Part 7

dotted quad A set of four numbers connected with periods that make up an Internet address; for example, 147.31.254.130.

email The vernacular abbreviation for electronic mail.

email address The UUCP or domain-based address that a user is referred to with. For example, the author's address is [email protected].

ethernet A 10-million bit per second networking scheme originally developed by Xerox Corporation. Ethernet is widely used for LANs because it can network a wide variety of computers, it is not proprietary, and components are widely available from many commercial sources.

FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) An emerging standard for network technology based on fiber optics that has been established by ANSI. FDDI specifies a 100-million bit per second data rate. The access control mechanism uses token ring technology.

flame A piece of mail or a Usenet posting which is violently argumentative.

FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) The FQDN is the full site name of a system, rather than just its hostname. For example, the system lisa at Widener University has a FQDN of lisa.cs.widener.edu.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) The Internet standard high-level protocol for transferring files from one computer to another.

FYI An abbreviation for the phrase "for your information." There is also a series of RFCs put out by the Network Information Center called FYIs; they address common questions of new users and many other useful things. RFCs for instructions on retrieving FYIs.

gateway A special-purpose dedicated computer that attaches to two or more networks and routes packets from one network to the other. In particular, an Internet gateway routes IP datagrams among the networks it connects. Gateways route packets to other gateways until they can be delivered to the final destination directly across one physical network.

header The portion of a packet, preceding the actual data, containing source and destination addresses and error-checking fields. Also part of a message or news article.

hostname The name given to a machine. (See also FQDN.)

IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) This usually accompanies a statement that may bring about personal offense or strong disagreement.

Internet A concatenation of many individual TCP/IP campus, state, regional, and national networks (such as NSFnet, ARPAnet, and Milnet) into one single logical network all sharing a common addressing scheme.

Internet number The dotted-quad address used to specify a certain system. The Internet number for the site cs.widener.edu is 147.31.254.130. A resolver is used to translate between hostnames and Internet addresses.

interoperate The ability of multi-vendor computers to work together using a common set of protocols. With interoperability, PCs, Macs, Suns, Dec VAXen, CDC Cybers, etc, all work together allowing one host computer to communicate with and take advantage of the resources of another.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) Coordinator of the main networking standards that are put into use today.

kernel The level of an operating system or networking system that contains the system-level commands or all of the functions hidden from the user. In a Unix system, the kernel is a program that contains the device drivers, the memory management routines, the scheduler, and system calls. This program is always running while the system is operating.

LAN (Local Area Network) Any physical network technology that operates at high speed over short distances (up to a few thousand meters).

mail gateway A machine that connects to two or more electronic mail systems (especially dissimilar mail systems on two different networks) and transfers mail messages among them.

mailing list A possibly moderated discussion group, distributed via email from a central computer maintaining the list of people involved in the discussion.

mail path A series of machine names used to direct electronic mail from one user to another.

medium The material used to support the transmission of data. This can be copper wire, coaxial cable, optical fiber, or electromagnetic wave (as in microwave).

multiplex The division of a single transmission medium into multiple logical channels supporting many simultaneous sessions. For example, one network may have simultaneous FTP, telnet, rlogin, and SMTP connections, all going at the same time.

net.citizen An inhabitant of Cyberspace. One usually tries to be a good net.citizen, lest one be flamed.

netiquette A pun on "etiquette"; proper behavior on The Net. Usenet Netiquette.

network A group of machines connected together so they can transmit information to one another. There are two kinds of networks: local networks and remote networks.

NFS (Network File System) A method developed by Sun Microsystems to allow computers to share files across a network in a way that makes them appear as if they're "local" to the system.

NIC The Network Information Center.

node A computer that is attached to a network; also called a host.

