Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com\!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.ieee From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: SPECIAL REPORT/ELECTRONIC MAIL - Playing on the net Date: Wed, 4 Nov 92 10:20:19 EST Message-ID: <1042.art.1992Nov4.102019@AmeriCast.com> SPECIAL REPORT/ELECTRONIC MAIL - Playing on the net John A. Adam, Senior Associate Editor Role-playing fantasies and free software await surfers on the nets, who can even compose their own daily "magazines' Be it romance or Ren and Stimpy cartoon news, the latest sport scores or movie reviews, developments in politics or computer graphics, many electronic networks are likely to have it--perhaps even more than is good for you. "I try to stay away from netnews because it can take up so much time," said Larry H. Landweber, a computer scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. But aside from news and discussions, the net can be used to pluck free reports and soft ware. Robert Lucky of AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J., for one, likes to cruise recesses of the Internet, downloading electronic music. First, it is helpful to learn some of the "netiquette" and lingo. Being concise and inoffensive is usually encouraged. Humor is emphasized with a winking smiley face ;-) or laugh :-D. E-mail argot includes IMHO (In my humble opinion) and ROFL (Rolling on the floor laughing). Many friendships and even marriages have been formed by electronic pen pals. "It's a very safe way to communicate, it draws women in." said Rob Fulop, president of Interactive Productions Inc., Foster City, Calif., who is a peruser of nets. DIGITAL DATING. A typical dating sequence often involves a hierarchy of communications technologies, as pointed out by "sookie" who herself has "gotten into hot and heavy e-mail." First, it may start with witty digital ripostes in public, she said , followed by individual "long, sensitive e-mail, then photo faxes, then long phone calls." Finally, of course, they may actually decide to "interface" in person. Whether terminal love or digital dating results in more stable relationships will no doubt be subject to study--people in cyberspace are judged not by looks, accent, or age, but by brains and interests. Perhaps no country is as wired as France. It has fallen for Minitel, a service supported by France Telecom in Paris, which is now carried by more than 30 percent of the country's phone lines. Some 18 000 services are offered from the small terminals. Besides stock quotes, legal advice, sports, and weather information, Minitel offers tarot card readers, hypnotists, sexologists, travel agents, and dream analysts. Most of the publicity about this net comes from the messagerie-roses, which includes singles bulletin boards and soft-porn dialog services. Electronic directories--some very similar to the white and yellow pages in U.S. phone books--are actually the most widely used. Jean-Pierre Casara, president of Minitel Services Co., New York City , said his network is now being offered in the United States as well as other countries. Many networks have "chat" features, like the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) on that meganet, which allows a user to participate or drop in on real-time talks around the world, switching channels at whimsy. Several networks offer the same smorgasbord of services as Minitel with different twists. The San Francisco- based Well (Whole Earth "Lectronic Link), for instance, has collaborative poetry compositions [To probe further, p. 33]. While electronic anonymity often fosters openness, a guide to Usenet reminds users that your boss, your friend's boss, and your girl friend's brother's best friend might be scanning your entries: "Think twice before you post personal information about yourself or others. This applies especially strongly to groups like soc.singles and alt.sex....Information posted on the net can come back to haunt you." There are thousands of ongoing discussions or conferences on any topic imaginable. Usenet, created in 1980 by students at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill and Duke University in Durham, N.C., is a popular mix of some 3000 sessions that are accessible from many networks and bulletin boards over the world. If a topic is missing, users may easily set up their own sessions. Also available are text-based fantasy games called MUDs (for Multiuser Dungeons and Dragons), which are accessible on the Internet by the Telnet command. And users can play electronic poker or other games over the net almost as easily as they could in a video arcade. Often, of course, users combine chatting with tips on hot programs to download. "There's a file [on line, 85 773 bytes called WASHDC23.ZIP] that contains DC area scenery for use with Flight Simulator. Tried and tried to use it with mucho frustration. Then I got the Flight Simulator Aircraft and Scenery Designer, installed it, and now--with a bit of tweaking--I can go zipping around the Beltway, out to Manassas, etc.," wrote one user of a Washington, D.C., area bulletin board system. PERSONAL MAGAZINES. The best deal, of course, is the public domain software and shareware offered. Usenet has a special "gnu' tagline for a group from the Free Software Foundation. Any variety of software programs and fixes can be downloaded. Included are games like SFLY11 where flies that invade the user's home must be swatted and, on the darker side, viruses that cause letters to drip from the screen. Usenet can function like a personalized magazine. Important news announcements, screened by a moderator, may be posted or broadcast to all Usenet users. Individuals also indicate which special interest groups they want to join and are automatically added to the mailing list. So in checking one's daily personal e- mail, it might read like this: Unread news in rec.humor.funny 5 articles Unread news in comp.graphics 10 articles Unread news in rec.music.synth 2 articles Unread news in sci.nanotech 1 article Users may then check the "headlines" before seeing what articles they want to actually read and, of course, may drop or add groups at any time. Digital text offers some advantages over its fixed-type cousin. One is that encryption can mask a "spoiler" --such as giving away the plot of a movie in a review. (In Usenet the command "rot13" shifts each letter 13 characters so an "a" becomes an "n.") Similarly, humor having messages offensive to some groups often is encrypted with a warning. Perhaps the biggest problem is navigating: finding discussion groups and bulletin boards that fit the user's interests and personality. Several projects like the Wide Area Information Servers (by Thinking Machines, in collaboration with Apple Computer, Dow Jones, and KPMG Peat Marwick) are helping to simplify wending through the offerings on the net by simplifying commands. The good thing about the nets is that there are few editors like those at newspapers who filter material. That is also their weakness. Fortunately, scanning is faster. But as the night wears on, long spells of dross may become irritating and could quash any net addiction--at least until tomorro Copyright 1992, IEEE Spectrum. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Corporation (usa@AmeriCast.COM)