No Fragments Archive 10: Diskmags/nf_archive_10.iso/MAGS/KELSTAR/KELSTR3A.MSA/TEXT_INTERNET.TXT

Text File | 1989-07-27 | 52KB | 988 lines

One of the most covered topics these days in any kind of computer
magazine is the Internet,what it is,why it is,where it is.To be honest
I haven`t got a bloody clue about any of it.The following has been
downloaded from a BBS for me by Gary Simmons and hopefully will go
some way to answering any questions you may have about the information
super-highway.*Bob*



                        THE INTRODUCTION
                      ====================



README for Introduction to Internet Packages

This file is currently available in three formats:

(1) ASCII text
(2) Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0b
(3) Paper Typeset

The enclosed document is a twenty page handout which accompanied a
symposium the author gave on the Internet. Because of the nature of
the Internet, some of the information is out of date. A new version
of the document is in the works and should be available in early
1994. Contact the author, [e-mail], for more
details.

If you find the information in the handout to be interesting and/or
useful, the author requests that you send a postcard (to the address
below) so he can get and idea of just how wide its distribution is.

If you would like a printed copy of the document, send $4 in US funds
an an 8.5x11 self-addressed, stamped envelope to:

        David B. O'Donnell
        15 Everett Ave.
        Providence, RI 02906-3321 USA

*** NOTE ***
The "Introduction to the Internet" document is Copyright 1993 by
David B. O'Donnell. It may be freely redistributed to any online
information system, electronic BBS and Internet FTP site with the
condition that this text file accompany all copies.

If you are interested in contributing to the next edition of the
document or would like to translate the document into a new format
(such as Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, TeX, SCRIPT, etc.)
please contact the author at [e-mail].




                          THE ARTICLE
                       =================




[Author's Note: This document has been converted from Microsoft Word for
Windows 2.0b format. Much of the layout has been necessarily stripped. Hard
copies of the formatted document are available from the author; write to him
at [e-mail], or send postal mail to:

    David B. O'Donnell
    15 Everett Ave
    Providence RI USA 02906-3321

A small charge will be assessed to cover costs of duplication and mailing.]

Introduction to THE INTERNET
-by David B. O'Donnell




Welcome to the Internet! This handout is intended to complement the brief
introduction I am giving you today. Information in this document will be in
more depth than our talk and will cover topics I don't have time to discuss
with you today. I hope that you will use this handout as a kind of "tourist's
guide" to the services and power of the Internet.


Throughout this handout you will see instances of the symbol to the left. The
sections it appears next to cover topics I consider to be fairly "advanced".
They won't be covered in any depth in our talk and may not be discussed at
all. Consider them future challenges for you to get out there and plumb the
depths of the world's largest collection of networks!


The symbol to the left of this paragraph introduces a section of the handout
which will be covered during the Internet talk. It is also used to indicate
when 'advanced' topics are over.



Organization
This handout is organized into seven sections as shown below:

Section One:            Introduction
Section Two:            E-mail
Section Three:            Files
Section Four:            Traveling
Section Five:            Other Services
Section Six:            Notes
Section Seven:            Index to Topics

The primary thrust of the talk will be on sections One and Two, with some
brief stops in the remaining sections. Section Six is actually a blank page
for you to jot down notes.


Contacting the Author
If you have questions that this handout and the discussion don't cover, or you
would simply like to get in touch with me, send RFC 822 compliant e-mail (see
Section Two) to one of the addresses below:
    [e-mail]
    [e-mail]
Be sure to include your name and a subject which is indicative of the mail-I
occasionally get so deluged with e-mail that even I have to prioritize, and
personal mail ranks highest after my LISTSERV management tasks.

Resources
Some of the information in this handout comes from !%@:: A Dictionary of
Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks, Second Edition, by Donnalyn Frey and
Rick Adams. This "dictionary" is published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc.,
located at 632 Petaluma Ave, Sebastopol CA 95472. The publishers can be
reached via e-mail at:
    [e-mail]
Many other sources of information were used; I would like to thank all of them
for their indispensable assistance and information. Thanks particularly to the
membership of the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) LISTSERV forum,
located at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern
California, Marina del Rey, for their speedy reply to my e-mail inquiries.
Thanks also to Peter DiCamillo of Brown University for pointing me in the
direction of IETF, and to David Bogartz of Ziff Desktop Information for his
insightful suggestions and Macintosh information. Information on gopher was
obtained, over gopher, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
BITFTP information comes from the BITFTP service at Princeton University.
Special thank-yous go to Mark Lottor, Ole Jacobsen, Alex Bochannek, Frank
Solensky, Donald Eastlake III and Sheryl Frez for their data and graphics,
which made my numbers more accurate and gave me a "bigger picture" on the
scope of the Internet. Information on FIDOnet was gleaned primarily from Gene
Raymond, to whom I owe a debt larger than can be expressed here. STAR TREK:
THE NEXT GENERATION and STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE characters are registered
trademarks of Paramount Pictures. I would also like to thank my friends Julie,
Carole and Yvonne for providing much-needed editorial comments. Finally, much
of this handout is based on personal experience of the author. Any errors are,
naturally, the fault of the author only.

Publication Specifications
This handout was produced in Microsoft Word for Windows*. The cover page,
footer graphic and "advanced" and "topical" graphics were created in Corel
DRAW!* and imported into Word as 300-DPI TIFF images.

