CHAPTER 10: ADVANCED E-MAIL

10.1 THE FILE'S IN THE MAIL

E-mail by itself is a powerful tool, and by now you may be sending e-mail
messages all over the place. You might even be on a mailing list or two.
But there is a lot more to e-mail than just sending messages. If your
host system does not have access to ftp, or it doesn't have access to
every ftp site on the Net, you can have programs and files sent right to
your mailbox. And using some simple techniques, you can use e-mail to
send data files such as spreadsheets, or even whole programs, to friends
and colleagues around the world.

A key to both is a set of programs known as encoders and decoders. For
all usefulness, basic Net e-mail has a big problem: it can't handle
graphics characters or the control codes found in even the simplest of
computer programs. Encoders however, can translate these into forms
usable in e-mail, while decoders turn them back into a form that you can
actually use. If you are using a Unix-based host system, chances are it
already has an encoder and decoder online that you can use. These
programs will also let you use programs posted in several Usenet
newsgroups, such as comp.binaries.ibm.pc.

If both you and the person with whom you want to exchange files use Unix
host systems, you're in luck because virtually all Unix host systems have
encoder/decoder programs online. For now, let's assume that's the case.
First, upload the file you want to send to your friend to your host site
(ask your system administrator how to upload a file to your name or
"home" directory if you don't already know how). Then type

uuencode file file > file.uu

and hit enter. "File" is the name of the file you want to prepare for
mailing, and yes, you have to type the name twice! The > is a Unix
command that tells the system to call the "encoded" file "file.uu" (you
could actually call it anything you want).

Now to get it into a mail message. The quick and dirty way is to type

mail friend

where "friend" is your friend's address. At the subject line, type the
name of the enclosed file. When you get the blank line, type

~r file.uu

or whatever you called the file, and hit enter. (on some systems, the ~
may not work; if so, ask your system administrator what to use). This
inserts the file into your mail message. Hit control-D, and your file is
on its way!

On the other end, when your friend goes into her mailbox, she should
transfer it to her home directory. Then she should type

uudecode file.name

and hit enter. This creates a new file in her name directory with
whatever name you originally gave it. She can then download it to her
own computer. Before she can actually use it, though, she'll have to
open it up with a text processor and delete the mail header that has been
"stamped" on it. If you use a mailer program that automatically appends
a "signature," tell her about that so she can delete that as well.

The past couple of years have seen the development of the Multi-purpose
Internet Mail Extensions (MIME), which make e-mailing these files
even easier.

If you use an e-mail program such as cc:Mail or Microsoft Mail at work,
or if you dial into bulletin-board systems, then you're used to the idea
of file attachments -- you write a message, and then tell the computer
you want to attach a file. MIME is essentially the Internet equivalent.
The one caveat is that your recipient also has to have a MIME-enabled
mail program; otherwise you could run into problems (and in that case,
you'll have to fall back on uuencode).

Probably the best way to use MIME on a Unix public-access site is with
Pine -- it makes it very easy. Let's say you've just uploaded a graphics
file that you want to mail to a friend. Call up Pine and start a message
to your friend. With the cursor still in the header area (i.e., the area
where you put in his e-mail address), hit control-J. You'll be asked for
the name of the file you want to attach. Type in its name (or path if you
put it somewhere besides your home directory) and that's it! You can now
compose a message to your friend and then send it off as you would
normally (only now it will come with an attached file).

Assuming your recipient also uses Pine, when he gets your message, one of
his options will be to hit control-V. If he hits that, he'll be asked if
he wants to view or save the attached file. Assuming it's a binary file,
he should hit his s key and then type in the name of the file under which
to save the attachment. When he exits Pine, he can then download the file
-- without the muss of first uudecoding it.

A number of companies now sell software that lets users of proprietary e-
mail systems send and receive MIME attachments. So if you plan on
exchaning binary files with somebody on one of these systems (our friend,
the cc:Mail user, for example) -- ask if her system can accept MIME
attachments. It will make life a lot easier for both of you.

10.2 RECEIVING FILES

If somebody sends you a uuencoded file through the mail, you'll have to
go through a couple of steps to get it into a form you can actually use.
If you are using the simple mail program, go into mail and type

w # file.name

where # is the number of the message you want to transfer and file.name
is what you want to call the resulting file. In pine, call up the
message and hit your O key and then E. You'll then be asked for a file
name. In elm, call up the message and hit your S key. You'll get
something that looks like this:

=file.request

Type a new file name and hit enter (if you hit enter without typing a
file name, the message will be saved to another mail folder, not your
home directory).

In all three cases, exit the mail program to return to your host system's
command line. Because the file has been encoded for mail delivery, you
now have to run a decoder. At the command line, type

uudecode file.name

where file.name is the file you created while in mail. Uudecode will
create a new, uncompressed binary file. In some cases, you may have to
run it through some other programs (for example, if it is in "tar" form),
but generally it should now be ready for you to download to your own
computer (on which you might then have to run a de-compressor program
such as PKUNZIP).

Now if somebody sends you a MIME attachment, retrieving the attachment is
simple. In both pine and elm, you'll be asked if you want to save the
attachment to a file. If you answer by hitting your y key, you'll be
asked for a file name to save it under (or just hit enter to save it
under the default name suggested by the computer). You can now retrieve
the file by exiting mail and then using the techniques listed in Chapter
4 for downloading Usenet files.

