528 lines
29 KiB
Plaintext
528 lines
29 KiB
Plaintext
From emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm Thu Feb 3 23:33:21 1994 remote from awwe
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Date: Thu, 3 Feb 1994 23:15:31 -0500 (EST)
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From: Nancy Ammerman <emoryu1!phoenix.Princeton.EDU!nancyamm>
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To: Jackie Ammerman <emory!emoryu1!awwe!root@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
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Message-Id: <Pine.3.89.9402032306.F3501-0100000@flagstaff.Princeton.EDU>
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Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
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Chapter 4: USENET II
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4.1 FLAME, BLATHER AND SPEW
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Something about online communications seems to make some people
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particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity
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of it all. Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will
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soon think seem to exist to make you miserable.
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Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do
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with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key
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and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them.
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Even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into
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raving madmen. When this happens, flames erupt.
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A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for
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something he or she has written.
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Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that
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begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes
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several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they
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feel). These can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in
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which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the
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relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs). Often, just when they're
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dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets
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upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e-mail
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so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business
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is.
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All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in
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which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the
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First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for
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impugning this poor soul... You get the idea.
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Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody
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predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole
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thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe
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even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved. This brings what
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has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the
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network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily:
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"Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11.''
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Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They
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quickly grow boring, though. And wait until the first time you're
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attacked!
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Flamers are not the only net.characters to watch out for.
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Spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about
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either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the
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throats of people who don't seem to care -- as frequently as possible.
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You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he
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posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which
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he then sends these articles -- both can reach well into double digits.
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Often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the
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world. Frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at
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hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts. No matter. If you
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try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will
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be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an
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insensitive racist/American/whatever or ignore your point entirely to
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bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of
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whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people.
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Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who
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periodically inundate certain groups (such as soc.history) with long
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rants about how the Holocaust never really happened. Some people
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attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only
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encourages them.
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Blatherers tend to be more benign. Their problem is that they
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just can't get to the point -- they can wring three or four screenfuls
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out of a thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two. A
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related condition is excessive quoting. People afflicted with this will
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include an entire message in their reply rather than excising the
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portions not relevant to whatever point they're trying to make. The
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worst quote a long message and then add a single line:
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"I agree!"
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or some such, often followed by a monster .signature.
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There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to
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recognize. Among them:
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Net.weenies. These are the kind of people who enjoy Insulting
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others, the kind of people who post nasty messages in a sewing
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newsgroup just for the hell of it.
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Net.geeks. People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what
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happens when they graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access.
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Net.gods. The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the
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keepers of its collective history. They were around when the Net
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consisted of a couple of computers tied together with baling wire.
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Lurkers. Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but
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they are. They're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or
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respond.
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Wizards. People who know a particular Net-related topic inside
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and out. Unix wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating
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system, for example.
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Net.saints. Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share
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their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate
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the Net, they are not as rare as you might think. Post a question
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about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses you
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get.
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The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition. With
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few written guides, people have traditionally learned their way around
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the Net by asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on
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the Net itself. That tradition continues: if you have a question, ask.
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Today, one of the places you can look for help is in the
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news.newusers.questions newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a
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place to learn more about Usenet. But be careful what you post. Some
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of the Usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to
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answer the same question over and over again. Oh, they'll eventually
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answer your question, but not before they tell you should have
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asked your host system administrator first or looked at the postings in
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news.announce.newusers.
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4.2 KILLFILES, THE CURE FOR WHAT AILS YOU
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As you keep reading Usenet, you are going to run across things or
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people that really drive you nuts -- or that you just get tired of
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seeing.
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Killfiles are just the thing for you. When you start your
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newsreader, it checks to see if you have any lists of words, phrases
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or names you don't want to see. If you do, then it blanks out any
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messages containing those words.
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Such as cascades.
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As you saw earlier, when you post a reply to a message and
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include parts of that message, the original lines show up with a > in
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front of them. Well, what if you reply to a reply? Then you get a >>
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in front of the line. And if you reply to that reply? You get >>>.
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Keep this up, and soon you get a triangle of >'s building up in your
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message.