Body and footnote text for this handout is set in Monotype Calisto. Paragraph
headers and figure/chart text are Univers; section heads, title and drop cap
are Monotype Bodoni Bold Condensed and "computer" text is Univers Condensed.



Section One: INTRODUCTION

Who Am I?
You might be asking yourself, "Just who is this David O'Donnell and why is he
going on about the Internet?" Well, I have been working and playing with
computers since the early 1980's, and I've been traveling the world networks
since 1986. I have several accounts which have access to the Internet; own and
manage four Internet e-mail conferences while participating in over a dozen
more; and maintain a healthy presence on the FIDO and RIME BBS networks.

The Internet: 'No Matter Where You Go, There You Are.'
Although its name-the Internet-implies one gigantic network, in fact the
Internet is a loose collection of networks which literally spans the globe.

CREATION. The Internet did not have a specific date of birth:  in 1969 the
United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) started an
experimental packet-switched host-to-host  network called ARPANET. This
network expanded to include military sites (MILNET) and other non-
classified government networks. In 1982, ARPANET joined with MILNET and others
and "the Internet" was born. Today the Internet has connections in the United
States, Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, Europe, the former Soviet
Union and client states, Australia, the Pacific Basin and Asia. Currently the
Internet has links in over 40 nations with over sixty thousand sites. Gateways
to other networks such as BITNET, JANET and EUnet make connecting all across
the world virtually seamless.

GROWTH. The Internet is growing at a phenomenal rate. Today technology allows
virtually anyone with a personal computer and modem to connect to one of the
dozens of "sub" Internets via e-mail. It is becoming common for the more
powerful personal computers and workstations to have "direct connections"
which allow other services such as FTP and TELNET (see Sections Three and
Four). It is estimated that nearly two million computers are connected to the
Internet and its subnetworks and that over nineteen million people have
accounts on hosts with some kind of Internet linkage.



Excerpts from the January 1993 Internet Domain Survey. (Produced quarterly by
the Network Information Systems Center at SRI International; contact Mark
Lottor [e-mail] for more information.)


         Jan. 1993  Oct. 1992  Jul. 1992  Apr. 92  Jan. 92  Change
Hosts:   1 313 000  1 136 000  992 000    890 000  727 000  80.6%+
Domains: 21 000     18 100     16 300     20 000   17 000   23.5%+


To ping every host on the Internet would take 37 hours assuming a reply time
of 100 milliseconds. Given an average of ten users per Internet host, there
were approximately thirteen million people "on" the Internet in January 1993.

If every user were registered with network name servers, the birthday daemon
would have to deliver some 35,600 e-mail announcements per day.

For more information, check out the following directories on host
ftp.nisc.sri.com:
    pub/zone
    pub/zone/iso-country-codes
For information on the census program used to create the Domain Survey, see
technical report UCSC-CRL-92-34 located on the host ftp.cse.ucsc.edu.


Section Two:  E-MAIL

Basic Information
Everyone is familiar with the idea of mail, and e-mail is probably nothing new
to you-after all, e-mail is only an extension of the familiar, right? E-mail
is more than just an extension, however. It's practically a new medium, only
vaguely related to "surface" mail.

Briefly put, e-mail is an electronic document transmitted from a sender to one
or more recipients. It is composed of two basic pieces: a header and the body.
These are characteristics shared by all e-mail in existence today. Beyond this
preliminary description, however, similarities can vanish.

One of the most interesting features of the Internet is that virtually every
personal computer, minicomputer and maiframe can connect to it in one fashion
or another. There are easily a dozen operating systems in use on the Internet:
VM, VMS, MVS, ULTRIX, DOS, UNIX, NeXTSTEP, OS/2, Macintosh System , and so on.
Nearly every operating system has its own e-mail style, as will be covered
later in this handout. To overcome the mess of competing "standards", the
Internet had adopted a particular format for e-mail. Based on the RFC (Request
for Comments) 822, it is called RFC 822-compliant e-mail.

Requests for Comments are documents drawn up by scholars, researchers and
computer scientists in an attempt to help provide working standards for the
Internet. Many file servers on both the Internet and BITNET maintain
repositories of some or all of these documents. If you know of a particular
RFC you are interested in getting hold of, check out these sites:
    educom.edu
    BITNIC
Another good way to search is to use the archie service (see Section Three)
and search on either RFC or RFCxxxxx, replacing xxxxx with the number of the
document you're seeking.

RFC 822 Compliant Addressing
Don't let the imposing name deter you from exploring further! As explained
above, all e-mail consists of two parts: a header and the body. The header
contains a series of informative lines which tell the mailing system where to
deliver to mail and provide basic memorandum-like information for the sender
and recipient(s). The body generally consists of free-form text. However,
technological advances are making it possible to imbed graphics, sound, and
even full-motion video in the body of e-mail. Some computers, such as the NeXT
machine, already have this capability.

THE HEADER. If you imagine e-mail as a form of advanced memoranda, it's easy
to come up with the basic information needed in an e-mail header. The header
lines consist of a tag which identifies the information and the information
itself. All tags end in a colon and are followed by white space: one or more
spaces or TABs. Tag information is text which may or may not be in a
particular format, depending on the tag it applies to. RFC 822 allows for
"wrapping" on lines whose contents exceed the informal eighty-character line
length standard; wrapped lines are identifiable by the first character on
subsequent lines being white space.

