useful when the object is to never see messages from a particular person): a: Looks through an entire message h: Looks just at the header You can leave out the modifier command, in which case rn will look only at the subject line of messages. The "j" at the end tells rn to screen out all articles with the offending word. So if you never want to see the word "foo" in any header, ever again, type this: /foo/h:j This is particularly useful for getting rid of articles from people who post in more than one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since an article's newsgroup name is always in the header. If you just want to block messages with a subject line about cascades, you could try: /foo/:j To kill anything that is a followup to any article, use this pattern: /Subject: *Re:/:j When done writing lines for each phrase to screen, exit the text editor as you normally would, and you'll be put back in rn. One word of caution: go easy on the global killfile. An extensive global killfile, or one that makes frequent use of the a: modifier can dramatically slow down rn, since the system will now have to look at every single word in every single message in all the newsgroups you want to read. If there's a particular person whose posts you never want to see again, first find his or her address (which will be in the "from:" line of his postings) and then write a line in your killfile like this: /From: *name@address\.all/h:j 4.3 DOWNLOADING MESSAGES Let's say there is an article in Usenet you want to save to your home computer. There are a couple of ways to do this. One would be to use your own telecommunication's logging or screen-capture function to capture the text as it scrolls down the screen. This method is good if there's just one or two articles you want to save. But what if there are a whole lot of messages on a particular topic you want to download, or if you want to temporarily store them online before getting them? It might make sense to save them all to one file that you then download. To do this in nn, hit a capital S while in the article. You'll get something like this: Save on (+~|) +alt/internet/services If you hit enter a couple of times, the file will be saved. But note those backslashes. That means you'll actually be creating a series of Unix sub-directories in addition to a file (in the example above, you'd be creating a directory path called alt/internet in which you'd save the file called services). This can be a pain! Instead, backspace as far as you can and type in whatever you want to call the file. Now hit enter a couple of times, and the file will be saved in your home directory. Repeat for other articles until done. Assuming you use the same file name each time, each message will be stored in that file. Note for you MS-DOS folks: be sure to name the file something you're computer can handle, for example, manual.txt, rather than something it can't, such as computer.manual.txt). To do this in rn, hit a lower-case s while in the article. You'll be given a default file name in which to save the article. You can either use that or type in your own name. Hit enter, and you'll be asked if you want to save the article "in mailbox format." Hitting y or n here makes little practical difference unless, for some reason, you later want to view the article from within elm or some other mail program. The article will then be saved in a file in your News directory (which is a subdirectory off the normal directory you are put in when you connect to your public-access provider). To save another article to that file, repeat the process, and make sure you use the same file name. The article will be appended to the end of the file you created. Now to get the messages home. First, you tell your host system that you want to transfer, or download, the file. If your telecommunications program has Zmodem, that's all you'll have to do -- the downloading will then start automatically. If you are using something like Xmodem, Ymodem or Kermit, however, you'll then have to tell your own computer to get ready to receive a file. To start a Zmodem download in Unix, type sz filename where "filename" is the file you want and hit enter. With Zmodem (and also batch-Ymodem), you can initiate several downloads at once by either typing in a series of filenames after 'sz' (for example: sz file1 file2) or by using Unix wildcards (which are very similar to MS-DOS wildcards; for example, sz man* would send you manual1, manual2 and manoman.txt). If you use Ymodem, the command would be in the form sz -k filename while if you want to use Xmodem, it would be sx filename Note that in Xmodem, you have to issue an sx command for each file you want. With Ymodem and Xmodem, you'll then have to tell your own computer's communications program that you're about to download a file and what you want to call it. Now you rn users, recall how the files you created were being stored in your News directory. That means that to get them, you'd have to type something like: sz News/filename Otherwise, you'll get an error message. 4.4 ASCII AND YE SHALL RECEIVE That was easy, wasn't it? Alas, it can get more complicated. Unix, MS- DOS and Macintosh computers all handle the end of lines of text differently. That means that when you download a text file (such as a collection of Usenet postings), it could look awfully odd on your computer, to the point of being almost unreadable. There are a couple of ways to handle this. One is to use an ASCII "flag" after sz (or sx or sz -k). If you're lucky, your public-access site and your own computer will be able to figure out that you need to have the line endings translated. The command would look like this: sz -a filename or sz -ka filename etc. If you still get weird results, most Unix systems have a translator program that can put the proper line endings in. Typing unix2dos file.txt file.txt would convert file.txt into a valid MS-DOS file. A similar program called unix2mac works the same for Macintoshes. 4.4 SOME USENET HINTS Case counts in Unix -- most of the time. Many Unix commands, including many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case sensitive. Hit a d when you meant a D and either nothing will happen, or something completely different from what you expected will happen. So watch that case! In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark (the exception is when you are writing your own message, because then you are inside the text-processing program). In rn, type a lower-case h at any prompt to get some online help. When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through the l command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to try several keywords. For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to the Grateful Dead, but you'd never find it if you tried, say, l grateful dead, because the name is rec.music.gdead. In general, try the smallest possible part of the word or discussion you're looking for, for example, use "trek" to find newsgroups about "Star Trek." If one word doesn't produce anything, try another. 