Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet - Electronic Frontier Foundation (reading rainbow books .txt) 📗

Started in 1969 with

funds from the Defense Department’s Advanced Projects

Research Agency.

backbone A high-speed network that connects several powerful

computers. In the U.S., the backbone of the Internet is

often considered the NSFNet, a government funded link

between a handful of supercomputer sites across the

country.

Baud The speed at which modems transfer data. One baud is

roughly equal to one bit per second. It takes eight

bits to make up one letter or character. Modems rarely

transfer data at exactly the same speed as their listed

baud rate because of static or computer problems. More

expensive modems use systems, such as Microcom Network

Protocol (MNP), which can correct for these errors or

which “compress” data to speed up transmission.

BITNet Another, academically oriented, international computer

network, which uses a different set of computer

instructions to move data. It is easily accessible to

Internet users through e-mail, and provides a large

number of conferences and databases. Its name comes from

“Because It’s Time.” ”

Bounce What your e-mail does when it cannot get to its

recipient — it bounces back to you — unless it goes

off into the ether, never to be found again.

Command line On Unix host systems, this is where you tell the

machine what you want it to do, by entering commands.

Communications A program that tells a modem how to work.

software

Daemon An otherwise harmless Unix program that normally works

out of sight of the user. On the Internet, you’ll most

likely encounter it only when your e-mail is not

delivered to your recipient — you’ll get back your

original message plus an ugly message from a “mailer

daemon.

Distribution A way to limit where your Usenet postings go. Handy for

such things as “for sale” messages or discussions of

regional politics.

Domain The last part of an Internet address, such as “news.com.”

Dot When you want to impress the net veterans you meet at

parties, say “dot” instead of “period,” for example: “My

address is john at site dot domain dot com.”

Dot file A file on a Unix public-access system

that alters the way you or your messages interact with

that system. For example, your .login file contains

various parameters for such things as the text editor you

get when you send a message. When you do an ls command,

these files do not appear in the directory listing; do ls

-a to list them.

Down When a public-access site runs into technical trouble,

and you can no longer gain access to it, it’s down.

Download Copy a file from a host system to your computer. There

are several different methods, or protocols, for

downloading files, most of which periodically check the

file as it is being copied to ensure no information is

inadvertently destroyed or damaged during the process.

Some, such as XMODEM, only let you download one file at

a time. Others, such as batch-YMODEM and ZMODEM, let

you type in the names of several files at once, which

are then automatically downloaded.

EMACS A standard Unix text editor preferred by Unix types

that beginners tend to hate.

E-mail Electronic mail — a way to send a private message to

somebody else on the Net. Used as both noun and verb.

Emoticon See smiley.

F2F Face to Face. When you actually meet those people you

been corresponding with/flaming.

FAQ Frequently Asked Questions. A compilation of answers to

these. Many Usenet newsgroups have these files, which

are posted once a month or so for beginners.

Film at 11 One reaction to an overwrought argument: “Imminent death

of the Net predicted. Film at 11.”

Finger An Internet program that lets you get some bit of

information about another user, provided they have first

created a .plan file.

Flame Online yelling and/or ranting directed at somebody else.

Often results in flame wars, which occasionally turn into

holy wars (see).

Followup A Usenet posting that is a response to an earlier

message.

Foo/foobar A sort of online algebraic place holder, for example: “If

you want to know when another site is run by a for-

profit company, look for an address in the form of

foo@foobar.com.”

Fortune cookie An inane/witty/profund comment that can be found around

the net.

Freeware Software that doesn’t cost anything.

FTP File-transfer Protocol. A system for transferring files

across the Net.

Get a life What to say to somebody who has, perhaps, been spending a

wee bit too much time in front of a computer.

GIF Graphic Interchange Format. A format developed in the

mid-1980s by CompuServe for use in photo-quality graphics

images. Now commonly used everywhere online.

GNU Gnu’s Not Unix. A project of the Free Software

Foundation to write a free version of the Unix operating

system.

Hacker On the Net, unlike among the general public, this is not

a bad person; it is simply somebody who enjoys stretching

hardware and software to their limits, seeing just what

they can get their computers to do. What many people

call hackers, net.denizens refer to as crackers.

Handshake Two modems trying to connect first do this to agree on

how to transfer data.

Hang When a modem fails to hang up.

Holy war Arguments that involve certain basic tenets of faith,

about which one cannot disagree without setting one of

these off. For example: IBM PCs are inherently superior to

Macintoshes.

Host system A public-access site; provides Net access to people

outside the research and government community.

IMHO In My Humble Opinion.

Internet A worldwide system for linking smaller computer

networks together. Networks connected through the

Internet use a particular set of communications

standards to communicate, known as TCP/IP.

Killfile A file that lets you filter Usenet postings to some

extent, by excluding messages on certain topics or from

certain people.

Log on/log in Connect to a host system or public-access site.

Log off Disconnect from a host system.

Lurk Read messages in a Usenet newsgroup without ever saying

anything.

Mailing list Essentially a conference in which messages are delivered

right to your mailbox, instead of to a Usenet newsgroup.

You get on these by sending a message to a specific e-

mail address, which is often that of a computer that

automates the process.

MOTSS Members of the Same Sex. Gays and Lesbians online.

Originally an acronym used in the 1980 federal census.

Net.god One who has been online since the beginning, who knows

all and who has done it all.

Net.personality Somebody sufficiently opinionated/flaky/with plenty of

time on his hands to regularly post in dozens of

different Usenet newsgroups, whose presence is known to

thousands of people.

Net.police Derogatory term for those who would impose their

standards on other users of the Net. Often used in

vigorous flame wars (in which it occasionally mutates to

net.nazis).

Netiquette A set of common-sense guidelines for not annoying others.

Network A communications system that links two or more

computers. It can be as simple as a cable strung

between two computers a few feet apart or as complex

as hundreds of thousands of computers around the world

linked through fiber optic cables, phone lines and

satellites.

Newbie Somebody new to the Net. Sometimes used derogatorily by

net.veterans who have forgotten that, they, too, were

once newbies who did not innately know the answer to

everything. “Clueless newbie” is always derogatory.

Newsgroup A Usenet conference.

NIC Network Information Center. As close as an Internet-

style network gets to a hub; it’s usually where you’ll

find information about that particular network.

NSA line eater The more aware/paranoid Net users believe that the

National Security Agency has a super-powerful computer

assigned to reading everything posted on the Net. They

will jokingly (?) refer to this line eater in their

postings. Goes back to the early days of the Net when

the bottom lines of messages would sometimes disappear

for no apparent reason.

NSF National Science Foundation. Funds the NSFNet, a

high-speed network that once formed the backbone of the

Internet in the U.S.

Offline When your computer is not connected to a host system

or the Net, you are offline.

Online When your computer is connected to an online service,

bulletin-board system or public-access site.

Ping A program that can trace the route a message takes from