NSFnet The national backbone network, funded by the National Science Foundation and operated by the Merit Corporation, used to interconnect regional (mid-level) networks such as WestNet to one another.

packet The unit of data sent across a packet switching network. The term is used loosely. While some Internet literature uses it to refer specifically to data sent across a physical network, other literature views the Internet as a packet switching network and describes IP datagrams as packets.

polling Connecting to another system to check for things like mail or news.

postmaster The person responsible for taking care of mail problems, answering queries about users, and other related work at a site.

protocols A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet).

recursion The facility of a programming language to be able to call functions from within themselves.

resolve Translate an Internet name into its equivalent IP address or other DNS information.

RFD (Request For Discussion) Usually a two- to three-week period in which the particulars of newsgroup creation are battled out.

route The path that network traffic takes from its source to its destination.

router A dedicated computer (or other device) that sends packets from one place to another, paying attention to the current state of the network.

RTFM (Read The Fantastic Manual). This anacronym is often used when someone asks a simple or common question. The word `Fantastic' is usually replaced with one much more vulgar.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) The Internet standard protocol for transferring electronic mail messages from one computer to another. SMTP specifies how two mail systems interact and the format of control messages they exchange to transfer mail.

server A computer that shares its resources, such as printers and files, with other computers on the network. An example of this is a Network File System (NFS) server which shares its disk space with other computers.

signal-to-noise ratio When used in reference to Usenet activity, signal-to-noise ratio describes the relation between amount of actual information in a discussion, compared to their quantity. More often than not, there's substantial activity in a newsgroup, but a very small number of those articles actually contain anything useful.

signature The small, usually four-line message at the bottom of a piece of email or a Usenet article. In Unix, it's added by creating a file ..signature in the user's home directory. Large signatures are a no-no.

summarize To encapsulate a number of responses into one coherent, usable message. Often done on controlled mailing lists or active newsgroups, to help reduce bandwidth.

synchronous Data communications in which transmissions are sent at a fixed rate, with the sending and receiving devices synchronized.

TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) A set of protocols, resulting from ARPA efforts, used by the Internet to support services such as remote login (telnet), file transfer (FTP) and mail (SMTP).

telnet The Internet standard protocol for remote terminal connection service. Telnet allows a user at one site to interact with a remote timesharing system at another site as if the user's terminal were connected directly to the remote computer.

terminal server A small, specialized, networked computer that connects many terminals to a LAN through one network connection. Any user on the network can then connect to various network hosts.

TeX A free typesetting system by Donald Knuth.

twisted pair Cable made up of a pair of insulated copper wires wrapped around each other to cancel the effects of electrical noise.

UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program) A store-and-forward system, primarily for Unix systems but currently supported on other platforms (e.g. VMS and personal computers).

WAN (Wide-Area Network) A network spanning hundreds or thousands of miles.

workstation A networked personal computing device with more power than a standard IBM PC or Macintosh. Typically, a workstation has an operating system such as unix that is capable of running several tasks at the same time. It has several megabytes of memory and a large, high-resolution display. Examples are Sun workstations and Digital DECstations.

worm A computer program which replicates itself. The Internet worm (The Internet Worm) was perhaps the most famous; it successfully (and accidentally) duplicated itself on systems across the Internet.

wrt With respect to.

"I hate definitions." Benjamin Disraeli Vivian Grey, bk i chap ii

Bibliography

What follows is a compendium of sources that have information that will be of use to anyone reading this guide. Most of them were used in the writing of the booklet, while others are simply noted because they are a must for any good net.citizen's bookshelf.

Books

Comer, Douglas E. Internetworking With TCP/IP, 2nd ed., 2v Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1991

Davidson, John An Introduction to TCP/IP Springer-Verlag Berlin 1988

Frey, Donnalyn, and Adams, Rick !@%:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks O'Reilly and Associates Newton, MA 1989

Gibson, William Neuromancer Ace New York, NY 1984

LaQuey, Tracy Users' Directory of Computer Networks Digital Press Bedford, MA 1990

Levy, Stephen Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution Anchor Press/Doubleday Garden City, NY 1984

