lower-case.  
Unlike almost everything else having anything at all to do with Unix, 
Most Net mailing systems don't care about case, so you can capitalize 
names if you want, but you generally don't have to. Alas, there are a 
few exceptions -- some public-access sites do allow for capital 
letters in user names.  When in doubt, ask the person you want to 
write to, or let her send you a message first (recall how a person's 
e-mail address is usually found on the top of her message). 
   The domain name, the part of the address after the @ sign, never 
has to be capitalized. The reason has to do with the presence on the 
Net of a number of old IBM mainframes.  These machines tend to produce 
output entirely in capital letters, so the original designers of the 
Net decided to create something more flexible than the Unix they were 
used to. 
     It's all a fairly simple system that works very well, except, 
again, it's vital to get the address exactly right -- just as you have 
to dial a phone number exactly right.  Send a message to tomg@unm.edu 
(which is the University of New Mexico) when you meant to send it to 
tomg@umn.edu (the University of Minnesota), and your letter will either 
bounce back to you undelivered, or go to the wrong person.
     If your message is bounced back to you as undeliverable, you'll 
get an ominous looking-message from MAILER-DAEMON (actually a rather 
benign Unix program that exists to handle mail), with an evil-looking 
header followed by the text of your message. Sometimes, you can tell 
what went wrong by looking at the first few lines of the bounced 
message.  Besides an incorrect address, it's possible your host system 
does not have the other site in the "map" it maintains of other host 
systems. Or you could be trying to send mail to another network, such 
as Bitnet or CompuServe, that has special addressing requirements.
    Sometimes, figuring all this out can prove highly frustrating.  
But remember the prime Net commandment: Ask.  Send a message to your 
system administrator.  He or she might be able to help decipher the 
problem. 
    There is one kind of address that may give your host system 
particular problems.  There are two main ways that Unix systems 
exchange mail.  One is known as UUCP and started out with a different 
addressing system than the rest of the Net.  Most UUCP systems have 
since switched over to the standard Net addressing system, but a few 
traditional sites still cling to their original type, which tends to 
have lots of exclamation points in it, like this: 

               uunet!somesite!othersite!mybuddy 

     The problem for many host sites is that exclamation points (also 
known as "bangs") now mean something special to the operating system 
that runs the computer, so that addressing mail to such an site (or 
even responding to a message you received from one) could confuse the 
poor computer to no end and your message never gets sent out. If that 
happens, try putting "forward" backslashes in front of each exclamation 
point, so that you get an address that looks like this: 
          
               uunet\!somesite\!othersite\!mybuddy 

Note that this means you may not be able to respond to such a message 
by typing a lower-case "r"  -- you'll get an error message that says 
"event not found" and you'll have to create a brand-new message. 
    If you want to get a taste of what's possible through e-mail,
start an e-mail message to

              almanac@oes.orst.edu

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

              send quote

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

              send moral-support

     In either case, you will get back a message within a few seconds to 
a few hours (depending on the state of your host system's Internet 
connection).  If you simply asked for a quote, you'll get back a 
fortune-cookie-like saying.  If you asked for moral support, you'll also 
get back a fortune-cookie-like saying, only supposedly more uplifting.
      This particular "mail server" is run by the University of Oregon.
Its main purpose is actually to provide a way to distribute agricultural 
information via e-mail.  If you'd like to find out how to use the 
server's full range of services, send a message to the above address 
with this line in it:

              send help

You'll quickly get back a lengthy document detailing just what's 
available and how to get it.
     The "mail" program is actually a very powerful one and a Netwide 
standard, at least on Unix computers.  But it can be hard to figure 
out -- you can type a question mark to get a list of commands, but 
these may be of limited use unless you're already familiar with Unix.
Fortunately, there are a couple of other mail programs that are easier 
to use. 

ELM 

     Elm is a combination mailbox and letter-writing system that uses 
menus to help you navigate through mail.  Most Unix-based host systems 
now have it online. To use it, type 
  
                elm 

and hit enter.  You'll get a menu of your waiting mail, along with a 
list of commands you can execute, that will look something like this:


       Mailbox is '/usr/spool/mail/adamg' with 38 messages [ELM 2.3 PL11]      
                                                                               
