💾 Archived View for gemini.theuse.net › texts › zines › The_Amateur_Computerist › ACN6-2.txt captured on 2021-12-17 at 13:26:06.
View Raw
More Information
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
| TTTTT H H EEEE |
| T H H E |
| T HHHH EEE |
| T H H E |
| T H H EEEE |
| |
| A M M A TTTTTTT EEEEE U U RRRR |
| A A M M M M A A T E U U R R |
| A A M M M M A A T EEE U U RRRR |
| AAAAA M MM M AAAAA T E U U R R |
| A A M M A A T EEEEE UUU R R |
| |
| CCCC OO MM MM PPP U U TTTTT EEEE RRRR III SSS TTTTT |
| C O O M M M P P U U T E R R I S T |
| C O O M M M PPPP U U T EEE RRRR I S T |
| C O O M M P U U T E R R I S T |
| CCCC OO M M P UU T EEEE R R III SSS T |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Fall/Winter 1994/1995 The Netizens and the Internet Volume 6 No 2-3 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"For the society the impact will be good or bad depending mainly
on the question: Will 'to be on line' be a privilege or a right?"
J.C.R. Licklider and Robert W. Taylor
Table of Contents
[1] What is a Netizen? . . . . . . . . . . 9,955 bytes
[2] Licklider's Vision and the Future. . . 16,403 bytes
[3] Net Cultural Assumptions . . . . . . . 14,887 bytes
[4] Etiquette and the Internet . . . . . . 9,750 bytes
[5] Ethics and the Internet. . . . . . . . 4,038 bytes
[6] The Internet Society . . . . . . . . . 10,633 bytes
[7] The Internet: Maintaining Diversity. . 16,738 bytes
[8] Do You Want to Lose Your Voice?. . . . 4,542 bytes
[9] The Net: A Scientific Perspective . . 5,399 bytes
[10] Book Proposal. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7,126 bytes
[11] Netizens: The Impact of the Net. . . . 61,740 bytes
[12] Rights of Netizens . . . . . . . . . . 1,982 bytes
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]
What is a Netizen?
In conducting research online to determine people's uses for
the global computer communications network (i.e., the Net(1)) I
became aware that there was a new social institution developing
and I grew excited at the prospects of this new social institution.
In response to the excitement I discovered from those who wrote
me (and which I also experienced), I felt that the people I was
writing about were citizens of the Net. Sometimes people on the
Net would call users of the Net, a net.citizen (read net citizen). This
idea I transformed into Net Citizen, which in shortened form is
Netizen.
Netizens are Net Citizens who utilize the Net from their home,
workplace, school, library, or other locations. These people are
among those who populate the Net and make it a human resource.
These Netizens participate to help make the Net both an intellectual
and a social resource.
The Netizens' community highlights the importance of using
the current state (circa 1994) of the Internet/NSFnet /Usenet/etc.
as a model for the upcoming NII(2). In order to do this, it is
necessary to be aware of the history of the Net. Various texts for
this exist. E.g., _The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net:
An Anthology_ (i.e. the netbook) contains the historical perspective
and social context needed to understand the advance represented by the
global telecommunications network. The netbook is for those who
want to contribute to the care and nurture of the Net.(3)
The NSFnet Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) has been a valuable
regulation which helped to define the NSFnet (the backbone of the
U.S. portion of the global Internet) as a resource based on sharing
via an educational orientation. This orientation exists on the Net
rather than the more tradition commercial profit-oriented model.
This regulation has helped the Net to grow.
More information about Netizens is available in "The Net and the
Netizens: The Impact the Net has on People's Lives" which appears
in this issue. The paper is also available elsewhere online in several
forms.(4)
[Editor's Note: In September 1993, the U.S. government set up an
advisory committee under the U.S. Department of Commerce to
advise it on the future of the U.S. segment of the Internet. This
work was done under what was called the NII (the National Infor-
mation Infrastructure). As part of classwork in a college course
several students were asked to propose the policy concerning the
NII that would represent the interests of different strata of U.S.
society. What follows is one student's proposal for principles rep-
resenting the Netizens' interests for the future development of the
Net. For the class the following areas of concern were listed, and
the interests of various strata (such as the business community, the
education community, and so on were described). The areas to be
discussed were privacy, equity, intellectual property, implemen-
tation strategy, vision, and additional thoughts.]
A Netizen Position on Privacy
The Net is a tool to help people communicate openly. As such,
concerns about privacy and security should be secondary to keeping
the principle of openness active and feasible. So the Clipper Chip
should be opposed, but emphasis should be given to the govern-
mental protection of freedom of speech and equal opportunity to
connect to open areas, and towards the guidance of Net citizens to
contribute to the whole. In opposition to the Clipper Chip, the
government should be told what it should be doing rather than what
it shouldn't be doing.
A Netizen Position on Equity/Access
Access should be made available in public locations: libraries,
community centers, schools, etc. Local phone numbers should be
available for home users to connect to the network using modems.
A Netizen Position on Intellectual Property
Netizens should be encouraged to submit creative works and
ideas into the public domain, rather than attempt to gain profit from
these ideas. Protection should be enforced so that others don't make
a profit off of these ideas. As a whole, ideas are most often built
upon ideas of others. As such, it is hard to properly credit the origin
of works or ideas to a single individual. The culture of sharing best
promotes the free creation and building of ideas upon other ideas.
The new capability to cooperate and contribute made possible by
the Net should be fully realized.
A Netizen Position on Functionality and Standard Operating Ability
Equal ability to access is more important than high bandwidth for
high intensity applications (such as graphics). It is much more
important to connect the people of the world via text (and ftp/http
for limited graphics, etc.) than to have a few connected with high
graphics content.
Standards should be set so almost any personal computer type
can connect in for basic text exchange.
A Netizen Position on Implementation Strategy
Global community networks should be installed or extended
and operated as a public service to community members. They
could be operated by local government, or a collaboration between
local government, public universities and other public entities. The
federal government should continue to fund the interconnecting
lines. People should be able to log into a terminal from a public
library or community center or be able to call a local phone number
from their home to connect to the community network. The
community networks should enable people to use global network
resources such as Usenet News, e-mail, telnet, ftp, www, gopher.
Another possible model is to make network access points from
which to connect to the world, and community uses formed around
them.(5)
A Netizen Vision
Global Community Networks would allow citizens of a
community to connect to the Global Computer Communications
Network. This enables community members to communicate with
others in their community and with the world. In addition,
community networks often facilitate communications and
distribution of information between citizens about their local and
national governments. In democratic countries, this might facilitate
a greater role for citizens in the governmental process. Global
community network access should be only available for those who
are acting as representatives of themselves and their ideas toward
a cooperative goal such as education or research that will serve the
whole network. Those in the private sector who are only interested
in advancing their own profit should have to gain access to the
Network via other avenues. The public sector should not be asked
to subsidize the private sector's profit making purposes.
The concept of global community networking will enable
people around the world to connect to the Net, and in the process
connect to other Netizens from around the world. This in turn
would help further the growth of the Net by connecting a diversity
of people who have various opinions, specialities and interests. This
worldwide connection of people and other information resources
of different sorts will help the world move forward in solving
different societal problems.
The Vision Behind the Concept of Global Community Networking
A Net which will grow to encompass all possible resources
in order to facilitate the free flow of information sharing.
--------------
Notes:
(1) The Net equals Internet/Usenet/Bitnet/Fidonet/etc.
(2) The NII is the U.S. government's proposal for a National
Information Infrastructure.
(3) _The Netizens and the Wonderful World of the Net -- An
Anthology_ is available on the Net and is abbreviated as the "netbook".
(4) The Netizens material is available at the following sites:
gopher://gopher.cic.net/1/e-serials/archive/alphabetic/a/
amateur-computerist/netbook
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/doc/misc/acn/netbook/ch.7_Netizen
http://scrg.cs.tcd.ie/scrg/u/rcwoods/netbook/contents.html
Other helpful texts include:
"The Origins of RFCs" by Stephen D. Crocker in RFC 1000
gopher://ds2.internic.net/00/rfc/rfc1000.txt
The Usenet History Archives is accessible via anonymous ftp at
weber.ucsd.edu in the directory /pub/usenet.hist
Netnews newsgroups of interest:
alt.amateur-comp Discussion of amateur and grassroots use of
computers and computer networking for those
who want to see such access spread.
alt.culture.internet The culture of the Internet
alt.culture.usenet The Usenet community
alt.current-events.net-abuse Discussion of what constitutes "net abuse"
alt.folklore.computers Stories and anecdotes about computers,
historical discussion etc.
alt.internet.media-coverage Discussion of media coverage of the Internet
alt.uu.future Teaching and learning in the Usenet University
comp.infosystems.interpedia The Internet Encyclopedia
comp.society The impact of technology on society (moderated)
comp.society.cu-digest The Computer Underground Digest (moderated)
comp.society.development Computer technology in developing countries
comp.society.folklore Computer folklore & culture (moderated)
comp.society.futures Events in technology affecting future computing
comp.society.privacy Effects of technology on privacy (moderated)
news.admin.policy Policy issues of Usenet
news.future The future technology of network news systems
news.misc Discussion of Usenet itself
(5) The National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) has a
good introduction to this idea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[2]
The Vision of Interactive Computing
and the Future
by Michael Hauben
hauben@columbia.edu
What is the reality behind all the talk about the Information
Superhighway? This is a very important question which the Clinton
and Gore Administration seem to be ignoring. However under-
standing the history of the current Nets is a crucial step towards
building the network of the future. It is my goal in this article to
uncover the vision behind the Internet, Usenet and other associated
physical and logical networks.
While the Nets are basically young -- ARPAnet started in
1969 -- their 25+ year growth has been substantial. The ARPAnet
was the experimental network connecting the mainframe computers
of universities and other contractors funded and encouraged by the
Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of
Defense (DoD). The ARPAnet started out as a test bed for computer
networking, communication protocols, and computer and data
resource sharing. However, what it developed into was something
of a completely surprising nature. The widest use of the ARPAnet
was for human-human communication using electronic mail (e-mail)
and discussion lists. (Popular lists were the Wine-Tasters
and Sci-Fi Lovers lists.) The human communications aspect of the
ARPAnet continues to be today's most popular usage of the Net
by a vast variety of people through e-mail, Usenet News discussion
groups, mailing lists, internet relay chat (IRC), and so on. However,
the ARPAnet was the product of previous research itself.
Before the 1960s, computers operated in batch mode. This
meant that a user had to provide a program on punch cards to the
local computer center. Often a programmer had to wait over a day
in order to see the results from his or her input. In addition if there
were any mistakes in the creation of the punched cards, the stack
or individual card had to be punched again and resubmitted, which
would take another day. This does not account for bugs in the code,
which someone only finds out after attempting to compile the code.
This was a very inefficient way of utilizing the power of the com-
puter from the viewpoint of a human, in addition to discouraging
those unfamiliar with computers. This led to people thinking of
ways to alter the interface between people and computers. The idea
of time-sharing developed among some in the computer research
communities. Time-sharing amounts to people utilizing the com-
puter (then the mainframe) simultaneously. Time-sharing operated
by giving the impression that the user is the only one on the com-
puter. This is executed by having the computer divvy out slices of
CPU time to all the users in a sequential manner.
Research in time-sharing was being done around the country
at different research centers in early 1960s. Some examples were
CTSS (Computer Time-sharing System) at MIT, DTSS (Dartmouth
Time-sharing System) at Dartmouth, a system at BBN, and so on.
J.C.R. Licklider, the founding director of ARPA's Information
Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), thought of time-sharing as
interactive computing. Interactive computing meant the user had
a way to communicate and respond to the computer's responses in
a way that batch processing did not allow.
Both Robert Taylor and Larry Roberts, future successors of
Licklider as director of IPTO, pinpoint Licklider as the originator
of the vision which set ARPA's priorities and goals and basically
drove ARPA to help develop the concept and practice of
networking computers.
In an Interview conducted by the Charles Babbage Institute
(CBI), Roberts said: "what I concluded was that we had to do
something about communications, and that really, the idea of the
galactic network that Lick talked about, probably more than
anybody, was something that we had to start seriously thinking
about. So in a way networking grew out of Lick's talking about that,
although Lick himself could not make anything happen because it
was too early when he talked about it. But he did convince me it
was important." (Charles Babbage Institute, Oral Interview with
Lawrence Roberts, p. 29)
Taylor also pointed out the importance of Licklider's vision
to future network development in a CBI conducted interview: "I
don't think anyone who's been in that DARPA position since
[Licklider] has had the vision that Licklider had. His being at that
place at that time is a testament to the tenuousness of it all. It was
really a fortunate circumstance. I think most of the significant
advances in computer technology, especially in the systems part
of computer science were simply extrapolations of Licklider's
vision. They were not really new visions of their own. So he's really
the father of it all." (Charles Babbage Institute, Oral Interview with
Robert Taylor, p. 8)
Crucial to the definition of today's networks were the thoughts
awakened in the minds of those researchers interested in time-sharing.
These researchers began to think about social issues related
to time-sharing. One such topic was the formation of communities
of the people who used the time-sharing systems. Fernando Corbato
and Robert Fano wrote, "The time-sharing computer system can
unite a group of investigators in a cooperative search for the so-
lution to a common problem, or it can serve as a community pool
of knowledge and skill on which anyone can draw according to his
needs. Projecting the concept on a large scale, one can conceive of
such a facility as an extraordinarily powerful library serving an
entire community in short, an intellectual public utility."
("Time-sharing on Computers", Information, p. 76)
Robert Taylor spoke about some of the unexpected
circumstances that time-sharing made possible: "They were just
talking about a network where they could have a compatibility
across these systems, and at least do some load sharing, and some
program sharing, data sharing that sort of thing. Whereas, the
thing that struck me about the time-sharing experience was that
before there was a time-sharing system, let's say at MIT, then there
were a lot of individual people who didn't know each other who
were interested in computing in one way or another, and who were
doing whatever they could, however they could. As soon as the
time-sharing system became usable, these people began to know
one another, share a lot of information, and ask of one another,
How do I use this? Where do I find that?' It was really phenomenal
to see this computer become a medium that stimulated the forma-
tion of a human community. And so, here ARPA had a number
of sites by this time, each of which had its own sense of community
and was digitally isolated from the other one. I saw a phrase in the
Licklider memo. The phrase was in a totally different context
something that he referred to as an intergalactic network.' I asked
him about this later recently, in fact I said, 'Did you have a
networking of the ARPAnet sort in mind when you used that
phrase?' He said, 'No, I was thinking about a single time-sharing
system that was intergalactic '" (Charles Babbage Institute, Oral
Interview with Robert Taylor, p. 24)
As Taylor recounts, the users of the time-sharing systems
would, usually unexpectedly, form a new community. People now
were connected to others who were also interested in these new
computing systems.
Licklider was one of the first users of the new time-sharing
systems, and took the time to play around with them. Examining
the uses of this new way of communicating with the computer
enabled Licklider to think about the future possibilities. This was
helpful because Licklider went on to establish the priorities and
direction for ARPA's IPTO research monies. Many of the inter-
viewees in the CBI interviews said that ARPA's money was given
in those days to help seed research which would be helpful to
society in general and only secondarily helpful to the military.
The vision driving ARPA inspired bright researchers working
on computer related topics. Roberts explains that Licklider's work
(and that of the IPTO's directors after him) educated people who
were to become the leaders in the computer industry in general.
