Part 5

This case tells us that for cs.swarthmore.edu it takes about 46 milliseconds for a packet to go from Widener to Swarthmore College and back again. It also gives the average and worst-case speeds, and any packet loss that may have occurred (e.g. because of network congestion).

While ping generally doesn't hurt network performance, you shouldn't use it too often---usually once or twice will leave you relatively sure of the other system's state.

Talk

Sometimes email is clumsy and difficult to manage when one really needs to have an interactive conversation. The Internet provides for that as well, in the form of talk. Two users can literally see each other type across thousands of miles.

To talk with Bart Simpson at Widener, one would type

talk bart@@cs.widener.edu

which would cause a message similar to the following to be displayed on Bart's terminal:

Message from [email protected] at 21:45 ... talk: connection requested by [email protected] talk: respond with: talk [email protected]

Bart would, presumably, respond by typing talk [email protected]. They could then chat about whatever they wished, with instantaneous response time, rather than the write-and-wait style of email. To leave talk, on many systems one would type Ctrl-C (hold down the Control key and press C). Check local documentation to be sure.

There are two different versions of talk in common use today. The first, dubbed "old talk," is supported by a set of Unix systems (most notably, those currently sold by Sun). The second, ntalk (aka "new talk"), is more of the standard. If, when attempting to talk with another user, it responds with an error about protocol families, odds are the incompatibilities between versions of talk is the culprit. It's up to the system administrators of sites which use the old talk to install ntalk for their users.

Wide Area Information Servers (WAIS)

The WHOIS Database

The main WHOIS database is run at the Network Information Center (NIC). The whois command will let you search a database of every registered domain (e.g. mit.edu) and of registered users. It's primarily used by system postmasters or listowners to find the Points of Contact for a site, to let them know of a problem or contact them for one reason or another. You can also find out their postal address. For example:

% whois mit.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) MIT.EDU 18.72.2.1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-DOM) MIT.EDU

Note that there are two entries for mit.edu; we'll go for the second.

% whois mit-dom Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-DOM) Cambridge, MA 02139

Domain Name: MIT.EDU

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Schiller, Jeffrey I. (JIS) [email protected] (617) 253-8400

Record last updated on 22-Jun-88.

Domain servers in listed order: STRAWB.MIT.EDU 18.71.0.151 W20NS.MIT.EDU 18.70.0.160 BITSY.MIT.EDU 18.72.0.3 LITHIUM.LCS.MIT.EDU 18.26.0.121

To see this host record with registered users, repeat the command with a star ('*') before the name; or, use '%' to show JUST the registered users.

Much better! Now this information (sought, possibly, by a system administrator) can be used to find out how to notify MIT of a security issue or problem with connectivity.

Queries can be made for individuals as well; the following would yield an entry for the author:

% whois brendan Kehoe, Brendan (BK59) [email protected] Widener University Department of Computer Science Kirkbride 219 P.O. Box 83 Widener University Chester, PA 19013 (215)/499-4011

Record last updated on 02-May-91.

Included is the author's name, his handle (a unique sequence of letters and numbers), information on how to contact him, and the last time the record was modified in any way.

Anyone can register with the whois database. People who are administrative or technical contacts for domains are registered automatically when their domain applications are processed. For normal users, one must simply fill out a form from the NIC. FTP to nic.ddn.mil and get the file netinfo/user-template.txt. The completed form should be mailed to [email protected].

Other Uses of WHOIS

Also, many educational sites run WHOIS servers of their own, to offer information about people who may be currently on the staff or attending the institution. To specify a WHOIS server, many implementations include some sort of option or qualifier---in VMS under MultiNet, it's /HOST, in Unix -h. To receive information about using the Stanford server, one might use the command

whois -h stanford.edu help

A large list of systems offering WHOIS services is being maintained by Matt Power of MIT ([email protected]). It is available via anonymous FTP from sipb.mit.edu, in the directory pub/whois. The file is named whois-servers.list.

The systems available include, but are certainly not limited to, Syracuse University (syr.edu), New York University (acfcluster.nyu.edu), the University of California at San Diego (ucsd.edu), and Stanford University (stanford.edu).

"Fingers were made before forks." Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation

Commercial Services

Many services can be accessed through the Internet. As time progresses and more outlets for commercial activity appear, once-restricted traffic (by the NSFnet Acceptable Use Policy) may now flow freely. Now that there are other networks for that information to travel on, businesses are making their move.

Internet Service Providers

Providers (AlterNet, PSI, etc)...