                                                                               
     1   Sep 1  Christopher Davis  (13)   here's another message.              
     2   Sep 1  Christopher Davis  (91)   This is a message from Eudora        
     3   Aug 31 Rita Marie Rouvali (161)  First Internet Hunt !!! (fwd)        
     4   Aug 31 Peter Scott/Manage (69)   New File <UK077> University of Londo 
     5   Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (64)   New File <DIR020> X.500 service at A 
     6   Aug 30 Peter Scott/Manage (39)   New File <NET016> DATAPAC Informatio 
     7   Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (67)   Proposed Usenet group for HYTELNET n 
     8   Aug 28 Peter Scott/Manage (56)   New File <DIR019> JANET Public Acces 
     9   Aug 26 Helen Trillian Ros (15)   Tuesday                              
     10  Aug 26 Peter Scott/Manage (151)  Update <CWK004> Oxford University OU 
                                                                               
                                                                               
   You can use any of the following commands by pressing the first character;  
 d)elete or u)ndelete mail,  m)ail a message,  r)eply or f)orward mail,  q)uit 
    To read a message, press <return>.  j = move down, k = move up, ? = help   

     Each line shows the date you received the message, who sent it, 
how many lines long the message is, and the message's subject.
     If you are using VT100 emulation, you can move up and down the 
menu with your up and down arrow keys.  Otherwise, type the line number 
of the message you want to read or delete and hit enter.
     When you read a message, it pauses every 24 lines, instead of 
scrolling until it's done.  Hit the space bar to read the next page.  
You can type a lower-case "r" to reply or a lower-case "q" or "i" 
to get back to the menu (the I stands for "index").  
     At the main menu, hitting a lower-case "m" followed by enter 
will let you start a message.  To delete a message, type a lower-case 
"d".  You can do this while reading the message.  Or, if you are in 
the menu, move the cursor to the message's line and then hit D. 
     When you're done with Elm, type a lower-case "q".  The program 
will ask if you really want to delete the messages you marked. Then, 
it will ask you if you want to move any messages you've read but 
haven't marked for deletion to a "received" file.  For now, hit your n
key.  
     Elm has a major disadvantage for the beginner. The default text 
editor it generally calls up when you hit your "r" or "m" key is 
often a program called emacs. Unixoids swear by emacs, but everybody 
else almost always finds it impossible.  Unfortunately, you can't 
always get away from it (or vi, another text editor often found on 
Unix systems), so later on we'll talk about some basic commands that 
will keep you from going totally nuts. 

PINE 

     Pine is based on elm but includes a number of improvements that 
make it an ideal mail system for beginners.   Like elm, pine starts 
you with a menu.  It also has an "address book" feature that is handy 
for people with long or complex e-mail addresses. Hitting A at the 
main menu puts you in the address book, where you can type in the 
person's first name (or nickname) followed by her address. Then, when 
you want to send that person a message, you only have to type in her 
first name or nickname, and pine automatically inserts her actual 
address. The address book also lets you set up a mailing list.  This 
feature allows you to send the same message to a number of people at 
once. 
     What really sets pine apart is its built-in text editor, 
which looks and feels a lot more like word-processing programs 
available for MS-DOS and Macintosh users.  Not only does it have 
wordwrap (a revolutionary concept if ever there was one, it also has a 
spell-checker and a search command. Best of all, all of the commands 
you need are listed in a two-line mini-menu at the bottom of each 
screen.  The commands look like this: 

               ^W Where is 

The little caret is a synonym for the key marked "control" on your 
keyboard.  To find where a particular word is in your document, you'd 
hit your control key and your W key at the same time, which would bring 
up a prompt asking you for the word to look for. 
     Some of pine's commands are a tad peculiar (control-V for "page 
down" for example), which comes from being based on a variant of 
emacs (which is utterly peculiar).  But again, all of the commands you 
need are listed on that two-line mini-menu, so it shouldn't take you 
more than a couple of seconds to find the right one. 
     To use pine, type 

               pine 

at the command line and hit enter.  It's a relatively new program, so 
many systems do not yet have it online.  But it's so easy to use, you 
should probably send e-mail to your system administrator urging him to 
get it! 


--------------------
SMILEYS


    When you're involved in an online discussion, you can't see the 
smiles or shrugs that the other person might make in a live 
conversation to show he's only kidding.  But online, there's no body 
language. So what you might think is funny, somebody else might take as 
an insult.  To try to keep such misunderstandings from erupting into 
bitter disputes, we have smileys.  Tilt your head to the left and look at 
the following sideways. :-).  Or simply :).  This is your basic "smiley."
Use it to indicate people should not take that comment you just made as 
seriously as they might otherwise.  You make a smiley by typing a colon, 
a hyphen and a right parenthetical bracket. Some people prefer using the 
word "grin," usually in this form: 

          <grin>   

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

Some other smileys include: 

          ;-)      Wink; 
          :-(      Frown; 
          :-O      Surprise; 
          8-)      Wearing glasses; 
          =|:-)=   Abe Lincoln. 
    
         OK, so maybe the last two are a little bogus :-).