    Date:        Friday, 26 March 1993; 22:18:45 EST
    To:        [e-mail] (David B. O'Donnell),
            [e-mail]
    From:        [e-mail] (Dr. Julian Bashir)
    Subject:    Failed mail to user [e-mail]?
    Cc:        [e-mail]

In fact, the text above does constitute a fully legal Internet mail header,
even though the originator and carbon copy recipient addresses are fakes. The
absolute minimum tags required to address e-mail on the Internet consist of
the Date:, To: and From: tags. All others are unnecessary though in practice a
great many more are used. Internetters being the industrious folk that we are,
the list of frequently used header items is much larger. In fact, it would not
be out of the ordinary to receive e-mail where the header lines number in the
dozens and the header tags (the words suffixed with colons) are numbered in
the tens.

Some Additional Common E-mail Header Tags:
Received:   Return-Path:  Full-Name:        Mailer:         X-tag:
Resent-tag: BCC:          Message-Content:  X-400-Address:  Comment:
Reply-To:   In-Reply-To:  Organization:     Message-ID:     Sender:

In general, one can include almost any kind of information in the e-mail
header. For example, it is not uncommon to see a tag called "X-Face:" which
contains a compressed graphical image some mail systems can decompress and
display at the user's terminal. Under RFC 822 any tag which begins with "X-"
is considered an extension to the listed set and can safely be ignored by e-
mail processing systems.

THE BODY. The body of e-mail is separated from the header by exactly one blank
line. The RFC 822 specification does not state what format the body
information must appear in, but the vast majority of e-mail on the Internet
today consists of eighty-character-wide lines of ASCII text.

ADDRESSING E-MAIL. To address e-mail it is necessary to know the recipient's
e-mail address. Similar to the postal address we all have, an e-mail address
is a means of identifying where on the Internet a person can be contacted. For
example: I can be reached by several addresses, including atropos@net-
lab.cis.brown.edu; I consider it to be my primary e-mail address.

Addresses are divided into two parts: the userID and the host domain (or
domain name). Unless the recipient of your e-mail resides on the same Internet
host as you, it will always be necessary to specify both the userID and host
domain when sending a piece of e-mail to another person.

The userID is fairly straightforward: it is a collection of letters and
possibly numbers which is used by the host to reference the user. In the case
of my e-mail address, 'atropos' is my userID. The composition of the host
domain, on the other hand, is somewhat more complex.

The host domain string is a hierarchical assemblage of components which-if
properly constructed-should identify just where in the Internet a user is
coming from. The host domain proceeds from left to right in order of
increasing generality of location. In other words, if we dissect the domain
name from my e-mail address (netlab.cis.brown.edu) we see that I am in the
educational domain (edu), am located at Brown University (brown), and that the
computer I log in to, netlab, is part of Computing and Information Services
(cis). Realistically speaking it is fairly unusual for a host domain string to
be that clear to human beings-and I am aided in this dissection by the fact
that I already know all this information-but it is generally possible to glean
at least some information about the user from the domain name portion of their
e-mail address.

Because the networks that historically began the Internet were located in the
United States, most sites in the US, Canada and US overseas installations
follow a breakdown into six generic domains:

*  EDU:  These are educational sites, such as universities
         (example: brown.edu, Brown University)
*  COM:  These are commercial sites, generally large corporations with research
         facilities attached to the Internet
         (example: lotus.com, Lotus Development Corporation)
*  GOV:  These are non-military government sites
         (example: nasa.gov, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
*  MIL:  These are military installations
         (example: wsmr-simtel20.mil, White Sands Missile Range)
*  ORG:  These are non-commercial, non-network sites and gateways
         (example: fidonet.org, the FIDOnet*Internet gateway)
*  NET:  These are other networks to which e-mail must traverse a gateway
         (example: uunet.uu.net, the UUCP*Internet gateway)

The "rest of the world" uses a domain-naming standard which makes use of two-
character country abbreviations (de for Germany, se for Sweden, uk for the
United Kingdom, et cetera). Within the domains the hierarchical schemes can
vary but the most common variation is to include a US-style identifier for the
type of installation the user is at. For example: j_q_user@captain-
kirk.yoyodyne.usydney.edu.au identifies someone at the University of Sydney in
Australia.  It is becoming more common in the US for sites-particularly small
ones-to adopt this naming strategy as well. Therefore someday you may well be
able to send e-mail to [e-mail].

Common E-mail Programs and Platforms
The following are some of the most common platforms and operating systems
which can send and/or receive Internet mail; also given where applicable are
the common e-mail system(s) for each entry.

UNIX. UNIX systems are particularly common on the Internet. Many "pay-as-you-
go" and "free" Internet hosts use UNIX as their operating system.

UNIX comes with an e-mail system called, appropriately enough, mail. It can
send and receive Internet e-mail and UUCP mail, the original built-in mail
network. A more useful e-mail program is available on nearly every UNIX
system, elm. Elm uses a menu-driven interface and allows users to set up
aliases for frequent e-mail recipients, specify the text editor of their
choice, maintain a simple calendar and reminder system and categorize e-mail
into 'folders'.