All this brings up a related issue. Say somebody sends you a plain old
e-mail message that you want to transfer to your own computer (as
opposed to an encoded file). Assuming you're connected to a Unix public-
access site, and that the message is straight ASCII, you have a couple of
options.

The quick and dirty way is to start your computer's screen-capture or
logging function before you open the message. Then call up the message
and, when done, stop the logging, and the file's saved to your computer.

That method's good if you only want to transfer one message. But what if
you want to save several messages to a single file (a bunch of items from
a mailing list, say)? Then you might want to save them to a file on your
public-access site first and then download that.

If you use the Pine mail program, open up the message and then hit your e
key. You'll be asked to enter a file name in your home directory. Once
done, go to the next message and repeat the process. When finished,
you'll have a single large file in your home directory for downloading.
Note that when you do this, Pine will mark the message for deletion, so
if you want to keep it in your mailbox (to reply, perhaps), answer N when
you exit pine and are asked if you want to delete the marked files.

If you use elm, instead, hit your s key, either within the message or
with the cursor on its entry in the message menu. You'll get something
that looks like this:

=jdoe

which comes from the e-mail address of the sender. If you hit enter,
you'll save the message to a file called jdoe in your Mail directory. If
you want to save it to a differently named file in your home directory,
hit your backspace key once and then type in the file name you want (but
without the equal sign). As in pine, the messages will be marked for
deletion, so keep that in mind if you want to retain them in your
mailbox.

In either case, you can now download the file, again using the comands
discussed in Chapter 4 for retrieving similarly collected Usenet
messages.

10.3 SENDING FILES TO NON-INTERNET SITES

What if your friend only connects with a non-Unix system, such as
CompuServe or MCIMail? There are programs available for MS-DOS, Apple
and Amiga computers that will encode and decode files. Of course, since
you can't send one of these programs to your friend via e-mail (how would
she un-encode it?), you'll have to mail (the old-fashioned way) or give
her a diskette with the program on it first. Then, she can get the file
by e-mail and go through the above process (only on her own computer) to
get a usable file. Remember to give her an encoder program as well, if
she wants to send you files in return.

For MS-DOS machines, you'll want to get uunecode.com and uudecode.com.
Both can be found through anonymous ftp at wuarchive.wustl.edu in the
/mirrors/msdos/starter directory. The MS-DOS version is as easy to use as
the Unix one: Just type

uudecode filename.ext

and hit enter.

Mac users should get a program called uutool, which can be found in the
info-mac/util directory on sumex-aim.stanford.edu.

Think twice before sending somebody a giant file. Although large sites
connected directly to the Internet can probably handle mega-files, many
smaller systems cannot. Some commercial systems, such as CompuServe and
MCIMail, limit the size of mail messages their users can receive.
Fidonet doesn't even allow encoded messages. In general, a file size of
30,000 or so bytes is a safe upper limit for non-Internet systems.

10.4 GETTING FTP FILES VIA E-MAIL

To help people without ftp access, a number of ftp sites have set up mail
servers (also known as archive servers) that allow you to get files via
e-mail. You send a request to one of these machines and they send back
the file you want. As with ftp, you'll be able to find everything from
historical documents to software (but please note that if you do have
access to ftp, that method is always quicker and ties up fewer resources
than using e-mail).

Some interesting or useful mail servers include:

mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu Files of "frequently asked questions"
related to Usenet; state-by-state lists of U.S. representatives and
Senators and their addresses and office phone numbers.
archive-server@cs.widener.edu Back copies of the Computer
Underground Digest and every possible fact you could want to know about
"The Simpsons."
netlib@uunet.uu.net Programs for many types of personal computers;
archives of past postings from many Usenet newsgroups.
archive-server@ames.arc.nasa.gov Space-related text and graphics
(GIF-format) files.
service@nic.ddn.mil Detailed information about Internet.

Most mail servers work pretty much the same -- you send an e-mail message
that tells them what file you want and how you want it sent to you. The
most important command is "send," which tells the computer you want it to
send you a particular file.

First, though, you'll need to know where the mail server stores that
file, because you have to tell it which directory or sub-directory it's
in. There are a couple of ways to do this. You can send an e-mail
message to the archive-server that consists of one line:

index

The server will then send you a directory listing of its main, or root
directory. You'll then have to send a second message to the archive
server with one line:

index directory/subdirectory

where directory/subdirectory is the directory path for which you want a
listing. An alternative is to send an e-mail message to our old friend
archie, which should send you back the file's exact location on the
archive-server (along with similar listings for all the other sites that
may have the file, however)

Once you have the file name and its directory path, compose a message to
the archive server like this:

send directory/subdirectory/file

Send off the message and, anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days
later, you'll find a new message in your mailbox: a copy of the file you
requested. The exact time it will take a file to get to you depends on a
variety of factors, including how many requests are in line before yours
(mail servers can only process so many requests at a time) and the state
of the connections between the server and you.

Seems simple enough. It gets a little more complicated when you request a
program rather than a document. Programs or other files that contain
unusual characters or lines longer than 130 characters (graphics files,
for example) require special processing by the mail server to ensure they
are transmitted via e-mail. Then you'll have to run them through at
least one converter program to put them in a form you can actually use.
To ensure that a program or other "non-mailable" file actually gets to
you, include another line in your e-mail message to the server:

encoder

This converts the file into an encoded form. To decode it, you'll first
have to transfer the file message into a file in your home directory.