Roberts describes the impact that Licklider and his vision made on
ARPA and future IPTO directors: "Well, I think that the one
influence is the production of people in the computer field that
are trained, and knowledgeable, and capable, and that form the
basis for the progress the United States has made in the computer
field. That production of people started with Lick, when he started
the IPTO program and started the big university programs. It was
really due to Lick, in large part, because I think it was that early
set of activities that I continued with that produced the most people
with the big university contracts. That produced a base for them to
expand their whole department, and produced excitement in the
university" (Charles Babbage Institute, Oral Interview with
Lawrence Roberts, p. 29)
The important effect on academia led to an even more
profound effect on the future of the computer industry. Roberts con-
tinues: "So it was clear that that was a big impact on the universities
and therefore, in the industry. You can almost track all those people
and see what effect that has had. The people from those projects
are in large part the leaders throughout the industry" (Ibid., p. 30)
Licklider's "Intergalactic Network" was a time-sharing utility
which would serve the entire galaxy. This early vision of time-sharing
spawned the idea of interconnecting different time-sharing
systems by networking them together. This network would allow
those on geographically separated time-sharing systems to share
data, programs, research, and later other ideas and anything that
could be typed out. Licklider and Taylor collaborated on an article
titled "The Computer as a Communications Device" which foresaw
today's Net. They wrote: "We have seen the beginnings of com-
munication through a computer communication among people
at consoles located in the same room or on the same university
campus or even at distantly separated laboratories of the same
research and development organization. This kind of communication
through a single multiaccess computer with the aid of telephone
lines is beginning to foster cooperation and promote coherence
more effectively than do present arrangements for sharing computer
programs by exchanging magnetic tape by messenger or mail."
(Licklider and Taylor, p. 28)
Later in the article, they point out that the interconnection of
computers leads to a much broader class of connections than might
have been expected. A new form of community is described: "The
collection of people, hardware, and software the multiaccess
computer together with its local community of users will become
a node in a geographically distributed computer network. Let us
assume for a moment that such a network has been formed. Through
the network of message processors, therefore, all the large
computers can communicate with one another. And through them,
all the members of the super community can communicate with
other people, with programs, with data, or with a selected
combinations of those resources." (Ibid., p. 32)
Licklider and Taylor demonstrate their interest in more than
just hardware and software when they write about the new social
dynamics that the connections of disperse computers and people
will create. They explain: "[These communities] will be
communities not of common location, but of common interest. In
each field, the overall community of interest will be large enough
to support a comprehensive system of field-oriented programs and
data." (Ibid., p. 38)
In exploring this community of common affinity, the pair look
for the possible positive reasons to connect to and be a part of
these new computer facilitated communities: "First, life will be
happier for the online individual because the people with whom one
interacts most strongly will be selected more by commonality of
interests and goals than by accidents of proximity. Second,
communication will be more effective and productive, and therefore
more enjoyable. Third, much communication and interaction will
be with programs and programming models, which will be (a)
highly responsive, (b) supplementary to one's own capabilities,
rather than competitive, and (c) capable of representing
progressively more complex ideas without necessarily displaying
all the levels of their structure at the same time and which will
therefore be both challenging and rewarding. And, fourth, there will
be plenty of opportunity for everyone (who can afford a console)
to find his calling, for the whole world of information, with all its
fields and disciplines, will be open to him, with programs ready to
guide him or to help him explore." (Ibid., p. 40)
Licklider and Taylor conclude their article with a prophetic
question. Since the advantages that computer networks make possible
will only happen if these advantages are available to all who
want to make use of them. The question is posed as follows: "For
the society, the impact will be good or bad depending mainly on
the question: Will `to be on line' be a privilege or a right? If only
a favored segment of the population gets a chance to enjoy the
advantage of `intelligence amplification,' the network may exaggerate
the discontinuity in the spectrum of intellectual opportunity."
(Ibid., p. 40)
The question they raise is one of access. The authors point out
that the positive effects of computer networking would only come
about if the networks are made easy to use and available. Lastly
they argue that access should be made available because of the
global benefits which they predict would ensue. They end by
writing: "if the network idea should prove to do for education
what a few have envisioned in hope, if not in concrete detailed plan,
and if all minds should prove to be responsive, surely the boon to
humankind would be beyond measure." (Ibid., p. 40)
Licklider and Taylor raise an important point that access
should be made available to all who want to use the computer
networks. The relevance to today is that it is important to ask
if the National Information Infrastructure is being designed with
the principle of making equality of access as important. There was a
vision of the interconnection and interaction of diverse communities
guiding creation of the original ARPAnet. In the design of the
expansion of the Network, it is important to keep the original vision
in mind to consider if the vision was correct, or if it was just
important in the initial development of networking technologies and
techniques. However, very little emphasis has been placed on either
the study of Licklider's vision or the role and advantages the Nets
have played up to this point. In addition, the public has not been
allowed to play a role in the planning process for the new initiatives
which the federal government is currently undertaking. This is a
plea to you to demand more of a part in the development of the
future of the Net.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Charles Babbage Institute Oral Interview with Fernando Corbato.
Charles Babbage Institute Oral Interview with Robert Fano.
Charles Babbage Institute Oral Interview with J.C.R. Licklider.
Charles Babbage Institute Oral Interview with Lawrence Roberts.
Charles Babbage Institute Oral Interview with Robert Taylor.
Corbato, Fernando and Robert Fano, "Time-sharing on Computers",
in Information, (_A Scientific American Book_), San
Francisco, 1966.
Kemeny, John, _Man and the Computer_, Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, 1972.
Licklider, J.C.R. and Robert Taylor, "The Computer as a Communication
Device," in _Science and Technology_, April, 1968.
---------------------------------------------------------------
[3]
Net Cultural Assumptions
by Gregory G Woodbury
ggw@wolves.durham.nc.us
[Author's Note: This article was originally written on July 5, 1992.
This version is edited and expanded somewhat. The question was
about the application of copyright law to Usenet. New material is
enclosed in [ ]'s.]
Recalling a bit of the history of the net, we need to look at the
way that the Net started and how it has grown. The seminal concept of
the Net is that folks on different machines *desire* to share
information in an easy and timely manner, despite the spatial
separation between them and the machines they are using. That is that
the persons using the Net to communicate *want to communicate* and are
willing to cooperate in effecting that communication.
This is the absolute basic principle: you want to communicate
with the other folks on the net. There is no one holding a gun to
your head telling you that you *must* post something to the net. (At
least, I hope no one is doing that!)
From this, everything else follows. The mechanics of how
it happens have changed drastically from the original shell script
implementation of simply checking the time stamps on files and
sending files that had changed since the last check to some other
machine. The first attempt was barely adequate for two machines,
and required a lot of human effort to assure that directory structures
between the machines was identical.
As soon as one other machine was added to the mix, it became
obvious that some sort of automated methods of assuring that the
communication would not breakdown when someone wanted to
start a new topic.
Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis and Steve Bellovin, with assistance
from lots of folks at Duke and UNC, convened an informal
conference and hashed the basic facilities and needs out in about
three hours. Then in about two weeks, they wrote it and got it
working on the "original three" sites, duke (computer science), unc
(computer science) and phs (dept of physiology, in the duke
medical center). At that time, the "A version" of NetNews (as it was
originally called) had been placed on the conference tape at the
Toronto Usenix meeting in January of 1980.
[There is some disagreement over this. I clearly recall using
netnews prior to getting married in January of 1980. Our honey-
moon was delayed since my wife's supervisors were at the Toronto
Usenix Conference. She was a programmer at the phs site. :-) ]
Under the conditions of the academic UNIX licenses in those
days, the software was placed in the "public domain" and it was the
most popular program from that Conference Tape. I do not recall
that anyone was quite expecting the explosion that followed.
[Steve Bellovin wrote me to confirm this. His comment was
that they expected maybe a 100 machines and ONE net.group. An
updated version of netnews, with much expanded capacity was on
the spring conference tape.]
The early ARPAnet already had a number of mailing lists, and
the management of them was already quite a headache for the folks
involved. The NetNews software was quickly recognized as a
superior means of dealing with very active lists and was quickly
placed into service.
At that point, there were already problems with providing
e-mail service between the ARPAnet machines and the UUCP
based network. The confusion between bangpath notation and the
domain-name system was well established, with lots of rancor and
confusion already evident.
In any case, one of the early assumptions was that there would
be "local" groups of machines sharing news, and that there would
be little crossover between groups. The model was that a campus
of a university would have a news network, and it might be shared
with another university that was logically and physically close to
it, but spatially inconvenient for folks to get together physically,
and that netnews would allow them to share information in a timely
manner.
But again, there was a basic point to the model, that the people
wanted to communicate, and would cooperate in effecting that
communication.
The sharing of information was to be handled in local/regional
areas, and the details of who would pay for the phone calls, and the
legal mumbo-jumbo of "responsibility" was to be handled with the
usual academic hand waving and under color of academic freedom.
[Well, there were some arrangements, but they didn't impinge on
my view of the situation. It wasn't all hand waving.]
When the direction of evolution took an unexpected turn, and
a continental network emerged, spanning the continent from
California to North Carolina, and Toronto to San Diego, it was sort
of a shock to realize what had happened.
And, since everyone was in an academic environment (well,
decvax was commercial, but it was a very special case Bell Labs
was academic really, but it was another special case) and involved
in computer science, there was never any kind of special concern
for the legal mumbo-jumbo. Everyone *wanted* to be on the net,
and it was clear that they were cooperating in doing so. (Some folk
at Bell Labs were watching the legal stuff, not in terms of individual
posters' rights, but in terms of protecting AT&T's rights in and to
UNIX source code and proprietary information.)
The conventions of net.<name>, fa.<name> and <name>
developed as being netwide, gated mailing lists, and local topic
groups. And the hierarchical subcategories soon appeared. Moder-
ated groups appeared and were placed in the mod.* hierarchy.
Under the strain of being an international network, with
several new machines being added daily, certain limitations in the
basic assumptions made themselves painfully obvious. And the re-
write known as B-news made room for the continuing expansion.
And still, folks *wanted to communicate* and cooperated in
doing so. An informal structure for the efficient management of the
topology of the network arose, based around a set of sites willing
to transfer news over a set of "backbone" links, and then fan out
distributions to the mid-level and leaf sites. The administrators of
these backbone sites knew each other, and respected each other in
terms of cooperating and managing the growth of a Net that had
The "backbone cabal" (as it was mockingly referred to, in
recognition of its extra-legal existence) established some general
procedures for adding groups, and for dealing with problems that
threatened the voluntary cooperative nature of the net.
The debate over copyright of postings became, for the first
time, truly acrimonious. As more sites joined, more and more of
them being non-academic in nature, the missing or hidden assump-
tions that guided the folk attempting to manage the net, began to
exert pressure. It *was* stated, plainly and clearly, in several places,
that a person posted to the Net as a voluntary act, and that they were
assumed to understand that asserting copyright was not a "friendly"
action IN THE LIGHT OF THIS ASSUMPTION.
[NOTE Well: At the time the Net was formed, the U.S. of A.
was *not* a signatory to the Berne Convention on International
Copyrights! The US had its own peculiar set of laws about copy-
rights, and something without a notice was not copyrighted.]
Meanwhile, AT&T was "liberated" by the MFJ ruling by
Judge Green, in the US Justice Department's Anti-Trust suit against
AT&T, to compete in the computer industry (with certain limitations).
All at once, the whole nature of things changed, the universities
were no longer bound by the license restrictions that programs and
utilities developed on the "free license" UNIX brand Operating
System be placed in the public domain, and the Net continued to
grow by leaps and bounds.
The power of the backbone cabal held through the time of the
Great Renaming, when the old net.*, fa.* and mod.* was trans-
formed overnight into the "Seven sisters" of {comp, misc, news,
rec, sci, soc, and talk}, plus a smattering of local hierarchies.
And more sites became connected to the net. Still under the
assumption that the sites wanted to communicate, and would coop-
erate in doing so. It was noted that postings were voluntary, and that
the backbone considered all postings to be essentially placed in the
public domain.
But now, this discussion was being held in news.admin, not
out in net.general or net.admin where all would see it, and all were,
in fact, encouraged to read and comment. And most net.readers
were simply no longer directly involved in the guidance and devel-
opment of the net. Partly to remedy this lack of direct involvement,
but more as a result of the dissolution of the backbone cabal (which
happened when a vocal group of folks established the alt.*
hierarchy because the backbone folk had decided that there would
- not* be a rec.sex group several of the backbone admins. threw
up their hands and recognized that the anarchy was no longer under
control) the "Guidelines" were worked out that provided for a
popularity poll (a "vote") for the establishment of new newsgroups.
And the Net continued to grow, but now sites coming into the
Net were no longer really reminded of the basic assumptions before
coming on line, that they were joining a voluntary association, and
that people posting were assumed to be communicating in public
because they wanted to, and that it was a "public domain" situation.
There was no backbone cabal to contact the new site admin. and
assure the Net that the new site understood the voluntary nature of
the association.
Home sites and commercial sites began to proliferate in much
greater numbers than before, and anyone could get a feed of as
much or as little of the news as they wanted, and it was no longer
assured that all sites *would* see an item posted to
news.annunce.important.
And in 1987 and 1989 BANG! The second of the really
major assumption changes hit. The USA signed the Berne Convention,
and practically overnight, the Net went from a default of no
copyrights, to a situation where copyright was automatic. The
results of this are still resounding throughout the net.
This change still did not really undo the underlying
assumption, people using the Net WANT to communicate. Those
who worry about the law and being risk-free tend to loose sight of
this. The poster of an item is seeking to communicate their ideas,
and they (posters) *don't* worry about the copyrights and other
restrictions until they are brought to their attention by some other
poster or administrator.
The Net has lost sight of its basic nature, a voluntary associ-
ation of sites exchanging news in a standard format *under the as-
sumption* that the site and its users want to communicate, and will
cooperate in doing so.
The Net is acknowledged as a working anarchy. There is no
authority beyond the administrator of a single machine, and links
between machines are still (by and large) informal arrangements.
The adding of commercial providers merely makes the model very
murky, since the feeding of a group TO the commercial providers
are still generally informal arrangements. [No comments have been
made otherwise to me.]
So what is the point of this overly long history lesson? When
netnews began, it was clearly a situation where items were donated
to the Net freely and voluntarily. The resolution of an early debate
on the appearance of a copyright notice on a posting was the clearly
stated principle that posting on the Net was contributing the item
to the public domain (in some sense, the moral rights were *not*
at issue then, before the US joined the Berne Copyright Convention.)
Postings with a copyright did not make it very far before someone
noticed and corrected the misapprehensions of the poster.
Today, this assumption is forgotten, folk forget that they are
in a voluntary situation (if they were ever informed of it) and that
this was started as a public domain forum.
In My Opinion, folks posting an item to the Net are doing so
- voluntarily* and they mean to have that item distributed anywhere
"the net" may send it. I consider it a feckless argument to try and
maintain a distinction between whether that distribution takes place
automatically or with human direction or control. It is known (or
should be known) before posting that the automatic systems are
going to send it to places that the poster has absolutely no control
over, either in terms of space, or in terms of time. They intend to
have that item seen and read by other humans on the other end of
the virtual circuit. And they implicitly invite that other human to
react to that item.
Being a "nominally reasonable" person, with due regard for
the moral rights of an author to be known as the author of a particu-
lar work, I will maintain attributions on the items. But they have
also granted automatic systems the right to send that item to me
without compensation (or even a [imo] reasonable expectation of
compensation,) that is, it is a gift.
[Actually, certain situations have happened that actually make
me care about some of these "niceties" in relation to the operation
of my site. I now am of the opinion that a poster "pressing the send
key" is commanding his machine to connect to other machines and
to place copies of his article there as a gift for the readers on that
machine. These machines (connected directly or indirectly to the
posters machine) do simply what the poster has commanded them
to do. The poster is the responsible party. Furthermore, in exchange
for having the privilege of commanding other machines to
distribute the posting, the poster allows other posters to use his
machine for the same purpose. Not a contractual obligation, but
a simple exchange of favors. Informal and cooperative.]