VMS. VMS systems are also fairly common on the Internet and there are several
sites where access can be purchased. DEC calls its e-mail technology "DECnet";
although the name implies a network, this is not the case; DECnet is only the
technology.

VMS also comes with a built-in e-mail system called MAIL. While VMS systems
can send and receive Internet mail, it is not always easy to do so using the
internal mailing system. The VMS mail system can be configured locally for
Internet (and BITNET) e-mail delivery. The most common method of addressing
mail to a non-DECnet (e.g., non-VMS) system is as follows:
    network%"userID@host-domain"
For example, to send e-mail to my netlab account you would enter
    in%"[e-mail]"
for the recipient address, while sending e-mail to my BITNET account would
entail entering
    bitnet%"el406006@brownvm"
for the recipient address. There is another e-mail package available for VMS
called "MM" which uses directly-RFC 822 compliant addressing. The interface
for MM is also nicer than that of VMS MAIL, particularly when the user's
terminal can support VT-220 or greater emulation.

COMPUSERVE. CompuServe Information Service began offering Internet e-mail
capabilities in 1989.  CompuServe's Internet domain name is compuserve.com. It
is important to note that CompuServe's Internet e-mail gateway will only
accept messages under 64Kb in size. For personal e-mail this is generally
sufficient, but it could cause troubles if you attempt to send or receive
UUENCODEd files.

To send e-mail to someone who is on the Internet, you will need to know their
Internet e-mail address. In Easyplex, you format the recipient address as
follows (assuming you were going to send e-mail to me):
    >Internet:[e-mail]
To send e-mail to someone on CompuServe, convert their CompuServe numeric ID
as follows:
    72241,544 * 72241.544
and address the e-mail to [e-mail].

OTHER SERVICES. There are several other commercial services which have or will
be adding Internet connections:

    Service Name            Domain Name
    Prodigy                 (unknown)
    Delphi                  delphi.com
    GEnie                   genie.geis.com
    America OnLine          aol.com
    MCI Mail                mcimail.com
    AT&T Mail               attmail.com

While I have heard rumors that Prodigy will be establishing an e-mail gateway
to the Internet, I have not received any definite information to confirm or
deny this. Also, the domain name for GEnie Information Service may have
changed to genie.com.

Other Networks
There are three networks which are quite solidly established and which do not
(by default) use RFC 822 compliant e-mail: UUCP, BITNET and FIDOnet. Sites on
BITNET and machines which have UUCP network connections can use RFC 822
compliant addressing, but internally the addressing system is different.

BITNET. The BITNET (Because It's Time Network) was formed in 1981 as a
consortium of educational sites in the United States, Canada and Western
Europe. BITNET is a store-and-forward network (see page 3) whose network
technology is based on that of the venerable IBM RSCS (Remote Spooling
Communications Subsystem). Internally, host names are limited to eight
characters and while non-IBM systems may have userIDs which are in excess of
eight characters, the network will generally not understand anything beyond
eight. The basic format for e-mail within the BITNET varies with the host
operating system. The two most popular are IBM VM/CMS and DEC VMS which use
the following formats:
    username AT sitename        (VM/CMS)
    hostname::username        (VMS)
Conveniently, it is becoming more popular for BITNET sites to maintain
Internet connections as well. However, if you do not know the RFC 822 address
for someone on the BITNET to whom you wish to send mail, you can send it via
one of the sites which maintains connections to both Internet and BITNET:
brownvm.brown.edu, mitvma.mit.edu and cunyvm.cuny.edu being most well-known.
For example, to send e-mail to user ENSIGNRO AT NCC1701D, you would address e-
mail to:
    [e-mail]
Because brownvm.brown.edu resides on both BITNET and Internet, it would know
how to route the BITNET address 'encapsulated' in the userID.

UUCP. The UUCP network is a haphazard collection of computers running UNIX or
UUCP-compatible e-mail systems (many PCs and BBS systems do this). Another
store-and-forward network, until fairly recently it was necessary to know
virtually the entire network path a piece of e-mail would take in order to
route it. Lately, however, UUCP network 'administrators' have been encouraging
both the adaptation of Internet-style addressing and a more efficient network
pathing structure.

UUCP e-mail is somewhat similar to the DEC DECnet addressing convention in
that host computers precede the userID in the address:
    host1!host2!host3! ... !hostn!userID
To send e-mail to someone who has a UUCP address, reverse the given address
and format it as below (assuming uuhost!futility!borg!locutus):
    [e-mail]
Occasionally uunet.uu.net has problems addressing mail. This can frequently be
fixed by adding more of the UUCP address:
    [e-mail]

FIDONET. The FIDOnet is a global network of BBS (bulletin board system) hosts
which are connected using modems and both store-and-forward and direct-
connection technology.  Begun in 1984, it is now becoming vogue for FIDO BBS
systems to offer Internet mail, USENET news (see Section Five) and UUCP mail.
In fact a number of BBS systems have attached to the Internet and have
acquired Internet domain names (for example, the Channel One BBS is known on
the Internet as 'channel1.com').

FIDOnet addressing organizes the FIDO network into zones, networks, nodes and
points. To address e-mail from the Internet to FIDOnet, take the source
address
    David O'Donnell at 1:323/121
and convert it to an Internet-style address:
    David_O'[e-mail]
Note that if you are on a FIDO BBS where the BBS address includes a "point"
(e.g., the address ends in a decimal point followed by a number, such as
'.15'), you should exclude the "point" when converting to RFC 822 compliant
addressing. While FIDO networking software can support this extra "dimension"
to an address, not all sites do and therefore, to ensure the greatest
compatibility, you should not include points in an RFC 822 compliant address.

