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

Internet Systems, 44 (0)81 343 4848. 12.50 setup

fee; 10 a month or 132.50 a year. Voice: 44 (0)81 349 0063

1.4 IF YOUR TOWN HAS NO DIRECT ACCESS

If you don’t live in an area with a public-access site, you’ll still

be able to connect to the Net. Several services offer access

through national data networks such as the CompuServe Packet Network and

SprintNet, which have dozens, even hundreds of local dial-in numbers across

the country. These include Holonet in Berkeley, Calf., Portal in

Cupertino, Calf., the WELL in Sausalito, Calf., Dial ‘N CERF in San Diego,

Calf., the World in Brookline, Mass., and Michnet in Ann Arbor, Mich. Dial

‘N CERF offers access through an 800 number. Expect to pay from $2 to $12

an hour to use these networks, above each provider’s basic charges. The

exact amount depends on the network, time of day and type of modem you use.

For more information, contact the above services.

Four other providers deliver Net access to users across the

country:

Delphi, based in Cambridge, Mass., is a consumer-oriented network

much like CompuServe or America Online — only it now offers

subscribers access to Internet services. Delphi charges: $3 a month for

Internet access, in addition to standard charges. These are $10 a month

for four hours of off-peak (non-working hours) access a month and $4 an

hour for each additional hour or $20 for 20 hours of access a month and

$1.80 an hour for each additional hour. For more information, call (800)

695-4005.

BIX (the Byte Information Exchange) offers FTP, Telnet and e-mail

access to the Internet as part of their basic service. Owned by the same

company as Delphi, it also offers 20 hours of access a month for $20.

For more information, call (800) 695-4775.

PSI, based in Reston, Va., provides nationwide access to Internet

services through scores of local dial-in numbers to owners of IBM and

compatible computers. PSILink. which includes access to e-mail,

Usenet and ftp, costs $29 a month, plus a one-time $19 registration

fee. Special software is required, but is available free from PSI.

PSI’s Global Dialup Service provides access to telnet for $39 a month

plus a one-time $39 set-up fee. For more information, call (800)

82PSI82 or (703) 620-6651.

NovX Systems Integration, based in Seattle, Washington, offers full

Internet access through an 800 number reachable across the United States.

There is a $24.95 setup fee, in addition to a monthly fee of $19.95 and a

$10.5 hourly charge. For more information, call (206) 447-0800.

1.5 NET ORIGINS

In the 1960s, researchers began experimenting with linking computers

to each other and to people through telephone hook-ups, using funds from

the U.S Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA).

ARPA wanted to see if computers in different locations could be

linked using a new technology known as packet switching. This technology,

in which data meant for another location is broken up into little pieces,

each with its own “forwarding address” had the promise of letting several

users share just one communications line. Just as important, from ARPA’s

viewpoint, was that this allowed for creation of networks that could

automatically route data around downed circuits or computers. ARPA’s

goal was not the creation of today’s international computer-using

community, but development of a data network that could survive a nuclear

attack.

Previous computer networking efforts had required a line between

each computer on the network, sort of like a one-track train route. The

packet system allowed for creation of a data highway, in which large

numbers of vehicles could essentially share the same lane. Each packet

was given the computer equivalent of a map and a time stamp, so that it

could be sent to the right destination, where it would then be

reassembled into a message the computer or a human could use.

This system allowed computers to share data and the researchers to

exchange electronic mail, or e-mail. In itself, e-mail was something

of a revolution, offering the ability to send detailed letters at the

speed of a phone call.

As this system, known as ARPANet, grew, some enterprising college

students (and one in high school) developed a way to use it to conduct

online conferences. These started as science-oriented discussions, but

they soon branched out into virtually every other field, as people

recognized the power of being able to “talk” to hundreds, or even

thousands, of people around the country.

In the 1970s, ARPA helped support the development of rules, or

protocols, for transferring data between different types of computer

networks. These “internet” (from “internetworking”) protocols made it

possible to develop the worldwide Net we have today that links all sorts

of computers across national boundaries. By the close of the 1970s, links

developed between ARPANet and counterparts in other countries. The world

was now tied together in a computer web.