Finally, in my opinion, if they do *not* want me to receive
the item, then they should not post it "on the net."
And a prediction: Someday, someone who does not understand
the *voluntary* nature of the net, is going to actually sue
someone for some misunderstanding. I would sure enjoy being called
as an "expert witness" for that trial (if it ever gets to trial.)
__________
[Editor's Note: The US joined the Berne Convention on March 1,
1989. To be consistent with that convention, once a work or idea
is fixed in a tangible form, the creator holds the copyright and no
(c) or other notice is required for copyright status.]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[4]
The Ethics of Usenet Etiquette
A Short Essay Concerning Advertising
on the Internet.
by Cal Woods
rcwoods@alf2.tcd.ie
The anarchy and absence of rules on the Internet* has brought
it both fame and infamy. This feature of such a vast and potentially
influential organ brings both benefits and disadvantages. In the
former category, the equality of status in opinion, combined with
accessibility of information, opens an opportunity for dynamism
and self-expression that would normally have been quashed by simple
discouragement at the effort required. The Internet provides a
platform for experiment and allows many people to combine their
knowledge. It also provides superb resources for making knowledge
available through various means. I think we are individually well-
aware of the benefits of the net, so I will let it speak for itself.
The equality of access to those with the appropriate
technological means and mind grants great liberties and
opportunities, but concurrently with freedom comes the possibility
for its abuse, an abuse that the 'lawless' society of the 'net may seem
ill-fit to deal with. Yet for a society without laws, the Internet
functions with an incredible fluidity. You can say _anything_ on
Usenet, (even advertise,) yet while there are no written rules as to
_how_you_can_say_it_, the 'net regulates itself well enough to
avoid collapse.
This apparent weakness adds to what the Internet is and does.
The weakness that allows Canter & Siegel to argue that they did
nothing 'illegal' because there are no laws, is an integral part of the
'net community's make-up. As well as the advantages mentioned
above, the very fact that sense of community and a realization of
the need for co-operation is emphasized by knowledge of the fact
that the enterprise is open to attack and could be destroyed by one
person.
The 'Highway' code, such as it is, is based on common-sense,
a mutual respect of others, and the fear of the loss of that respect
and exclusion from the community. I know not to post messages
pertaining to the guitar archive to rec.gardens.orchids because it
does not take much effort to see that it would be inappropriate to
do so. It serves me no purpose, it annoys the readers of that group,
and it damages the 'net community in wasted bandwidth.
Usenet, a public forum, should remain lawless, as any attempt
to impose strictures on so amorphous an entity is destined to
practical failure. The only method of discipline at our disposal is
education, and if transgressions continue, to ostracize offenders and
ask to have them physically removed from the community. The
Internet is designed for mass communication of information, and
it effectively fights back by educating those who, inadvertently or
not, fall foul of the unwritten rules of etiquette.
The subject of this essay is the recent abuse of Usenet that is
known as 'spamming' when a message, usually advertising some product
or service, is sent to a large number of newsgroups, many of which
are inappropriate for its distribution. In short, the problem
of advertising on Usenet, and on the Internet in general.
It would obviously be a claim of those wishing to advertise
that they would like to go out and attempt to attract clients. This
is understandable, but is not the way Usenet functions it is
constructed into groups that pertain to particular interests. To send
messages to groups dealing with topics unconcerned with the
product you advertise is a breach of etiquette. No one would have
minded if Canter & Siegel had hawked their wares ONLY in groups
such as alt.visa.us. It may be true that many gardeners or guitar
players might have been interested in their service, but if this is so,
those people would have searched for that information.
With any group, the creator, moderator, or simply those active
in the group, must rely on the initial interest of the user being
sufficient that they actively seek the information that will get them
to forums and sites pertaining to their topic of interest. All news
reading programs, in my experience, allow a search by subject-name,
and many tools have and are being developed to enable searching (e.g.,
Archie, and the capabilities of Mosaic). This is the case whether I
am looking for gardening tips, guitar chords or legal assistance.
An advertiser who spams, implicitly considers that the purpose
it serves them in gaining new customers, outweighs the annoyance
caused to readers and the waste of resources. Not many can see this.
Even this may not be true: in terms of pure numbers, Chris
Kwasnicki (victim of the recent 'Weight Loss' spam and forgery)
reports that he received more hate-mail than interest expressed. But
even if Canter & Siegel's current claim to financial success remains
true in the long-run, this does not validate any right to mass-
advertising. The reason they have gained the enmity of countless
thousands is because they put their own personal gain above the
'net itself. Usenet does provide for advertising, and for personal and
corporate gain, but it will clearly do so only in ways that does not
threaten Usenet itself.
Learning how to behave, on the 'net as in society, is something
we pick up with practice, and whose justification we largely 'come
to understand'. If people can't see why it is ridiculous to post guitar
chords to gardening groups, they are not fit to be granted a license
to sail in cyberspace. Everyone makes mistakes while learning or
while entering a new field, but a general sense of etiquette will
provide reasonable bounds. Newcomers to Usenet ("newbies") or
those who are beguiled by the promise of 'Making Money Fast',
who step over the line are quickly informed by their peers of their
mistake, and their willingness to co-operate in the larger endeavor
ensures that they attempt never to bring attention upon themselves
again.
A much more serious transgression is a failure to adopt the
correct attitude when using the 'net. Canter & Siegel may have been
newcomers to Usenet and thought their motive of personal gain was
appropriate (it's a stretch, I know). To my knowledge, they made
no use of the 'net in explaining or apologizing for their actions. And
the subsequent glorification of their deeds shows that they have
learned nothing, and will continue to abuse the net. They should
therefore, in so far as it is possible, be excluded from it, shunned
while on the Internet, and denied access to it. If there must be a 'law'
which they have transgressed, at its most minimal it can be this: that
the network itself could not cope with many people making such
widely cross-posted articles, which is why the rest of us are bound
in not taking such acts. If 'One must be honest to live outside the
law', then because of the very structure of the Internet, we must all
be honest.
The whole basis of the above argument derives from the fact
that 'we' and not business, nor any government, 'own' the Internet.
By 'we' I mean that the Internet is produced by, and used by,
individuals. This is in contrast to television, where the material on
offer is produced by another. Additionally, the Internet is largely
profit-free. The attempt of companies such as America-On-Line or
Prodigy to provide their own services, to construct an Internet of
their own, is entirely valid; (as is the charging for material retrieved
from a personal or corporate archive.) Nor do I have any substantial
gripe against these companies as providers of access to the Internet,
but this is provisional on the fact that while they design and run
their other services, they do not have any say in the content or
construction of the 'net.
Canter & Siegel of course paid nothing for their ad except the
fee for connection. There is advertising to be done, and with it
money to be made, on the net, by companies and by individuals.
But it cannot be at the expense of either the opinion, information
and products freely given and maintained on the 'net, nor the
'ettiq'al code that sustains it.
Make no mistake about it, the Internet could greatly benefit
from the influx of cash that paid advertising might bring; the
important thing however is to retain control. If Gibson guitars were
to offer the University of Nevada a fee to have a ten-line ASCII ad
appended to the welcome screen of anonymous ftp users, I would
encourage them to accept. But if it meant any restriction on the
content of what Jim Carson and I could archive there, I would hope
they reject.
This issue, of control of the Internet, is the real challenge that
the 'net community must ready itself for. In the end, as with the
radio and television in the United States, a controlling hand may
be granted to business. But the diversity, multi nationalism and the
fact that we have come this far WITHOUT the help of either of
these agencies, gives us a strong base with which to maintain our
independence.
___________
- Note: By internet' I mean the entire network of sites and boards
allowing communication by e-mail, ftp, telnet, gopher, WWW, etc.
By Usenet' I mean the bulletin-board system of alt, rec, comp, etc.,
also known as NetNews'. I hope these are fairly accurate, or at
least understandable.
(c) Copyright September 1994 cal woods
[Author's Note: This paper can also be found on WWW:
URL: http://scrg.cs.tcd.ie/scrg/u/rcwoods/ettics.html ]
------------------------------------------------------------------
[5]
Ethics and the Internet: RFC 1087
Status of this Memo
This memo is a statement of policy by the Internet Activities
Board (IAB) concerning the proper use of the resources of the
Internet. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Introduction
At great human and economic cost, resources drawn from the
U.S. Government, industry and the academic community have been
assembled into a collection of interconnected networks called the
Internet. Begun as a vehicle for experimental network research in
the mid-1970's, the Internet has become an important national
infrastructure supporting an increasingly widespread, multi-
disciplinary community of researchers ranging, inter alia, from
computer scientists and electrical engineers to mathematicians,
physicists, medical researchers, chemists, astronomers and space
scientists.
As is true of other common infrastructures (e.g., roads, water
reservoirs and delivery systems, and the power generation and
distribution network), there is widespread dependence on the
Internet by its users for the support of day-to-day research activities.
The reliable operation of the Internet and the responsible use
of its resources is of common interest and concern for its users,
operators and sponsors. Recent events involving the hosts on the
Internet and in similar network infrastructures underscore the need
to reiterate the professional responsibility every Internet user bears
to colleagues and to the sponsors of the system. Many of the Inter-
net resources are provided by the U.S. Government. Abuse of the
system thus becomes a Federal matter above and beyond simple
professional ethics.
IAB Statement of Policy
The Internet is a national facility whose utility is largely a
consequence of its wide availability and accessibility. Irresponsible
use of this critical resource poses an enormous threat to its contin-
ued availability to the technical community.
The U.S. Government sponsors of this system have a fiduciary
responsibility to the public to allocate government resources wisely
and effectively. Justification for the support of this system suffers
when highly disruptive abuses occur. Access to and use of the Inter-
net is a privilege and should be treated as such by all users of this
system.
The IAB strongly endorses the view of the Division Advisory
Panel of the National Science Foundation Division of Network,
Communications Research and Infrastructure which, in paraphrase,
characterized as unethical and unacceptable any activity which
purposely:
(a) seeks to gain unauthorized access to the
resources of the Internet,
(b) disrupts the intended use of the Internet,
(c) wastes resources (people, capacity, computer)
through such actions,
(d) destroys the integrity of computer-based
information, and/or
(e) compromises the privacy of users.
The Internet exists in the general research milieu. Portions of
it continue to be used to support research and experimentation on
networking. Because experimentation on the Internet has the
potential to affect all of its components and users, researchers have
the responsibility to exercise great caution in the conduct of their
work. Negligence in the conduct of Internet-wide experiments is
both irresponsible and unacceptable.
The IAB plans to take whatever actions it can, in concert with
Federal agencies and other interested parties, to identify and to set
up technical and procedural mechanisms to make the Internet more
resistant to disruption. Such security, however, may be extremely
expensive and may be counterproductive if it inhibits the free flow
of information which makes the Internet so valuable. In the final
analysis, the health and well-being of the Internet is the
responsibility of its users who must, uniformly, guard against
abuses which disrupt the system and threaten its long-term viability.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[6]
The Internet Society
by Ram Samudrala
ram@elan1.carb.nist.gov
One of the greatest wonders of this world is not a crumbling
edifice, nor is it a towering monolith; rather, it is the throbbing,
pulsating mesh of circuitry referred to as the Internet.
The beauty of the Internet (sometimes referred to as "the net")
is visible not just at the primal architectural level (the basic
paradigm is chopping data up into little packets and sending the
packets separately across a coaxial cable and reassembling these
packets at the other end that this simple idea works so well is a
wonder in and of itself), but also at an intermediate level (the
existence of lucid protocols such as SMTP, message routing, NFS),
and at the social level.
The latter level is what will be addressed most in this posting.
By "social" (I hate this word!), I mean the level at which users
interact with the net. This can involve transferring of files, creating
virtual sessions, obtaining information, and inter-personal activities
such as exchanging e-mail and using TALK to communicate. The
big advantage of the Internet is that it is real-time. That is, whatever
the exchange of data that takes place, it is instantaneous. The
potential of such a faculty is enormous and to this date, it has
almost always been used to its fullest. However, a disturbing change
in attitude has manifested in the social structure of the net.
The social structure of the Internet is anarchistic. Power is
highly localized to a domain (in my case "nist.gov") or
sub-domains ("carb.nist.gov") or even hosts ("iris1.carb.nist.gov").
System administrators at a given domain/host have as much power
as any other administrator across the net. The Internet flourishes
mainly due to the cooperation of the local nodes. In fact, even for
compilation of the Internet's size, SRI international relies on the
cooperation of system administrators. It is difficult to appreciate
how much it truly relies on simple trust and openness. The
protocols and the programs that make the Internet (FTP, Telnet,
SMTP) are based on forbearance. A lot of tools we see today used
to navigate the Net were made possible simply because of this
leniency of access (users without privilege could write sophisticated
programs and experiment with various aspects of the net). Changing
this will not only dissuade development of better software, but will
also make the Net into a travesty of what it currently is.
Take for example the way the protocol works as it transfers
data across the net. A packet of information is usually sent to ALL
machines in a LAN before it gets to the outside world. The only
thing that prevents this data from being accessed "illegally" is a
"gentleman's agreement". It is at this place that security is most lax.
Changing this would change the basic design of how the Internet
works, and if implemented inefficiently (I see no way how this
could be done in an efficient manner), it would make it a slower
network. The beauty of the Internet is based on the fact that
transmission of data can happen in a simple, unhindered manner.
Why should one want to change it? There has been a lot of
hype about security (or lack thereof) on the net. People lament the
rising "crime rate" and loss of open collaboration. Some of it is
undeniably true. However, it has existed from the time the
ARPAnet shelved off to form the Internet. At that time, the people
using the Net knew how to take care of themselves. With rising
population, the Internet's security has become a factor. But the
Internet rose because of its lax and free-flowing nature (the decline
of the more rigorous network, the BITNET, is an example that
illustrates that flexibility flourishes). The problem is visible mainly
because of the incompetence of system administrators: Any security
problem can be handled best by simply configuring a system
correctly. Even AIX (IBM's UNIX), which is so bug ridden, can
be made into a secure system at a certain cost (of accessibility). But,
the more you want to be part of the net, the less privacy you have.
There are two sorts of individuals whose ideas are destructive
to the very nature of the net. The first are those who claim that extra
security (and some of their ideas involve an entire restructuring of
the net) in the form of encryption schemes, etc., are the answer to
the net's problems. My response is that if you wish to be protected,
it's easy enough; people have been doing this for ages. Set up
firewalls, remove complete access to the net, and set up layers of
machines to shield yourself from the net. But no, these people aren't
content with having THEIR system secure they wish to impose
their inane ideas on the rest of the net.
The classic example of this, of course, is the Clipper chip and
SKIPJACK encryption scheme which supposedly guarantees "se-
cure communication", but the government has the privilege to mon-
itor this communication anytime. As John Perry Barlow has put it,
"trusting the government with your privacy is like trusting a
Peeping Tom to install your window blinds."
Any general scheme like the above is very unrealistic because
it entails the cooperation of all the people across the Net. Instead,
the paranoid people can take steps to protect their systems as much
as they want. Eventually, the local user community, if incensed
enough, will rebel, or find alternative measures, in order to gain
access to the Net (from personal experience, this HAS happened).
But the important thing is that security lies in configuration. You
can protect your house adequately if you are willing to invest in a
lot of alarm systems and locks, but you shouldn't force this unreal-
istic view on everyone else around the world. This approach, ap-
proved by a few, is held in contempt by most of the Net and in the
current foreseeable future will NOT happen.