--------------------
SEVEN UNIX COMMANDS YOU CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT:




     If you connect to the Net through a Unix system, eventually you'll 
have to come to terms with Unix.  For better or worse, most Unix systems do 
NOT shield you from their inner workings -- if you want to copy a Usenet 
posting to a file, for example, you'll have to use some Unix commands if 
you ever want to do anything with that file.
     Like MS-DOS, Unix is an operating system - it tells the computer how 
to do things.  Now while Unix may have a reputation as being even more 
complex than MS-DOS, in most cases, a few basic, and simple, commands 
should be all you'll ever need. 
     If your own computer uses MS-DOS or PC-DOS, the basic concepts will 
seem very familiar -- but watch out for the cd command, which works 
differently enough from the similarly named DOS command that it will drive 
you crazy.  Also, unlike MS-DOS, Unix is case sensitive -- if you type 
commands or directory names in the wrong case, you'll get an error message. 
     If you're used to working on a Mac, you'll have to remember that Unix 
stores files in "directories" rather than "folders."  Unix directories are 
organized like branches on a tree. At the bottom is the "root" directory, 
with sub-directories branching off that (and sub-directories in turn can 
have sub-directories). The Mac equivalent of a Unix sub-directory is a 
folder within another folder. 

cat           Equivalent to the MS-DOS "type" command.  To pause a file 
              every screen, type

                        cat file |more

              where "file" is the name of the file you want to see.  
              Hitting control-C will stop the display.  You can also use
              cat for writing or uploading text files to your name or home
              directory (similar to the MS-DOS "copy con" command).  If you
              type

                        cat>test

              you start a file called "test."  You can either write 
              something simple (no editing once you've finished a line and
              you have to hit return at the end of each line) or upload
              something into that file using your commuications software's
              ASCII protocol).  To close the file, hit control-D.

cd            The "change directory" command.  To change from your present 
              directory to another, type

                        cd directory

              and hit enter. Unlike MS-DOS, which uses a \ to denote sub-
              directories (for example: \procomm\text), Unix uses a / (for 
              example: /procomm/text).  So to change from your present 
              directory to the procomm/text sub-directory,  you would type 
                
                        cd /procomm/text

              and then hit enter. As in MS-DOS, you do not need the first 
              backslash if the subdirectory comes off the directory you're 
              already in.  To move back up a directory tree, you would type
                
                        cd ..

              followed by enter. Note the space between the cd and the two 
              periods -- this is where MS-DOS users will really go nuts.

cp            Copies a file. The syntax is

                        cp file1 file2

              which would copy file1 to file2 (or overwrite file2 with 
              file1).

ls            This command, when followed by enter, tells you what's in the 
              directory, similar to the DOS dir command, except in 
              alphabetical order.
       
                        ls | more 
 
              will stop the listing every 24 lines -- handy if there are a 
              lot of things in the directory. The basic ls command does not 
              list "hidden" files, such as the .login file that controls 
              how your system interacts with Unix. To see these files, type 

                        ls -a      or    ls -a | more

              ls -l will tell you the size of each file in bytes and tell 
              you when each was created or modified. 

mv            Similar to cp.  In fact,

                        mv file1 file2

              does the same thing as cp file1 file2.  But mv can also be 
              used to move files between directories.

                        mv file1 News

              would move file1 to your News directory.

rm            Deletes a file.  Type

                        rm filename

              and hit enter (but beware: when you hit enter, it's gone for
              good).
               

WILDCARDS:  When searching for, copying or deleting files, you can use 
"wildcards" if you are not sure of the file's exact name. 

              ls man*


would find the following files:

              manual, manual.txt, man-o-man.

Use a question mark when you're sure about all but one or two characters.  
For example, 

              ls man?

would find a file called mane, but not one called manual.

--------------------
WHEN THINGS GO WRONG                  

     * You send a message but get back an ominous looking message from 
MAILER-DAEMON containing up to several dozen lines of computerese 
followed by your message.  Somewhere in those lines you can often find a 
clue to what went wrong.  You might have made a mistake in spelling the 
e-mail address.  The site to which you're sending mail might have been 
down for maintenance or a problem. You may have used the wrong 
"translation" for mail to a non-Internet network.
     * You call up your host system's text editor to write a message or 
reply to one and can't seem to get out.  If it's emacs, try control-X, 
control-C.  If worse comes to worse, you can hang up.
     * In Elm, you accidentally hit the D key for a message you want to 
save.  Type the number of the message, hit enter and then U, which will 
"un-delete" the message.  This works only before you exit Elm; once you 
quit, the message is gone.
     * You try to upload an ASCII message you've written on your own
computer into a message you're preparing in Elm or Pine and you get a
lot of left brackets, capital Ms, Ks and Ls and some funny-looking
characters.  Believe it or not, your message will actually wind up looking
fine; all that garbage is temporary and reflects the problems some Unix
text processors have with ASCII uploads.  But it will take much longer
for your upload to finish.  One way to deal with this is to call up the
simple mail program, which will not produce any weird characters when you
upload a text file into a message.  Another way (which is better if your
prepared message is a response to somebody's mail), is to create a text
file on your host system with cat, for example, 