One further complication comes when you request a particularly long file.
Many Net sites can only handle so much mail at a time. To make sure you
get the entire file, tell the mail server to break it up into smaller
pieces, with another line in your e-mail request like this:

size 100000

This gives the mail server the maximum size, in bytes, of each file
segment. This particular size is good for UUCP sites. Internet and
Bitnet sites can generally go up to 300000. When you get all of these
files in mail, transfer them to your home directory. Exit mail and call
up each file in your host system's text processor and delete each one's
entire header and footer (or "signature" at the end). When done with
this, at your host system's command line, type

cat file1 file2 > bigfile

where file1 is the first file, file2 the second file, and so on. The >
tells your host system to combine them into a new megafile called bigfile
(or whatever you want to call it). After you save the file to your home
directory (see section 10.2 above), you can then run uudecode, tar, etc.
One word of caution, though: if the file you want is long enough that it
has to be broken into pieces, think of how much time it's going to take
you to download the whole thing -- especially if you're using a 2400-baud
modem!

There are a number of other mail servers. To get a list, send an e-mail
message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu:

send usenet/comp.sources.wanted/How_to_find_sources_(READ_THIS_BEFORE_POSTING)

You'll have to spell it exactly as listed above. Some mail servers use
different software, which will require slightly different commands than
the ones listed here. In general, if you send a message to a mail server
that says only

help

you should get back a file detailing all of its commands.

But what if the file you want is not on one of these mail servers?
That's where ftpmail comes in. Run by Digital Equipment Corp. in
California, this service can connect to almost any ftp site in the world,
get the file you want and then mail it to you. Using it is fairly simple
-- you send an e-mail message to ftpmail that includes a series of
commands telling the system where to find the file you want and how to
format it to mail to you.

Compose an e-mail message to

ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com

Leave the "subject:" line blank. Inside the message, there are several
commands you can give. The first line should be

reply address

where "address" is your e-mail address. The next line should be

connect host

where "host" is the system that has the file you want (for example:
wuarchive.wustl.edu). Other commands you should consider using are
"binary" (required for program files); "compress" (reduces the file
size for quicker transmission) and "uuencode" (which encodes the file
so you can do something with it when it arrives). The last line of
your message should be the word "quit".

Let's say you want a copy of the U.S. constitution. Using archie, you've
found a file called, surprise, constitution, at the ftp site
archive.cis.ohio-state.edu, in the /pub/firearms/politics/rkba directory.
You'd send a message to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com that looks like this:

reply adamg@world.std.com
connect archive.cis.ohio-state.edu
binary
compress
uuencode
get pub/firearms/politics/rkba/constitution
quit

When you get the file in your mailbox, use the above procedure for
copying it to a file. Run it through uudecode. Then type

uncompress file.name

to make it usable.

Since this was a text file, you could have changed the "binary" to
"ascii" and then eliminated the "uuencode" file. For programs, though,
you'll want to keep these lines. One caveat with ftpmail: it has become
such a popular service that it could take a week or more for your
requested files to arrive.

10.5 MINING FOR INFO ON USENET VIA E-MAIL

Grizzled Usenet veterans (you can always tell them by the coffee-stained
leather jackets they wear) proudly recall the days when they could read
every single article posted on the network each day and still find time
to do some work.

But now, with the number of newsgroups approaching 10,000, that, of
course, is impossible. That causes a potential problem, though. What if
there's a discussion going on somewhere you might be interested in?
Sure, Usenet is divided into hierarchies and newsgroups with the goal of
helping people find discussions on specific topics, but given the number
of people who now post each day, even that might mean you'll miss
something. And if you go on vacation and you come back to 2,000 new
articles in your favorite group, the temptation is awfully high to just
mark them all as read rather than trying to dig through them for
useful/interesting messages.

Meet Stanford University's Netnews Filtering Server. Somewhere at
Stanford sits a computer that creates a daily index of all Usenet
messages that pass through it. Through simple e-mail commands, you can
get this machine to filter out articles for you and then send you a daily
summary of what it finds. If the summaries of each article look
intriguing enough, you can then have the entire articles mailed to you.

The basic commands are really simple. You tell the computer what to look
for and how frequently you want to receive its reports. Send an e-mail
message to

netnews@db.stanford.edu.

Leave the subject line blank, and as the message, write

subscribe phrase or word
period 1

For example,

subscribe boston bruins
period 1

would set the machine to searching for references to the Boston Bruins
and then report back to you every day (if you substituted "period 2," it
would report back to you every two days; you can go as high as 5).
There's an optional third command, "expire,'' which you would use to tell
the computer how many days to keep looking for you. For example,

expire 30

would end the search after 30 days.

Now let's say you do get an article you want to read more about. Each
article will have a message number. To get it, write back to
netnews@db.stanford.edu and as your message, write

get news.group.#

for example,

get alt.sex.hamsters.duct-tape.4601

You can also search the Stanford database for existing articles. Again,
write to netnews@db.stanford.edu. As your message, write

search word or phrase

You'll get back a list of possibly relevant articles.

10.6 JUST THE FAX, MA'AM

Yes, the Internet is by far the world's largest computer network. But
not everybody's connected to it -- yet. Thanks to some Internet
pioneers, however, you can now extend the reach of the Net to people who
still rely on fax machines.

In 1993, Carl Malamud, founder of the Internet Multicasting Service
(which now provides everything from a half-hour talk show broadcast over
the Internet to databases of patent and SEC information) and Marshall
Rose, a computer consultant, created a mechanism for translating Internet
e-mail messages into faxes. Today, you can reach a number of
metropolitan areas in the U.S., Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Korea,
Portugal, New Zealand and the United Kingdom via their service.

TPC depends on a series of volunteers, from individuals to large
corporations, who have agreed to provide Internet-to-fax services in a
given geographic area. Technically, TPC is an experiment at this point;
one of the issues Malamud and Rose are looking at for the long term is
how to make the system pay for itself.

Sending a fax via TPC is as easy as sending an e-mail message, with the
exception of figuring out the e-mail address to use for a given fax,
which, to an outsider, looks awfully bizarre.

First, you want to get a TPC coverage list to see if the person you want
to reach is in an area served by TPC. Send an e-mail message to tpc-
coverage@town.hall.org (it doesn't really matter what you say in the
message; "send info" works fine). You'll get back a list showing the
metropolitan areas now covered, as well as, in many cases, the specific
exchanges within those areas you can reach. Assuming the person you want
to reach is in one of these areas, you're ready to go.

Now to figure out the e-mail address for a given fax number.
Take the phone number and add the particular country's international
dialing code to the front -- even if you're sending a fax to somebody in
your own country (the U.S.'s international code is 1). Do not, however,
include whatever digits you would dial just to get an international
circuit (which in the U.S. would be 011). Now remove any parentheses,
hyphens or spaces. So, for example, 1 (213) 555-1234 would become
12135551234. Add ".iddd.tpc.int" to the end of that, for example:

12135551234.iddd.tpc.int

That's the part of the address to the right of the @ sign. The left half
of the address will look something like this:

remote-printer.John_Doe/5th_floor

This is actually a clever way to have a cover sheet printed for your fax.
All TPC addresses start with "remote-printer." The next part, as you can
see, is the name of the person you want to reach. Since you can't have
spaces in an Internet address, always separate the names with a _. A TPC
fax server interprets a / as a message to move to the next line on the
cover page. So put all this together, and you get:

remote-printer.John_Doe/5th_floor@12135551234.iddd.tpc.int

Phew! But it works! Now compose your e-mail message and send it to the
address you've just created. TPC will then route it to the nearest
participating fax machine, for delivery to your recipient. Once your fax
is delivered, you'll even get a confirmation notice via e-mail. If you
have addresses you plan to write to more than once, it would make eminent
sense to put them in your Pine or Elm address book. Speaking of Pine,
you can use its ability to forward message attachments to send graphics
as part of the fax. See under FYI to see how to get information on this.

10.7 THE ALL KNOWING ORACLE

One other thing you can do through e-mail is consult with the Usenet
Oracle. You can ask the Oracle anything at all and get back an answer
(whether you'll like the answer is another question).

First, you'll want to get instructions on how to address the Oracle (he,
or she, or it, is very particular about such things and likes being
addressed in august, solemn and particularly sycophantic tones). Start
an e-mail message to

oracle@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu

In the "subject:" line, type

help

and hit enter. You don't actually have to say anything in the message
itself -- at least not yet. Hit control-D to send off your request
for help. Within a few hours, the Oracle will mail you back detailed
instructions. It's a fairly long file, so before you start reading
it, turn on your communications software's logging function, to save
it to your computer (or save the message to a file on your host system's
home directory and then download the file). After you've digested it,
you can compose your question to the Oracle. Mail it to the above
address, only this time with a subject line that describes your
question. Expect an answer within a couple of days. And don't be
surprised if you also find a question in your mailbox -- the Oracle
extracts payment by making seekers of knowledge answer questions as
well!

10.8 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

* You get back an error message that your fax could not be delivered.

With TPC, that could mean one of two things. Either you tried sending a
fax to an area not covered by TPC or you made a mistake converting the
fax number into a TPC address. Double-check both the list of TPC coverage
areas and the address you created.

10.9 FYI

To get a more comprehensive guide to Stanford's Netnews Filtering Server,
which includes tips on helping the computer better refine your searches,
write netnews@db.stanford.edu. Leave the subject line blank, and as your
message, write:

help

TPC (which gets its name from the 1967 movie "The President's Analyst")
maintains a mailing list to discuss the project. To get on it, send your
request to tpc-rp-request@aarnet.edu.au. To get more detailed
information on TPC, send a message to tpc-faq@town.hall.org.

CHAPTER 11: NEWS OF THE WORLD

11.1 CLARINET: ASSOCIATED PRESS, MISS MANNERS AND DILBERT

Usenet "newsgroups" can be something of a misnomer. They may be
interesting, informative and educational, but they are often not news, at
least, not the way most people would think of them. But there are several
sources of news and sports on the Net.

One of the largest is Clarinet, a company in Cupertino, Calf., that
distributes wire-service news and columns, along with a news service
devoted to computers and even the Dilbert comic strip, in Usenet form.

Because Clarinet charges for its service, not all host systems carry its
articles. Those that do carry them as Usenet groups starting with
"clari." As with other Usenet hierarchies, these are named starting with
broad area and ending with more specific categories. Some of these
include business news (clari.biz); general national and foreign news,
politics and the like (clari.news), sports (clari.sports); columns by
Mike Royko, Miss Manners, and others (clari.feature); and NewsBytes
computer and telecommunications reports (clari.nb). Because Clarinet
started in Canada, there is a separate set of clari.canada newsgroups.
The clari.nb newsgroups are divided into specific computer types
(clari.nb.apple, for example).