Most of the Internet protocols are very open: the SMTP proto-
col is one example where one can fake e-mail messages in an
instant (as demonstrated here I could be "president@whitehouse.
gov"). But this is the same openness which, I believe, has resulted
in us having very cool mail packages such as pine or elm. NFS is
another protocol that weakens a system's security to a great
extreme. Can you implement NFS with so much security (such as
encryption, etc.) and have it still be efficient? I don't think so.
Gopher servers are another security risk, but only if improperly
configured. With the right set of locks, your machine can indeed
exist reasonably securely on the net. The net, and its simplicity
should not be compromised for human misdemeanors.
But why do we need locks in the first place? Why can't
everything be open? This brings us to the sort of individuals
abusing the net. These are unemployed morons who have nothing
better to do than to waste the net's resources in several ways. These
are the sort of people who indulge in muds and IRC. While the
latter does have potential, what it is now is best emphasized by what
Bobby wrote me once:
"I hope it haunts you till the day IRC actually turns into a real
medium, not some combination of losers, net-junkies, net-surfers,
role-players and "I'm wiredom I'm cool" freaks."
This could also apply to those who MUD and the ones who
attempt to crack machines. The security holes are there! What are
they trying to prove? The fact remains that most people of this sort
don't appreciate the net. This is part of a letter I read in the U.
Magazine:
"The power of GOPHERS and other data access tools are
restructuring the way we get info. Not to mention the fun things like
e-mail (even to the president!), IRC servers, netTREK, and other
net-based games."
It clearly shows this person's inclination of how the Net should
be used. Net-based games are expensive and cost the whole net. IRC,
well, it is a medium that could be used for better purposes, but it
is a loss right now. I say all this because it is this attitude that is
prevalent among those who steal passwords and exploit other
system's weaknesses (this is different from those finding out how
to do it and then not doing it).
Commercialization also brings the need for security. As long
as the Net is used to simply exchange ideas, it is reasonable to
expect that most people would not be interested in forging ad-
dresses, etc. But now you can order merchandise over e-mail!
There's economic incentive involved. While I am not sure about
how this should be handled, it can't be denied that commercial-
ization (in any form, including "selling" access to the net, allowing
for business transactions, etc.) brings in people whose motives
aren't in the best interests of the net. With the system the way it is,
you can't keep these people out and I doubt if this is the solution.
In the past, there was an automatic filter you had to do
something special (go to college, work in a big enough company,
etc.) in order to gain access to the net. This was appreciated and
thus the people who used it were less prone to abuse it. These days,
for $40 a year, a modem and a computer, you have access. When
it becomes so easily available, people start taking it for granted.
To summarize, people who cry about security should mind
their own business and properly configure their systems. The same
people who whine so much are those who have a single system
manager for a hundred networked computers. This is clearly bound
to cause problems. There is NOTHING that can't be made secure
with existing protocols provided you are willing to pay the price
of less access to the net. I would also argue that there is NOTHING
one can do to have completely access to the Net and STILL have
the privacy one wants.
The root of the problem, however, is with users who have no
respect for the wondrous nature of the net. While this is simply
human nature, encouraging a healthy respect towards what the Net
can do, for both those who believe in making the Net so rigid that
nothing gets done, and those who intend to "harm" the net, is the
way to go.
References:
"Wire Pirates," Scientific American, March 1994.
Usenet newsgroups such as comp.security.*, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------
[7]
The Internet: Maintaining and
Extending Diversity
Cal Woods
rcwoods@alf2.tcd.ie
INTRODUCTION
The structure of this essay is to briefly describe pertinent features
of the Internet as it now stands in relation to the key questions that
face the rapid, burgeoning, development 'Who pays?' 'Who runs
the Internet?' and 'What for?' and argues that the situation as it
currently stands is well suited to withstanding monopolization by
any one sector.
The essay then swings to the other end of the spectrum and
considers issues relating to how access to the Internet might be
expanded to all members of society, as an inexpensive public
commodity, rather than an expensive, personal, luxury good; and
takes a broad survey of possibilities for the Net as an instrument
of social policy-making on a national level.
STAYING A PART OF THE CULTURE : RESISTING TAKEOVERS
____________________________________
The first thing that it is important to realize when beginning
a discussion on the future of the Internet is to realize that the multi-
nationalism of the Net means that it is unlikely that any decisions
will be taken on a global level.
Being divided into nations is a fundamental identification that
many people, never query or think beyond. The Internet blows
away this barrier, enabling communication at lightning speeds
between continents. Yet the key factors in determining the direction
the Internet takes are profoundly affected by the fact that many
nations, each thinking independently of the other, are involved.
The very broadest platform for discussion of these issues will
be at the level of nations NOT internationally simply because
that's the way things are done in the twentieth century. Americans
and the American government will decide what happens in America,
Irish society will decide what is allowable in Ireland, and
so on. The nation is our biggest unit of co-operation, and it will be
a long time before the upstart 'Internet' makes any real impression
upon people's minds to encourage us to communicate globally.
No decision can be taken in a void, but in the context of the
existing structure and past history of the Internet.
The Internet has risen gradually, growing like a web, exten-
ding ever outward. The huge costs associated with developing and
maintaining the Internet's infrastructure are shared. As each
business or academic institution becomes aware of the benefits of
being connected to the Internet they must be prepared to pay for
the development required. Certain people or groups might be said
to 'own' certain parts of the physical infrastructure, but no one owns
it all. Commercial investment is used as the demand becomes apparent.
Commercial companies make money on everything, from selling computers
and software to leasing the lines on which the information flows.
At a more profound level than ownership, no one is in
_control_of the Internet as a whole. Again, the person who runs a
site can refuse to carry certain groups or material, but they do so
only for that site, and for nowhere else. Even if governments restrict
the material coming into a country, they do so only for that country.
Those who invest in the Internet have some say as to what goes on
there. If a nation decides what material is suitable for its population
and what not, that information is reachable somewhere in the world,
and if there is a demand for it, then it will be obtained. It is
probably wisest, then, that restrictions on the Internet remain
minimal, since oppressive strictures only force problems
underground. Previous history of the repression of 'social vices'
repeatedly demonstrates complete failure.
This feature of diversity means that any absolute control of
the Internet by a government or a corporation would now be very
difficult to achieve. In the same way as we each download into our
accounts only what we want there, some measure of control could
be gained on a wider scale by 'owning' the sites or the link to the
Internet, created by individuals or companies or governments using
their own capital.
An obvious example that illustrates both of these points about
diversity and control is the recent upsurge throughout the world in
commercial companies offering access to on-line services and the
Internet. The various companies have to pay wages, equipment and
overheads for maintaining the bulletin boards and other services
they themselves provide, but not for the information on the Internet,
which 'looks after itself'. This has led at least one operator to
advertise that clients get the Internet 'free'!
On-line services do two things as regards the net: they provide
access, and they also help structure the net, so that it is easily
negotiable. The latter of these the Internet is learning to do for
itself, in particular via freely available programs such as Mosaic,
so once on the net, a user can set themselves up fairly well. The
only problem is getting on in the first place.
As far as I can see, the crucial factor in maintaining the
freedom on the net _as_a_whole_ is the freedom given to users
within the larger groups. In other words, so long as schools,
universities and colleges, and businesses, as the main groups of
users, give their students and employees complete access to the
Internet, enabling them to work beyond and outside of their
academic or company purposes, then the Net as a whole will be
beyond the hands of any one group. Put in their most obvious
form, control by a large number makes control by any one person
more difficult; and freedom of expression by a large number makes
any repression more difficult for those who would restrict access.
In sum: to talk of people 'taking decisions' as though some
power group has the potential to sit down and decide how the Net
is going to be, is an abuse of language, given the current
determining factors of the Internet.
BECOMING A PART OF THE CULTURE 1 : COMMUNITY ACCESS
______________________________________
In the U.S., Federal and State Governments are drawing on
property and sales taxes, and on state lotteries, in order to plough
money into education, and thereby, into the net. But the clear
beneficiaries of this cash are not the general public. The Internet
began as a means of communicating information between
professionals in the computer and scientific worlds, and its original
nodes are places of research universities and large companies.
But since then much wider uses for the Internet have become
apparent Usenet has become a gathering place for serious
discussants interested in every conceivable subject,(1) and the
material kept at archives worldwide has similarly diversified.
Leisure has also found its way onto the Net because of the potential
to encode information in pictures, sounds and movies. The Internet
has even been touted (and implemented in small scale (2)) as a
discussion forum and decision making process for social policy on
many levels.
Taxpayers who have no problem donating a percentage of
their hard-earned income to academic institutions on the basis that
it ultimately benefits society may now have reason to feel aggrieved
that they themselves are not seeing the benefit of the tax money
they contribute. Those in academic establishments are perceived
to have an unfair advantage that the ordinary citizen could well do
with access to information and education. Despite the perceived
egalitarianism of the net, that equality is available only to an
intellectual and business elite. The technological capabilities exist
that mean the Net can reach into any building not just univers-
ities and office-blocks but libraries and individual homes as well.
If the ordinary tax-payer is supporting the net, then why aren't they
seeing any of it?
Further, if the Net is to become a social instrument with poten-
tial quorums of entire communities, states and even populations,
giving access to the public at large will require the current 'indirect
stream' to turn itself into a direct flood.
A certain small proportion of the education money to Colleges
and universities reaches the public in the form of 'FreeNets' in local
communities, but the numbers are small. The dependence on academic
institutions is waning, and some FreeNet projects are now looking to
local on-line providers and to government to play their part in
communities by allowing non-profit groups to give access. (3) (4) (5)
But despite all these efforts, if use of the Internet is to occur
on a grand scale, then investment on a grand scale will be required.
It is tempting then to send out a call to governments to provide
funds for nationwide investment, perhaps by the creation of the
same kind of companies as A.O.L. and Delphi except non-profit
and tax funded.
Internet's history suggests that this grand investment will come
from a myriad of diverse locations. This is probably best, since with
large scale 'ownership' of Net resources must come the feeling of
'controlling' the Net, the piper calls the tune, especially if that
investor is a government. Unless governments are prepared to grant
the same sweeping freedoms as the majority of academic and
business institutions, than such large player in the field would bring
an unbalancing effect. Despite the circumstances depicted in the
first part of this paper, I think that the area of public access has yet
been inadequately colonized by the public at large, so that large
scale investment by governments _now_ would potentially grant
them a large measure of control.
It is probably best then, that the call goes out for government
investment _not_ in national systems that it can call its own, or to
put in place infrastructure over which it has exclusive control, but
from local communities and states to apply for grants for use toward
the foundation (and expansion (6)) of smaller-scale groupings.
The interest in FreeNets and community access will hopefully
grow from its present trickle and see a similar a rate of growth
similar the Internet's own exponential spread. FreeNet providers
are always in a difficult position, because they need to obtain funds,
but without any strings attached. Optimistically, there is a
promising analogy between the examples quoted here and the
initially 'indirect' development of networking technology from
university and other research funds.
What people fear about involvement of a dominant body in
providing Internet services is that it will impose some kind of
restrictions or censorship. If a government runs sites, it is perfectly
entitled to do whatever it wants with those sites, but in the same
way as A.O.L. and Prodigy have found that the Net is 'bigger than
they are', central government will find local and state communities
organized and ready to assert their power.
BECOMING A PART OF THE CULTURE 2 : NATIONWIDE ACCESS
______________________________________
In the long term, possibilities exist for nationwide use of
computer networks. Community leaders have been made aware of
the Internet's potential for regaining some of the 'bottom-up' made
difficult by centralized governments and parliaments. Very often,
not only is a system 'top-heavy' but its top is one that is widely
mistrusted as being a representative voice of ordinary people. If
discussion of national issues were to take place in a forum
accessible to the masses, there would be an opportunity for citizens
to express their opinions directly, and bring politicians to greater
account.
True 'polis'-ticians will realize the opportunity of returning
power to a public forum with an informed public, and perhaps
encourage it, even though it means a radical crumbling of their own
ivory towers. The whole idea of Internet for the people is to stop
prophecies like this coming true, "I think companies like A.O.L.
are well positioned to be the way most Americans connect to the
Internet." (7) yet avoid having to tow the line in return for
government cash.
A fully functioning democratic federation does not simply
involve local people being responsible for local decisions, but also
having an effective voice in national policy. In order to achieve this,
it must be possible for communication to pass smoothly between
lower to higher echelons and back. The requirements of such an
organ are that information be widely disseminated, discussion that
grants an equal voice to all participants, and, even if decisions are
taken by a minority, the power to call those decision-makers to
account. These are inherent characteristics of the Internet.
The Internet has thus far survived the arrival of commercial
enterprises due in a large measure to the fact that it was already
home to the enterprises that businesses wanted to use computers
and computer networks for. The Internet can strengthen its chances
of surviving a (national) governmental influx by _already_ being
the place were policy discussion is held. Preparation is already
underway in the form of these local groups who are organizing
locally. And the power to turn these into national and even
international forums resides in the compatibility of the technology
itself.
______________________________________
Notes:
1. The perfect example of this is the recent Call for Discussion of
a separate 'arts' hierarchy on Usenet.
Message-ID: <mccombtmCwvB2J.3E0@netcom.com>
Subject: RFD: New Hierarchy for Arts & Humanities
From: mccombtm@netcom.com (Todd Michel McComb)
Newsgroups: <wide arts cross-posting; taken from sci.classics>
2. E.g., Santa Monica's 'Public Electronic Network' "Paid for
entirely by taxpayer dollars and accessible to all city residents, PEN
is the first free, government-sponsored electronic network in the
United States." 'Yakety-Yak, Do Talk Back!' Joan Van Tassel
_Wired_ Jan. 94
3. "Since our Freenet is non-profit we are trying to get our Net
connection donated from a local service provider."
Message-ID: <JCOLLIE.94Sep29232916@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>
Newsgroups:alt.amateur-comp,alt.culture.usenet,alt.internet.media-
coverage
From: jeffrey-ollie@uiowa.edu (Jeffrey C. Ollie)
Date: 29 Sep 1994 23:29:17 -0500
He continues however: "Since the service provider is donating
the Net connection to someone that will be giving access away (we
won't charge users anything, we'll be entirely run on donations and
grants), the service provider has a valid interest in limiting what we
give away as we would be taking away their business." For more
on the argument as to whether commercial companies will lose or
benefit from Free-Nets, see Tom Grundner's Letter to the Editor
"'Free-Nets benefit commercial networks.'" in Sept.7 _Chronicle_
4. "We, at dorsai, have requested $1.3 million from the government
(which we will match with equivalent funds coming from the
private sector) to build 16 sites on the net. Those will be put in
schools, libraries, community centers "
Message-ID: <CwwuA6.4r1@dorsai.org>
Newsgroups:alt.amateur-comp,alt.culture.usenet,alt.internet.media-
coverage
From: tristan@dorsai.org (Net-Runner)
Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 21:27:41 GMT
5. In 'Putting Citizens on Line' in the _Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation_ David L. Wilson reports that "All of the nearly $2 million
budgeted for the [Sailor] project came from federal money funneled
to public libraries." (page A19)
6. Wilson quotes Ken Klingenstein: '"In general, the community
networks I have seen failed because they never reached critical
mass, or because they reached critical mass and collapsed under
their own weight." Once a community understands the power of
networking, he says, the system becomes flooded. If money isn't
available to expand users become frustrated as the system slows
down, and eventually they stop participating.'