Supercomputers The Internet Resource Guide (IRG) contains a chapter on computer time that's available for a fee. Rather than reproduce it here, which would fast become out-of-date as well as triple the size of this guide, it's suggested that the reader consult the IRG if such services are of interest.

Electronic Journals

The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) publishes a hard-copy directory of electronic journals, newsletters, and scholarly discussion lists. It is a compilation of entries for hundreds of

sts, dozens of journals and newsletters, and a many "other" titles, including newsletter-digests, into one reference source. Each entry includes instructions on how to access the referenced publication or list.

The documents are available electronically by sending the commands

get ejournl1 directry get ejournl2 directry

to the server at [email protected]. Listservs for further instructions on using a listserv.

The directory, along with a compilation by Diane Kovacs called Directories of Academic E-Mail Conferences, is available in print and on diskette (DOS WordPerfect and MacWord) from:

Office of Scientific & Academic Publishing Association of Research Libraries 1527 New Hampshire Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 [email protected] (202) 232--2466 (202) 462--7849 (Fax)

The ARL is a not-for-profit organization representing over one hundred research libraries in the United States and Canada. The publication is available to ARL members for $10 and to non-members for $20 (add $5 postage per directory for foreign addresses). Orders of six or more copies will receive a 10% discount; all orders must be prepaid and sent to the ARL.

Commercial Databases

The American Institute of Physics maintains the Physics Information Network. It contains the bibliographic SPIN and General Physics Advanced Abstracts databases. Also available is access to bulletin boards and several searchable lists (job notices, announcements, etc). Telnet to pinet.aip.org; new users must log in as NEW and give registration information.

Some of the databases accessible through WAIS (WAIS) are available for a fee.

Clarinet News

Clarinet's an electronic publishing network service that provides professional news and information, including live UPI wireservice news, in the Usenet file format.

Clarinet lets you read an "electronic newspaper" right on the local system; you can get timely industry news, technology related wirestories, syndicated columns and features, financial information, stock quotes and more.

Clarinet's provided by using the Usenet message interchange format, and is available via UUCP and other delivery protocols, including NNTP.

The main feature is ClariNews, an "electronic newspaper," gathered live from the wire services of United Press International (UPI). ClariNews articles are distributed in 100 newsgroups based on their subject matter, and are keyworded for additional topics and the geographical location of the story. ClariNews includes headlines, industry news, box scores, network TV schedules, and more. The main products of ClariNews are:

ClariNews General, the general news"paper" with news, sports, and features, averaging about 400 stories per day.

TechWire, special groups for stories on science, technology, and industry stories around them.

ClariNews-Biz, business and financial stories.

Newsbytes, a daily computer industry newsmagazine.

Syndicated Columns, including Dave Barry (humor) and Mike Royko (opinion).

Full information on ClariNet, including subscription information, is available from

Clarinet Communications Corp. 124 King St. North Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2X8 info@@clarinet.com (800) USE-NETS

or with anonymous FTP in the directory /Clarinet on ftp.uu.net (Anonymous FTP).

"Needless to say, Aristotle did not envisage modern finance." Frederick Copleston, S.J. A History of Philosophy: Vol 1 Greece & Rome Part II, p95

Things You'll Hear About

There are certain things that you'll hear about shortly after you start actively using the Internet. Most people assume that everyone's familiar with them, and they require no additional explanation. If only that were true!

This section addresses a few topics that are commonly encountered and asked about as a new user explores Cyberspace. Some of them are directly related to how the networks are run today; other points are simply interesting to read about.

The Internet Worm

from a letter by Severo M. Ornstein, in ACM June 89 Vol32 No6 and the appeal notice

On November 2, 1988, Robert Morris, Jr., a graduate student in Computer Science at Cornell, wrote an experimental, self-replicating, self-propagating program called a worm and injected it into the Internet. He chose to release it from MIT, to disguise the fact that the worm came from Cornell. Morris soon discovered that the program was replicating and reinfecting machines at a much faster rate than he had anticipated---there was a bug. Ultimately, many machines at locations around the country either crashed or became "catatonic." When Morris realized what was happening, he contacted a friend at Harvard to discuss a solution. Eventually, they sent an anonymous message from Harvard over the network, instructing programmers how to kill the worm and prevent reinfection. However, because the network route was clogged, this message did not get through until it was too late. Computers were affected at many sites, including universities, military sites, and medical research facilities. The estimated cost of dealing with the worm at each installation ranged from $200 to more than $53,000. {Derived in part from a letter by Severo M. Ornstein, in the Communications of the ACM, Vol 32 No 6, June 1989.}

The program took advantage of a hole in the debug mode of the Unix sendmail program, which runs on a system and waits for other systems to connect to it and give it email, and a hole in the finger daemon fingerd, which serves finger requests (Finger). People at the University of California at Berkeley and MIT had copies of the program and were actively disassembling it (returning the program back into its source form) to try to figure out how it worked.