Clari newsgroups feature stories updated around the clock. There are
even a couple of "bulletin" newsgroups for breaking stories:
clari.news.bulletin and clari.news.urgent. Clarinet also sets up new
newsgroups for breaking stories that become ongoing ones (such as major
natural disasters, coups in large countries and the like).

Occasionally, you will see stories in clari newsgroups that just
don't seem to belong there. This happens because of the way wire
services work. AP uses three-letter codes to route its stories to
the newspapers and radio stations that make up most of its clientele, and
harried editors on deadline sometimes punch in the wrong code.

11.2 STILL MORE NEWS ON THE NET

Several newspapers around the world now offer online editions on the
World-Wide Web. Typically, this includes not only copies of current news
and sports stories, but features and, increasingly, advertisements (well,
they have to pay for it somehow).

One of the first newspapers to go online with a daily edition was the
Charlotte News and Observer in North Carolina, at http://www.nando.net.
You'll find world news, sports news (including homepages devoted to
specific teams) and features about North Carolina.

You'd expect the San Jose Mercury News, in the heart of California's
Silicon Valley, to be online, and it is, at http://www.sjmercury.com.
Look for daily news and sports, as well as documents and features not
always found in the printed version. The Mercury News also offers a for-
fee service that will e-mail you stories and classifieds with keywords
you specify.

The London Telegraph's Electronic Telegraph provides a similar supply
of stories, with a British slant, naturally, at
http://www.telegraph.co.uk. You'll have to register to use the service,
but it's free.

Also online is Time magazine, at http://www.timeinc.com. In addition to
providing copies of news stories, this Web site also lets you participate
in online conferences about the news.

11.3 THE WORLD TODAY, FROM BELARUS TO BRAZIL

The Open Media Research Institute (formerly known as Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty) provides daily news summaries from Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. The digests are available via e-mail. Write to
listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Leave the "subject:" line blank, and as your
message, write:

subscribe omri-l your name

The Voice of America, a government broadcasting service aimed at other
countries, provides transcripts of its English-language news reports
through both gopher and anonymous ftp. For the former, use gopher to
connect to this address:

gopher.voa.gov

and for the latter, to this address:

ftp.voa.gov

Daily Brazilian news updates are available (in Portuguese) from the
University of Sao Paulo. Use anonymous ftp to connect to

uspif.if.usp.br

Use cd to switch to the whois directory. The news summaries are stored
in files with this form: NEWS.23OCT92;1. But to get them, leave off the
semicolon and the 1, and don't capitalize anything, for example:

get news.23oct92

11.4 FYI

Steve Outing maintains a list of newspapers with online services and how
to connect to them. It's available on the Web at
http://marketplace.com/e-papers.list.www/e-papers.outing.html

The clari.net.newusers newsgroup on Usenet provides a number of
articles about Clarinet and ways of finding news stories of interest
to you.

To discuss the future of newspapers and newsrooms in the new
electronic medium, subscribe to the online-news mailing list. Send a mail
message of

Subscribe online-news Your Name

to majordomo@marketplace.com.

Look in the alt.radio.networks.npr newsgroup in Usenet for
summaries of NPR news shows such as "All Things Considered." This
newsgroup is also a place to discuss the network and its shows,
personalities and policies.

A number of media organizations now encourage readers, listeners and
viewers to communicate with them electronically, via Internet e-mail
addresses. they range from internationally known newspapers such as the
Times of London to college-owned FM stations. You can get a list of
media outlets with e-mail addresses via anonymous ftp or ncftp at
ftp.std.com, in the /periodicals/middlesex-news directory. Get
the file called medialist.

CHAPTER 12: IRC, MUDs AND OTHER THINGS THAT ARE MORE FUN THAN THEY SOUND

Many Net systems provide access to a series of interactive services that
let you hold live "chats" or play online games with people around the
world. To find out if your host system offers these, you can ask your
system administrator or just try them -- if nothing happens, then your
system does not provide them. In general, if you can use telnet and ftp,
chances are good you can use these services as well.

12.1 TALK

This is the Net equivalent of a telephone conversation and requires that
both you and the person you want to talk to have access to this function
and are online at the same time. To use it, type

talk user@site.name

where user@site.name is the e-mail address of the other person. She will
see something like this on her screen:

talk: connection requested by yourname@site.name
talk: respond with: talk yourname@site.name

To start the conversation, she should then type (at her host system's
command line):

talk yourname@site.name

where that is your e-mail address. Both of you will then get a top
and bottom window on your screen. She will see everything you type in
one window; you'll see everything she types in the other. To
disconnect, hit control-C.

One note: Public-access sites that use Sun computers sometimes have
trouble with the talk program. If talk does not work, try typing

otalk

or

ntalk

instead. However, the party at the other end will have to have the same
program online for the connection to work.

12.2 INTERNET RELAY CHAT

IRC is a program that lets you hold live keyboard conversations with
people around the world. It's a lot like an international CB radio - it
even uses "channels." Type something on your computer and it's instantly
echoed around the world to whoever happens to be on the same channel with
you. You can join in existing public group chats or set up your own.
You can even create a private channel for yourself and as few as one or
two other people. And just like on a CB radio, you can give yourself a
unique "handle" or nickname.