7. Steve Case, president of America Online. Quoted in 'Hooked Up
To The Max' Philip Elmer-Dewitt. _Time_ magazine article posted
to alt.internet.media-coverage 94-09-23 12:28:12 EDT
(c) Copyright 1994 cal woods
[Author's Note: This paper can be found on the WWW at:
http://scrg.cs.tcd.ie/scrg/u/rcwoods/internet_diversity.html ]
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Do You Want to Lose Your Voice
by Ken Malone
(Reprinted from "The Searchlight" Jan 20, 1944, p. 8, Flint, MI)
[Editor's Note: The following article was written in 1944 by Ken
Malone, an editor of the uncensored local union newspaper The
Searchlight. The fight by Chevrolet auto workers in Flint,
Michigan, to defend freedom of the press is reminiscent of the
battle over the Net today. Therefore, we are including this article
in this special issue because of the helpful perspective it can provide
for today. Sadly, Ken Malone, who was a Flint Sit Down Striker
in 1936-37 died in August 1993.]
Brothers and Sisters, do you wish to have your Searchlight
suspended?
If you do, then just listen to the whispering campaigns that
are going on in the shop and in the lobby of the union hall. These
campaigns are being carried on daily. They are being carried on by
people who contribute nothing to the paper. It may be they can't
write.
In the last membership meeting there were several desperate
attempts by a very few to emasculate the paper. Some even advo-
cated control a la Hitler. I mean complete abolition of it.
These few people who would take your paper from you are
those who want complete control of your union to the detriment of
the membership.
Comparatively speaking, there are few members who attend
membership meetings, so consequently few know what goes on in
their union. One might answer that by saying that it is any member's
fault that he doesn't attend meetings to keep abreast of his union.
That is very true, but suppose each of our 11,000 members decided
to attend a membership meeting, how would we accommodate
them? Our main auditorium will seat probably 500 at most.
Others may say, oh well, that is a remote possibility that all
our members may decide to attend the same meetings. With that
I agree. But because of such excuses are we going to close our eyes
and ears to these attempts to remove the last semblance of aggres-
siveness from our union? I say we aren't going back to the last
membership meeting, I said there were a few bold attempts to wrest
the most potent voice of you brothers and sisters from you. One
proposal read thus: We recommend that The Searchlight be sus-
pended until the election of a new editorial staff.
The two (2) people responsible for the above attempt at keep-
ing you ignorant of what your union is doing, promised a very small
handful of people who were blindly led into supporting such a
move, that they (the two) would take the floor in membership meet-
ing and fight to put it across. But these two who, by the way, are
in favor of the incentive or bonus plan, didn't even try to get the
floor on so vicious a thing, much less fight for its passage.
The membership has never had access to so broad a knowledge of
union affairs until they established The Searchlight. Now that many
members are reading and becoming inquisitive about union affairs, it
has caused a few who would keep you in the dark about your own union
to become panicky.
Knowing they can't justify their arguments through the paper,
they stoop to whispering campaigns and snaring innocent victims
into temporarily supporting legislation that would make Hitler
wince.
It isn't so long ago we were unable to get enough people inter-
ested in their own union affairs to get a quorum to hold a meeting.
But since The Searchlight has awakened many of them to what may
happen to our union, we have large turn-outs at each membership
meeting. There was a time that for months we had no membership
meetings because of the lack of interest due to a lack of enlight-
enment as to what transpired in the union. That isn't so today and
if we protect and preserve our free speech and press by defeating
these would-be blinders, we will continue to have large, interesting
and enlightening membership meetings.
In closing, Brothers and Sisters, don't allow your strongest
union protection to die for the lack of support. If this paper is
controlled as some few wish it to be, then you may as well read the
shop talk column in the Sunday Journal as far as learning the score
on union issues.
Presently The Searchlight is controlled by you, the member-
ship. Keep it that way. Beware of these whispers and ghost stories.
Better still, recapture control of every branch of your union.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[9]
Summary -- Royal Society of London
as Scientific Perspective
[Editor's Note: The following article is part 3 of "From ARPAnet
to Usenet". Parts 1 and 2 appeared in The Amateur Computerist,
Vol 5 no. 3/4 and Vol 6 no. 1.]
Part III
The early 1600s, like contemporary times, was a period in
Britain when new forms and methods of production were becoming
possible. An attitude of respect for data that comes from the
physical world and scientific observations based on that data had
been developing in Great Britain and on the Continent (especially
in Italy.)
Interested in putting into practice the scientific method and
principles that had been developed by Sir Francis Bacon, and in
applying their science to serve the well being of the British people,
a group of amateur scientists began to gather. Meeting in each
other's homes and then in Gresham College in London, they formed
what came to be known as the Invisible College. They met on
Wednesdays and conducted experiments in different areas of pro-
duction and science. The following stanzas are from a ballad of the
period describing their activities:
"If to be rich, and to be learned
Be every nations chiefest glory,
How much are Englishmen concerned
Gresham to celebrate in story
Who built th' Exchange to enrich the Citty
And Colledge founded the Witty"
....
"A second hath described at full
The Philosophy of making Cloth
Tells you, what Grass doth make course Wooll
And what it is that breeds the Moth
Great learning is 'ith art of Clothing
Though vulgar People think it nothing. (43)
The experiments conducted by amateur scientists like Robert
Boyle, Sir Christopher Wren, Thomas Hooker, and Sir William
Petty, and the understanding of the laws of how the physical world
operated generated from their experiments, led to a significant in-
crease in the ability of British industry to modernize its methods
of production. This breakthrough made possible the industrial
revolution.(44)
This same need for an experiential basis for knowledge and
for a broadness of knowledge and honesty about problems was
understood by the researchers who worked on the ARPAnet. A similar
attitude nourished the birth and early development of the uucp
network that was born and grew up as the child of the UNIX community,
Usenet News.
Putting one's theories and models into a form actually tested
and revised based on the data received, has been the basis for the
startling developments in the field of computer communication and
automation which have made the global network possible.
U.S. government funding through the Advanced Research
Projects Agency (ARPA) and the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that
accompanies U.S. government funding, helped to create an atmo-
sphere encouraging experimentation and innovation. The ARPAnet
pioneers were free from the limitations of commercial objectives
and artificial time pressures.
The obligation of the academic community to keep scientific
work open to the public and to avoid using their funds to support
any particular commercial interest, in a similar way, made it pos-
sible for Usenet pioneers to create and develop a network that has
made possible the cooperative solving of technical and scientific
problems.(45)
The development of the ARPAnet and its evolution into the
NSF backbone of the Internet, and the creation and expansion of
Usenet News, are the harbingers of a significant new capacity of our
society to produce for the needs of its people. This potential ca-
pacity is only beginning to be realized but has alredy helped to
change governments and economic systems like those in Eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union that obstructed its fruition.(46)
This capacity has been developed by those free of market forces,
by scientists and researchers, by computer scientists working under
academic conditions or government contracts, and by student and
amateur participants. The active cooperation of people around the
world is a force to continue to expand the participatory nature of
Usenet News and the global computer network, the Internet, and
to oppose efforts to commercialize and freeze these developments.
A cooperative culture has been created and has in turn nurtured the
growing Global Computer Communications Network that has
developed over the past 25 years. This cooperative networking
culture, this Net Commonwealth, portends to transform society as
we now know it.
____________________________________________
Notes:
(43) Taken from "In praise of the choice Company of Philosophers
and Wits who meet on Wednesdays weekly at Gresham Colledge,"
in "The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty," ed. Charles
Henry Hull, vol II, Cambridge, 1899, p. 324.
(44) See "Sir Francis Bacon and the Shorter Hours Bill," The
Amateur Computerist, vol. 5, no. 1-2.
(45) See "Arte, Computers and Usenet News," in The Amateur
Computerist, Vol. 4 Supplement, Fall '92.
(46) See for example "The Information Technologies and East
European Societies," by Gary L. Geipel, A. Tomatz Jarmoszko, and
Seymour Goodman, in _East European Politics and Society,_ Vol.
5, no. 3, p. 394-438.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[10]
BOOK PROPOSAL
THE NET AS AN AGENT FOR CHANGE
On the History and Impact of the
Global Computer Network
The story of the creation and development of the Global
Computer Network, an achievement that is one of the great
achievements of human society, is a story as important as the reality
of the Net itself. The story of how the Net has been built is not only
helpful in its own right, but it is also needed to gain much needed
perspective on the impact that this development will have for
human society in the upcoming new Millenium. This book will tell
the story of the building of the Net and it will present some of the
many experiences and observations of people around the world
about the impact that the Net is having on their lives.
Chapter Outline
Introduction and Preface
Chapter 1 The Vision --Interactive Computing and Creating a
Supercommunity of Cooperative Online Communities
The early experience of interactive computing and of time-sharing
instead of batch processing led computer science pioneers to realize
that they were on the verge of the creation of an important new
technology. This chapter will describe the vision and the
developments that gave birth to the foundation on which the Global
Computer Network was built.
Chapter 2 ARPA and the ARPAnet
This chapter will describe the process that made it possible
to build the Net. J.C.R. Licklider, whose vision of an intergalactic
computer network helped to inspire computer scientists and
graduate students who built the ARPAnet, convinced the U.S.
Department of Defense to support research to advance computer
science technology. He and the subsequent directors of the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) made government
support and funding available to academic and research computer
scientists to carry on the advanced computer science research
needed to build the ARPAnet.
Chapter 3 The Network Working Group Solves the Problem of Host to
Host Protocols and Creates the basis for the Internet.
While the ARPA contractor BBN established a network of
IMPs to make a network possible, graduate students at sites with
ARPA contracts were charged with the task of making it possible
for different computers on the ARPAnet to communicate with each
other. Creating a body of common experience as part of the
Network Working Group, and common knowledge and discussion
through the Requests For Comment (RFC's), the Network Working
Group learned how to solve the Host to Host protocol problem and
the basis was set for the Internet.
Chapter 4 Meanwhile UNIX is born
UNIX grew out of the collaboration of academic and industrial
researchers, sponsored by the U.S. government on the Multics
project. During the late 1960's, the increased demand on AT&T for
telephone service led to pressure to make its operations more
efficient. During this same time period, Bell Labs computer science
researchers who had been involved with research on operating
systems and time-sharing with the Multics project had their site
withdrawn from the Project in 1969. In order to have access to the
advanced form of computing first provided by CTSS and then
Multics, Bell Labs researchers created their own time-sharing
system, which came to be known as UNIX, based on the lessons
they learned from the Multics collaboration. Then when AT&T had
to automate its switching and telephone support operations, UNIX
made it possible.
Chapter 5 TCP is created and the Internet is Born
Building on the experiences of the Network Working Group
(NWG) and the body of technical knowledge it created, the problem
of how to build a network of networks was clarified. This chapter
describes the process by which Transport Control Protocol (TCP)
was created and then how this made possible the Internet.
Chapter 6 The Evolution of Usenet News -- The Poor Man's ARPAnet
This chapter describes how Usenet News began and how it
grew. Using UNIX and UNIX tools, particularly uucp, which were
released with UNIX Edition 7 in the summer of 1979, graduate
students at Duke University and the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill designed the Netnews software to make it possible
for different UNIX sites to create a communications network. From
a small local uucp network connecting the computers at their
different sites, a global uucp network grew up that surprised even
the pioneers themselves. From its early beginnings as an online
community which provided needed online support for the UNIX
community, Usenet News continues to grow and expand at an
amazing rate today. This chapter will also describe the participatory
online community that Usenet News makes possible today.
Chapter 7 UCB gives the world BSD and bundles TCP/IP with it
The U.S. government realized that it needed to standardize
its computer operating systems and turned to the University of
California Berkeley to create a version of UNIX to do so. When it
built TCP/IP into the new Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD)
of UNIX, an important step in making computer networking
available to the world was made.
Chapter 8 Other Nets Link Up
CSNet, Bitnet, Fidonet, Freenet -- these are some of the other
Nets that have developed as part of or alongside the Internet, but
which have helped to develop the Global Network that now exists.
This chapter describes some of the forces that helped these Nets
develop and what has happened with them.
Chapter 9 Hello World! We're all ears!
Who is out there? Comments from people around the world
who are connecting to the Net about what they see as the
importance of the Net and what they feel are the problems to
continued network expansion.
Chapter 10 The Net and the Netizens
What does the Net mean to those who are on it? This chapter
describes experiences that Netizens have had and observations they
have offered in response to questions posted on the Net as to its
impact for those who are online. This chapter describes the
importance of the Net for an ever expanding set of people around
the world.
Chapter 11 The Soul of the Net: The Netizens and the Cooperative
Online Culture.
This chapter describes the cooperative culture that many have
observed is the "Soul of the Net". Something very important has
been created online and it has helped to promote both a new vision
of what is possible and a new understanding of the challenge to our
society that these developments represent. A long standing aspect
of Net culture is the concern that the exploding growth of the Net
can't be sustained. This has come to be known as "The Imminent
Death of the Net is Predicted." Many are once again predicting "the
imminent death of the net." This chapter explores how the Net
survived and flourished thus far and examines how and why the Net
will continue to expand and flourish.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[11]
THE NET AND NETIZENS:
The Impact the Net has on
People's Lives
by Michael Hauben
hauben@columbia.edu
[Editor's Note: The Preface to the following article appeared in the
Amateur Computerist Vol. 5 no. 3/4]
INTRODUCTION
The world of the Netizen was envisioned some twenty five
years ago by J.C.R. Licklider and Robert Taylor in "The Computer
as a Communication Device" (Science and Technology, April
1968). Licklider brought to his leadership of the Department of
Defense's ARPA IPTO (Information Processing Techniques Office)
a vision of "the intergalactic computer network." Whenever
he would speak from ARPA, he would mention this vision.
J.C.R. Licklider was a prophet of the Net. In this paper,
"The Computer as a Communication Device", that Licklider
wrote with Robert Taylor, they established several principles
which would make the computer play a helpful role in
human communication. They clarified their definition of
communication as a creative process by writing:
"But to communicate is more than to send and to receive. Do two tape
recorders communicate when they play to each other and record
from each other? Not really -- not in our sense. We believe that
communicators have to do something non-trivial with the
information they send and receive. And to interact with the richness
of living information -- not merely in the passive way that we have
become accustomed to using books and libraries, but as active
participants in an ongoing process, bringing something to it through
our interaction with it, and not simply receiving from it by our
connection to it We want to emphasize something beyond its
one-way transfer: the increasing significance of the jointly
constructive, the mutually reinforcing aspect of communication --
the part that transcends 'now we both know a fact that only one of
us knew before.' When minds interact, new ideas emerge. We want
to talk about the creative aspect of communication."
Licklider and Taylor defined four principles for computers
to make a contribution towards human communication. They are:
1) Communication is defined as an interactive creative
process.
2) Response times need to be short to make the "conversation"
free and easy.
3) Larger networks would form out of smaller regional
networks.
4) Communities would form out of affinity and common
interests.
In this paper I will explore the uses Netizens have discovered
for the Net. Licklider's and Taylor's understandings from their 1968
paper have stood the test of time, and do represent the Net today.
In a later paper Licklider co-wrote with Albert Vezza, "Applications
of Information Networks" (Proceedings of IEEE, Vol. 66, No. 11,
Nov. 1978), they explore the possible business applications of
information networks. Licklider and Vezza's survey of business
applications in 1978 come short of the possibilities Licklider and
Taylor outlined in their 1968 paper, and represent but a tiny fraction
of the resources the Net currently embodies.
In the 1968 paper, Licklider and Taylor focused on the Net
being comprising of a network of networks. While other researchers
of the time focused on the sharing of computing resources,
Licklider and Taylor kept an open mind and wrote: " The collection
of people, hardware, and software -- the multi-access computer
together with its local community of users -- will become a node
in a geographically distributed computer network. Let us assume
for a moment that such a network has been formed .Through the
network of message processors, therefore, all the large computers
can communicate with one another. And through them, all the members
of the super community can communicate -- with other people, with
programs, with data, or with a selected combinations of those
resources." (Licklider and Taylor, p.32)
Their concept of the sharing of both computing and human
resources together matches the modern Net. The networking of
various human connections quickly forms, changes its goals,
disbands and reforms into new collaborations. The fluidity of such
group dynamics leads to a quickening of the creation of new ideas.