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There are people who like building up these triangles, or
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cascades. They'll "respond" to your message by deleting everything
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you've said, leaving only the "In message 123435, you said:" part and
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the last line of your message, to which they add a nonsensical
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retort. On and on they go until the triangle has reached the right
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end of the page. Then they try to expand the triangle by deleting one
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> with each new line. Whoever gets to finish this mega-triangle wins.
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There is even a newsgroup just for such folks: alt.cascade.
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Unfortunately, cascaders would generally rather cascade in other
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newsgroups. Because it takes a lot of messages to build up a completed
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cascade, the targeted newsgroup soon fills up with these messages. Of
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course, if you complain, you'll be bombarded with messages about the
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First Amendment and artistic expression -- or worse, with another
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cascade. The only thing you can do is ignore them, by setting up a
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killfile.
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There are also certain newsgroups where killfiles will come in
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handy because of the way they are organized. For example, readers of
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rec.arts.tv.soaps always use an acronym in their subject: line for
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the show they're writing about (AMC, for example, for "All My
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Children"). This way, people who only want to read about "One Life to
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Live" can blank out all the messages about "The Young and the
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Restless" and all the others (to keep people from accidentally
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screening out messages that might contain the letters "gh" in them,
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"General Hospital" viewers always use "gh:" in their subject lines).
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Both nn and rn let you create killfiles, but in different ways.
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To create a killfile in nn, go into the newsgroup with the
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offending messages and type a capital K. You'll see this at the
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bottom of your screen:
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AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days)
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If you hit return, nn will ask you which article's subject you're
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tired of. Chose one and the article and any follow-ups will disappear,
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and you won't see them again for 30 days.
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If you type a lower-case k instead, you'll get this:
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AUTO KILL on (s)ubject or (n)ame (s)
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If you hit your S key or just enter, you'll see this:
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KILL Subject: (=/)
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Type in the name of the offending word or phrase and hit enter.
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You'll then be prompted:
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KILL in (g)roup 'eff.test' or in (a)ll groups (g)
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except that the name of the group you see will be the one you're
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actually in at the moment. Because cascaders and other annoying
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people often cross-post their messages to a wide range of newsgroups,
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you might consider hitting a instead of g. Next comes:
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Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent (30)
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The P key will screen out the offending articles forever, while
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hitting enter will do it for 30 days. You can also type in a number
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of days for the blocking.
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Creating killfiles in rn works differently -- its default
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killfile generator only works for messages in specific groups, rather
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than globally for your entire newsgroup list. To create a global
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killfile, you'll have to write one yourself.
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To create a killfile in rn, go into the newsgroup where the
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offending messages are and type in its number so you get it on your
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screen. Type a capital K. From now on, any message with that subject
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line will disappear before you read the group. You should probably
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choose a reply, rather than the original message, so that you will get
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all of the followups (the original message won't have a "Re: " in its
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subject line). The next time you call up that newsgroup, rn will tell
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you it's killing messages. When it's done, hit the space bar to go
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back into reading mode.
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To create a "global" kill file that will automatically wipe out
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articles in all groups you read, start rn and type control-K. This
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will start your whatever text editor you have as your default on your
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host system and create a file (called KILL, in your News
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subdirectory).
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On the first line, you'll type in the word, phrase or name you
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don't want to see, followed by commands that tell rn whether to search
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an entire message for the word or name and then what to do when it
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finds it.
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Each line must be in this form
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/pattern/modifier:j
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"Pattern" is the word or phrase you want rn to look for. It's
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case-insensitive: both "test" and "Test" will be knocked out. The
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modifier tells rn whether to limit its search to message headers
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(which can be useful when the object is to never see messages from a
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particular person):
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a: Looks through an entire message
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h: Looks just at the header
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You can leave out the modifier command, in which case rn will
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only look at the subject line of messages. The "j" at the end tells rn
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to screen out all articles with the offending word.
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So if you never want to see the word "foo" in any header, ever again,
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type this:
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/foo/h:j
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This is particularly useful for getting rid of articles from
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people who post in more than one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since
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an article's newsgroup name is always in the header.
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If you just want to block messages with a subject line about
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cascades, you could try:
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/foo/:j
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To kill anything that is a followup to any article, use this
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pattern:
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/Subject: *Re:/:j
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When done writing lines for each phrase to screen, exit the text
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editor as you normally would, and you'll be put back in rn.
