OVERVIEW

Let me give you a brief overview of the locations you will be visiting today. We are going to briefly review what the internet is, where and how it got started, and how you can get connected. We will show you some cool sites, and try to give you some idea of how to find what you need in this vast space called the internet. Lastly, we will head home after giving you tips on how to become the lead travel agent at your office. Hopefully by the end of the day you will be able to use the jargon, find your way around and impress your boss when you hand her the answer in record time. After all, what we look for is efficiency--finding the most accurate and up to date information in the least amount of time. The internet has the potential to satisfy both these goals. Note that I say potential. We will also talk about what a great time waster the internet is.

WHAT IS THE INTERNET

It is quite simply a whole bunch of linked computers. The internet was started as a concept in the early 1960s by the Department of Defense (DoD). This was at the height of the cold war and the DoD wanted to be able to communicate with other cities, states or countries after a nuclear attack. The Rand Corporation was charged with the mission of coming up with a means of communication when all other means had been destroyed by a nuclear attack. The concept that emerged was remarkable. As one writer has described it, a new, anarchic network was envisioned.⁽¹⁾ The message is broken up into lots of small chains (or packets) of information which are sent to the destination site all by different means. If one link in the chain was lost, the rest of the chain would survive intact because it went by a different route. In fact, the links would never be lost because if one route was destroyed, the link simply sought out a different route. At the destination computer, all the chains are linked back together to form a coherent message or file. This is how the internet still works today. Every time you send an e-mail message or look up something with a http or www address, the information you send and receive has been broken down into links, each with a code for the destination address. The links are sent out through different pathways, then reassembled at the destination. That is a rather marvelous concept-- extremely durable and extremely decentralized.

The Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) liked the idea and gave it to UCLA, Stanford, University of California at San Bernadino and the University of Utah to work on.⁽²⁾ The researchers used what then passed for high speed computers to be the nodes or hubs, and started sending messages. This was known as ARPANET. The idea worked and it grew. At first, the universities kept it pretty much to themselves. The original idea was to do long distance computing. Instead, the researchers simply wrote messages to one another-the first e-mail. Protocols for the computers to talk to each other were developed and it grew. Other people realized the possibilities and it grew. The Pentagon bowed out in 1983 to form its own MILNET. Since the protocol enabling the computers to speak to one another was public domain, other companies, branches of the government and individuals simply latched. It grew from there.⁽³⁾

The best and the worst thing about the Internet is that nobody owns it and everybody owns it. The government doesn't own it, not Microsoft and not some secret corporation. It is simply a bunch of linked computers. There is no room where the internet is stored. If someone shut down one node (or backbone computer) then the messages would simply travel by another route. This can be good or bad. Since no one owns it, no one controls it. That means that it is open to any fringe group seeking members and disseminating some weird message as well as being the lifeline for someone who is not able to leave his house because of a physical disability. That also means that there is no censorship of ideas or speech. This is freedom of speech at its most free. Can a country like China really control the flow of information to its people once there are a few reliable node computers. If a government tries to shut down one route, the information simply travels by another route. Guerrilla information at its best.

By the way, what about the .org, .net, .gov? What do those stand for anyway? Generally, com stands for a commercial site, gov stands for government, org stands for a not-for-profit organization, edu stands for educational institution, and net is simply a host network or a hub network.

Your connection to the internet is through a web browser, of which there are now three: Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer or Linux. America Online claims its own browser, but now that it has joined Microsoft, we will have to see what its browser looks like in the future.

E-MAIL, LIST SERVE, CHAT GROUP

E-mail is much like sending a telegraph. One person sends a message and it goes to an electronic mailbox. The receiving person has to go to the mailbox to retrieve the message. One of the most popular e-mail programs is Eudora, although bundled e-mail programs with Microsoft Explorer, America Online and Yahoo! are quite popular and easy to use.

Remaining a popular way to meet people online are the various newsgroups. These are the groups which are linked together through a main system called Usenet. These newsgroups are electronic bulletin boards on which you can discuss just about any subject by posting a message and then receiving comments and replies from the other people who subscribe.

A mailing list or an e-mail discussion group is like sending a newsletter.⁴ The message is sent to all the people on the mailing list. Many of these discussion groups are moderated which means that the message goes to a central location where it is viewed for a determination that it is acceptable for the topic or subject or specialty of the mailing list. Once cleared for sending, the message is then disseminated to everybody on the list. Mailing lists enable you to have a discussion among lots of people and you don't have to remember everybody's e-mail address. This discussion does not happen simultaneously. Each person has to send, then retrieve his or her own messages. There is software to help the administrator manage these messages. Several of the most popular are Listserv® and Listproc®. These allow the moderator or group to create, manage and control electronic mailing lists on either a corporate network or on the internet. ⁽⁵⁾ Many of these discussion groups collect and archive the past discussions, so you may search for a particular topic, although, depending on the method of archival, the search may involve tediously looking through every entry to find a particular subject. Check with the moderator about how efficient the search function is.