There are two additional-important-points to make note of:

*    The addressing scheme listed here works only for sending mail into
FIDOnet. Sending mail to a FIDOnet BBS which has an Internet domain name
should be done using the Internet format, not the one given above.
*    Other than for FIDOnet sites which have Internet domain names, I do not
know of any fashion for sending mail from FIDOnet to the Internet.

The Internet-FIDOnet gateway is located in Arizona and the system operator (or
SysOp) there has indicated that large amounts of incoming e-mail are not
appreciated, as he must pay for the long distance call to pick up the e-mail.
You should check with your local BBS SysOp to see if there are more efficient
Internet connections in your area.


Section Three: FILES
One of the most exciting aspects of the Internet is its huge repository of
files-programs, data, graphics, sound and so forth-all of which are accessible
to people with Internet connections. While it used to be the case that access
was limited to local users and those with FTP, mechanisms are now in place
which can locate, index and transfer files from the Internet via e-mail.

FTP: File Transfer Protocol

FTP is "the mother of all file transfer protocols". Through it a user directly
connects to an Internet-connected computer, accesses the file system and gets
or stores files. FTP is one of the basic portions of the TCP/IP suite, a
collection of protocols which define networking on the Internet.

Virtually any kind of file anyone could possibly want can be found on the
Internet and retrieved using FTP. Some of the more popular sites and their
contents include:

Topic                                            Site Name
Windows Applications                             ftp.cica.indiana.edu,
                                                 wuarchive.wustl.edu,
                                                 nic.funet.fi,
                                                 wsmr-simtel20.mil

Macintosh Applications                           sumex-aim.stanford.edu,
                                                 brownvm.brown.edu,
                                                 wuarchive.wustl.edu

GIFs                                             wuarchive.wustl.edu,
                                                 sumex-aim.stanford.edu,
                                                 archive.msdos.umich.edu

DOS Applications                                 wuarchive.wustl.edu,
                                                 archive.msdos.umich.edu,
                                                 oak.oakland.edu

To mangle a metaphor, this is only the tiniest tip of the Internet file
iceberg. To help make some organizational sense of the hundreds of thousands
of files available on the Internet, archie and gopher were created. To help
those without FTP access obtain files, there is the BITFTP service.

Archie: the Archive Server
 Archie is an application which is used to quickly determine what sites on the
Internet carry files that are being sought by a user. The current
implementation of archie consists of two parts, only one of which is
necessary: the archie server and the archie client. It helps to think of
archie as "the ultimate Internet file list filter", because that is precisely
what it does with the file lists of 'anonymous' FTP sites.

ARCHIE SERVER. The "archie server" is an application which is run as the
operating environment of a computer account. To use an archie server one must
either have access to TELNET (see Section Four) or be able to log in to a
computer which has an archie server running. Two of the several available
servers are on hosts
    archie.sura.net    and
    archie.unl.edu
At the user login prompt one enters "archie" as the user name. There is no
password and the archie server will display a brief introductory banner,
frequently containing news of the day. More recent versions of the server
system are able to detect the terminal emulation of your computer and will
adjust output to match. If you are using a non-standard setup (for example, my
VT-320 setup has 32 rows instead of the default 24)  you would use the set
term command as follows:
    set term terminal-name screen-rows screen-columns
In my case the command is
    set term vt320 32 80
Other archie commands include the following:

help
    See help topics.
pager
    Break file listings into pages; press SPACEBAR to advance pages.
prog argument
    Search for all entries which contain the string argument.
set regex
    Use UNIX-like 'regular expressions' for entry searches.

Release 3.0.1 of the archie server will allow you to specify an e-mail address
to which the results of a search can be sent.

ARCHIE CLIENT. The archie client is an interface application which is similar
to that of the archie server (in fact, the server runs a client application
which connects to the database manipulation/search application). There are
reputedly versions of the client available for UNIX, VMS and VM/CMS.

BITFTP: File Access for the FTP-challenged


The BITFTP system was originally created to allow computer users on the BITNET
to have access to Internet FTP sites. The application runs at Princeton
University and is manipulated via e-mail.  To learn how to use BITFTP, send e-
mail to [e-mail]. Do not include a Subject: tag in the header
of the e-mail; instead, as the body include the single word 'help'.

GOPHER: the Internet Distributed Information Delivery Service


GOPHER is a sophisticated information retrieval and management system which is
becoming popular for CWISes, or Campus-Wide Information Services. Utilizing
client-server technology, GOPHERs efficiently divide information
retrieval/management tasks between the client (where the user is located) and
the server (where the GOPHER 'brains' are located). GOPHER is "the only
application that truly makes navigating and using many services on the
Internet as natural as choosing an entrie from a dinner menu."

UTILITY. GOPHER was first developed at the University of Minnesota as a text-
retrieval system. It has since grown into an application of prodigious scope.
Text files, binary files, sounds and graphics can be retrieved with GOPHER.
With the proper GOPHER client/server arrangement it is possible to browse FTP
archive directories and retrieve their contents; use archie to browse the
anonymous FTP sites on the Internet and retrieve contents; TELNET and TN3270
to other Internet hosts; and link up with distributed information services
like the World-Wide Net (WWN) and other WAISes (Wide-Area Information
Services).