IRC currently links host systems in 20 different countries, from
Australia to Hong Kong to Israel. Unfortunately, it's like telnet --
either your site has it or it doesn't. If your host system does have it,
Just type

irc

and hit enter. You'll get something like this:

*** Connecting to port 6667 of server world.std.com
*** Welcome to the Internet Relay Network, adamg
*** Your host is world.std.com, running version 2.7.1e+4
*** You have new mail.
*** If you have not already done so, please read the new user information with
+/HELP NEWUSER
*** This server was created Sat Apr 18 1992 at 16:27:02 EDT
*** There are 364 users on 140 servers
*** 45 users have connection to the twilight zone
*** There are 124 channels.
*** I have 1 clients and 3 servers
MOTD - world.std.com Message of the Day -
MOTD - Be careful out there...
MOTD -
MOTD - ->Spike
* End of /MOTD command.

23:13 [1] adamg [Mail: 32] * type /help for help

----------------------------------------------------------------------

You are now in channel 0, the "null" channel, in which you can look up
various help files, but not much else. As you can see, IRC takes over
your entire screen. The top of the screen is where messages will appear.
The last line is where you type IRC commands and messages. All IRC
commands begin with a /. The slash tells the computer you are about to
enter a command, rather than a message. To see what channels are
available, type

/list

and hit enter. You'll get something like this:

*** Channel Users Topic
*** #Money 1 School CA$H (/msg SOS_AID help)
*** #Gone 1 ----->> Gone with the wind!!! ------>>>>>
*** #mee 1
*** #eclipse 1
*** #hiya 2
*** #saigon 4
*** #screwed 3
*** #z 2
*** #comix 1 LET'S TALK 'BOUT COMIX!!!!!
*** #Drama 1
*** #RayTrace 1 Rendering to Reality and Back
*** #NeXT 1
*** #wicca 4 Mr. Potato Head, R. I. P.
*** #dde^mhe` 1 no'ng chay? mo*? ...ba` con o*iiii
*** #jgm 1
*** #ucd 1
*** #Maine 2
*** #Snuffland 1
*** #p/g! 4
*** #DragonSrv 1

Because IRC allows for a large number of channels, the list might scroll
off your screen, so you might want to turn on your computer's screen
capture to capture the entire list. Note that the channels always have
names, instead of numbers. Each line in the listing tells you the
channel name, the number of people currently in it, and whether there's a
specific topic for it. To switch to a particular channel, type

/join #channel

where "#channel" is the channel name and hit enter. Some "public"
channels actually require an invitation from somebody already on it. To
request an invitation, type

/who #channel-name

where channel-name is the name of the channel, and hit enter. Then ask
someone with an @ next to their name if you can join in. Note that
whenever you enter a channel, you have to include the #. Choose one with
a number of users, so you can see IRC in action.

If it's a busy channel, as soon as you join it, the top of your screen
will quickly be filled with messages. Each will start with a person's
IRC nickname, followed by his message.

It may seem awfully confusing at first. There could be two or three
conversations going on at the same time and sometimes the messages will
come in so fast you'll wonder how you can read them all.

Eventually, though, you'll get into the rhythm of the channel and things
will begin to make more sense. You might even want to add your two cents
(in fact, don't be surprised if a message to you shows up on your screen
right away; on some channels, newcomers are welcomed immediately). To
enter a public message, simply type it on that bottom line (the computer
knows it's a message because you haven't started the line with a slash)
and hit enter.

Public messages have a user's nickname in brackets, like this:

<tomg>

If you receive a private message from somebody, his name will be between
asterisks, like this:

*tomg*

12.3 IRC COMMANDS

Note: Hit enter after each command.

/away When you're called away to put out a grease fire
in the kitchen, issue this command to let others know
you're still connected but just away from your terminal
or computer for awhile.

/help Brings up a list of commands for which there is a help
file. You will get a "topic:" prompt. Type in the
subject for which you want information and hit enter.
Hit enter by itself to exit help.

/invite Asks another IRC to join you in a conversation.

/invite fleepo #hottub

would send a message to fleepo asking him to join you on
the #hottub channel. The channel name is optional.

/join Use this to switch to or create a particular channel,
like this:

/join #hottub

If one of these channels exists and is not a private
one, you will enter it. Otherwise, you have just
created it. Note you have to use a # as the first
character.

/list This will give you a list of all available public
channels, their topics (if any) and the number of users
currently on them. Hidden and private channels are not
shown.

/m name Send a private message to that user.

/mode This lets you determine who can join a channel you've
created.

/mode #channel +s

creates a secret channel.

/mode #channel +p

makes the channel private

/nick This lets you change the name by which others see you.

/nick fleepo

would change your name for the present session to
fleepo. People can still use /whois to find your e-mail
address. If you try to enter a channel where somebody
else is already using that nickname, IRC will ask you to
select another name.

/query This sets up a private conversation between you and
another IRC user. To do this, type

/query nickname

Every message you type after that will go only to that
person. If she then types

/query nickname

where nickname is yours, then you have established a
private conversation. To exit this mode, type

/query

by itself. While in query mode, you and the other
person can continue to "listen" to the discussion on
whatever public channels you were on, although neither
of you will be able to respond to any of the messages
there.

/quit Exit IRC.

/signoff Exit IRC.