Groups can form to discuss an idea, focus in or broaden out and
reform to fit the new ideas that have been worked out.
Netnews, irc, mailing lists and mud/mush/moo/m** (various
of the available discussion tools on the Net) are extremely dynamic.
Most can be formed immediately for either short or long term use.
As interests or events form, discussion groups can be created. (e.g.,
9NOV89-L about Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall and
Unification.)
The virtual space created on (non-commercial) computer
networks is accessible universally. This space is accessible from
the connections that exist, whereas social networks in the physical
world generally are connected by limited gateways. So the
capability of networking on computer nets overcomes limitations
inherent in non-computer social networks. This is important
because it reduces the problems of population growth. Population
growth need not mean limited resources any more -- rather
that very growth of population now means an improvement of
resources. Thus growth of population can be seen as a positive
asset. This is a new way of looking at people in capitalist society.
Every new person can mean a new set of perspectives and
specialities to add to the wealth of knowledge of the world. This
new view of people could help improve the view of the future. The
old model looks down on population growth and people as a strain
on the environment rather than the increase of intellectual
contribution these individuals can make. However, access to the
Net needs to be universal for the Net to fully utilize the contribution
each person can represent. Once access is limited -- the Net and
those on the Net lose the possible advantages the Net can offer.
Lastly the people on the Net need to be active in order to bring
about the best possible use of the Network.
Licklider foresaw that the Net allows for people of common
interests, who are otherwise strangers, to communicate. Much of
the magic of the Net is the ability to make a contribution of your
ideas, and then be connected to utter strangers. He saw that people
would connect to others via this Net in ways that had been much
harder in the past. Licklider observed as the ARPAnet spanned two
continents. This physical connection allowed for wider social
collaborations to form. This was the beginning of computer data
networks facilitating connections of people around the world.
The Net is alive because of its use by ordinary people.
Pioneering research is happening, but the meat of the Net
experience is the normal everyday use of the Net. Thus I have
included many of the responses to my research in this paper. In
response to another survey of Net uses, Steve Cavrak recently wrote
the following to the COMMUNET mailing list: "The Internet is
NOT a place of 'innovative stories.' Rather it is a place of impres-
sively common, every day electronic activity. It is not a hot bed of
dangerous, high-tech, experimentation, it is a place where pretty
much ordinary people do their day to day work."
My research on and about the Net was very exciting for me.
When I posted my inquiries, I usually received the first reply within
a couple of hours. The feeling of receiving that very first reply from
a total stranger is always exhilarating! That set of first replies from
people reminds me of the magic of E-Mail. It is nice that there can
be reminders of how exciting it all is -- so that the value does not
become lost in the shuffle.
What follows is a collection and presentation of but a little of
the wonderful data that I received in the process of my research
utilizing the Net.
___________________________________________
A. CRITICAL MASS
The collection of individuals add to the interests and special-
ties of the whole. Most people can now gain something from the
Net, while at the same time helping it out. A critical mass has devel-
oped on the net. Enough people exist that the whole is now greater
than any one individual and thus makes it worthwhile to be part of
it. People are meshing intellects and knowledge to form new ideas.
As Larry Press said: "I now work on the Net at least 2 hours per
day. I've had an account since around 1975 but it has only become
super important in the last couple of years because a critical mass
of membership was reached. I no longer work in LA, but in
cyberspace."
Many technical people on the Net think only "their type"
currently inhabit the Net. Many different kinds of people are now
connected to the Net. Even the original users of the Net (then
several unconnected test-beds of network research) were not only
from exclusively technical and scientific communities. Previously,
the nets were only available in a few parts the world. Now however,
people of all ages, from most parts of the globe, and of many
professions make up the net.
From: Michael J.MacDonald
"One of the advantages that benefited a close friend of mine
was the immediate access to hundreds of people amateur and
professional .Her [health] prospects are much better than before
the week of network monitoring."
The original prototype networks (e.g., ARPAnet in the USA,
NPL in the United Kingdom, CYCLADES in France and other
networks around the world) developed the necessary physical
infrastructure for a fertile social network to develop. As Einar
Stefferud wrote,
"The ARPAnet has produced several monumental results.
First, it provided the physical and electrical communications
backbone for development of the latent social infrastructure we now
call 'THE INTERNET COMMUNITY.'" (ConneXions, Oct. 1989
vol 3 No. 10. p. 21)
Many different kinds of people comprise the Net. The
university community sponsors access for a broad range of people
(students, professors, staff, professor emeritus, etc) Many
businesses are also connected. A K-12 Net exists within the lower
grades of education which invite younger people to be a part of our
community. Special bulletin board software (e.g., Waffle) exists
to connect personal computer users to the Net. Various UNIX
bulletin board systems exist to connect other users. It is virtually
impossible to tell what kinds of people connect to public bulletin
board systems, as only a computer (or terminal) and modem are the
prerequisites to connect. Many if not all Fidonet BBS's (a very
common BBS type) have at least e-mail and many also participate
through a gateway to Netnews. Prototype community network
systems are forming around the world (e.g., Cleveland Freenet,
Wellington Citynet, Santa Monica Public Electronic Network
(PEN), Berkeley, Singapore) Access via these community systems
can be as easy as visiting the community library and membership
is open to all who live in the community.
In addition to the living body of resources this diversity of
Netizens represents, there is also a continuity growing body of
digitized data that forms another body of resources. Whether it is
Netizens digitizing great literature of the past (e.g., the Gutenberg
Project), or it is people gathering otherwise obscure or non-mainstream
material (e.g., various Religions, unusual hobbies, gay lifestyle,
fringe.), or if it is Netizens contributing new and original
material (e.g., The Amateur Computerist newsletter), the Net
follows in the great tradition of other public bottom-up institutions,
such as the public library or the principle behind public education.
The Net shares with these institutions that they serve the general
populace. This data is just part of the treasure. Often living Netizens
provide pointers to this digitized store of publically available
information. Many of the network access tools have been
programmed with the principle of being available to everyone. The
best example is the method of connecting to file repositories via ftp
(file transfer protocol) by logging in as "anonymous." Most (if not
all) WAIS (Wide Area Information Systems), and gopher sites are
open for all users of the Net. It is true that the current membership
of the Net Community is smaller than it will be, but the Net has
reached a point of general usefulness no matter who you are.
All of this is exactly why the Net can not be allowed to be
taken over by commercial entities. Once the commercial interests
gain control, the Net will be perverted so as to make it no longer
powerful for the ordinary person. Commercial interests vary from
those of the common person. They attempt to take profit from any
available way. Thus, the Netiquette of being helpful will soon have
a price tag attached if commercial interests are allowed to gain
control of distribution and ways of access. Adam Smith writes
about the difference in interests between the common person and
the business owner in The Wealth of Nations. Smith speaks about
manufacturers when he writes: "It comes from an order of men,
whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who
have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public,
and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived
and oppressed it." (Modern Library Edition., p. 250)
The Net has only developed because of the hard work and
voluntary dedication of many people. It has grown because the Net
is in the control and power of the people at a bottom-level, and
because these people developed it. People's posts and contributions
to the Net have been the developing forces. [See "The Social Forces
Behind the Development of Usenet News", The Amateur Computerist,
Volume 4, Issue 4/5]
____________________________________________
B. GRASS ROOTS:
The Net brings people together. People put into connection
with other people can be powerful. There is power in numbers. The
Net allows an individual to realize his power. The Net, uncontrolled
by commercial entities, becomes the gathering, discussion and plan-
ning center for many people.
The combined efforts of people interested in communication
has led to the development and expansion of the global
communications system. Ithiel de Sola Pool in Technologies
Without Boundaries wrote: "The system becomes part of the largest
machine that man has ever constructed -- the global telecommuni-
cations network. The full map of it no one knows; it changes every
day." (Cambridge, 1990, p. 56)
What's on the Net? Well -- Usenet News, Freenet, e-mail,
Libraries, ftp sites, free software, electronic newsletters and
journals, Multi-User Domain/Dungeon (mud)/mush/moo, internet
relay chat (irc) and many kinds of data banks. Different servers, like
WAIS and Gophers attempt to order and make utilizing the vast
varieties and wide spread information easier. There exist both
public and private services and sources of information. The public
and free services often come about through the voluntary efforts
of one or a few people. These technologies allow a person to help
make the world a better place by making his or her unique contribution
available to the rest of the world. People who have been overlooked
or have felt unable to contribute to the world, now can. Also, these
networks allow much more open and public interaction over a much
larger body of people than available before. The common people
have a unique voice -- which is now being aired in a new way.
The emphasis is that this new machine introduces every single
person as someone special and in possession of a useful resource.
"Simple -- by access to a vast amount of information and an
enormous number of brains!" Brian May
"For a geographically sparse group as it is, MU* allows
people to get to know one another, the relevant newsgroup gives
a sense that there's a community out there and things are happening,
and an associated ftp site allows art and writing to be distributed."
Simon Raboczi
"In summary, nets have helped enormously in the dissemina-
tion of information from people knowledgeable in certain areas
which would be difficult to obtain otherwise." Brent Edwards
"I get to communicate rapidly and cheaply with zillions of
people around the world." Rosemary Warren
The following examples help to show how this is possible.
People are normally unprotected from the profit desires of
large companies. Steven Alexander from California is using the Net
to try to limit the power of otherwise money-hungry oil companies.
This is an example of the power of connecting people to uphold
what is fair and in the best interest of the common person in this
society:
From: Steven Alexander
"I have started compiling and distributing (on the newsgroup
ca.driving) a list of gas prices at particular stations in California to
which many people will contribute and keep up to date, and which,
I hope, will allow consumers to counteract what many of us suspect
is the collusive (or in any case, price-gouging) behavior of the oil
companies."
Someone else from Germany also reported using the Net to
muckrake. He writes: "A company saying they were an e.V. --
which means that they do not make profit but do it all for the public
(eingetragener Verein). They did not give their phone number, but
their address.
They offered a mailbox-account including service for 70,00
DM and said they would like to connect you to others it was
clearly aimed at people who do not know anything about the
existing networks, thinking this was something new.
Asking publicly about this company resulted in the following:
Someone looked them up in the e.V. Register, where everyone
must be named before he can call himself e.V. (and pay less taxes),
they did not exist there.
And they did not exist in the IHK, where any company must
be named before they can claim to be one.
Someone else said that he had contact with the person who
sent the letter, only under another company-name, and that he
simply ignored this person since he looked like a swindler.
So they are swindlers, and people from the Net proved it to
us, we then of course did not engage with them at all.
Worst part is -- they look like they might be a suborganisation
of ********* which were recently discovered to try infiltrating
public-institutions by writing software for them containing backdoors
for their informal-organizations "
The Net has proved its importance in other contemporary
critical situations. As the only available line of communications,
the Net helped defeat the attempted coup in the ex-Soviet Union
in 1990. The members of the coup either did not know about or
understand what RELCOM was, or the connections proved resilient
enough for info about the coup to slip around the inside and out of
the country in time to inform the world and encourage resistance
to the coup. (See comp.risks article by Larry Press from 6 Sep 91)
The Net has also proved its value in providing a useful
medium for students to use. Students participating in the Chinese
Pro-Democracy movement have kept in touch with others around
the world via their fragile connection to the Net. The Net provided
an easy way of evading government censors to get news around the
world about events in China and to receive back encouraging
feedback. Such feedback is vital support to keep the fight on when
it seems impossible or seems wrong to do so. Students in France
used the French Minitel system to organize a successful fight
against plans to restrict admission to governmemt subsidized
universities by the French government.
The information flow on the Net is controlled by those who
use the Net. People actively provide the information that they
personally and other people want. This control is much more active
than what is provided by other forms of mass media. Television,
radio, magazines are all driven by who owns them and who writes
for them. The Net gives people a media they can control. This
control of information is a great power that has not been available
before to the common everyday person. Declan McCreesh explains
this by talking about access to the most up to date information.
From: Declan McCreesh
"You get the most up to date info. that people around the
world can get their hands on, which is great. For instance, the media
report who wins a Grand Prix, what happened and not a great deal
more. On the net, however, you can get top speeds, latest car and
technology developments, latest rumors, major debates as to
whether Formula 1 or Indy cars are better etc."
The Net helps to make the information available more
accurate because of the many-to-many or broadcast and read and
write capability. That new capability (which is not normally very
prevalent in our society) allows an actual participant or observer
to report something. This capability gives the power of journalism
or the reporter to individuals. This new medium allows the source
to report. This is true because the medium allows everyone on-line
to make a contribution while the old media control who reports and
what they say. The possibility of eyewitness accounts can make the
information more accurate. Also this opens up the possibility for
a grassroots network. Information is passed from person to person
around the world. Thus a German citizen learned about the
Chernobyl explosion from the Net before the German government
decided to release it to the public via the media. The connection is
people to people rather than governments to governments. Citizen
Journalists can now distribute to more than those they know person-
ally. The distribution of the writings of ordinary people is the
second step after the advent of the inexpensive personal computer
in the early 1980s. The personal computer and printer allowed
anyone to produce mass quantities of documents. Personal pub-
lishing is now joined by personal wide-distribution.
Not only is there grass-roots reporting, but the assumption that
filtering is necessary has been challenged. People can learn to sort
through the various opinions themselves. Steve Welch disagreed
with my first point, but agrees with discriminatory reading skills.
"When you get more information from diverse sources, you
don't always get more accurate information. However, you do
develop skills in discerning accurate information' Or rather, you
do if you want to come out of the infoglut jungle alive."
Governments who rule based on control of information have
been and will be undermined from the bottom up, if they have not
already and will succumb to the tides of democracy. As Dr. Sun
Yat-Sen of the Chinese Democracy Movement once said, "The
worldwide democratic trend is mighty. Those who submit to it will
prosper and those who resist it will perish." The Net reintroduces
the basic idea of democracy as people power to Netizens. Govern-
ments can no longer easily keep information from their people.
Many groups which do not have a strong established form of
communications in society have found the Net to be a powerful
tool. It has proved a fertile ground for groups which are not firmly
established in their local culture. For example, for people far away
from their homeland, the Net provides a new link.
From: Con Hennessy
"One use of e-mail is to send a weekly Irish news letter to
those interested with e-mail addresses. This letter is to keep those
Irish (and others) up to date with what has been in the news in
Ireland for the last 7 days. The amount is usually around 40K and
it is sent to over 1,500 addresses, with some of these addresses
forwarding and faxing further so that the estimate of final recipients
is 10,000."
From: Godfrey Nolan
"The Net has immeasurably increased the quality of my life.
I am Irish, but I have been living in England for the past five years.
It is a lot more difficult to get information about Ireland than you
would expect. However a man called Liam Ferrie who works in
Digital in Galway, compiles a newspaper on the weeks events in
Ireland and so I can now easily keep abreast of most developments
in Irish current affairs, which helps me feel like I'm losing touch
when I go home about twice a year. It is also transmitted to about
2000 Irish people all over the first and third worlds."
From: Madhur K. Limdi
"I read your above posting and wanted to share my experience
with you. I have been a frequent reader of news in Usenet groups!!
Such as soc.culture.indian, misc.news.southasia and both of these
keep me reasonably informed about the happenings in my home
country India."
For example in the United States, the Net has been proven as
stable communications for people of various religious and sexual
persuasion (homosexual people, Buddhists, Universalists, etc).