4.5 THE BRAIN-TUMOR BOY, THE MODEM TAX AND THE FCC Like the rest of the world, Usenet has its share of urban legends and questionable activities. There are three in particular that plague the network. Spend more than, oh, 15 minutes within Usenet and you're sure to run into the Brain Tumor Boy, the plot by the evil FCC to tax your modem and Dave Rhode's miracle cure for poverty. For the record, here's the story on all of them: There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig Shergold who was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. As he lay dying, he wished only to have friends send him postcards. The local newspapers got a hold of the tear-jerking story. Soon, the boy's wish had changed: he now wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest postcard collection. Word spread around the world. People by the millions sent him postcards. Miraculously, the boy lived. An American billionaire even flew him to the U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. And his wish succeeded beyond his wildest dreams -- he made the Guinness Book of World Records. But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into a nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where he lives. Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to die, inundating the post office with millions of cards every year. Just when it seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else who starts up a whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig post cards (or greeting cards or business cards -- Craig letters have truly taken on a life of their own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby has been powerless to make it stop! What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter seems to pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major corporations. No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford posts periodic messages to ignore them or spend your money on something more sensible (a donation to the local Red Cross, say), somebody manages to post a letter asking readers to send cards to poor little Craig. Don't send any cards to the Federal Communications Commission, either. In 1987, the FCC considered removing a tax break it had granted CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem tax." Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is NOT true. The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on KGO radio in San Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in the New York Times. Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments. Save that letter to your congressman for something else. Sooner or later, you're going to run into a message titled "Make Money Fast." It's your basic chain letter. The Usenet version is always about some guy named Dave Rhodes who was on the verge of death, or something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money -- by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. Yeah, right. 4.6 BIG SIG There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones information in their .sig files -- their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer. Still others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ASCII "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at these. You can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as: ___________________________________________________________________________ |#########################################################################| |#| |#| |#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#| |#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#| |#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#| |#| |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#| |#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| |#| |#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#| |#| ~-----------------------------~ |#| |#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#| |#| |#| |#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#| |#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#| |#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point |#| |#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#| |#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#| |#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#| |#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#| |#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#| |#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#| |#| dump sites." |#| |#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#| |#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#| |#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#| |#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#| |#| Society Luncheon" during the |#| |#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#| |#|_____________________________________________________________________|#| |#| |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales |#| |#| __ |#| |#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#| |#| \\ / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#| |#| )-======= Suite 215 |#| |#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#| |#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#| |#| ---------------- Fax # 804-411-1115 |#| |#| "Shut up, Wesley!" Online Service # 804-411-1100 |#| |#| -- Me at 300-2400, and now 9600 baud! |#| |#| PUNet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo |#| |#| Home address: InterNet: dvader@imperial.emp.com |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III Prodigy: Still awaiting author- |#| |#| 104 Luzyer Way ization |#| |#| Sulaco, VA 22545 "Manufacturing educational widget |#| |#| Phone # 804-555-1524 design for over 3 years..." |#| |#|=====================================================================|#| |#| |#| |#| Introducing: |#| |#| ______ |#| |#| The |\ /| / |#| |#| | \/ | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | ETELHED /_____ ONE |#| |#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#| |#| 50Megs Online! The k00l BBS for rad teens! Lots of games and many |#| |#| bases for kul topix! Call now and be validated to the Metelhed Zone|#| |#| -- 804-555-8500 -- |#| |#|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\V/////////////////////////////////////|#| |#| "This is the end, my friend..." -- The Doors |#| |#########################################################################| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hit "b" to continue Hahahha... fooled u! 4.7 THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS LOCAL ORDINANCE Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law? Does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And what if that country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as well? Several foreign colleges and other institutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where Americans post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or alternative sexual practices. Even in the U.S., some universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive, again, usually in the alt. hierarchy. An interesting example of this sort of question happened in 1993, when a Canadian court issued a gag order on Canadian reporters covering a particularly controversial murder case. Americans, not bound by the gag order, began posting accounts of the trial -- which any Canadian with a Net account could promptly read. 4.8 USENET HISTORY In the late 1970s, Unix developers came up with a new feature: a system to allow Unix computers to exchange data over phone lines. In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University in North Carolina, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, came up with the idea of using this system, known as UUCP (for Unix-to-Unix CoPy), to distribute information of interest to people in the Unix community. Along with Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina and Steve Daniel, they wrote conferencing software and linked together computers at Duke and UNC. Word quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley, Mark Horton and a nearby high school student, Matt Glickman, had released a new version that added more features and was able to handle larger volumes of postings -- the original North Carolina program was meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day. Today, this system, now called Usenet, connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to Amigas. With more than 3,000 newsgroups and untold thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer network. 4.9 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG * When you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus newsgroups" are present. Within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked whether to keep these or delete them. Delete them. Bogus newsgroups are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has determined are no longer needed. * While in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping unavailable article." This is usually an article that somebody posted and then decided to cancel. * You upload a text file to your Unix host system for use in a Usenet message or e-mail, and when you or your recipient reads the file, every line ends with a ^M. This happens because Unix handles line endings differently than MS-DOS or Macintosh computers. Most Unix systems have programs to convert incoming files from other computers. To use it, upload your file and then, at your command line, type dos2unix filename filename or mac2unix filename filename depending on which kind of computer you are using and where filename is the name of the file you've just uploaded. A similar program can prepare text files for downloading to your computer, for example: unix2dos filename filename or unix2mac filename filename will ensure that a text file you are about to get will not come out looking odd on your computer. * Nothing happens or you get a lot of garbage on your screen when you try to download a file with Zmodem. Unfortunately, transferring files over high-speed modems can still sometimes be troublesome. Diagnosing and fixing the problem often means tinkering with settings either on your end (for example, if your modem supports hardware "handshaking" but your telecom program is set for software "handshaking"); the public-access site's end (with various flags) or both. The best thing to do when having problems is to send e- mail to your system administrator or post a message in your site's "general" or "help" newsgroup if there is one. If you're having a problem, chances are somebody else has gone through the same thing and can help out. It would probably make sense to include the type of modem you're using and the speed at which it connects. 4.10 FYI Leanne Phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups on Usenet. Bill Wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the news.answers and news.software newsgroups. Look in the news.announce.newusers and news.groups newsgroups on Usenet for "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists,'' which gives brief summaries of the various soc. newsgroups. "Managing UUCP and Usenet,' by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino (O'Reilly & Associates, 1992) is a good guide for setting up your own Usenet system. chap3 Chapter 5: MAILING LISTS AND BITNET 5.1 INTERNET MAILING LISTS Usenet is not the only forum on the Net. Scores of "mailing lists" represent another way to interact with other Net users. Unlike Usenet messages, which are stored in one central location on your host system's computer, mailing-list messages are delivered right to your e-mail box. You have to ask for permission to join a mailing list -- although in many cases that means only sending a message to a particular computer, which then automatically adds you to the list. Unlike Usenet, where your message is distributed to the world, on a mailing list, you send your messages to a central moderator, who either re-mails it to the other people on the list or uses it to compile a periodic "digest" mailed to subscribers. Given the number of newsgroups, why would anybody bother with a mailing list? Even on Usenet, there are some topics that just might not generate enough interest for a newsgroup; for example, the Queen list, which is all about the late Freddie Mercury's band. And because a moderator decides who can participate, a mailing list can offer a degree of freedom to speak one's mind (or not worry about net.weenies) that is not necessarily possible on Usenet. Several groups offer anonymous postings -- only the moderator knows the real names of people who contribute. Examples include 12Step, where people enrolled in such programs as Alcoholics Anonymous can discuss their experiences, and sappho, a list limited to gay and bisexual women. You can find mailing addresses and descriptions of these lists in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup with the subject of "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists." Mailing lists now number in the hundreds, so this posting is divided into several parts.