CLIENTS. GOPHER client software exists for DOS, Macintosh System, Xwindows,
VM/CMS and UNIX. Many Internet hosts, particularly educational sites, are
installing GOPHER clients as part of their CWIS or WAIS. Each client has
differing levels of functionality: some can only retrieve and view text files,
some can display graphics and play sound files, and others have intuitive,
user-friendly graphical interfaces. To find out if a particular site has a
GOPHER, log in to it and try 'gopher' or 'cwis'. You may need to contact
system administration for further information.



Section Four: TRAVELING
While FTP and e-mail are great tools for manipulating the Internet and keeping
in touch with users, it is also possible to literally travel the network via
the TELNET application.

USE. To use TELNET, you must be working on a computer which has full access to
the Internet: a TCP/IP connection, IP address and a domain name. Depending on
the operating system of your computer it may be necessary to establish access
to the TCP/IP software.

MODES. TELNET operates in two modes: full-screen and line. Under most
circumstances, connections will be established automatically in full-screen
mode. In this mode, what you see on your screen is a direct representation of
the screen, operating environment and file system of the remote computer.
Although you will not have physically moved, for all intents and purposes your
computer is now attached to the remote computer is if it were plugged in at
the remote site.

Line mode acts as though your computer were a teletype terminal attached to
the remote system. None of the advantages of full-screen operation are
possible. Line mode does have a valuable purpose, however. Due to the simple,
streamlined nature of the connection, line mode is particularly suitable for
client applications: FTP, IRC, archie, et cetera. Line mode is also activated
when your local computer cannot correctly emulate a terminal attached to a
remote computer. This most commonly occurs when someone logged into a VM/CMS
machine attempts to open a TELNET connection to a UNIX or VMS system. Both
latter operating systems support stream-oriented all-points-addressable video
terminals while the technology used by IBM mainframes is more primitive.



Section Five: OTHER SERVICES
This section covers some of the other services available on the Internet as
well as list some of the sites where access to the Internet can be obtained
for free or for a nominal fee.

IRC: Internet Relay Chat
IRC is an interactive, real-time conversation system. Originally begun as a
hobby by some computer science students, IRC has grown to be a 24-hour-a-day
phenomenon. At any given time over a thousand people will be using IRC from
sites all across the world.

DESCRIPTION. IRC is similar to the "CB" chatting fora on commercial services.
Users are organized into channels where conversation is public. Users can also
send and receive private messages. Due to the informal nature of IRC
(regardless of NSFNET regulations on network resource usage) IRC users, or
"ircers" as they are known in the vernacular, are free to adopt nine-character
nicknames and can change personal user information to virtually anything.

Each channel on IRC is identified by a pound-sign (#) and up to 80 letters or
numbers-for example, "#Resistance_is_futile". Channels can have topics which
are publicly visible to anyone requesting a list of channels. They can be
private, invitation-only, be restricted to a certain number of members and can
even be invisible to the public. People who are not "on" a channel are said to
be "in Limbo".

Channels are organized in whatever fashion suits the members. There can be
channel operators, called "chanops", who monitor the members of a channel and
can change the attributes of the channel as well as forcibly remove someone
from the channel (called "kicking", from the /kick command used). There can be
more than one chanop to a channel-or none, if it is so desired. Channels are
created when an ircer uses the /join command with the name of a channel not
already in existence. Channel creators are automatically made chanop.

Above the chanop is the ircop, an individual who runs one of the IRC server
applications. All IRC clients must connect to a server to join the "IRCnet",
and all servers are interconnected via special line-mode TELNET links. An
ircop has what passes for ultimate authority on IRC: he or she can join any
channel, irrespective of the 'mode' settings; become a chanop on any channel;
kick someone off a channel into Limbo or kill a user's IRC client session; and
manipulate the interconnections of IRC servers. In theory only responsible
people are given ircop status, but in reality things are often quite
different.

ACCESS. To use IRC you need to have two things: a TCP/IP connection to the
Internet and a client application (usually called "ircii" for "Internet Relay
Chat, version two"). In actuality it is possible to use IRC without a client
application but writing from personal experience, it is not enjoyable. IRC
clients exist for UNIX, ULTRIX, VMS and VM/CMS. Versions for Macintosh System
7.1, MS-DOS and Windows are in the works. When you start IRC you provide a
server's Internet name or numeric IP address to the client so it knows where
to connect.  There are several hundred servers around the world, but normally
you will only connect to the closest server. An exception would be when the
'local' server does not support certain features. Some of the most popular
servers are:

csa.bu.edu    The Boston University "hub" server for New England.
irc.mit.edu    MIT's server is not always available and usually out-of-date.
hub.cs.jmu.edu    James Madison University's server, which also allows /note
spy's.

CLIENTS. The latest versions of IRC client software are always maintained on
the Internet site at Boston University,
    cs.bu.edu
in the directories
    irc/clients
    irc/clients/VMS    and
    irc/clients/VM
As other client versions become available they will be added to the FTP site.
Many Internet sites already have an IRC client available for users, while
others specifically prohibit the use of IRC. Be sure to check with your site
administration for policy.