Teams of programmers worked non-stop to come up with at least a temporary fix, to prevent the continued spread of the worm. After about twelve hours, the team at Berkeley came up with steps that would help retard the spread of the virus. Another method was also discovered at Purdue and widely published. The information didn't get out as quickly as it could have, however, since so many sites had completely disconnected themselves from the network.

After a few days, things slowly began to return to normalcy and everyone wanted to know who had done it all. Morris was later named in The New York Times as the author (though this hadn't yet been officially proven, there was a substantial body of evidence pointing to Morris).

Robert T. Morris was convicted of violating the computer Fraud and Abuse Act (Title 18), and sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a fine of $10,050, and the costs of his supervision. His appeal, filed in December, 1990, was rejected the following March.

The Cuckoo's Egg

First in an article entitled "Stalking the Wily Hacker," and later in the book The Cuckoo's Egg, Clifford Stoll detailed his experiences trying to track down someone breaking into a system at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California. {See the bibliography for full citations.}

A 75-cent discrepancy in the Lab's accounting records led Stoll on a chase through California, Virginia, and Europe to end up in a small apartment in Hannover, West Germany. Stoll dealt with many levels of bureaucracy and red tape, and worked with the FBI, the CIA, and the German Bundespost trying to track his hacker down.

The experiences of Stoll, and particularly his message in speaking engagements, have all pointed out the dire need for communication between parties on a network of networks. The only way everyone can peacefully co-exist in Cyberspace is by ensuring rapid recognition of any existing problems.

Organizations

The indomitable need for humans to congregate and share their common interests is also present in the computing world. User groups exist around the world, where people share ideas and experiences. Similarly, there are organizations which are one step "above" user groups; that is to say, they exist to encourage or promote an idea or set of ideas, rather than support a specific computer or application of computers.

The Association for Computing Machinery

The Association for Computing Machinery (the ACM) was founded in 1947, immediately after Eckert and Mauchly unveiled one of the first electronic computers, the ENIAC, in 1946. Since then, the ACM has grown by leaps and bounds, becoming one of the leading educational and scientific societies in the computer industry.

The ACM's stated purposes are:

To advance the sciences and arts of information processing;

To promote the free interchange of information about the sciences and arts of information processing both among specialists and among the public;

To develop and maintain the integrity and competence of individuals engaged in the practices of the sciences and arts of information processing.

Membership in the ACM has grown from seventy-eight in September, 1947, to over 77,000 today. There are local chapters around the world, and many colleges and universities endorse student chapters. Lecturers frequent these meetings, which tend to be one step above the normal "user group" gathering. A large variety of published material is also available at discounted prices for members of the association.

The ACM has a number of Special Interest Groups (SIGs) that concentrate on a certain area of computing, ranging from graphics to the Ada programming language to security. Each of the SIGs also publishes its own newsletter. There is a Usenet group, comp.org.acm, for the discussion of ACM topics. Usenet News for more information on reading news.

For more information and a membership application, write to:

Assocation for Computing Machinery 1515 Broadway New York City, NY 10036 [email protected] (212) 869-7440

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility from their letter to prospective members

The CPSR is an alliance of computer professionals concentrating on certain areas of the impact of computer technology on society. It traces its history to the fall of 1981, when several researchers in Palo Alto, California, organized a lunch meeting to discuss their shared concerns about the connection between computing and the nuclear arms race. Out of that meeting and the discussions which followed, CPSR was born, and has been active ever since. {This section is part of the CPSR's letter to prospective members.}

The national CPSR program focuses on the following project areas:

Reliability and Risk This area reflects on the concern that overreliance on computing technology can lead to unacceptable risks to society. It includes, but isn't limited to, work in analyzing military systems such as SDI.

Civil Liberties and Privacy This project is concerned with such topics as the FBI National Crime Information Center, the growing use of databases by both government and private industry, the right of access to public information, extension of First Amendment rights to electronic communication, and establishing legal protections for privacy of computerized information.