          cat>file

and then upload your text into that.  Then, in Elm or Pine, you can insert
the message with a simple command (control-r in Pine, for example); only
this time you won't see all that extraneous stuff.

USENET


     Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, 
as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board.  
Or imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where 
everybody can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold.
     Unlike e-mail, which is "one-to-one,"  Usenet is "many-to-many." 
     Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to 
meet their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer 
trends or talk about whatever's on their mind.  Jumping into a Usenet 
discussion can be a liberating experience.  Nobody knows what you look 
or sound like, how old you are, what your background is.  You're judged 
solely on your words, your ability to make a point.
     To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused 
with Internet.  But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites 
CAN carry Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated 
Unix machines to old XTs and Apple IIs. 
     Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from 
host system to host system, using one of several specific Net 
protocols.  Your host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one 
place, which everybody with an account on the system can access. That 
way, no matter how many people actually read a given message, each 
host system has to store only one copy of it. Many host systems "talk" 
with several others regularly in case one or another of their links goes 
down for some reason.  When two host systems connect, they basically 
compare notes on which Usenet messages they already have.  Any that one 
is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa.  Because they are 
computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even millions, of 
these comparisons every day. 
     Yes, millions.  For Usenet is huge.  Every day, Usenet users 
pump upwards of 25 million characters a day into the system -- roughly 
the equivalent of volumes A-E of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
     Obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of 
messages.  Let's look at how to find messages of interest to you.
     The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a 
collection of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these 
would be called conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest 
groups).  
     There are now more than 3,000 of these newsgroups.  With so many 
newsgroups, it can be hard finding ones of interest to you.  We'll start 
off by showing you how to get into some of the more interesting or 
useful newsgroups so you can get a feel for how it all works. 
     Some public-access systems try to make it easier by dividing 
Usenet into several broad categories.  Choose one of those and you're 
given a list of newsgroups in that category.  Then select the 
newsgroup you're interested and start reading.
     Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you 
only see messages in conferences you want.  In both cases, conferences 
are arranged in a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s.  
Newsgroup names start with one of of a series of broad topic names.  For 
example, newsgroups beginning with "comp." are about particular 
computer-related topics.  These broad topics are followed by a series of 
more focused topics (so that "comp.unix" groups are limited to 
discussion about Unix).  The main hierarchies are: 

             bionet          Research biology
             bit.listserv    Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists
             biz             Business
             comp            Computers and related subjects
             misc            Discussions that don't fit anywhere else
             news            News about Usenet itself
             rec             Hobbies, games and recreation
             sci             Science other than research biology
             soc             "Social" groups, often ethnically related
             talk            Politics and related topics
             alt             Controversial or unusual topics; not
                             carried by all sites

     In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular 
city, state or region.  For example, ne.housing is a newsgroup where 
New Englanders look for apartments.  A growing number also carry K12 
newsgroups, which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and 
students.  And a number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is 
actually a commercial service consisting of wire-service stories and 
a unique online computer news service (more on this in chapter x). 
     How do you dive right in?  On the Free-Net and some other systems, 
it's all done through menus -- you just keep choosing from a list of 
choices until you get to the newsgroup you want and then hit the "read" 
command.  On Unix systems, however, you will have to use a "newsreader" 
program.  Two of the more common ones are known as rn (for "read news") 
and nn (for "no news" -- because it's supposed to be simpler to use). 
     For beginners, nn may be the better choice because it works with
rudimentary menus -- you get a list of articles in a given newsgroup and 
then you choose which ones you want to see.  To try it out, connect to 
your host system and, at the command line, type 

               nn news.announce.newusers

and hit enter.  After a few seconds, you should see something like 
this:
 