/summon Asks somebody connected to a host system with IRC to
join you on IRC. You must use the person's entire e-mail
address.

/summon fleepo@foo.bar.com

would send a message to fleepo asking him to start IRC.
Usually not a good idea to just summon people unless you
know they're already amenable to the idea; otherwise you
may wind up annoying them no end. This command does not
work on all sites.

/topic When you've started a new channel, use this command to let
others know what it's about.

/topic #Amiga

would tell people who use /list that your channel is meant
for discussing Amiga computers.

/who <chan> Shows you the e-mail address of people on a particular
channel.

/who #foo

would show you the addresses of everybody on channel foo.

/who

by itself shows you every e-mail address for every person
on IRC at the time, although be careful: on a busy night
you might get a list of 500 names!

/whois Use this to get some information about a specific IRC
user or to see who is online.

/whois nickname

will give you the e-mail address for the person using
that nickname.

/whois *

will list everybody on every channel.

/whowas Similar to /whois; gives information for people who
recently signed off IRC.

12.4 IRC IN TIMES OF CRISIS

IRC has become a new medium for staying on top of really big breaking
news. In 1993, when Russian lawmakers barricaded themselves inside the
parliament building, some enterprising Muscovites and a couple of
Americans set up a "news channel" on IRC to relay first-person accounts
direct from Moscow. The channel was set up to provide a continuous loop
of information, much like all-news radio stations that cycle through the
day's news every 20 minutes. In 1994, Los Angeles residents set up a
similar channel to relay information related to the Northridge
earthquake. In both cases, logs of the channels were archived somewhere
on the Net, for those unable to "tune in" live.

How would you find such channels in the future? Use the /list command to
scroll through the available channels. If one has been set up to discuss
a particular breaking event, chances are you'll see a brief description
next to the channel name that will tell you that's the place to tune.

12.5 MUDs

Multiple-User Dimensions or Dungeons (MUDs) take IRC into the realm of
fantasy. MUDs are live, role-playing games in which you enter assume a
new identity and enter an alternate reality through your keyboard. As
you explore this other world, through a series of simple commands (such
as "look," "go" and "take"), you'll run across other users, who may
engage you in a friendly discussion, enlist your aid in some quest or try
to kill you for no apparent reason.

Each MUD has its own personality and creator (or God) who was willing to
put in the long hours required to establish the particular MUD's rules,
laws of nature and information databases. Some MUDs stress the social
aspects of online communications -- users frequently gather online to
chat and join together to build new structures or even entire realms.
Others are closer to "Dungeons and Dragons" and are filled with
sorcerers, dragons and evil people out to keep you from completing your
quest -- through murder if necessary.

Many MUDs (there are also related games known as MUCKs and MUSEs) require
you to apply in advance, through e-mail, for a character name and
password. One that lets you look around first, though, is HoloMuck at
McGill University in Montreal. The premise of this game is that you
arrive in the middle of Tanstaafl, a city on the planet Holo. You have
to find a place to live (else you get thrown into the homeless shelter)
and then you can begin exploring. Magic is allowed on this world, but
only outside the city limits. Get bored with the city and you can roam
the rest of the world or even take a trip into orbit (of course, all this
takes money; you can either wait for your weekly salary or take a trip to
the city casino). Once you become familiar with the city and get your
own character, you can even begin erecting your own building (or subway
line, or almost anything else).

To connect, telnet to

collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu 5757

When you connect, type

connect guest guest

and hit enter. This connects you to the "guest" account, which has a
password of "guest." You'll see this:

The Homeless Shelter(#22Rna)
You wake up in the town's Homeless Shelter, where vagrants are put for
protective holding. Please don't sleep in public places-- there are plenty of
open apartments available. Type 'apartments' to see how to get to an
apartment building with open vacancies.
There is a small sign on the wall here, with helpful information. Type 'look
sign' to read it.
The door is standing open for your return to respectable society. Simply walk
'out' to the center.
Of course, you want to join respectable society, but first you
want to see what that sign says. So you type

look sign

and hit enter, which brings up a list of some basic commands. Then
you type

out

followed by enter, which brings up this:

You slip out the door, and head southeast...
Tanstaafl Center
This is the center of the beautiful town of Tanstaafl. High Street runs north
and south into residential areas, while Main Street runs east and west into
business districts.
SW: is Tanstaafl Towers. Please claim an apartment... no sleeping in public!
SE: the Public Library offers both information and entertainment.
NW: is the Homeless Shelter, formerly the Town Jail.
NE: is Town Hall, site of several important services, including: Public
Message Board, Bureau of Land Management (with maps and regulations), and
other governmental/ bureaucratic help.
Down: Below a sign marked with both red and blue large letter 'U's, a
staircase leads into an underground subway passage.
(Feel free to 'look' in any direction for more information.)
[Obvious exits: launch, d, nw, se, w, e, n, s, ne, sw]
Contents:
Instructions for newcomers
Directional signpost
Founders' statue

To see "Instructions for newcomers", type

look Instructions for newcomers

and hit enter. You could do the same for "Directional signpost" and
"Founders' statue." Then type

SW

and enter to get to Tanstaafl Towers, the city housing complex, where
you have to claim an apartment (you may have to look around; many will
already) be occupied. And now it's off to explore Holo! One command
you'll want to keep in mind is "take." Periodically, you'll come
across items that, when you take them will confer certain abilities or
powers on you. If you type

help

and enter, you'll get a list of files you can read to learn more about
the MUD's commands.