Computers in the Workplace The CPSR Workplace Project has concentrated its attention on the design of software for the workplace, and particularly on the philosophy of "participatory design," in which software designers work together with users to ensure that systems meet the actual needs of that workplace.

The 21st Century Project This is a coalition with other professional organizations working towards redirecting national research priorities from concentrating on military issues to anticipating and dealing with future problems as science and technology enter the next century.

For more information on the CPSR, contact them at:

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto, CA 94302 [email protected] (415) 322--3778 (415) 322--3798 (Fax)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was established to help civilize the "electronic frontier"---the Cyberspacial medium becoming ever-present in today's society; to make it truly useful and beneficial not just to a technical elite, but to everyone; and to do this in a way which is in keeping with the society's highest traditions of the free and open flow of information and communication. {This section was derived from eff.about, available along with other material via anonymous FTP from ftp.eff.org}

The mission of the EFF is to engage in and support educational activities which increase popular understanding of the opportunities and challenges posed by developments in computing and telecommunications;

to develop among policy-makers a better understanding of the issues underlying free and open telecommunications, and support the creation of legal and structural approaches which will ease the assimilation of these new technologies by society;

to raise public awareness about civil liberties issues arising from the rapid advancement in the area of new computer-based communications media and, where necessary, support litigation in the public interest to preserve, protect, and extend First Amendment rights within the realm of computing and telecommunications technology;

to encourage and support the development of new tools which will endow non-technical users with full and easy access to computer-based telecommunications;

The Usenet newsgroups comp.org.eff.talk and comp.org.eff.news are dedicated to discussion concerning the EFF. They also have mailing list counterparts for those that don't have access to Usenet, [email protected] and [email protected]. The first is an informal arena (aka a normal newsgroup) where anyone may voice his or her opinions. The second, comp.org.eff.news, is a moderated area for regular postings from the EFF in the form of EFFector Online. To submit a posting for the EFFector Online, or to get general information about the EFF, write to [email protected]. There is also a wealth of information available via anonymous FTP on ftp.eff.org.

The EFF can be contacted at

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Inc. 155 Second St. #1 Cambridge, MA 02141 [email protected] (617) 864-0665 (617) 864-0866 (Fax)

The Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation was started by Richard Stallman (creator of the popular GNU Emacs editor). It is dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistributing, and modifying software.

The word "free" in their name does not refer to price; it refers to freedom. First, the freedom to copy a program and redistribute it to your neighbors, so that they can use it as well as you. Second, the freedom to change a program, so that you can control it instead of it controlling you; for this, the source code must be made available to you.

The Foundation works to provide these freedoms by developing free compatible replacements for proprietary software. Specifically, they are putting together a complete, integrated software system called "GNU" that is upward-compatible with Unix. {As an aside, the editor of the GNU project, emacs, contains a built-in LISP interpreter and a large part of its functionality is written in LISP. The name GNU is itself recursive (the mainstay of the LISP language); it stands for "Gnu's Not Unix."}

When it is released, everyone will be permitted to copy it and distribute it to others. In addition, it will be distributed with source code, so you will be able to learn about operating systems by reading it, to port it to your own machine, and to exchange the changes with others.

For more information on the Free Software Foundation and the status of the GNU Project, or for a list of the current tasks that still need to be done, write to [email protected].

The IEEE

Need IEEE...

The League for Programming Freedom

The League for Programming Freedom is a grass-roots organization of professors, students, businessmen, programmers and users dedicated to "bringing back" the freedom to write programs, which they contend has been lost over the past number years. The League is not opposed to the legal system that Congress intended--copyright on individual programs. Their aim is to reverse the recent changes made by judges in response to special interests, often explicitly rejecting the public interest principles of the Constitution.

The League works to abolish the new monopolies by publishing articles, talking with public officials, boycotting egregious offenders, and in the future may intervene in court cases. On May 24, 1989, the League picketed Lotus headquarters because of their lawsuits, and then again on August 2, 1990. These marches stimulated widespread media coverage for the issue. They welcome suggestions for other activities, as well as help in carrying them out.

For information on the League and how to join, write to

League for Programming Freedom 1 Kendall Square #143 P.O. Box 9171 Cambridge, MA 02139 [email protected]

Networking Initiatives

Research and development are two buzz words often heard when discussing the networking field---everything needs to go faster, over longer distances, for a lower cost. To "keep current," one should read the various trade magazines and newspapers, or frequent the networking-oriented newsgroups of Usenet. If possible, attend trade shows and symposia like Usenix, Interop, et. al.

ISDN

NREN