Newsgroup: news.announce.newusers                     Articles: 22 of 22/1 NEW 
                                                                               
a Gene Spafford   776  Answers to Frequently Asked Questions                   
b Gene Spafford   362  A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community       
c Gene Spafford   387  Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette     
d Gene Spafford   101  Hints on writing style for Usenet                       
e Gene Spafford    74  Introduction to news.announce                           
f Gene Spafford   367  USENET Software: History and Sources                    
g Gene Spafford   353  What is Usenet?                                         
h taylor          241  A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists          
i Gene Spafford   585  Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I               
j Gene Spafford   455  >Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II             
k David C Lawrenc 151  How to Create a New Newsgroup                           
l Gene Spafford   106  How to Get Information about Networks                   
m Gene Spafford   888  List of Active Newsgroups                               
n Gene Spafford   504  List of Moderators                                      
o Gene Spafford  1051  Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I               
p Gene Spafford  1123  Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II              
q Gene Spafford  1193  >Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III            
r Jonathan Kamens 644  How to become a USENET site                             
s Jonathan Kamen 1344  List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I         
                                                                               
-- 15:52 -- SELECT -- help:? -----Top 85%-----                                 
Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated)                                

     Obviously, this is a good newsgroup to begin your exploration of 
Usenet!  Here's what all this means:  The first letter on each line is 
the letter you type to read that particular "article" (it makes sense 
that a "newsgroup" would have "articles").  Next comes the name of the 
person who wrote that article, followed by its length, in lines, and 
what the article is about. At the bottom, you see the local time at your 
access site, what you're doing right now (i.e., SELECTing articles), 
which key to hit for some help (the ? key) and how many of the articles 
in the newsgroup you can see on this screen. The "(moderated)" means the 
newsgroup has a "moderator" who is the only one who can directly post 
messages to it.  This is generally limited to groups such as this, which 
contain articles of basic information or for digests, which are 
basically online magazines (more on them in a bit). 
      Say you're particularly interested in what "Emily Postnews" has to 
say about proper etiquette on Usenet. Hit your c key (lower case!), and 
the line will light up.  If you want to read something else, hit the key 
that corresponds to it.  And if you want to see what's on the next page 
of articles, hit return or your space bar.
     But you're impatient to get going, and you want to read that 
article now.  The command for that in nn is a capital Z.  Hit it and 
you'll see something like this:


Gene Spafford: Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on NetiquetteSep 92 04:17 
Original-author: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)                           
Archive-name: emily-postnews/part1                                             
Last-change: 30 Nov 91 by brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)                  
                                                                               
                                                                               
**NOTE: this is intended to be satirical.  If you do not recognize             
  it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian.  The                  
  recommendations in this article should recognized for what                   
  they are -- admonitions about what NOT to do.                                
                                                                               
                                                                               
                        "Dear Emily Postnews"                                  
                                                                               
        Emily Postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour,            
        gives her advice on how to act on the net.                             
                                                                               
============================================================================   
                                                                               
Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@noisy          
                                                                               
A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you             
-- 09:57 --.announce.newusers-- LAST --help:?--Top 4%--                        

     The first few lines are the message's header, similar to the header 
you get in e-mail messages.  Then comes the beginning of the message.  
The last line tells you the time again, the newsgroup name (or part of 
it, anyway), the position in your message stack that this message 
occupies, how to get help, and how much of the message is on screen.  If 
you want to keep reading this message, just hit your space bar (not your 
enter key!) for the next screen and so on until done. When done, you'll 
be returned to the newsgroup menu.  For now hit Q (upper case this time), 
which quits you out of nn and returns you to your host system's command 
line. 
     To get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type

                nn comp.risks

and hit enter.  This newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a 
digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people 
who run and use them can go wrong.  Again, you read articles by 
selecting their letters.  If you're in the middle of an article and 
decide you want to go onto the next one, hit your n key.
     Now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of 
particular interest to you.  Unix host systems that have nn use a program 
called nngrep (ever get the feeling Unix was not entirely written in 
English?) that lets you scan newsgroups.  Exit nn and at your host 
system's command line, type 

                nngrep word

where word is the subject you're interested in.  If you use a Macintosh 
computer, you might try

                nngrep mac

     You'll get something that looks like this:

               alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace
               alt.religion.emacs
               comp.binaries.mac
               comp.emacs
               comp.lang.forth.mac
               comp.os.mach
               comp.sources.mac
               comp.sys.mac.announce
               comp.sys.mac.apps
               comp.sys.mac.comm
               comp.sys.mac.databases
               comp.sys.mac.digest
               comp.sys.mac.games
               comp.sys.mac.hardware
               comp.sys.mac.hypercard
               comp.sys.mac.misc
               comp.sys.mac.programmer
               comp.sys.mac.system
               comp.sys.mac.wanted
               gnu.emacs.announce
               gnu.emacs.bug
               gnu.emacs.gnews
               gnu.emacs.gnus
               gnu.emacs.help
               gnu.emacs.lisp.manual
               gnu.emacs.sources
               gnu.emacs.vm.bug
               gnu.emacs.vm.info
               gnu.emacs.vms