The "say" command lets you talk to other players publicly. For example,

say Hey, I'm here!

would be broadcast to everybody else in the room with you. If you
want to talk to just one particular person, use "whisper" instead of
"say."

whisper agora=Hey, I'm here!

would be heard only by agora. Another way to communicate with somebody
regardless of where on the world they are is through your pager. If you
suddenly see yours go off while visiting, chances are it's a wizard
checking to see if you need any help. To read his message, type

page

To send him a message, type

page name=message

where name is the wizard's name (it'll be in the original message).

Other MUDs and MUCKs may have different commands, but generally use the
same basic idea of letting you navigate through relatively simple English
commands.

When you connect to a MUD, choose your password as carefully as you would
one for your host system; alas, there are MUD crackers who enjoy trying
to break into other people's MUD accounts. And never, never use the same
password as the one you use on your host system!

MUDs can prove highly addicting. "The jury is still out on whether
MUDding is 'just a game' or 'an extension of real life with gamelike
qualities'," says Jennifer Smith, an active MUD player who wrote an FAQ
on the subject.

She adds one caution: "You shouldn't do anything that you wouldn't do in
real life, even if the world is a fantasy world. The important thing to
remember is that it's the fantasy world of possibly hundreds of people,
and not just yours in particular. There's a human being on the other
side of each and every wire! Always remember that you may meet these
other people some day, and they may break your nose. People who treat
others badly gradually build up bad reputations and eventually receive
the NO FUN Stamp of Disapproval."

12.6 GO, GO, GO (AND CHESS, TOO)!

Fancy a good game of go or chess? You no longer have to head for the
nearest park with a board in hand. The Internet has a couple of machines
that let you engage people from around the world in your favorite board
games. Or, if you prefer, you can watch matches in progress.

To play go,

telnet hellspark.wharton.upenn.edu 6969
log on as: guest

You'll find prompts to various online help files to get you started.

For a chess match,

telnet chess.lm.com 5000
log on as: guest

You'll find prompts for online help files on the system, which lets you
choose your skill level. Other game servers include:

The Backgammon Server (telnet): fraggel65.mdstud.chalmers.se 4321
Bridge on the Internet (the Web): http://www.cts.com/~okbridge/

12.7 THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

All is not fun and games on the Net. Like any community, the Net has its
share of obnoxious characters who seem to exist only to make your life
miserable (you've already met some of them in chapter 4). There are
people who seem to spend a bit more time on the Net than many would find
healthy. It also has its criminals. Clifford Stoll writes in "The
Cuckoo's Egg" how he tracked a team of German hackers who were breaking
into U.S. computers and selling the information they found to the
Soviets. Robert Morris, a Cornell University student, was convicted of
unleashing a "worm" program that effectively disabled several thousand
computers connected to the Internet.

Of more immediate concern to the average Net user are crackers who seek
to find other's passwords to break into Net systems and people who infect
programs on ftp sites with viruses.

There is a widely available program known as "Crack" that can decipher
user passwords composed of words that might be found in a dictionary
(this is why you shouldn't use such passwords). Short of that, there are
the annoying types who take a special thrill in trying to make you
miserable. The best advice in dealing with them is to count to 10 and
then ignore them -- like juveniles everywhere, most of their fun comes in
seeing how upset you can get.

Meanwhile, two Cornell University students pleaded guilty in 1992 to
uploading virus-infected Macintosh programs to ftp sites. If you plan to
try out large amounts of software from ftp sites, it might be wise to
download or buy a good anti-viral program.

But can law enforcement go too far in seeking out the criminals? The
Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in large part in response to a
series of government raids against an alleged gang of hackers. The raids
resulted in the near bankruptcy of one game company never alleged to have
had anything to do with the hackers, when the government seized its
computers and refused to give them back. The case against another
alleged participant collapsed in court when his attorney showed the
"proprietary" and supposedly hacked information he printed in an
electronic newsletter was actually available via an 800 number for about
$13 -- from the phone company from which that data was taken.

12.8 FYI

You can find discussions about IRC in the alt.irc newsgroup.

"A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing," by Darren Reed (May,
1992), provides a theoretical background on why conferencing systems such
as IRC are a Good Thing. It's available through ftp at nic.ddn.mil in
the rfc directory as rfc1324.txt.

Every Friday, Scott Goehring posts a new list of MUDs and related games
and their telnet addresses in the newsgroup rec.games.mud.announce. There
are several other mud newsgroups related to specific types of MUDs,
including rec.games.mud.social, rec.games.mud.adventure,
rec.games.mud.tiny, rec.games.mud.diku and rec.games.mud.lp.

For a good overview of the impact on the Internet of the Morris Worm,
read "Virus Highlights Need for Improved Internet Management," by the
U.S. General Accounting Office (June, 1989). You can get a copy via ftp
from cert.sei.cmu.edu in the pub/virus-l/docs directory. It's listed as
gao_rpt.

Clifford Stoll describes how the Internet works and how he tracked a
group of KGB-paid German hackers through it, in "The Cuckoo's Egg:
Tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage," Doubleday (1989).

For information on keeping your e-mail private, use anonymous FTP
or ncftp to connect to ftp.eff.org and switch to the
pub/Net_info/EFF_Net_Guide/Updates directory and get the file
netupdate.003.