Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet Part 14

Don't send any cards to the Federal Communications Commission, either.

In 1987, the FCC considered removing a tax break it had granted CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem tax."

Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is NOT true. The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on KGO radio in San Francis...o...b..comes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in the New York Times.

Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments.

Save that letter to your congressman for something else.

Sooner or later, you're going to run into a message t.i.tled "Make Money Fast." It's your basic chain letter. The Usenet version is always about some guy named Dave Rhodes who was on the verge of death, or something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money -- by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. Yeah, right.

4.5 BIG SIG

There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones information in their .sig files -- their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer.

Still others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ASCII "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at these. You can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as:

___________________________________________________________________________ |#########################################################################| |#| |#| |#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#| |#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#| |#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#| |#| |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#| |#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| |#| |#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#| |#| ~-----------------------------~ |#| |#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#| |#| |#| |#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#| |#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of s.h.i.+t is that at |#| |#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further ill.u.s.trate my point |#| |#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#| |#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#| |#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#| |#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#| |#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#| |#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#| |#| dump sites." |#| |#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#| |#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#| |#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#| |#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#| |#| Society Luncheon" during the |#| |#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#| |#|_____________________________________________________________________|#| |#| |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th a.s.sistant to the Vice President of Sales |#| |#| __ |#| |#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#| |#| / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#| |#| )-======= Suite 215 |#| |#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#| |#| #NC-17 Enterp.o.o.p s.h.i.+p :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#| |#| ---------------- Fax # 804-411-1115 |#| |#| "Shut up, Wesley!" Online Service # 804-411-1100 |#| |#| -- Me at 300-2400, and now 9600 baud! |#| |#| PUNet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo |#| |#| Home address: InterNet: [email protected] |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III Prodigy: Still awaiting author- |#| |#| 104 Luzyer Way ization |#| |#| Sulaco, VA 22545 "Manufacturing educational widget |#| |#| Phone # 804-555-1524 design for over 3 years..." |#| |#|=====================================================================|#| |#| |#| |#| Introducing: |#| |#| ______ |#| |#| The | /| / |#| |#| | / | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | ETELHED /_____ ONE |#| |#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#| |#| 50Megs Online! The k00l BBS for rad teens! Lots of games and many |#| |#| bases for kul topix! Call now and be validated to the Metelhed Zone|#| |#| -- 804-555-8500 -- |#| |#|\V/////////////////////////////////////|#| |#| "This is the end, my friend..." -- The Doors |#| |#########################################################################| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hit "b" to continue

Hahahha... fooled u!

4.6 THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS LOCAL ORDINANCE

Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law?

Does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And what if that country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as well? Several foreign colleges and other inst.i.tutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where Americans post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or alternative s.e.xual practices. Even in the U.S., some universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive, again, usually in the alt. hierarchy.

An interesting example of this sort of question happened in 1993, when a Canadian court issued a gag order on Canadian reporters covering a particularly controversial murder case. Americans, not bound by the gag order, began posting accounts of the trial -- which any Canadian with a Net account could promptly read.

4.7 USENET HISTORY

In the late 1970s, Unix developers came up with a new feature: a system to allow Unix computers to exchange data over phone lines.

In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University in North Carolina, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, came up with the idea of using this system, known as UUCP (for Unix-to-Unix CoPy), to distribute information of interest to people in the Unix community. Along with Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina and Steve Daniel, they wrote conferencing software and linked together computers at Duke and UNC.

Word quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley, Mark Horton and a nearby high school student, Matt Glickman, had released a new version that added more features and was able to handle larger volumes of postings -- the original North Carolina program was meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day.

Today, Usenet connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to Amigas. With more than 3,000 newsgroups and untold thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer network.

4.8 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

* When you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus newsgroups" are present.

Within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked whether to keep these or delete them. Delete them. Bogus newsgroups are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has determined are no longer needed.

* While in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping unavailable article."

This is usually an article that somebody posted and then decided to cancel.

* You upload a text file to your Unix host system for use in a Usenet message or e-mail, and when you or your recipient reads the file, every line ends with a ^M.