     Note that some of these obviously have something to do with 
Macintoshes while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system.  
If you want to get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host 
system, type

                nngrep -a |more

or
                nngrep -a |pg

and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host 
system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't 
absolutely need the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list 
will keep scrolling, rather than pausing every 24 lines.  If you are in 
nn, hitting a capital Y will bring up a similar list. 
     Typing "nn newsgroup" for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring 
after awhile.  When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called 
.newsrc.  This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system 
along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all 
maintained by the computer).  You can also use this file to create a 
"reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to 
"subscribe."  To try it out, type 

                nn

without any newsgroup name, and hit enter.  
     Unfortunately, you will start out with a .newsrc file that has you 
"subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system!  To delete 
a newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is 
on the screen.  The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to 
"unsubscribe."  If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in 
the next group. 
     With many host systems carrying 2,000 or more newsgroups, this will 
take you forever.  
     Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this.  Both 
involve calling up your .newsrc file in a word or text processor.  In a 
.newsrc file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the 
group's name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers.  
Newsgroups with an exclamation point are ones to which you are 
subscribed; those followed by a colon are "un-subscribed."  To start 
with a clean slate, then, you have to change all those exclamation 
points to colons.
     If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the .newsrc file (you 
might want to make a copy of .newsrc first, just in case), and use the 
search-and-replace function to make the change.
    If you're not comfortable with these text processor, you can 
download the .newsrc file, make the changes on your own computer and 
then upload the revised file.  Before you download the file, however, 
you should do a couple of things.  One is to type

                cp .newsrc temprc

and hit enter.  You will actually download this temprc file (note the 
name does not start with a period -- some computers, such as those using 
MS-DOS, do not allow file names starting with periods).  After you 
download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its 
search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons. 
Be careful not to change anything else!  Save the document in ASCII or 
text format.  Dial back into your host system.  At the command line, 
type

                cp temprc temprc1

and hit enter.  This new file will serve as your backup .newsrc file 
just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your 
computer.  This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file.  Now 
type 

                cp temprc .newsrc

and hit enter.  You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading 
list.
     It's a little easier to do this in rn,  so let's try that out, and 
as long as where there, see how it works. 
     If you type 

                rn news.announce.newusers

at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this:

    ********  21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq]

If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen.  If 
you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your 
computer's = key and you'll get something like this:

     152 Introduction to news.announce    
     153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community   
     154 What is Usenet?
     155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions               
     156 Hints on writing style for Usenet                   
     158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I           
     159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II               
     160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette      
     161 USENET Software: History and Sources                
     162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists           
     163 How to Get Information about Networks                    
     164 How to Create a New Newsgroup                       
     169 List of Active Newsgroups                           
     170 List of Moderators                                       
     171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I                
     172 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II               
     173 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III              
     174 How to become a USENET site      
     175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I     
     176 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II         
     177 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III
    End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq]        

     Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't 
tell you who sent them.  Article 154 looks interesting.  To read it, 
type in 154 and hit enter.  You'll see something like this:

   Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated):
   From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
   Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers
   Subject: What is Usenet?
   Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT
   Followup-To: news.newusers.questions    
   Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
   Lines: 353      
   Supersedes: <spaf-whatis_715578719@cs.purdue.edu>

   Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1                  
   Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)                            
   Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
                                                                               
                                                                               
   The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely
   misunderstood.  Every day on Usenet, the "blind men and the elephant"
   phenomenon is evident, in spades.  In my opinion, more flame wars
   arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than
   from any other source.  And consider that such flame wars arise, of
   necessity, among people who are on Usenet.  Imagine, then, how poorly
   understood Usenet must be by those outside!
                                                                               
   --MORE--(7%)

     This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledegook you get 
in e-mail messages.  To keep reading, hit your space bar.  If you hit 
your N key (in lower case), you'll go to the next message in the 
numerical order.
     To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until 
you get back to the command line.  Now let's set up your reading list.  
Because rn uses the same .newsrc file as nn, you can use one of the 
search-and-replace methods described above.  Or you can do this:  Type

                rn

and hit enter.  When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit 
your u key (in lower case).  Hit it again, and again, and again.  Or 
just keep it pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a 
couple of seconds).  Unsubscribing from every single group this way 
could take five or ten minutes.  Eventually, you'll be told you're at 
the end of the newsgroups, and asked what you want to do next.  
     Here's where you begin entering newsgroups.  Type 

                g newsgroup

(for example, g comp.sys.mac.announce) and hit enter.  You'll be asked 
if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key.  Then type

