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Big Dummy’s Guide To The Internet

(C)1993, 1994 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation [EFF]

Copyright 1993, 1994 Electronic Frontier Foundation, all rights reserved.

Redistribution, excerpting, republication, copying, archiving, and reposting

are permitted, provided that the work is not sold for profit, that EFF

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produce versions of the Guide for use with typesetting, hypertext,

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standard fair use doctrine.) Electronic Frontier Foundation, 1001 G St. NW,

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Basic info: info@eff.org; General and Guide related queries: ask@eff.org.

Big Dummy’s Guide to the Internet, v.2.2 copyright Electronic Frontier Foundation 1993, 1994 TABLE OF CONTENTS

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

Preface by Adam Gaffin, senior writer, Network World.

Chapter 1: Setting up and jacking in

1.1 Ready, set… 1.2 Go! 1.3 Public-access Internet providers 1.4 If your town doesn’t have direct access 1.5 Net origins 1.6 How it works 1.7 When things go wrong 1.8 FYI

Chapter 2: E-mail

2.1. The basics 2.2 Elm — a better way 2.3 Pine — even better than Elm 2.4 Smileys 2.5 Sending e-mail to other networks 2.6 Seven Unix commands you can’t live without

Chapter 3: Usenet I

3.1 The global watering hole 3.2 Navigating Usenet with nn 3.3 nn commands 3.4 Using rn 3.5 rn commands 3.6 Essential newsgroups 3.7 Speaking up 3.8 Cross-posting

Chapter 4: Usenet II

4.1 Flame, blather and spew 4.2 Killfiles, the cure for what ails you 4.3 Some Usenet hints 4.4 The Brain-Tumor Boy, the modem tax and the chain letter 4.5 Big Sig 4.6 The First Amendment as local ordinance 4.7 Usenet history 4.8 When things go wrong 4.9 FYI

Chapter 5: Mailing lists and Bitnet

5.1 Internet mailing lists 5.2 Bitnet

Chapter 6: Telnet

6.1 Mining the Net 6.2 Library catalogs 6.3 Some interesting telnet sites 6.4 Telnet bulletin-board systems 6.5 Putting the finger on someone 6.6 Finding someone on the Net 6.7 When things go wrong 6.8 FYI

Chapter 7: FTP

7.1 Tons of files 7.2 Your friend archie 7.3 Getting the files 7.4 Odd letters — decoding file endings 7.5 The keyboard cabal 7.6 Some interesting ftp sites 7.7 ncftp — now you tell me! 7.8 Project Gutenberg — electronic books 7.9 When things go wrong 7.10 FYI

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

8.1 Gophers 8.2 Burrowing deeper 8.3 Gopher commands 8.4 Some interesting gophers 8.5 Wide-Area Information Servers 8.6 The World-Wide Web 8.7 Clients, or how to snare more on the Web 8.8 When things go wrong 8.9 FYI

Chapter 9: Advanced E-mail

9.1 The file’s in the mail 9.2 Receiving files 9.3 Sending files to non-Internet sites 9.4 Getting ftp files via e-mail 9.5 The all knowing Oracle

Chapter 10: News of the world

10.1 Clarinet: UPI, Dave Barry and Dilbert 10.2 Reuters 10.3 USA Today 10.4 National Public Radio 10.5 The World Today: From Belarus to Brazil 10.6 E-mailing news organizations 10.7 FYI

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

11.1 Talk 11.2 Internet Relay Chat 11.3 IRC commands 11.4 IRC in times of crisis 11.5 MUDs 11.6 Go, go, go (and chess, too)! 11.7 The other side of the coin 11.8 FYI

Chapter 12: Education and the Net

12.1 The Net in the Classroom 12.2 Some specific resources for students and teachers 12.3 Usenet and Bitnet in the classroom

Chapter 13: Business on the Net

13.1 Setting up shop 13.2 FYI

Chapter 14: Conclusion — The end?

Appendix A: Lingo

Appendix B: Electronic Frontier Foundation Information

Foreword

By Mitchell Kapor,

Co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Welcome to the World of the Internet

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is proud to have sponsored

the production of the Big Dummy’s Guide to the Internet. EFF is a

nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to ensuring

that everyone has access to the newly emerging communications technologies

vital to active participation in the events of our world. As more and more

information is available online, new doors open up for those who have

access to that information. Unfortunately, unless access is broadly

encouraged, individuals can be disenfranchised and doors can close, as

well. The Big Dummy’s Guide to the Internet was written to help open some

doors to the vast amounts of information available on the world’s largest

network, the Internet.

The spark for the Big Dummy’s Guide to the Internet was ignited in

a few informal conversations that included myself and Steve Cisler of Apple

Computer, Inc., in June of 1991. With the support of Apple Computer, EFF

engaged Adam Gaffin to write the book and actually took on the project in

September of 1991.

The idea was to write a guide to the Internet for people 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. We have more than

realized our goal. Individuals from as geographically far away as Germany,

Italy, Canada, South Africa, Japan, Scotland, Norway, and Antarctica have

all sent electronic mail to say that they downloaded the Big Dummy’s Guide

to the Internet. The guide is now available in a wide array of formats,

including ACSCII text, HyperCard, World Wide Web, PostScript and

AmigaGuide. And the guide will be published in a printed format by MIT

Press in June of 1994.

EFF would like to thank author Adam Gaffin for doing a terrific job

of explaining the Net in such a nonthreatening way. We’d also like to

thank the folks at Apple, especially Steve Cisler of the Apple Library, for

their support of our efforts to bring this guide to you.

We invite you to join with EFF in our fight to ensure that equal

access to the networks and free speech are protected in newly emerging

technologies. We are a membership organization, and through donations like

yours, we can continue to sponsor important projects to make communications

easier. Information about the Electronic Frontier Foundation and some of

the work that we do can be found at the end of this book.

We hope that the Big Dummy’s Guide to the Internet helps you learn

about whole new worlds, where new friends and experiences are sure to be

yours. Enjoy!

Mitch Kapor

Chairman of the Board

Electronic Frontier Foundation

mkapor@eff.org

For comments, questions, or requests regarding EFF or the Big Dummy’s Guide

to the Internet, send a note to ask@eff.org.

Preface

By Adam Gaffin,

Senior Writer, Network World, Framingham, Mass.

Welcome to the Internet! You’re about to start a journey through a

unique land without frontiers, a place that is everywhere at once — even

though it exists physically only as a series of electrical impulses.

You’ll be joining a growing community of millions of people around the

world who use this global resource on a daily basis.

With this book, you will be able to use the Internet to: = Stay in touch with friends, relatives and colleagues around the world, at a fraction of the cost of phone calls or even air mail. = Discuss everything from archaeology to zoology with people in several different languages. = Tap into thousands of information databases and libraries worldwide. = Retrieve any of thousands of documents, journals, books and computer programs. = Stay up to date with wire-service news and sports and with official weather reports. = Play live,