This happens because Unix handles line endings differently than MS- DOS or Macintosh computers. Most Unix systems have programs to convert incoming files from other computers. To use it, upload your file and then, at your command line, type

dos2unix filename filename or

mac2unix filename filename

depending on which kind of computer you are using and where filename is the name of the file you've just uploaded. A similar program can prepare text files for downloading to your computer, for example:

unix2dos filename filename or unix2mac filename filename

will ensure that a text file you are about to get will not come out looking odd on your computer.

4.9 FYI

Leanne Phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups on Usenet. Bill Wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the news.answers and news.software newsgroups. Look in the news.announce.newusers and news.groups newsgroups on Usenet for "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists," which gives brief summaries of the various soc.

newsgroups.

"Managing UUCP and Usenet,' by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino (O'Reilly & a.s.sociates, 1992) is a good guide for setting up your own Usenet system.

Chapter 5: MAILING LISTS AND BITNET

5.1 INTERNET MAILING LISTS

Usenet is not the only forum on the Net. Scores of "mailing lists" represent another way to interact with other Net users.

Unlike Usenet messages, which are stored in one central location on your host system's computer, mailing-list messages are delivered right to your e-mail box, unlike Usenet messages.

You have to ask for permission to join a mailing list. Unlike Usenet, where your message is distributed to the world, on a mailing list, you send your messages to a central moderator, who either re-mails it to the other people on the list or uses it to compile a periodic "digest" mailed to subscribers.

Given the number of newsgroups, why would anybody bother with a mailing list?

Even on Usenet, there are some topics that just might not generate enough interest for a newsgroup; for example, the Queen list, which is all about the late Freddie Mercury's band.

And because a moderator decides who can partic.i.p.ate, a mailing list can offer a degree of freedom to speak one's mind (or not worry about net.weenies) that is not necessarily possible on Usenet. Several groups offer anonymous postings -- only the moderator knows the real names of people who contribute. Examples include 12Step, where people enrolled in such programs as Alcoholics Anonymous can discuss their experiences, and sappho, a list limited to gay and bis.e.xual women.

You can find mailing addresses and descriptions of these lists in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup with the subject of "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists." Mailing lists now number in the hundreds, so this posting is divided into three parts.

If you find a list to which you want to subscribe, send an e- mail message to

[email protected]

where "list" is the name of the mailing list and "address" is the moderator's e-mail address, asking to be added to the list. Include your full e-mail address just in case something happens to your message's header along the way, and ask, if you're accepted, for the address to mail messages to the list.

5.2 BITNET

As if Usenet and mailing lists were not enough, there are Bitnet "discussion groups" or "lists."

Bitnet is an international network linking colleges and universities, but it uses a different set of technical protocols for distributing information from the Internet or Usenet. It offers hundreds of discussion groups, comparable in scope to Usenet newsgroups.

One of the major differences is the way messages are distributed. Bitnet messages are sent to your mailbox, just as with a mailing list. However, where mailing lists are often maintained by a person, all Bitnet discussion groups are automated -- you subscribe to them through messages to a "listserver" computer. This is a kind of robot moderator that controls distribution of messages on the list. In many cases, it also maintains indexes and archives of past postings in a given discussion group, which can be handy if you want to get up to speed with a discussion or just search for some information related to it.

Many Bitnet discussion groups are now "translated" into Usenet form and carried through Usenet in the bit.listserv hierarchy. In general, it's probably better to read messages through Usenet if you can. It saves some storage s.p.a.ce on your host system's hard drives.

If 50 people subscribe to the same Bitnet list, that means 50 copies of each message get stored on the system; whereas if 50 people read a Usenet message, that's still only one message that needs storage on the system. It can also save your sanity if the discussion group generates large numbers of messages. Think of opening your e-mailbox one day to find 200 messages in it -- 199 of them from a discussion group and one of them a "real" e-mail message that's important to you.

Subscribing and canceling subscriptions is done through an e- mail message to the listserver computer. For addressing, all listservers are known as "listserv" (yep) at some Bitnet address.

This means you will have to add ".bitnet" to the end of the address, if it's in a form like this: [email protected] For example, if you have an interest in environmental issues, you might want to subscribe to the Econet discussion group. To subscribe, send an e-mail message to