USENET News
USENET news is one of those slippery, "magical" services which is only now
becoming integrated with the Internet. USENET began in 1979 as a bulletin
board system between two universities in North Carolina.  It has grown to be
one of the largest, most comprehensive "news" systems in the world. Several
thousand conferences exist, broken down into a loose hierarchy similar to that
of the domain naming system. USENET news has the advantage that anyone with
either a UUCP-style mailer or access to a NNTP-compliant news reader can
receive and contribute to the gestalt.

ACCESS. Access to USENET news is primarily through news reader applications.
It is possible, however, to participate in a USENET news conference if a
computer site offers to redistribute it via e-mail. Keeping current with news
is particularly difficult in this situation, however. Many news conferences
are extremely prolific and corresponding via the relatively slow system of
electronic mail is inefficient. Two of the thousands of conferences available
are perfect examples of the profligate nature of USENET news: in a one week
period, my threaded news reading application displayed
640 new items in group soc.motss. Read now? [YNyn]
1254 new items in group rec.arts.startrek. Read now? [YNyn]

INTERFACES. Every major operating system has a USENET news reading application
available. On the Internet, the following four are most common.

*    Rn, typical UNIX shorthand for "read news," is the archetypal news
reading software. Its interface is straightforward and unembellished. It lacks
threading, however, and can quickly overrun the user.
*    Readnews is a somewhat advanced version of rn. Its primary advantage is
the ability to easily mark threads of topics as "killed"-the news reader will
automatically skip over those topic/threads. Newer releases of rn may have
this feature as well.
*    Trn, or "threaded readnews," is undoubtedly my favorite. The trn user
can choose from two formats for newsitem display: the venerable list format of
rn, or a visual, threaded format where one can follow the progress of a
discussion thread through the newsgroup.
*    VNEWS is the VMS equivalent of trn. VNEWS has a particularly pleasing
visual display, though its built-in assumption that the user's keyboard is the
DEC LK102 can be frustrating. VMS' built-in help system also provided
inspiration for VNEWS, although VNEWS' is arguably even more difficult to make
heads or tails of.

NEWSGROUPS. New newsgroups are constantly being created, but the list below
should give you some good places to begin exploring USENET news:

    alt.sex
    rec.humor.funny
    comp.os.os2.advocacy
    alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die
    alt.french-captain.borg.borg.borg
    comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy
    talk.*
    soc.*
    rec.arts.startrek
    alt.binaries.pictures
    alt.binaries.sounds.misc

Note: in groups like talk.*, the asterisk signifies that there are many
newsgroups under the hierarchy, each of which is likely to prove interesting.

LISTSERV: The List Server Network
LISTSERV is the name of an application written by Eric Thomas of SEARN for the
maintenance of e-mail-
based redistribution lists. Originally created to service the BITNET, LISTSERV
has migrated to UNIX platforms as well and the mailing lists managed by
LISTSERVers can be accessed by anyone with Internet e-mail capability.

LISTSERV is run as a loosely organized network of "LISTSERVers" spread out
across the BITNET.  LISTSERVers maintain databases of e-mail distribution
lists (commonly referred to as "lists"), their subscribers and any related
files or archives of discussion. Several thousand lists currently exist; all
that is required to create a new list is to find a LISTSERV manager willing to
store the database entry, archives and subscription list. Similar to the
organization (or, rather, lack thereof) of USENET, there is no central
administrative LISTSERVer, though most are highly integrated into the
computing services departments of their organizations and follow both general
BITNET regulations and organizational rules.

ACCESS. Anyone who can send and receive Internet e-mail can get access to
LISTSERV. Users on the BITNET have the additional advantage of being able to
command the servers via interactive messaging, but all commands are available
through e-mail.

LISTS. Every LISTSERVER maintains what is commonly referred to as "the list of
lists". This document is several thousand lines of text giving the name and
LISTSERV host of every list. To obtain a copy of the "list of lists", address
e-mail to any LISTSERVER. In the body of the mail, include the command "list
global":

    Date:    Friday, 26 March 1993; 17:38:44 EST
    To:    [e-mail]
    From:    [e-mail] (Guinan is a Pest)

    list global

Sending the command "help" will allow you to obtain LISTSERV's on-line help
documentation.

How To Get Onboard
Now that you've gotten your feet wet, how can you get access to the Internet?

If you are content with e-mail access, check out the commercial services,
especially CompuServe, America OnLine and Delphi.

If you want more, you will need an account on an Internet host with full
TCP/IP suite access. The list below includes some of the more popular sites
and the services they offer.

THE WORLD. The World at Software Tool & Die, Internet host name
    world.std.com
offers a wide range of Internet services, including FTP, TELNET, IRC, USENET,
e-mail and LISTSERV. The service is commercial with a reasonable fee structure
of $2 per hour with a  $5 per month account fee.

DRYCAS. The Carneige-Mellon University Computer Club runs a DECstation 5000
with full Internet access. The Internet host name is
    drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu    or
    DRYCAS
on the BITNET. FTP, TELNET, IRC, USENET, LISTSERV and e-mail are accessible
from this excellent VMS site. Contact Marc Shannon
([e-mail]) for the latest information on their annual
fee structure. Carneige-Mellon University is not local to the Boston area but
DRYCAS is an excellent platform to explore both VMS and the BITNET from
another Internet site.

GNU/FSF. The GNU Project/Free Software Foundation, Internet host name
    gnu.ai.mit.edu
offers FTP, TELNET, IRC, USENET, LISTSERV, e-mail and a host of GNU Project
software for UNIX. This site is free and local to Boston. Unfortunately space
is extremely limited and most applications for accounts will be denied without
sufficient reason. To apply for an account, TELNET to
    gate.gnu.ai.mit.edu
and login as
    apply
Follow the directions from the application account service.

IDS. IDS Data Forum is a BBS system running in Warwick, RI on a DEC
minicomputer. Its Internet host name is
    idsvax.ids.risc.net
IDS offers both BBS and Internet services on a fee-related basis. Internet
access includes FTP, TELNET,  USENET, LISTSERV and e-mail, but you must
contact the SysOp to obtain access. You can reach him as
    [e-mail]
or by telephoning [phone].

LOCAL ACCESS. If you have a Macintosh, you may be able to connect to the
Internet right from Ziff-Davis. Contact David Bogartz at x5280 for additional
information.

Wrapping Everything Up
I hope you have found this handout to be useful and entertaining. The Internet
provides a wealth of opportunity which is only just beginning to be tapped. If
you have any questions about anything contained in this handout or would like
more information on the aspects of the Internet which were not covered, please
send me e-mail at
[e-mail]


Section Six: NOTES (This Page Left Blank)


Section Seven: INDEX TO TOPICS
[ Note: section removed from text document ]

Footnotes:
[ Note: regrettably, the footnote numbers did not survive the conversion to
text. ]
     Packet switching networks are the forebears of modern network schemes.
In a packet-switched network such as BITNET, data are sent as small packets
which are queued through the network in a store-and-forward fashion; that is,
to get from one host to another, it may be necessary for the packets to travel
through several intermediary hosts. The speed of transmission is greatly
dependent on the intermediary systems.
     Data based on the January 1993 Internet Domain Survey. Extrapolations of
growth figures would indicate that current numbers are between twenty and
thirty percent higher than the numbers given.
     VM and MVS are the realm of IBM mainframes and compatible systems. VMS
and ULTRIX run on a variety of DEC computers, and UNIX is running on virtually
everything from Intel 80386-based PCs on up. UNIX is a trademark of Bell Labs.
     This site is completely fictional, but it is a good example of how
computers frequently are named on the Internet. Since it's highly unlikely
that Buckaroo Banzai's fictitious 'Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems' is really a
part of the University of Sydney, this address makes an important exception to
the naming style used in my own ([e-mail]) because all
that is certain about the addressee is that he or she is located at the
University. Chances are that the computer the user is logged into most
frequently is called 'captain-kirk' but there is no insurance that it will
always be so.
     Most DOS- and Windows-based terminal emulation packages can support at
least VT-220 emulation. VT-100 and VT-101 are essentially standard and even
Windows' TERMINAL application can support VT-100 emulation.
     Source: !%@:: A Dictionary of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks,
second edition.
     UUENCODE and UUDECODE are UNIX utilities which were developed to allow
the transmission of binary (non-textual) files across networks where 8-bit
ASCII was not allowed. Because of the nature of the Internet, it is not safe
to assume that binary files transmitted as attachments to e-mail will make it
to the destination intact unless they have been UUENCODEd first. Luckily,
versions of UUENCODE and UUDECODE exist for virtually every operating system-
including DOS and Windows.
     Unlike other networks, the UUCP network-which is primarily known for
USENET news-does not have a central administrative body. Decisions are
frequently made by system administrators (sysadmin or sysops) on hosts with
many connections or users who are particularly active. UUCP, like much of
UNIX, can often be compared to a kind of mystical magic in the way it works
(or doesn't work).
     On FIDOnet it is possible to address e-mail to users which will get
distributed via the normal BBS mail cycle (store-and-forward) and via a
direct-mailing system where the BBS host will directly dial the recipient's
BBS and transmit the e-mail.
     This address is for GAYtway Communications Network BBS in Providence,
RI.
     TCP/IP stands for "Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol". The
suite include: FTP (File Transfer Protocol), TELNET, PING, NNTP (Network News
Transmission Protocol) and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol).
     Anonymous FTP sites are named thus because anyone can log into the
server and retrieve files. To do so, one uses FTP to open a connection to the
site. At the username: prompt, enter anonymous or ftp; at the password:
prompt, enter your Internet e-mail address. Since not all sites can use 'ftp'
as the username, 'anonymous' is best.
     If you are on the BITNET, you can also manipulate BITFTP through
interactive messages to bitftp at pucc.
     Reprinted from UIUCnet, volume 6 number 1, a University of Illinois
publication.
     An IP address is the 32-bit decimal address used by TCP/IP software; it
is divided into four tuples, each of which represents one byte's worth of the
32 bits. For example, the IP address for brownvm.brown.edu is 128.148.128.40.
     Source: !%@:: A Dictionary of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks,
second edition.
     The basic USENET hierarchy consists of comp (computer-related topics),
sci (scientific topics), soc (social topics), alt (alternative or "on the
edge" topics), rec (recreative topics), news and misc (miscellaneous items);
in the first newsgroup motss stands for "members of the same sex".
     And the Internet in general, though the primary thrust remains located
on the BITNET.




Thre we go,everybody clued up now?* Bob *