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One word of caution: go easy on the global killfile. An
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extensive global killfile, or one that makes frequent use of the a:
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modifier can dramatically slow down rn, since the system will now have
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to look at every single word in every single message in all the
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newsgroups you want to read.
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If there's a particular person whose posts you never want to see
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again, first find his or address (which will be in the "from:" line of
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his postings) and then write a line in your killfile like this:
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/From: *name@address\.all/h:j
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4.3 SOME USENET HINTS
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Case counts in Unix -- most of the time. Many Unix commands,
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including many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case
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sensitive. Hit a d when you meant a D and either nothing will happen,
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or something completely different from what you expected will happen.
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So watch that case!
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In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark
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(the exception is when you are writing your own message, because then
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you are inside the text-processing program). In rn, type a lower-case h
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at any prompt to get some online help.
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When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through
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the l command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to
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try several keywords. For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to
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the Grateful Dead, but you'd never find it if you tried, say, l grateful
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dead, because the name is rec.music.gdead. In general, try the smallest
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possible part of the word or discussion you're looking for, for example,
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use "trek" to find newsgroups about "Star Trek." If one word doesn't
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produce anything, try another.
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4.4 THE BRAIN-TUMOR BOY, THE MODEM TAX AND THE CHAIN LETTER
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Like the rest of the world, Usenet has its share of urban legends
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and questionable activities. There are three in particular that plague
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the network. Spend more than, oh, 15 minutes within Usenet and you're
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sure to run into the Brain Tumor Boy, the plot by the evil FCC to tax
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your modem and Dave Rhode's miracle cure for poverty. For the record,
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here's the story on all of them:
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There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig
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Shergold who was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. As
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he lay dying, he wished only to have friends send him postcards. The
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local newspapers got a hold of the tear-jerking story. Soon, the boy's
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wish had changed: he now wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World
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Records for the largest postcard collection. Word spread around the
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world. People by the millions sent him postcards.
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Miraculously, the boy lived. An American billionaire even flew
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him to the U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. And
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his wish succeeded beyond his wildest dreams -- he made the Guinness
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Book of World Records.
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But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into
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a nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where
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he lives. Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to
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die, inundating the post office with millions of cards every year.
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Just when it seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else
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who starts up a whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig
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post cards (or greeting cards or business cards -- Craig letters have
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truly taken on a life of their own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby
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has been powerless to make it stop!
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What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter
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seems to pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major
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corporations. No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford
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posts periodic messages to ignore them or spend your money on something
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more sensible (a donation to the local Red Cross, say), somebody
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manages to post a letter asking readers to send cards to poor little
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Craig.
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Don't send any cards to the Federal Communications Commission,
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either.
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In 1987, the FCC considered removing a tax break it had granted
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CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the
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national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users
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of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem
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tax."
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Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message
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warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is
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NOT true. The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story
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is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on
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KGO radio in San Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a
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story about the tax in the New York Times.
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Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a
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specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments.
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Save that letter to your congressman for something else.
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Sooner or later, you're going to run into a message titled "Make
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Money Fast." It's your basic chain letter. The Usenet version is always
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about some guy named Dave Rhodes who was on the verge of death, or
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something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money
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-- by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. Yeah,
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right.
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4.5 BIG SIG
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There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones
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information in their .sig files -- their names and e-mail addresses,
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perhaps their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or
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profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer.