Partridge, Craig Innovations in Internetworking ARTECH House Norwood, MA 1988

Quarterman, John S. The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide Digital Press Bedford, MA 1989

Raymond, Eric (ed) The New Hacker's Dictionary MIT Press Cambridge, MA 1991

Stoll, Clifford The Cuckoo's Egg Doubleday New York 1989

Tanenbaum, Andrew S. Computer Networks, 2d ed Prentice-Hall Englewood Cliffs, NJ 1988

Todinao, Grace Using UUCP and USENET: A Nutshell Handbook O'Reilly and Associates Newton, MA 1986

The Waite Group Unix Communications, 2nd ed. Howard W. Sams & Company Indianapolis 1991

Periodicals & Papers magazine: Barlow, J Coming Into The Country Communications of the ACM 34:3 2 March 1991 Addresses "Cyberspace"---John Barlow was a co-founder of the EFF.

proceedings: Collyer, G., and Spencer, H News Need Not Be Slow Proceedings of the 1987 Winter USENIX Conference 181--90 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA January 1987

magazine: Denning, P The Internet Worm American Scientist 126--128 March--April 1989

magazine: The Science of Computing: Computer Networks American Scientist 127--129 March--April 1985

magazine: Frey, D., and Adams, R USENET: Death by Success? UNIX REVIEW 55--60 August 1987

magazine: Gifford, W. S ISDN User-Network Interfaces IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 343--348 May 1986

magazine: Ginsberg, K Getting from Here to There UNIX REVIEW 45 January 1986

magazine: Hiltz, S. R The Human Element in Computerized Conferencing Systems Computer Networks 421--428 December 1978

proceedings: Horton, M What is a Domain? Proceedings of the Summer 1984 USENIX Conference 368--372 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA June 1984

magazine: Jacobsen, Ole J Information on TCP/IP ConneXions---The Interoperability Report 14--15 July 1988

magazine: Jennings, D., et al Computer Networking for Scientists Science 943--950 28 February 1986

paper: Markoff, J "Author of computer `virus' is son of U.S. electronic security expert." New York Times Nov. 5, 1988 A1

paper: "Computer snarl: A `back door' ajar." New York Times Nov. 7, 1988 B10

magazine: McQuillan, J. M., and Walden, D. C The ARPA Network Design Decisions Computer Networks 243--289 1977

magazine: Ornstein, S. M A letter concerning the Internet worm Communications of the ACM 32:6 June 1989

proceedings: Partridge, C Mail Routing Using Domain Names: An Informal Tour Proceedings of the 1986 Summer USENIX Conference 366--76 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA June 1986

magazine: Quarterman, J Etiquette and Ethics ConneXions---The Interoperability Report 12--16 March 1989

magazine: Notable Computer Networks Communications of the ACM 29:10 October 1986 This was the predecessor to The Matrix.

magazine: Raeder, A. W., and Andrews, K. L Searching Library Catalogs on the Internet: A Survey Database Searcher 6 16--31 September 1990

proceedings: Seeley, D A tour of the worm Proceedings of the 1989 Winter USENIX Conference 287--304 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA February 1989

magazine: Shulman, G Legal Research on USENET Liability Issues ;login: The USENIX Association Newsletter 11--17 December 1984

magazine: Smith, K E-Mail to Anywhere PC World 220--223 March 1988

magazine: Stoll, C Stalking the Wily Hacker Communications of the ACM 31:5 14 May 1988 This article grew into the book The Cuckoo's Egg.

proceedings: Taylor, D The Postman Always Rings Twice: Electronic Mail in a Highly Distributed Environment Proceedings of the 1988 Winter USENIX Conference 145--153 USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA December 1988

magazine: U.S.Gen'l Accounting Ofc Computer Security: Virus Highlights Need for Improved Internet Management GAO/IMTEC-89-57, 1989 Addresses the Internet worm.

"And all else is literature." Paul Verlaine The Sun, New York While he was city editor in 1873--1890.

-- Bill Walther, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada