EFF's Guide to the Internet, v. 3.19 (formerly The Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet) Adam Gaffin September 12, 1996 Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996 Electronic Frontier Foundation. All rights reserved. DISTRIBUTION: This guide is available free of charge from the EFF online archives at ftp.eff.org, gopher.eff.org, http://www.eff.org/, CIS EFFSIG forum, and elsewhere. This guide may be freely reproduced & distributed electronically or in hardcopy, provided the following conditions are met: 1) Please do not qualitatively modify the guide, and leave all copyright, distribution, attribution, and EFF information intact. Permission expressly granted for translation to other languages and conversion to other formats. Please see : http://www.eff.org/pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide/README.making_new_versions for information on the applicable restrictions, or ask mech@eff.org for a copy of this README document. 2) EFF has signed a contract with MIT Press to publish a hardcopy book version of the guide, entitled _Everybody's_Guide_to_the_Internet_. All other for-profit distribution of printed versions of the guide is forbidden, unless permitted in writing. More non-English hardcopy editions may appear in the future (Japanese and Hungarian are currently available). However, you may print out copies and recoup the cost of printing and distribution by charging a nominal fee. Thus, you are welcome to use the Guide as instructional material, and for other not-for-profit purposes. 3) Any for-profit non-paper distribution (such as shareware vendor diskettes, CD-ROM collections, etc.) must be approved by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (the time- and usage-based access fees of online services, bulletin boards, and network access providers are specifically exempted). Donations appreciated. 4) You may not charge a for-profit fee specifically for this guide, only for a collection containing the guide, with the execeptions of nominal copying charges and online usage fees, as exempted above. The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1550 Bryant St., Suite 725 San Francisco CA 94103 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) +1 415 436 9993 (fax) Internet: ask@eff.org TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword by Mitchell Kapor, co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Preface by Adam Gaffin, senior writer, Network World. Chapter 1: Setting up and jacking in 1.1 Ready, set ... 1.2 Go! 1.3 Public-access Internet providers 1.4 North American providers 1.5 European and other providers 1.6 If your town has no direct access 1.7 Net origins 1.8 How it works 1.9 When things go wrong 1.10 FYI Chapter 2: E-mail 2.1 The basics 2.2 Elm -- a better way 2.3 Pine -- an even better way 2.4 Smileys 2.5 Sending e-mail to other networks 2.6 Seven Unix commands you can't live without 2.7 When things go wrong Chapter 3: Usenet I 3.1 The global watering hole 3.2 Navigating Usenet with nn 3.3 nn commands 3.4 Using rn 3.5 rn commands 3.6 Essential newsgroups 3.7 Speaking up 3.8 Cross-posting Chapter 4: Usenet II 4.1 Flame, blather and spew 4.2 Killfiles: The cure for what ails you 4.3 Downloading messages 4.4 Some Usenet hints 4.5 The Brain-Tumor Boy, the modem tax and the FCC 4.6 Big Sig 4.7 The First Amendment as local ordinance 4.8 Usenet history 4.9 When things go wrong 4.10 FYI Chapter 5: Mailing lists and Bitnet 5.1 Internet mailing lists 5.2 Bitnet Chapter 6: Telnet 6.1 Mining the Net 6.2 Library catalogs 6.3 Some interesting telnet sites 6.4 Telnet bulletin-board systems 6.5 Putting the finger on someone 6.6 Finding someone on the Net 6.7 When things go wrong 6.8 FYI Chapter 7: FTP 7.1 Tons of files 7.2 Your friend archie 7.3 Getting the files 7.4 Odd letters -- decoding file endings 7.5 The keyboard cabal 7.6 Some interesting ftp sites 7.7 ncftp -- now you tell me! 7.8 Project Gutenberg -- electronic books 7.9 When things go wrong 7.10 FYI Chapter 8: Gophers and WAISs 8.1 Gophers 8.2 Burrowing deeper 8.3 Gopher commands 8.4 Some interesting gophers 8.5 Wide-Area Information Servers 8.6 When things go wrong 8.7 FYI Chapter 9: The World-Wide Web 9.1 Getting snared in the Web 9.2 Alright, already, let's go! 9.3 Addressing a problem 9.4 Imagine that -- downloading pictures 9.5 Lynx, meet Gopher 9.6 Finding things on the Web 9.7 SLIP: But I want to use my mouse! 9.8 More on SLIP 9.9 HTML: Building your own 9.10 Some interesting WWW servers 9.11 Lynx commands 9.12 When things go wrong 9.13 FYI Chapter 10: Advanced E-mail 10.1 The file's in the mail 10.2 Receiving files 10.3 Sending files to non-Internet sites 10.4 Getting ftp files via e-mail 10.5 Mining for info on Usenet via e-mail 10.6 Just the fax, ma'am 10.7 The all knowing Oracle 10.8 When things go wrong 10.9 FYI Chapter 11: News of the world 11.1 Clarinet: Associated Press, Miss Manners and Dilbert 11.2 Still more news on the Net 11.3 The world today, FROM Belarus to Brazil 11.4 FYI Chapter 12: IRC, MUDs and other things that are more fun than they sound 12.1 Talk 12.2 Internet Relay Chat 12.3 IRC commands 12.4 IRC in times of crisis 12.5 MUDs 12.6 Go, go, go (and chess, too)! 12.7 The other side of the coin 12.8 FYI Chapter 13: Education and the Net 13.1 The Net in the Classroom 13.2 Some specific resources for students and teachers 13.3 Usenet and Bitnet in the classroom Chapter 14: Business on the Net 14.1 Setting up shop 14.2 Online storefronts 14.3 The check is in the (e)-mail 14.4 The good, the bad and the ugly 14.5 FYI Chapter 15: The end? Appendix A: The Lingo Appendix B: Electronic Frontier Foundation Information Foreword By Mitchell Kapor, Co-founder, Electronic Frontier Foundation. Welcome to the World of the Internet. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is proud to have sponsored the production of EFF's Guide to the Internet. EFF is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to ensuring that everyone has access to the newly emerging communications technologies vital to active participation in the events of our world. As more and more information is available online, new doors open up for those who have access to that information. Unfortunately, unless access is broadly encouraged, individuals can be disenfranchised and doors can close, as well. EFF's Guide to the Internet was written to help open some doors to the vast amounts of information available on the world's largest network, the Internet. The spark for EFF's Guide to the Internet, and its companion MIT Press book version, Everybody's Guide to the Internet, was ignited in a few informal conversations that included myself and Steve Cisler of Apple Computer, Inc., in June of 1991. With the support of Apple Computer, EFF engaged Adam Gaffin to write the book and actually took on the project in September of 1991. The guide was originally published electronically in July of 1993 as the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet. The idea was to write a guide to the Internet for people who had little or no experience with network communications. We intended to post this guide to the net in ASCII and other formats and to give it away on disk, as well as have a print edition available. We have more than realized our goal. Individuals from as geographically far away as Germany, Italy, Canada, South Africa, Japan, Scotland, Norway and Antarctica have all sent electronic mail to say that they downloaded the guide. EFF's Guide to the Internet is now available in a wide array of formats, including ASCII text, Windows Help, World-Wide Web, PostScript, and AmigaGuide. And the guide is finally available in a printed format, as well. You can find the electronic version of Everybody's Guide to the Internet by using anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org and accessing /pub/Net_info/Guidebooks/EFF_Net_Guide/netguide.eff. Or send an e-mail message to info@eff.org. The electronic version is updated on a regular basis with a newletter (/pub/Net_info/Guidebooks/EFF_Net_Guide/Updates/), and occasional new versions of the guide itself. EFF would like to thank author Adam Gaffin for doing a terrific job of explaining the net in such a nonthreatening way. We'd also like to thank the folks at Apple, especially Steve Cisler of the Apple Library, for their support of our efforts to bring this guide to you. Finally, we'd like to thank our publishers at MIT Press, especially Bob Prior, for working out an arrangement with us where we can continue to distribute the text in electronic format and forego our royalties in order to keep the price of the book low. We invite you to join with EFF in our fight to ensure that equal access to the networks and free speech are protected in newly emerging technologies. We are a membership organization, and through donations like yours, we can continue to sponsor important projects to make communications easier. Information about the Electronic Frontier Foundation and some of the work that we do can be found at the end of this book. We hope that EFF's Guide to the Internet helps you learn about whole new worlds, where new friends and experiences are sure to be yours. Enjoy! Mitchell Kapor Chairman of the Board Electronic Frontier Foundation mkapor@eff.org QUERIES: Please send all queries regarding EFF, and availability and distribution of the guide to ask@eff.org, or one of the other EFF addresses above. Please send all updates, corrections, and queries regarding the content of the guide to the author, Adam Gaffin, at adamg@world.std.com. Preface By Adam Gaffin, Senior Writer, Network World, Framingham, Mass. Welcome to the Internet! You're about to start a journey through a unique land without frontiers, a place that is everywhere at once -- even though it exists physically only as a series of electrical impulses. You'll be joining a growing community of millions of people around the world who use this global resource on a daily basis. With this book, you will be able to use the Internet to: = Stay in touch with friends, relatives and colleagues around the world, at a fraction of the cost of phone calls or even air mail. = Discuss everything from archaeology to zoology with people in several different languages. = Tap into thousands of information databases and libraries worldwide. = Retrieve any of thousands of documents, journals, books and computer programs. = Stay up to date with wire-service news and sports and with official weather reports. = Play live, "real time" games with dozens of other people at once. Connecting to "the Net" today, takes something of a sense of adventure, a willingness to learn and an ability to take a deep breath every once in awhile. Visiting the Net today is a lot like journeying to a foreign country. There are so many things to see and do, but everything at first will seem so, well, foreign. When you first arrive, you won't be able to read the street signs. You'll get lost. If you're unlucky, you may even run into some locals who'd just as soon you went back to where you came from. If this weren't enough, the entire country is constantly under construction; every day, it seems like there's something new for you to figure out. Fortunately, most of the locals are actually friendly. In fact, the Net actually has a rich tradition of helping out visitors and newcomers. Until very recently, there were few written guides for ordinary people, and the Net grew largely through an "oral" tradition in which the old- timers helped the newcomers. So when you connect, don't be afraid to ask for help. You'll be surprised at how many people will lend a hand! Without such folks, in fact, this guide would not be possible. My thanks to all the people who have written with suggestion, additions and corrections since the Big Dummy's Guide first appeared on the Internet in 1993. Special thanks go to my loving wife Nancy. I would also like to thank the following people, who, whether they know it or not, provided particular help. Adam Atkinson, Rhonda Chapman, Jim Cocks, Tom Czarnik, Christopher Davis, David DeSimone, Jeanne deVoto, Phil Eschallier, Nico Garcia, Joe Granrose, Joerg Heitkoetter, Joe Ilacqua, Jonathan Kamens, Peter Kaminski, Thomas A. Kreeger, Stanton McCandlish, Leanne Phillips, Nancy Reynolds, Helen Trillian Rose, Barry Shein, Jennifer "Moira" Smith, Gerard van der Leun and Scott Yanoff. If you have any suggestions or comments on how to make this guide better, I'd love to hear them. You can reach me via e-mail at adamg@world.std.com. Boston, Mass., February, 1995. Chapter 1: SETTING UP AND JACKING IN 1.1 READY, SET ... The world is just a phone call away. With a computer and modem, you'll be able to connect to the Internet, the world's largest computer network (and if you're lucky, you won't even need the modem; many colleges and companies now give their students or employees direct access to the Internet). The phone line can be your existing voice line -- just remember that if you have any extensions, you (and everybody else in the house or office) won't be able to use them for voice calls while you are connected to the Net. A modem is a sort of translator between computers and the phone system. It's needed because computers and the phone system process and transmit data, or information, in two different, and incompatible ways. Computers "talk" digitally; that is, they store and process information as a series of discrete numbers. The phone network relies on analog signals, which on an oscilloscope would look like a series of waves. When your computer is ready to transmit data to another computer over a phone line, your modem converts the computer numbers into these waves (which sound like a lot of screeching) -- it "modulates" them. In turn, when information waves come into your modem, it converts them into numbers your computer can process, by "demodulating" them. Increasingly, computers come with modems already installed. If yours didn't, you'll have to decide what speed modem to get. Modem speeds are judged in bits per second or "bps." One bps means the modem can transfer roughly one bit per second; the greater the bps rate, the more quickly a modem can send and receive information. A letter or character is made up of eight bits. You can now buy a 14,400-bps modem for under $100 -- and most now come with the ability to handle fax messages as well. For under $300, you can buy a modem that can transfer data at 28,800 bps (and often even faster, using special compression techniques). If you think you might be using the Net to transfer large numbers of files, a faster modem is always worth the price. It will dramatically reduce the amount of time your modem or computer is tied up transferring files and, if you are paying for Net access by the hour, will save you quite a bit in online charges. Like the computer to which it attaches, a modem is useless without software to tell it how to work. Most modems today come with easy-to- install software that will let you connect not only to the Internet but other services, such as bulletin-board systems and many commercial online networks, such as CompuServe. Try the program out. If you find