From: Carole E. Mah
"For me and many of my friends, the Net is our main form
of communication. Almost every aspect of interpersonal
communication on the network has a gay/lesbian/bi aspect to it that
forms a tight and intimate acquaintanceship which sometimes even
boils over into arguments and enmities. This network of
connections, friends, enemies, lovers, etc. facilitates political goals
that would not otherwise be possible (organizing letter-writing
campaigns about the Gays in the Military Ban via the ACT-UP list,
being able to send e-mail directly to the White House, finding out
about activism, bashing, etc. in other states and around the world,
etc)."
From: Greg "Wolves" Woodbury
" We will be going to a march on Washington and are
coordinating our plans and travel with a large number of other folks
around the country via e-mail and conversations on Usenet."
From: Jann VanOver
"I'm a member of a Buddhist organization and just found a
man in Berkeley who keeps a Mailing List that sends daily guidance
and discussions for this group. So I get a little religious boost when
I log on each day."
Many other communities have also found the Net to be a
excellent medium to help increase communications:
From: Rob Dean
"As a member of the science fiction community, I've met quite
a few people on the net, and then in person."
____________________________________________
C. COMMUNICATION WITH NEW PEOPLE
In many of the Netizens' lives the Net has alleviated feelings
of loneliness which seem extremely too prevalent in today's society.
The Net's ability to help people network both socially and
intellectually makes the Net valuable and irreplaceable in people's
lives. This is forming a group of people who want to keep the Net
accessible and open.
The Net brings together people from diverse walks of life, and
makes it easier for these people to communicate. It brings them all
together into the same virtual space and removes the impact or
influence of first impressions.
Malcolm Humes writes, "I'm in awe of the power and energy
linking thousands into a virtual intellectual coffee-house, where
strangers can connect without the formalities of face to face rituals
(hello, how are you today ) to allow a direct-connect style of
communication that seems to transcend the 'how's the weather' kind
of conversation to just let us connect without the bulls---."
Strangers are no longer strange on the Net. People are freed
to communicate without limits, fears or apprehension. As people
new to the Net find out quickly, there is a rather generous
atmosphere that thrives on the Net. People are happy to help others,
and eventually get help in return.
From: Jean-Francois Messier
"My use of the Net is to get in touch with more people around
the world. I don't know for what, when, how, but that's important
for me. Not that I'm in a small town, far from everybody, but that
I want to be able to establish links with others. In fact, because of
those nets I use, I would !NOT! want to go to a small town, just
because the phone calls would be too expensive. I've to say that I'm
not an expressive people. I'm not a great talker, nor somebody who
could make shows . I'm more an "introvert" ."
But yet Jean-Francois has made contact with me. This is an
example of the social power of the net.
From: Laura Goodin
"Last summer I was traveling to Denver and I used a listserv
mailing list to find out whether a particular running group I run with
had a branch there. They did, and I had a wonderful time meeting
people with a common interest (and drinking beer with them); I was
no longer a stranger."
____________________________________________
D. BROADENED AND WORLDLY PROSPECTIVE:
Easy connection to people and ideas from around the world
has a powerful effect. Awareness that we are just members of the
human species that spans the entire globe changes a person's point
of view. It is a broadening perspective. It is very easy for people
to assume a limited point of view if they are only exposed to certain
ideas. The Net brings the isolated individual into contact with
people, opinions, and views from the rest of the world. Exposure
to many possible opinions gives the reader a chance to actually
think something over before making a decision as to a personal
opinion. Having access to the "Marketplace of Ideas" allows a
person to make a reasoned judgement of something. Both James
Mill and Flint auto workers involved with their local union
newspaper believed in this principle. (see "The Computer as
Democratizer", The Amateur Computerist, Fall 1992, Vol. 4 No.
5 and "The Story of the Searchlight," Flint, Michigan, 1987.)
For example, from: Jean-Francois Messier
"My attitudes to other peoples, races and religions
changed, since I had more chances to talk with other peoples around
the world. When first exchanging mail with people from
Yellowknife, Yukon, I had a real strange feeling: Getting messages
and chatting with people that far from me. I noticed around me that
a lot of people have opinions and positions about politics that are
for themselves, without knowing others.
Because I have a much broader view of the world now, I
changed and am more conciliatory and peaceful with other people.
Writing to someone you never saw, changes the way you write,
also, the instancy of the transmission makes the conversation much
more 'live' than waiting for the damn slow paper mail.
Telecommunications opened the world to me and changed my
visions of people and countries ."
From: Anthony Berno
"I could not begin to tell you how different my life would be
without the Net. My life would be short about a dozen people, some
of them central, I would be wallowing in ignorance on several
significant subjects, and my mind would be lacking many
broadening and enlightening influences."
From: Henry Choy
"More things to look at. Increased perspective on life. The
computer network brings people closer together, and permits them
to speak at will to a large audience. I recommend that the
telecommunications and computer industry make large scale
computer networking accessible to the general public. It's like mak-
ing places accessible to the handicapped. People brought closer
together will release some existing social tensions. People need to
be heard, and they need to hear."
From: Paul Ready
"You don't have to go to another country to meet people from
there. It is not the same as personally knowing them, but I always
pay special attention to information from people outside the States.
They are likely to have a different perspective on things."
From: Leandra Dean
"I love to study people, and the Net has been the best possible
resource to this end. The Net is truly a window to the world, and
without it we could only hope to physically meet virtually
thousands of people every day to gain the same insights. I shudder
to think about how different and closed in my life would be without
the Net."
____________________________________________
E. MATERIAL CHANGES TO PEOPLE'S LIVES AND LIFESTYLES.
We live in the physical real world material space. The Net
forms a virtual space of information. The connections, interfaces
or collaborations between these two worlds form an interesting area
of study. Netizens attest to the power of the Net by explaining the
effect the Net has had on their lives. Because of the information
available and the new connections possible, people have both
changed the way they live their lives and material possessions they
have. There are examples of both changes in the material
possessions and changes in lifestyle. The changes to lifestyle are
probably the more profound changes, but the new connections
made possible are important. Often the material gains are not
financial, but rather the redistribution of worthwhile goods that
might have lost personal value but circulate among others who it
would be worthwhile for.
From: William Carroll
"Primarily because of the information and support from
rec.bikes, three years ago I gave up driving to work and started
riding my bike. Its one of the best decisions I've ever made."
A Response I received via E-Mail:
"When I started using ForumNet (a chat program similar to
irc, but smaller -- [Now called icb]) back in January 1990, I was
fairly shy and insecure I had a few close friends but was slow at
making new ones. Within a few weeks, on ForumNet, I found
myself able to be open, articulate, and well-liked in this virtual
environment. Soon, this discovery began to affect my behavior in
"real" face-to-face interaction. I met some of my computer friends
in person and they made me feel so good about myself, like I really
could be myself and converse and be liked and wanted.
Of course, computer-mediated social interaction is not
properly a crutch to substitute for face-to-face encounters, but the
ability to converse via keyboard and modem with real people at the
other end of the line has translated into the real-life ability for me
to reach out to people without the mediating use of a computer. My
life has improved. I wouldn't trade my experience with the Net for
anything."
From: Jack Frisch
" I must begin my comments on the Internet with one simple
yet significant statement: the availability and use of the Internet is
changing my life profoundly."
From: Carole E. Mah
" I also used to facilitate a vegetarian list, which radically
altered many people's lives, offering them access to mail-order
foods, recipes, and friendship via net-contact with people who live
in areas where non meat alternatives are readily available."
From: Charles Bandes
"I've spent three of my four years here at the Rhode Island
School of Design actively hooked into the net, and I've got to say
that it's been of great influence to me. I've met a number of
correspondents with whom I've swapped art and ideas, as well as
finding muds and mushes, where I was able to test out my ideas on
vast quantities of people. The ability to access information instantly
has changed my outlook on art to a certain degree, I've become very
interested in networked art, e-mail-art, hypertext, multimedia, and
mail art in general, and the Net is at least partially to thank for it.
I have swapped snail mail mail-art as well as digital images across
the country with artists I met online, as well as collaborating on
written projects via the net."
From: Jann VanOver
" Well, the first thing I thought of is purchases I've made
through the Net which have "changed my life" I drove my Subaru
Station wagon until last fall when I acquired a VW Camper van that
I saw on a local Net ad. I wasn't looking for a van, wasn't even
shopping for another vehicle, but the second time this ad scrolled
by me, I looked into it and eventually bought it. I will certainly say
that driving a 23 year old VW camper van has changed my life! I
thought I would be ridiculed, but have found that people have a lot
of respect and admiration for this car!
Through the Net, I heard that Roger Waters was going to
perform "The Wall" again, an event I had promised myself not to
miss, so I made a trip to Berlin (East and West) in 1990 to see this
concert. This was CERTAINLY a life changing event, seeing Berlin
less than one week after the roads were open with no checkpoints
required. I don't think I would have known about it soon enough
if not for the Net."
From: Rob Dean
"As for me, my main hobby is and was playing wargames and
role-playing games. Net access has allowed me to discuss these
games with players across the world, picking up new ideas, and
gathering opinions on new games before spending money on them.
In addition, I've been able to buy and sell games via Net connec-
tions, allowing me to adjust my collection of games to meet my
current interests, and get games that I no longer wanted to people
who do want them, whether they live down the road from me in
Maryland, or in Canada, Austria, Finland, Germany or Israel.
I have also taken an Esperanto course via e-mail, and corre-
spond irregularly in Esperanto with interested parties world wide."
From: Caryn K. Roberts
"Usenet & Internet (what I think you meant by "Net") are
available to me at work and by dialup connection to work from
home. I have been materially enriched by the use of the Net. I have
managed to sell items I no longer needed. I have been able to
purchase items from others for good prices. I have saved money
and am doing my part to recycle technology instead of adding
burdens to the municipal waste disposal service.
Using the Net I have also been enriched by discussions and
information found in numerous newsgroups from sci.med to
sci.skeptic to many of the comp.* groups. I have offered advice to
solve problems and have been able to solve problems I had by using
information in these forums."
____________________________________________
F. THE NET AS A SOURCE OF ENONMOUS RESOURCES:
Before the Net was known as an enormous social network,
it was developed to provide a sharing of resources. Many people
originally joined in order to take advantage of those information
resources they had heard about. The following are some examples
of ways Netizens utilize the information resources available on the
Net.
From: Tim North
"I'm faculty here at University and I use the Net as a major
source of technical information for my lectures, up-to-date product
information, and informed opinion. As such I find that I am con-
stantly better informed than the people around me. (That sounds
vain, but it's not meant to be. It's simply meant to emphasize how
strongly I feel that the Net is a superb information resource.)"
From: R.J. White
"I used the Net to find parts for my 1971 Opel GT. I was
living in North America at the time, and going through the normal
channels, like GM, are no good. The Net was like an untapped
resource."
From: John Harper
"Uses of the network (1) I once asked a question about an
obscure point in history of math. on the sci.math newsgroup and
got a useful answer from Exeter, UK. Beforehand I had no idea
where anyone knowing the answer might be. I had drawn a blank
in Oxford. (2) I asked a question about a slightly less obscure point
on comp.lang.fortran which generated a long (and helpful)
discussion on the Net for a week or two."
From: Paul Ready
"Yes, it is a worldwide rapid distribution center of infor-
mation, on topics both popular and obscure. It may not make the
information more valuable, but it certainly increases the
information, and the propagation of information. To those
connected, it is a valuable resource. Flame wars aside, a lot of
generally inaccessible information is readily available."
From: Lee Rothstein
"Usenet and mailing lists create a group of people who are
motivated and capable of talking about a specific topic. The soft-
ware allows deeply contextual conversations to occur with a mini-
mum of rehash. As experience develops with the medium, each user
realizes that the other that he talks to or will talk to generally help
him/her, and can do him/her no harm because of the remoteness
imposed by the cable."
From: Lu Ann Johnson
"Hi! Usenet came to my rescue -- I'm a librarian and was
working with a group of students on a marketing project. They were
marketing a make-believe product -- a compact disc of "music hits
of the 70's". They needed a source to tell them how much it cost
to produce a CD -- without mastering, etc. I exhausted all my print
resources so I posted the question in a business newsgroup. Within
hours I learned from several companies that it cost about $1.50 to
produce a CD :) The students were very grateful to get the infor-
mation."
From: Laura Goodin
"I teach self-defense, and just yesterday in rec.martial-art
someone posted information about a study on the effectiveness of
Mace for self-defense that I had been looking for for years."
From: Cliff Roberts
"I have been using Internet through a program in New Jersey
to bring the fields of Science and Math to grammar school children
grades K-8.
We have implemented a system where the class rooms are
equipped with PC's and are able to dial in to a UNIX system. There
they can send e-mail and post questions to a KidsQuest ID. The ID
then routes the questions to volunteers with accounts on UNIX. The
scientists then answer or give advice of where to find the infor-
mation they want.
Another well accepted feature is to list out the soc.penpals list
and e-mail people in different countries that are being studied in
the schools."
From: Joe Farrenkopf
"I think Usenet is a very interesting thing. For me, it's mostly
just a way to pass (waste :-) time when bored. However, I have
gotten some very useful things from it. There is one group in
particular called comp.lang.fortran, and on several occasions when
I've had a problem writing a program, I was able to post to this
group to get some help to find out what I was doing wrong. In these
cases, it was an invaluable resource."
____________________________________________
G. COLLECTIVE WORK
As new connections are made between people more ideas
travel over greater distances. This allows either like-minded people
or complementary people to come in touch with each other. The
varied resources of the networks allow these same people to keep
in touch even if they wouldn't have been able to be in touch before.
Electronic Mail allows enough detail to be contained in a message
that most if not all communications can take place entirely
electronically. This medium allows for new forms of collaborative
work to form and thrive. New forms of research will probably arise
from such possibilities. Here are some examples:
From: Wayne Hathaway
"One 'unusual' use I made of the Net happened in 1977. (Yep,
it existed and had most of the e-mail infrastructure in place by
then.)
Along with five other 'Net Folks' I wrote the following paper:
'The ARPAnet TELNET Protocol: Its Purpose, Principles, Imple-
mentation, and Impact on Host Operating System Design,' with
Davidson, Postel, Mimno, Thomas, and Walden: Fifth Data Com-
munications Symposium, Snowbird, UT; September 27-29, 1977.
What's so unusual about a collaborative paper, you ask?
Simply that the six of us never even made a TELEPHONE call
about the paper, much less had a meeting or anything. Literally
EVERYTHING -- from the first ideas in a 'broadcast' mail to the
distribution of the final 'troff-ready' version -- was done with
e-mail.
These days this might not be such a deal, but it was interesting
back then."
From: Paul Gillingwater
"About the most interesting thing here in Vienna was an
on-line computer mediated art forum earlier this month, with video
conferencing between two cities, plus an on-line discussion in a
virtual MUD-type conference later that evening."
A Response I received via e-mail:
"In response to your question about having fun on the net, and
being creative, one incident comes to mind. I had met a woman on
ForumNet (a system like IRC). She and I talked and talked about
all sorts of things. One night, we felt especially artistic. We
co-wrote a poem over the computer. I'd type a few words, she'd
pick up where I left off (in the middle of sentences or wherever)
and on and on. I don't think we had any idea what it was going to
be in the end, thematically or structurally.
In the end, we had a very good poem, one that I would try to
publish if I knew her whereabouts anymore "
____________________________________________
H. IMPROVING QUALITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE
Information flow can take various shapes. The strangest and
perhaps most interesting one is how emotion can be attached to
information flow. They often seem like two very different things.
I received a large number of responses that reported real-life mar-
riages arising from Net meetings. The Net facilitates the meeting
of people of like interests The newness of the Net means we can
not fully understand it as of yet.