A chat group is more akin to a telephone conference call. It may be interactive via IRC (Internet Relay Chat). You "enter" a room or channel and "chat" away by typing your messages.⁽⁶⁾

A note of caution. There are companies on the internet that have cataloged the various mailing lists or chat groups. If you want to find out if there is a chat group on a certain topic go to www.liszt.com/news-faq. However, that also means that the company can sell its mailing list to direct marketing companies. Then you start to get all these e-mails trying to sell you something. That is what is derisively known as Spamming.

The fun thing about e-mail is that you can send a file as an attachment to the message. This can get a bit tricky when the sending and receiving persons are using different e-mail programs, but there are translators available if all else fails. Most e-mail programs are highly compatible with each other. Run a practice session to find any compatibility problems if you will be either routinely sending attachments to another person or firm, or if there is a deadline involved.

There is another problem with e-mail. It is not secure. A good cracker/hacker can intercept the message and read it. Now remember that I said that the internet message is sent out in small links which all together make up the chain. Well, anyone who is inclined to can "invade" the message and read it. That is fine if you are sending a message to your aunt in North Dakota, but how about if you want to communicate with your law firm client. You wouldn't send a postcard to your client describing the attorney's strategy for winning her case would you? Similarly, you don't want to send privileged messages through the internet without some sort of coding or encryption. There are dozens of encrypting software available and some require that the receiving party have exactly the same software that you do, and some do not. Talk about this with your network administrator or computer consultant, or run a search on the internet for encryption. You will find lots of information on the subject and you can make your decision from there.

For more information check out www.newbie.net which has lots of information about e-mail, chat groups and news groups.

What about viruses? Can your computer get one if you download something off the net or receive an attachment in an e-mail? Basically, you can only get a virus if you download an application file. That is a program that "does something." In computer jargon it is called an executable file and will have a suffix of ".exe" or ".com" or ".bat". You cannot transfer a virus if you download a data file. To be perfectly safe, simply don't open any e-mail attachment if you don't know from whom it comes. That is the current state of the protection. Of course, in the not so distant future I am sure that some creative person will find a way to write a virus program that will invade your computer once you open and read your e-mail message, without the need for an attachment, but we are not there yet.

It is a good idea to have a program on your computer or network which scans for viruses. Do a search virus protection programs and you will find plenty to choose from. Keep in mind, however, that virus protection programs only work based on the last virus which went around. No virus protection program will protect you from the virus which is being invented tomorrow. You must constantly update your program or it is basically useless.

ADDRESSES AND DOMAIN NAMES

Just as the fire department has to have your address (or at least directions if you live in the country) to get to your house to put out the fire, so to with e-mail and web sites. The sending computer has to know where to send that message concerning the lifespan of Hawaiian volcanoes. This is accomplished with an e-mail address or a web site address which has a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Many times, it is distinctive to you or your company. Many e-mail addresses have a proprietary name as a part of the address, such as ***@prodigy.com. My address at work is cspitts@erwinlaw.com. Looking at my e-mail address, the first section of letters before the @ symbol is the user name. The section immediately to the right of the @ symbol is the host name.

If I change jobs, I would need to change my address. However, if I want to select an address for my personal e-mail at home, I can select one from my ISP or I can choose one so that I never have to change my address even if I change internet providers. This is accomplished by obtaining a URL through a forwarding service. This service will collect my e-mail messages and send them to whichever address I direct, no matter which ISP I am using. Some of these forwarding services are free and some charge a minimal amount. Two free services which you may have heard about are www.bigfoot.com and www.sweden.com. Do a search and you will find a bunch more.

There are lots of ways to get online. There are the large service providers like AOL or Prodigy and there are the smaller providers like Dave's World (which isn't so small anymore) or prairienet. You also have to have a computer, or access to one, and a modem. There is WebTV also. Just look in the phone book or in the newspaper and you will find several to choose from. Chose based on service and price. Talk to your neighbors. At work, your company needs to decide if you want a regular dial up modem, or an ISDN line or a T1 line. Those go in order of price and speed.

^1.Short History of the Internet by Bruce Sterling, found at www.forthnet.gr/frothnet/isoc/short.history.of.internet (from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1993.

^2.www.pbs.org/internet/timeline

^3. Short History of the Internet by Bruce Sterling, found at www.forthnet.gr/forthnet/isoc/short.history.of.internet (from the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1993.

^6. www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/6000/faq.html#section1-1