it difficult to use or understand, consider a trip to the local software store to find a better program. You can spend several hundred dollars on a communications program, but unless you have very specialized needs, this will be a waste of money, as there are a host of excellent programs available for around $100 or less. Among the basic features you want to look for are a choice of different "protocols" (more on them in a bit) for transferring files to and from the Net and the ability to write "script" or "command" files that let you automate such steps as logging into a host system. When you buy a modem and the software, ask the dealer how to install and use them. Try out the software if you can. If the dealer can't help you, find another dealer. You'll not only save yourself a lot of frustration, you'll also have practiced the prime Internet directive: "Ask. People Know." In addition to the software that comes with your modem, you can now also buy special software kits for getting onto the internet -- at least, if you use Windows or a Macintosh. Some of these work only with a particular Internet provider; others let you connect to the provider of your choice. There are both advantages and disadvantages to these packages; we'll look at these programs in a little more detail in Chapter 9. This guide is geared more toward folks using older style software, such as Procomm, Crosstalk and Zterm, but even if you use one of the newer all-in-one internet access kits, many of the things described in coming chapters will generally be good to know (you never know when you'll find yourself stuck in a room with only an MS-DOS computer). To take full Take advantage of the Net, you must spend a few minutes going over the manuals or documentation that comes with your software. There are a few things you should pay special attention to: uploading and downloading; screen capturing (sometimes called "screen dumping"); logging; how to change protocols; and terminal emulation. It is also essential to know how to convert a file created with your word processing program into "ASCII" or "text" format, which will let you share your thoughts with others across the Net. Uploading is the process of sending a file from your computer to a system on the Net. Downloading is retrieving a file from somewhere on the Net to your computer. In general, things in cyberspace go "up" to the Net and come "down" to you. Chances are your software will come with a choice of several METHODS to use for these transfers. These different methods are systems designed to ensure that line noise or static does not cause errors that could ruin whatever information you are trying to transfer. Essentially, when using a protocol, you are transferring a file in a series of pieces. After each piece is sent or received, your computer and the Net system compare it. If the two pieces don't match exactly, they transfer it again, until they agree that the information they both have is identical. If, after several tries, the information just doesn't make it across, you'll either get an error message or your screen will freeze (at which point you get out the computer manual to see how to re-boot). In that case, try it again. If, after five tries, you are still stymied, something is wrong with a) the file; b) the telephone line; c) the system you're connected to; or d) your own computer. From time to time, you will likely see messages on the Net that you want to save for later viewing -- a recipe, a particularly witty remark, something you want to write your congressman about, whatever. This is where screen capturing and logging come in. When you tell your communications software to capture a screen, it opens a file in your computer (usually in the same directory or folder used by the software) and "dumps" an image of whatever happens to be on your screen at the time. Logging works a bit differently. When you issue a logging command, you tell the software to open a file (again, usually in the same directory or folder as used by the software) and then give it a name. Then, until you turn off the logging command, everything that scrolls on your screen is copied into that file, sort of like recording on videotape. This is useful for capturing long documents that scroll for several pages -- using screen capture, you would have to repeat the same command for each new screen. Terminal emulation is a way for your computer to mimic, or emulate, the way other computers put information on the screen and accept commands from a keyboard. In general, most systems on the Net use a system called VT100. Fortunately, almost all communications programs now on the market support this system as well -- make sure yours does. You'll also have to know about protocols. There are several different ways for computers to transmit characters. Fortunately, there are only two protocols that you're likely to run across: 8-1-N (which stands for "8 bits, 1 stop bit, no parity" -- yikes!) and 7-1-E (7 bits, 1 stop bit, even parity). The latter is fairly rare these days, except on some