EVERYBODY'S INTERNET UPDATE ==================== Number 10 - March, 1995 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An online publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation Edited by Adam Gaffin, adamg@world.std.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This month: 1. Usenet Fish Tales -- How to Avoid Being Trolled 1.1 Baiting the hook 1.2 Avoiding the worm 1.3 FYI 2. Parents Say the Darndest Things 3. A Novel Idea 4. Services of the Month 4.1 Cave art 4.2 Da Vinci 4.3 English 4.4 Finances 4.5 Golf 4.6 Taxes 5. Public Internet providers 6. Contact Info ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. USENET FISH TALES -- HOW TO AVOID BEING TROLLED Any fisherman can tell you about trolling -- you cast out your line and slowly drag it along, waiting for some fish to come along and grab the bait and get hooked.% It's a time-honored tradition on Usenet as well, one that newcomers can easily find themselves ensnared in, often to their dismay (and the delight of the allegedly more experienced trollers who catch them). 1.1 BAITING THE HOOK The basic idea behind Usenet trolling is to post a ridiculous message and then sit back and watch as newcomers (and some veterans) try to tear into it. A really simple troll might be to post a message in a Star Trek newsgroup telling participants to get a life, or to post something like "101 Uses for a Dead Cat" in rec.pets.cats. If the troller's lucky, people will rise to his flame bait, sometimes so vehemently that the newsgroup becomes engulfed in a flamewar that completely drowns out all other discussions. Veteran trollers, however, usually display more subtlety than that. Sometimes, they start out with seemingly innocuous postings. Over a period of days, however, their messages grow more strident. And as people begin to argue with them, the game is on. Sometimes, trollers will go after a single person they know will bite hard on the proferred bait (that they know this often indicates that the trollee has, himself, displayed some behavior others might find objectionable). This is what happened recently in a flamefest that erupted on several groups simultaneously. One well known net.personality responded to some post from a person he finds objectionable with a message that read: You'll be pleased to know, then, that you have been added to the USENET Global Killfile, a list of objectionable users whose articles will automatically be blocked by subscribing sites. At the present, the list of sites which comply with the USENET Global Killfile is approximately 82%. Your messages will continue to be transmitted from site to site so that the non-GK using sites will still see them, but users on participating sites will not be troubled with your messages popping up in their newsgroups. The "Organization" line of the header read: "USENET Central Administration." The "fish" took the bait, loudly decrying this latest offense by the Usenet Cabal, the secret group that really runs Usenet. So, too, did a number of innocent bystanders, who publicly complained about this egregious attempt at Net-wide censorship. It got worse and worse. Finally, the subject of the troll posted a message in which he claimed the original poster had forged the original message from himself and that because of this fraud, he had visited his local FBI office, where a sympathetic agent took copious notes on this awful abuse. At this point, several people jumped into the conversation to tell the person he'd been the subject of a practical joke and to give it a rest (to no avail). 1.2 AVOIDING THE WORM The troller left several clues in his message that it was all a joke. The most obvious one was its sheer ludicrousness. Given the number of Usenet systems out there today, the likelihood of getting 82% of them to agree on anything -- especially something like a universal censor system -- is remote. The more subtle clue was the list of newsgroups to which the troller posted. The last one on the list was misc.test. Now, this is a newsgroup set up so people can test their Usenet connections. There are a number of Usenet systems around the world that respond to any postings in that group with e-mail, letting the poster know where and when her message was received. So if you see a posting in a Usenet group that is cross-posted to misc.test, right away you've got a pretty strong indication that the message is really a troll (as well as an indication that, if you follow up to the post, you're going to start getting all these e-mail messages from auto-responding Usenet systems). So what do you do? If you see a message in your favorite newsgroup that looks like the sender is just crusin' for a bruisin', first, count to 10. Just because you *can* reply doesn't mean you have to. Remember that the best way to deal with annoying on-line people is to ignore them -- they thrive on making others irate. Check the line in the header that says which newsgroups the message has been posted to. If there are a number of them, think to 10 again -- do you really want to start a cross-newsgroup flamefest where all the groups get taken over by "get this crap out of this newsgroup" messages? If you feel you simply HAVE to respond in public, pare down the list of newsgroups. In most Usenet editors, that's fairly easy to do -- go up to the "Newsgroups" line and delete the names of newsgroups to which the message is really inappropriate (including misc.test, alt.test, etc.). Be careful to keep the remaining names separated by a comma (but no spaces). And flame away. But count to 10 again, anyway. 1.3 FYI For a short time, there really was a Usenet Cabal, although it went by the name of Backbone Cabal. In 1985, a group of Usenet administrators, faced with a growing number of newsgroups, agreed to try to change the overall naming system to accomodate them all. They came up with the present hierarchical system (comp., soc., rec., etc.) and managed to get the change through. For more info, connect to the Jargon File World-Wide Web site at http://www.eps.mcgill.ca/jargon/jargon.html and search for "Backbone Cabal." 