Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet

, BLATHER

ally does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor soul... You get the idea. Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved. This brings what has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: "Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11.'' Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They quickly grow boring, though. And wait until the first time you're attacked! Flamers are not the only net.characters to watch out for. Spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats of people who don't seem to care - as frequently as possible. You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends these articles - both can reach well into double digits.

agr

lly, you can't tell these people are there, but they are. They're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or respond. Wizards. People who know a particular Net-related topic inside and out. Unix wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating system, for example. Net.saints. Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate the Net, they are not as rare as you might think. Post a question about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses you get. The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition. With few written guides, people have traditionall

, THE CURE FO

e by deleting everything you've said, leaving only the "In message 123435, you said:" part and the last line of your message, to which they add a nonsensical retort. On and on they go until the triangle has reached the right end of the page. Then they try to expand the triangle by deleting one > with each new line. Whoever gets to finish this mega-triangle wins. There is even a newsgroup just for such folks: alt.cascade. Unfortunately, cascaders would generally rather cascade in other newsgroups. Because it takes a lot of messages to build up a completed cascade, the targeted newsgroup soon fills up with these messages. Of course, if you complain, you'll be bombarded with messages about the First Amendment and artistic expression - or worse, with another cascade. The only thing you can do is ignore them, by setting

)elect (CR => Kil

hoose one and the article and any follow-ups will disappear, and you won't se

(s)ubject o

key or just ente

ubject

he offending word or

hen be p

'eff.test' or in

moment. Because cascaders and other annoying people often cross-post their messages

try in days (p

ts number so you get it on your screen. Type a capital K. From now on, any message with that subject line will disappear before you read the group. You should probably choose a reply, rather than the original message, so that you will get all of the followups (the original message won't have a "Re: " in its subject line). The next time you call up that newsgroup, rn will tell you it's killing messages. When it's done, hit the space bar to go back into reading mode. To create a "global"

rn/mod

nd "Test" will be knocked out. The modifier tells rn whether to limit its search to message h

entire message h: Lo

ine of messages. The "j" at the end tells rn to screen out all articles with the offendi

oo

one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since an article's newsgroup name is always in the hea

oo

s a followup to any art

ect:

e, 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 rea

ame@addre

E USENE

k (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,

BOY, THE MODEM TAX

s 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 co

BI

imer 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 ad

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 |#| |#| - M

a... f

AMENDMENT AS L

he 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,

ENET H

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 f

THINGS

p rn, you get a "w

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utes, you'll be asked

em. Bogus newsgroups a

r somebody else has de

ed

oup in rn, you get

able ar

icle that somebody pos

nc

file to your Unix ho

, and when you or your r

ne ends

nix handles line endin

ers. Most Unix systems

her computers. To use

our comman

filename

filenam

e is the name of the file you've just uploaded. A similar program c

filename or unix2m

are about to get will not come

9

ts 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 Lis