                g next newsgroup

(for example, g comp.announce.newusers) and hit enter.  Repeat until 
done.  This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you 
prefer that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to 
subscribe?  Typing a lower-case l and then hitting enter will show you a 
list of all available newsgroups.  Again, since there could be more than 
2,000 newsgroups on your system, this might not be something you want to 
do.  Fortunately, you can search for groups with particular words in 
their names, using the l command.  Typing 

        l mac

followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters 
in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and 
the like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers).
     Because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, 
most systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks.  So if there's 
a message you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's 
screen capture or save it to a file which you can later download).  To 
save a message as a file in rn, type 

                s filename

where filename is what you want to call the file. Hit enter.  You'll be 
asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format."  In most cases, you 
can answer with an n (which will strip off the header).  The message 
will now be saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access 
by typing cd News and then hitting enter).  

     Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly -- go away for a 
couple of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles!  One 
way to deal with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer 
appear on your screen.  In nn, hit a capital J; in rn, a small c. 
     There are some newsgroups you might want to include in your reading 
list.  The news.newusers.questions newsgroup is where newcomers can ask 
questions about how Usenet works.  The newsgroup 
news.announce.newsgroups carries information about new or proposed 
newsgroups. 
     The news.answers newsgroup is a fascinating one and can help you 
find interesting newsgroups.  Many newsgroups have regularly compiled 
lists of "frequently asked questions" or FAQs related to the 
newsgroup's particular discussions.  The people who write 
these lists post them in news.answers.  You'll learn how to fight jetlag 
in an FAQ from the rec.travel.air newsgroup; read more than you probably 
wanted to know about bloodhounds in an FAQ from rec.pet.dogs; find 
answers to common questions about Windows in comp.os.ms-windows.  
There's even a newsgroup set up just for these FAQs: news.answers.  
This can be an interesting newsgroup to browse through, because you'll 
find everything from tips on saving money on airline tickets to facts 
about U.S. space missions.
     Now to put your two cents in.
     "Threads" are an integral part of Usenet.  When somebody posts a 
message, often somebody else will respond.  Soon, a thread of 
conversation begins.  Following these threads is relatively easy.  In 
nn, related messages are grouped together.  In rn, when you're done 
with a message, you can hit control-N to read the next related 
message, or followup.  As you explore Usenet, it's probably a good 
idea to read disucssions for awhile before you jump in.  This way, you 
can get a feel for the particular newsgroup -- each of which has its 
own rhythms.
     Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up.  There are two main 
ways to do this.  You join an existing conversation, or you can start 
a whole new thread.
     If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want 
to include portions of the message you are responding to in your 
message.  The reason to do this is so people can see what you're 
responding to, just in case the original message has disappeared from 
their system (remember that most Usenet messages have a short lifespan 
on the average host system) or they can't find it.  
     If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing 
conversation is similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done 
with a given article in the thread.  In rn, type a small f if you 
don't want to include portions of the message you're responding to; an 
upper-case F if you do. In nn, type a capital F.  You'll then be asked 
if you want to include portions of the original message. 
     And here's where you hit another Unix wall.  When you hit your F 
key, your host system calls up its basic Unix text editor.  If you're 
lucky, that'll be Pico, a very easy system.  More likely, however, 
you'll get dumped into emacs (or possibly vi), which you've already met 
in the chapter on e-mail.  
     The single most important emacs command is

               control-x control-c

     This means, depress your control key and hit x.  Then depress the 
control key and hit c.  Memorize this.  In fact, it's so important, it 
bears repeating: 

               control-x control-c


     These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs.  If it works well, 
you'll be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you 
were working on.  If it doesn't work well (say you accidentally hit some 
other weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and 
nothing seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs 
prompts on the bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should 
stop whatever emacs was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on 
the bottom of your screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. 
But if this still doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect 
and dial back in! 
     If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions 
of the original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire 
thing at the top of your message.  Use the arrow keys to move down to 
the lines you want to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one 
line at a time.
     You can then write your message.  Remember that you have to hit 
enter before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs 
does not have word wrapping.
     When done, hit control-x control-c.  You'll be asked the 
question about sending, editing, aborting, etc.  Chose one.  If you 
hit Y, your host system will start the process to sending your 
message across the Net. 
     The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting 
entirely new messages.  In nn, type