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Still others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are
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those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes,
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hideous ASCII "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could
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humanly need. College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at
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these. You can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord
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newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as:
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___________________________________________________________________________
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|#########################################################################|
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|#| |#|
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|#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#|
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|#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#|
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|#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#|
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|#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#|
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|#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#|
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|#| |#|
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|#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#|
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|#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#|
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|#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#|
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|#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#|
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|#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#|
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|#| |#|
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|#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#|
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|#| ~-----------------------------~ |#|
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|#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#|
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|#| |#|
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|#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#|
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|#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#|
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|#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point |#|
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|#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#|
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|#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#|
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|#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#|
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|#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#|
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|#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#|
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|#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#|
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|#| dump sites." |#|
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|#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#|
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|#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#|
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|#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#|
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|#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#|
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|#| Society Luncheon" during the |#|
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|#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#|
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|#|_____________________________________________________________________|#|
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|#| |#|
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|#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales |#|
|
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|#| __ |#|
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|#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#|
|
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|#| \\ / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#|
|
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|#| )-======= Suite 215 |#|
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|#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#|
|
|
|#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#|
|
|
|#| ---------------- Fax # 804-411-1115 |#|
|
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|#| "Shut up, Wesley!" Online Service # 804-411-1100 |#|
|
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|#| -- Me at 300-2400, and now 9600 baud! |#|
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|#| PUNet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo |#|
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|#| Home address: InterNet: dvader@imperial.emp.com |#|
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|#| Thomas Babbit, III Prodigy: Still awaiting author- |#|
|
|
|#| 104 Luzyer Way ization |#|
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|#| Sulaco, VA 22545 "Manufacturing educational widget |#|
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|#| Phone # 804-555-1524 design for over 3 years..." |#|
|
|
|#|=====================================================================|#|
|
|
|#| |#|
|
|
|#| Introducing: |#|
|
|
|#| ______ |#|
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|#| The |\ /| / |#|
|
|
|#| | \/ | / |#|
|
|
|#| | | / |#|
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|#| | | / |#|
|
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|#| | | ETELHED /_____ ONE |#|
|
|
|#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#|
|
|
|#| 50Megs Online! The k00l BBS for rad teens! Lots of games and many |#|
|
|
|#| bases for kul topix! Call now and be validated to the Metelhed Zone|#|
|
|
|#| -- 804-555-8500 -- |#|
|
|
|#|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\V/////////////////////////////////////|#|
|
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|#| "This is the end, my friend..." -- The Doors |#|
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|#########################################################################|
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Hit "b" to continue
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Hahahha... fooled u!
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4.6 THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS LOCAL ORDINANCE
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Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that
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have yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal
|
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in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law?
|
|
Does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And
|
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what if that country is the only path to a third country where the
|
|
message is legal as well? Several foreign colleges and other
|
|
institutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where Americans
|
|
post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or
|
|
alternative sexual practices. Even in the U.S., some universities have
|
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discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive,
|
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again, usually in the alt. hierarchy.
|
|
An interesting example of this sort of question happened in 1993,
|
|
when a Canadian court issued a gag order on Canadian reporters covering a
|
|
particularly controversial murder case. Americans, not bound by the gag
|
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order, began posting accounts of the trial -- which any Canadian with a
|
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Net account could promptly read.
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4.7 USENET HISTORY
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In the late 1970s, Unix developers came up with a new feature: a
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system to allow Unix computers to exchange data over phone lines.
|
|
In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University in North
|
|
Carolina, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, came up with the idea of using
|
|
this system, known as UUCP (for Unix-to-Unix CoPy), to distribute
|
|
information of interest to people in the Unix community. Along with
|
|
Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina
|
|
and Steve Daniel, they wrote conferencing software and linked together
|
|
computers at Duke and UNC.
|
|
Word quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley,
|
|
Mark Horton and a nearby high school student, Matt Glickman, had
|
|
released a new version that added more features and was able to handle
|
|
larger volumes of postings -- the original North Carolina program was
|
|
meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day.
|
|
Today, Usenet connects tens of thousands of sites around the world,
|
|
from mainframes to Amigas. With more than 3,000 newsgroups and untold
|
|
thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer
|
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network.
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4.8 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG
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|
|
* When you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus
|
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newsgroups" are present. Within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked
|
|
whether to keep these or delete them. Delete them. Bogus newsgroups
|
|
are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has
|
|
determined are no longer needed.
|
|
* While in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping
|
|
unavailable article." This is usually an article that somebody posted
|
|
and then decided to cancel.
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4.9 FYI
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|
|
Leanne Phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked
|
|
questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the
|
|
news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups on Usenet. Bill
|
|
Wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the news.answers and
|
|
news.software newsgroups. Look in the news.announce.newusers and
|
|
news.groups newsgroups on Usenet for "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and
|
|
Mailing Lists,'' which gives brief summaries of the various soc.
|
|
newsgroups.
|
|
"Managing UUCP and Usenet,' by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino
|
|
(O'Reilly & Associates, 1992) is a good guide for setting up your own
|
|
Usenet system.
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Downloaded From P-80 International Information Systems 304-744-2253
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