2. PARENTS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS Every community has its own lingo, and the Internet and Usenet are no different. From AFAIK to YMMV, from, well, "trolling" to "telnetting," the 'Net has developed its own ways of describing things. Today, with the 'Net consisting of millions of people around the world, we're seeing the development of even smaller online communities, each of which in turn has its own unique phrases and ways of putting things. One of those communities consists of the people who inhabit misc.kids.pregnancy and misc.kids. As you might expect from the names, these are newsgroups where people go to discuss having babies and what to do with them once you have them. They're the kinds of places where people get to know each other and discuss all the amazing/silly/fun/annoying things their children and spouses (and strangers) do and say. In fact, such messages pop up so often that the locals have developed acronyms to put in subject lines, so other participants can get an idea of what the messages are about. They include: CTTD Cute Things They Do CTTS Cute Things They Say ONNA Club "Oh No, Not Again" Club -- Women who are trying to get pregnant who instead get their period again. RTSS Ridiculous Things Strangers Say STHS Sweet Things Husbands Say STSD Strange Things Strangers Do STSS Strange Things Strangers Say STPS Silly Things People Say STTTTB Strange Things They Take to Bed YKYAPW You Know You're A Parent When... 3. A NOVEL IDEA "Letters from Abroad - or Two!" is a clever experiment in linking the linear style of novels with the interactive abilities of the Internet -- it's an online story that lets readers interact with the characters. In the introduction to this Web-based story, we read: Doreen and Birdie have been best friends practically since the moment they met in the secretarial pool of a large international advertising agency, that will remain nameless for reasons of liability. Both had dreams of the fame and success associated with the glamorous world of television advertising, but alas, wound up typing, taking letters, and making coffee with hundreds of others that had similar dreams. Now the unthinkable has happened. They have been transferred! And in this day and age of high unemployment and poor world economics, who were they to say no. Thankfully with the onset of the electronic age, they can stay in touch, even if they can no longer meet in the ladies... The story of their lives (and, natch, loves) is played out in their e-mail messages to each others, past flames -- and to you. The system lets you read their e-mail and send messages to either or both of the heroines -- with the resulting correspondence then being incorporated into the story. To take part, point your Web browser at http://www.compulink.co.uk/arc/abroad.htm and then just follow the links. 4. SERVICES OF THE MONTH 4.1 CAVE ART In December, two explorers discovered a large collection of Stone Age cave paintings in Vallon-Pont-d'Arc in the south of France. The French Ministry of Culture has set up a Web site to discuss the findings and give people around the world a chance to see the paintings. Point your Web browser at http://web.culture.fr/gvpda-en.htm for the English version or http://web.culture.fr/gvpda-d.htm for the French tour. 4.2 DA VINCI Point your Web browser at http://www.leonardo.net/main.html for an online exhibit on the life and creations of Leonardo Da Vinci. 4.3 ENGLISH Wordplay-L is a mailing list all about English words, grammar, pronunciation and the like. To subscribe, write to mailserv@levels.unisa.edu.au. Leave the subject line blank, and as your message, write: SUBSCRIBE WORDPLAY-L yourfirstname yourlastname 4.4 FINANCES If you need to see stock prices from Hong Kong, they're now available on the Web at http://silkroute.com/silkroute/news. 4.5 GOLF GolfWeb is a Web site devoted to the putting life, at http://www.golfweb.com/. 4.6 TAXES American taxpayers can get answers to frequently asked tax questions, as well as some tips on saving money this filing season on a Web site set up by MacMillan Publishing USA, the publisher of J.K. Lasser's Tax Guide. Point your Web browser at http://www.mcp.com/jklasser/jklhome.html. 5. PUBLIC INTERNET PROVIDERS Benoit Cark Lips maintains lists of Internet providers in Europe, Africa and Asia. You can find them on the World-Wide Web at http://www.earth.org/~lips or via FTP at sumex-aim.stanford.edu in the /info-mac/comm/information directory. The correct dial-in number for Lorain County Free-Net, Ohio, is (216) 233-5929. 6. CONTACT INFO Everybody's Internet Update is published monthly by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Current and back copies are available by anonymous FTP or ncFTP at ftp.eff.org in the pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide/Updates directory; by gopher at gopher.eff.org (select Net Info, then EFF Net Guide, then Updates); and by WWW at http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide/Updates/ To receive the updates via e-mail, write to listserv@eff.org. Leave the subject line blank, and as your message, write: add net-guide-update To obtain a copy of the entire EFF Guide to the Internet, use anonymous FTP or ncFTP to connect to ftp.eff.org and look in the /pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide directory, or use gopher to connect to gopher.eff.org and then select Net Info and then EFF Net Guide. You'll find several versions for different types of computers. The file netguide.eff is the generic ASCII version. To reach Update Editor Adam Gaffin, write adamg@world.std.com. For general information on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, send an e- mail message to info@eff.org. To ask a specific question, write ask@eff.org. Everybody's Internet Update is copyright 1995 by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Washington, D.C.