     :post

and hit enter in any newsgroup.  You'll be asked which newsgroup to 
post a message to.  Type in its name and hit enter.  Then you'll be 
asked for "keywords."  These are words you'd use to attract somebody 
scanning a newsgroup.  Say you're selling your car.  You might type 
the type of car here.  Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat 
similar.  Finally, you'll be asked for the message's "distribution."
This is where you put how widely you want your message disseminated.  
Think about this one for a second.  If you are selling your car, it 
makes little sense to send a message about it all over the world.  But 
if you want to talk about the environment, it might make a lot of 
sense.  Each host system has its own set of distribution 
classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for users of 
that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for 
the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans 
and Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: 
world).
     Which one to use?  Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will 
help you decide.  If you're selling your car, use your city or regional 
distribution -- people in Australia won't much care and may even get 
annoyed.  If you want to discuss presidential politics, using a USA 
distribution makes more sense.  If you want to talk about events in the 
Middle East, sending your message to the entire world is perfectly 
accetable.
     Then you can type your message.  If you've composed your message 
offline (generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you 
can upload it now.  You may see a lot of weird looking characters as 
it uploads into emacs, but those will disappear when you hit control-X 
and control-C.
     In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup 
to hit F, which will bring up a message-composing system.  
Alternately, at your host system's command line, you can type 

                Pnews

and hit enter.  You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn 
system, except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions.  
If you chose "world," you'll get this message:

                                                                               
This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire         
civilized world.  Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of  
dollars to send everywhere.  Please be sure you know what you are doing.       
                                                                               
Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny]                         

     Don't worry -- your message won't really cost the Net untold 
amounts, although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second 
whether your message really should go everywhere.
     If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of 
publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn.  In rn, as with follow-up 
articles, the upper-case key includes the original message in yours.
     Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message 
you post will eventually wind up on every host system within the 
geographic region you specified that carries that newsgroup.
     Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with 
comp.risks.  In these groups, messages are shipped to a single 
location where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, 
decides what actually gets posted.  In some cases, groups are 
moderated like scholarly journals.  In other cases, it's to try to cut 
down on the massive number of messages that might otherwise be posted.  
     You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy 
"signature" that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing 
and, almost incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address.  You 
too can have your own "signature" automatically appended to everything 
you post.  On your own computer, create a signature file.  Try to keep 
it to four lines or less, lest you annoy others on the Net.  Then, 
while connected to your host system, type 

               cat>.signature

and hit enter (note the period before the s).  Upload your signature 
file into this using your communications software's ASCII upload 
protocol.  When done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a 
file.  Now, every time you post a message, this will be appended to it. 
     There are a few caveats to posting.  Usenet is no different from 
a Town Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, 
whether that's posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal 
activities.  It is also not a place to try to sell products (except in 
certain biz. and for-sale newsgroups).                                        
い
FLAME, BLATHER AND SPEW



     Something about online communications seems to make some people 
particularly irritable.  Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity 
of it all.  Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will 
soon think seem to exist to make you miserable.
     Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do 
with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key 
and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them.  
Even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into 
raving madmen.  When this happens, flames erupt.  
     A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for 
something he or she has written.  
     Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that 
begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes 
several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they 
feel).  These can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in 
which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the 
relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs).  Often, just when they're 
dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets 
upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e-mail 
so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business 
is.  
     All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in 
which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the 
First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for 
impugning this poor soul...  You get the idea. 
     Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody 
predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole 
thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe 
even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved.  This brings what 
has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the 
network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: 
"Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11.'' 
     Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first.  They 
quickly grow boring, though.  And wait until the first time you're 
attacked!
     Flamers are not the only net.characters to watch out for.  
     Spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about 
either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the 
throats of people who don't seem to care -- as frequently as possible. 
     You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he 
posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which 
he then sends these articles -- both can reach well into double digits. 
Often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the 
world. Frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at 
hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts.  No matter.  If you 
try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will 
be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an 
insensitive racist/American/whatever or ignore your point entirely to 
bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of 
whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people. 
     Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who 
periodically inundate certain groups (such as soc.history) with long 
rants about how the Holocaust never really happened.  Some people 
attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only 
encourages them.
      Blatherers tend to be more benign.  Their problem is that they 
just can't get to the point -- they can wring three or four screenfuls 
out of a thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two.  A 
related condition is excessive quoting.  People afflicted with this will 
include an entire message in their reply rather than excising the 
portions not relevant to whatever point they're trying to make.  The 
worst quote a long message and then add a single line:

           "I agree!"

or some such, often followed by a monster .signature.
      There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to 
recognize.  Among them: 
     Net.weenies.  These are the kind of people who enjoy Insulting 
others, the kind of people who post nasty messages in a sewing 
newsgroup just for the hell of it. 
     Net.geeks.  People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what 
happens when they graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access. 
     Net.gods.  The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the 
keepers of its collective history. They were around when the Net 
consisted of a couple of computers tied together with baling wire.
     Lurkers.  Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but 
they are.