From: Caryn K. Roberts
"I have found friends on the Net. A lover. And two of the
friends I met, also met online and got married. I attended the wed-
ding (in California)."
From: Scott Kitchen
"I think I can add something for your paper. I met my fiancee
4 years ago over the net. I was at Ohio State, and she was in
Princeton, and we started talking about an article of hers I'd read
in rec.games.frp. We got to talking, eventually met, found we liked
each other, and the rest is history. We'll be marrying soon. Scott
Kitchen (e-mail) Jennifer Doyle (e-mail)"
From: jj
"Well, I met my spouse by having an argument with her about
how to make pie crust in net.cooks. recipes (this was a while ago,
needless to say)."
From: Greg "Wolves" Woodbury
"I met the woman who became my wife when I started talking
to the folks at "phs" (the third site of the original Usenet) during
the development of NetNews. I would not have been wandering
around that area if I hadn't been interested in the development of
the net."
From: Laura Goodin
"And now, the BEST story: about eight months ago I was
browsing soc.culture.australia and I noticed a message from an
Australian composer studying in the US about an alternative tune
to "Waltzing Matilda." I was curious, so I responded in e-mail,
requesting the tune and just sort of shooting the breeze. We began
an e-mail correspondence that soon incorporated voice calls as well.
One thing led inexorably to another and we fell in love (before we
met face to face, actually). We did eventually meet face to face.
Last month he proposed over the Internet (in soc.culture.australia)
and I accepted. Congratulatory messages came in from all over the
United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Houston (that's his
name) and I keep our phone bills from resembling the national debt
by sending 10 or 12 e-mails a day (we're well over 1400 for eight
months now), and chatting using IRC. A long-distance relationship
is hellish, but the pain is eased somewhat by the Internet."
From: Chuq Von Rospach
"(oh, and in the "how the Net made my non-net life better"
category, I met my wife via the net. Does that count?)"
____________________________________________
I. WORK
The fluid connections and the rapidly changing nature of the
networks make the Net a welcome Media for job hunters and job
placers. The Networks have a large turnover of people who are
looking for jobs. The advertising is free and can be perpetuated as
long as the job is offered. E-mail allows for the quick and easy
applications by sending resumes in the e-mail. Companies can
respond quickly and easy to such submissions, also by e-mail.
Besides finding work, the Net helps people who are currently
working preform their job in the best manner. Many people utilize
the Net to assist them with their jobs. Several examples of both
follow:
From: Laura Goodin
"My division successfully recruited a highly-qualified consult-
ant (a Finn living in Tasmania) to do some work for us; the initial
announcement was over Usenet; subsequent negotiations were
through e-mail."
From: jj
"I've hired people off the net, and from meeting them in muds,
when I find somebody who can THINK. People who can think are
hard to find anywhere."
From: Diana Gregory
"I have learned to use UNIX, and as a result may be able to
keep/advance in my job due to the 'net."
From: Neil Galarneau
"It helps me do my job (MS Windows programming) and it
helps me learn new things (like C++)."
From: Kieran Clulow
"The Internet access provided me by the university has greatly
facilitated my ability to both use and program computers and this
has had the direct result of improving my grades as well as gaining
me a good job in the computer field. Long live the Internet (and
make it possible for private citizens to get access!)"
From: Mark Gooley
"I got my job by answering a posting to a news-group."
From: Anthony Berno
"I develop for NEXTSTEP, and the Net is very useful in
getting useful programming hints, info on product releases, rumors,
etcetra."
From: Greg "Wolves" Woodbury
"Due to contacts made via Usenet and e-mail, I got a job as
a consultant at BTL in 1981 after I lost my job at Duke. Part of the
qualifications that got me in the door was experience with Usenet."
From: Carole E. Mah
" Lastly, the network helped my best friend get a job, helped
me find an apartment one year."
____________________________________________
J. IMPROVED COMMUNICATIONS WITH FRIENDS
Another way of improving daily life is by making communications
with friends easier. The penning of a computer letter is making the
art of letter writing no longer a thing of the past. However, the
immediacy of e-mail means less care is made in the process of
writing. E-mail, IRC and netnews allows keeping in touch with
friends outside one's local area much easier.
From: Carole E. Mah
"It also facilitates great friendships (most of my friends, even
in my own town, I met on the network. This can often alleviate
feelings of loneliness and "I'm the only one, I must be a pervert"
feelings among queer people just coming out of the closet they
have a whole world of like-minded people to turn to on Usenet,
on Bitnet lists, on IRC, in personal e-mail, on BBSs and A.O.L.
type conferences, etc."
From: Bill Walker
"I also have an old and dear friend (from high school) who
lives in the San Francisco area. After I moved to San Diego, we
didn't do very well at keeping in touch. She and I talked on the
phone a couple of times a year. After we discovered we were both
on the net, we started corresponding via e-mail, and we now
exchange mail several times a week. So, the Net has allowed me
to keep in much closer touch with a good friend. It's nothing that
couldn't be done by phone, or snail mail, but somehow we never
got around to doing those things. E-mail is quick, easy and fun
enough that we don't put it off."
From: Anthony Berno
"Incidentally, it is also one of my primary modes of commun-
ication with my sister (who lives in N.Z.) It's more meditative than
a phone call, faster than a letter, and cheaper than either of them."
From: Jann VanOver
"Apart from purchases, I have been contacted by:
1) a very good friend from college who I'd lost track of. SHE
got married to a man she met in a singles newsgroup (they've been
married 2 years+)
2) someone who went to my high school, knew a lot of the
same people I did, but we didn't know each other. We are now
"mail buddies"
3) an old girlfriend of my brothers. They went out for eight
years, but I learned more about her from ONE e-mail letter than I
had ever learned when meeting her in person."
From: Godfrey Nolan
"Above all it helps me keep in touch with friends who I would
inevitably lose otherwise. The Net helps those that move around
for economic reasons to lessen the worst aspects of leaving your
friends in the series of places that you once called home.
It's the best thing since sliced bread."
____________________________________________
K. PROBLEMS
With all of the positive uses and advantages of the Net, it is
still not perfect. The blind-view of people on the Net seems to
shield everyone, but women. There is a relatively large male to
female percentage population on the Net. The women feel the
effects of this difference. Women who have easily identifiable user
names or IDs are prone to be the center of much attention. While
that might be good in itself, much of that attention can be of a
hostile or negative nature. This attention might be detrimental to
women being active on the Net. Net harassment can spread against
other users too. People with unpopular ideas need to be strong to
withstand the outlash of abuse they might receive from others.
The worst non-people problem seems to be information
overflow. Information adds up very quickly and it can be hard to
organize it all and sort through. This problem should be able to be
solved as the technology is developed to handle what is now
possible. As my last quote in this section describes, users can be
harassed by other users for whatever purposes, and by the inactivity
of the power structure to respond to such problems. This is a
problem that will be hard to deal with as it concerns politics and
power, but one of the most important.
From: Scott Hatton
"There is a problem with this brave new world in that a lot of
people don't appreciate there's another human being at the other
keyboard. Flaming is a real problem -- especially in comp.misc.
This is all a new facet of the technology as well. People rarely trade
insults in real life like they do on Internet. There's a tendency to
stereotype your opponent into categories. I think this is because
you're not around to witness the results. I find this more on Internet
newsgroups than on CompuServe. I think this is down to maturity
-- a lot of folk on the Internet are students who aren't paying for
their time on the system. Those on CompuServe are normally
slightly older, not so hot-headed and are paying for their time.
Damn. Now I'm at stereotyping now. It just goes to show "
From: Joe Farrenkopf
"There is something else I've discovered that is really rather
fascinating. People can be incredibly rude when communicating
through this medium. For example, some time ago, I posted a
question to lots of different newsgroups, and many people felt my
question was inappropriate to their particular group. They wrote
to me and told me so, using amazingly nasty words. I guess it's
easier to be rude if you don't have to face a person, but can say
whatever you want over a computer."
From: Brad Kepley
"I get a little irritated with people always claiming someone
else is wasting bandwidth' because they disagree with them. About
half the time it turns out that the person being told to shut up was
right after all. Then again, when you look at things like
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica and other non-bandwidth-wasting'
activities, it seems almost comical to me when someone says this.
There is nothing more wasteful than 95% of what Usenet is used
for. It's a joke to say that a particular person is wasting' it. To say
that they are off-topic makes more sense.
I guess this is just a gripe rather than what you are looking for.
Wasting bandwidth again. :)"
From: Patt Leonard
"In response to your request for examples of harassment on
the net, I would point you to some of the older (four months? five
months?) discussion on the Usenet newsgroup soc.culture.soviet.
To generalize grossly, some of the male Russians and Russian
emigres are really savage toward women on the net, and willing to
gleefully hound them off with obscenities and hostile messages.
There was an American women (signed her name Patricia Schwartz,
I think, though her mail header said Margaret or maybe I have
that backwards) there was this American woman, staying in
Moscow, posting her impressions of the city, and some poetry, and
whatever else she felt like. I didn't care for her poetry, but some of
her observations were interesting. The Russian men (not all of them
-- some of them defended her) were merciless to her. She posted
a note saying she had had a miscarriage, and some man wrote back,
saying he wished that she had bled to death. Their harassment was
not of me *directly*, but these messages created an environment
so hostile, that I am reluctant to post anything on that group. It is
a very male-dominated discussion, and that is due, in part, to the
fact that some men posting on it are so unrestrained in their
misogyny."
____________________________________________
CONCLUSION
Despite the problems, for people of the world, the Net
provides a powerful way of peaceful assembly. Peaceful assembly
allows people to take control over their lives, rather than control
being in the hands of others. This power has to be honored and
protected. Any medium or tool that helps people to hold or gain
power is something that is special and has to be protected. (See
"The Computer as Democratizer" in The Amateur Computerist, Vol.
4 No. 5, Fall 1992)
The Net has made a valuable impact on human society. As
my research has demonstrated, people's lives have been
substantially improved via their connection to the Net. This sets the
basis for providing access to all in society. As J.C.R. Licklider and
Robert Taylor wrote: "For the society, the impact will be good or
bad depending mainly on the question: Will `to be on line' be a
privilege or a right? If only a favored segment of the population
gets a chance to enjoy the advantage of `intelligence amplification,'
the network may exaggerate the discontinuity in the spectrum of
intellectual opportunity." (Licklider and Taylor, p.40)
Society will improve if Net access is made available to people
as a whole. Only if access is universal will the Net itself advance.
The ubiquitous connection is necessary for the Net to encompass
all possible resources. One Net visionary responded to my research
by calling for universal access. Steve Welch writes: "If we can get
to the point where anyone who gets out of high school alive has
used computers to communicate on the Net or a reasonable facsim-
ile or successor to it, then we as a society will benefit in ways not
currently understandable. When access to information is as ubiqui-
tous as access to the phone system, all Hell will break loose. Bet
on it."
Steve is right, "all Hell will break loose" in the most positive
of ways imaginable. Thomas Paine, Jean Jacques Rousseau, those
responsible for the Bill of Rights and French Declaration of the
Rights of Man, and the all fighters for democracy would have been
proud.
As Licklider predicted, the Net is fundamentally changing the
way people live and work. Summing up the important potential of
the Net, Paul Ready observed: "News and transfer of data are
revolutionary in their speed and the way they are done. It is likely
to change the way things are produced in the future just as other
advances in communications in the past did: roads, printing presses,
relayed "pony express" mail, railroad, cars, airplanes, tv/radio, and
the telephone have all dramatically changed the way things were
done, and computers already are too."
____________________________________________
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hauben, Michael, "The Social Forces Behind the Development
of Usenet News", The Amateur Computerist Vol 5 No 1-2, Winter/Spring
1993.
Hauben, Michael, "The Computer as Democratizer", The Amateur
Computerist Vol 4 No 5, Fall 1992.
Licklider, J.C.R and Albert Vezza, "Applications of
Information Systems", Proceedings of the IEEE, Nov 1978.
Licklider, J.C.R. and Robert Taylor, "The Computer as a
Communication Device" from "In Memoriam: J.C.R. Licklider
1915-1990," Aug. 7, 1990, p. 40; reprinted by permission from
Digital Research Center; originally published as "The Computer
as a Communication Device," in Science and Technology, April,
1968, p. 40.
Personal Computing, October 1989, (Special Issue "Computing
in America IV"), "Fighting City Hall at 2400 Baud", p. 170-172.
Quarterman, John, The Matrix, Digital Press, Bedford, Mass.,
1990.
Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, London, 1776.
Stefferud, Einar, in "ConneXions", Vol 3 No 10, October 1989,
p. 21.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[12]
Proposed Declaration of the Rights of Netizens
[Note: The following is a beginning effort to put together a
Declaration of the Rights of Netizens and a request for other Net-
izens contributions, ideas, and suggestions of what rights should
be included.]
In recognition that the Net represents a revolution in human
communications that was built by a cooperative non-commercial
process, the following Declaration of the Rights of the Netizen is
presented for Netizen comment.
As Netizens are those who take responsibility and care for the
Net, the following are proposed to be their rights:
* Universal access at no or low cost
* Freedom of Electronic Expression to promote
the exchange of knowledge without fear of reprisal
* Uncensored Expression
* Access to Broad Distribution
* Universal and Equal access to knowledge and information
* Consideration of one's ideas on their merits
* No limitation to access to read, to post and to otherwise
contribute
* Equal quality of connection
* Equal time of connection
* No Official Spokesperson
* Uphold the public grassroots purpose and participation
* Volunteer Contribution -- no personal profit from the
contribution freely given by others
* Protection of the public purpose from those who
would use it for their private and money making purposes
The Net is not a Privilege but a Right. It is only valuable when
it is collective and universal. Volunteer effort protects the intellec-
tual and technological common-wealth that is being created. DO
NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE NET AND
NETIZENS.
Inspiration from: RFC 3 (1969), Thomas Paine, Declaration
of Independence (1776), Declaration of the Rights of Man and of
the Citizen (1789), NSF Acceptable Use Policy, Jean Jacques
Rousseau, and the current cry for Democracy worldwide.
--------------------------------------------------------------
" What's past is prologue; what to come, in yours and my discharge."
William Shakespeare
----------------------------------- -------------------------------------
| ELECTRONIC EDITION AVAILABLE | | EDITORIALSTAFF |
| | | |
|Starting with vol 4, no 2-3, The | | RondaHauben |
|Amateur Computerist has become | | William Rohler |
|available via electronic mail. | | Norman O. Thompson |
|To obtain a copy, send e-mail to:| | Michael Hauben |
| | | Jay Hauben |
| au329@cleveland.freenet.edu | | |
| or | |The Amateur Computerist invites |
| jrh@umcc.umich.edu | |contributions of articles, letters,|
| | |etc. Send submissions to: R. Hauben|
|Also, The Amateur Computerist is | |P.O. Box 250101, NY, NY 10025-1531.|
|available via anonymous FTP: | |Articles can be accepted on paper, |
| | |or on IBM disk in ASCII format, or |
| wuarchive.wustl.edu | |via e-mail. A one year subscription|
| | |costs $10.00 (US). Add $2.50 for |
| It is stored in the directory: | |foreign postage. Make checks pay- |
| /doc/misc/acn | |able to: R. Hauben. |
----------------------------------- |Permission is given to reprint |
------------------------------------ |articles from this issue in a non |
|The opinions expressed in articles| |profit publication provided credit |
|are those of their authors and not| |is given, with name of author and |
|necessarily the opinions of The | |source cited, and a copy of the |
|Amateur Computerist newsletter. | |publication is sent to the Amateur |
|The Editors welcome submissions | |Computerist newsletter |
|from a spectrum of viewpoints. | ------------------------------------
------------------------------------