In the 1980s, this network of networks, which became known

collectively as the Internet, expanded at a phenomenal rate. Hundreds,

then thousands, of colleges, research companies and government agencies

began to connect their computers to this worldwide Net. Some

enterprising hobbyists and companies unwilling to pay the high costs of

Internet access (or unable to meet stringent government regulations for

access) learned how to link their own systems to the Internet, even if

“only” for e-mail and conferences. Some of these systems began

offering access to the public. Now anybody with a computer and modem —

and persistence — could tap into the world.

In the 1990s, the Net continues to grow at exponential rates. Some

estimates are that the volume of messages transferred through the Net

grows 20 percent a month. In response, government and other users have

tried in recent years to expand the Net itself. Once, the main Net

“backbone” in the U.S. moved data at 56,000 bits per second. That proved

too slow for the ever increasing amounts of data being sent over it, and

in recent years the maximum speed was increased to 1.5 million and then

45 million bits per second. Even before the Net was able to reach that

latter speed, however, Net experts were already figuring out ways to pump

data at speeds of up to 2 billion bits per second — fast enough to send

the entire Encyclopedia Britannica across the country in just one or two

seconds. Another major change has been the development of commercial

services that provide internetworking services at speeds comparable to

those of the government system. In fact, by mid-1994, the U.S.

government will remove itself from any day-to-day control over the

workings of the Net, as regional and national providers continue to

expand.

1.6 HOW IT WORKS

The worldwide Net is actually a complex web of smaller regional

networks. To understand it, picture a modern road network of trans-

continental superhighways connecting large cities. From these large cities

come smaller freeways and parkways to link together small towns, whose

residents travel on slower, narrow residential ways.

The Net superhighway is the high-speed Internet. Connected to

this are computers that use a particular system of transferring data

at high speeds. In the U.S., the major Internet “backbone”

theoretically can move data at rates of 45 million bits per second

(compare this to the average home modem, which has a top speed of roughly

9,600 to 14,400 bits per second).

Connected to the backbone computers are smaller networks serving

particular geographic regions, which generally move data at speeds

around 1.5 million bits per second.

Feeding off these in turn are even smaller networks or individual

computers.

Unlike with commercial networks such as CompuServe or Prodigy, there

is no one central computer or computers running the Internet — its

resources are to be found among thousands of individual computers. This

is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The approach

means it is virtually impossible for the entire Net to crash at once —

even if one computer shuts down, the rest of the network stays up. The

design also reduces the costs for an individual or organization to get

onto the network. But thousands of connected computers can also make it

difficult to navigate the Net and find what you want — especially as

different computers may have different commands for plumbing their

resources. It is only recently that Net users have begun to develop the

sorts of navigational tools and “maps” that will let neophytes get around

without getting lost.

Nobody really knows how many computers and networks actually make

up this Net. Some estimates say there are now as many as 5,000

networks connecting nearly 2 million computers and more than 15 million

people around the world. Whatever the actual numbers, however, it is

clear they are only increasing.

The Net is more than just a technological marvel. It is human

communication at its most fundamental level. The pace may be a little

quicker when the messages race around the world in a few seconds, but

it’s not much different from a large and interesting party. You’ll see

things in cyberspace that will make you laugh; you’ll see things that

will anger you. You’ll read silly little snippets and new ideas that

make you think. You’ll make new friends and meet people you wish would

just go away.

Major network providers continue to work on ways to make it

easier for users of one network to communicate with those of another.

Work is underway on a system for providing a universal “white pages”

in which you could look up somebody’s electronic-mail address, for

example. This connectivity trend will likely speed up in coming years

as users begin to demand seamless network access, much as telephone

users can now dial almost anywhere in the world without worrying about

how many phone companies actually have to connect their calls.

And today, the links grow ever closer between the Internet and such

commercial networks as CompuServe and Prodigy, whose users can now

exchange electronic mail with their Internet friends. Some commercial

providers, such as Delphi and America Online, are working to bring their

subscribers direct access to Internet services.

And as it becomes easier to use, more and more people will join

this worldwide community we call the Net.

Being connected to the Net takes more than just reading

conferences and logging messages to your computer; it takes asking and

answering questions, exchanging opinions — getting involved.

If you choose to go forward, to use and contribute, you will become

a citizen of Cyberspace. If you’re reading these words for the first

time, this may seem like an amusing but unlikely notion — that one

could “inhabit” a place without