RFC 2150
Humanities and Arts: Sharing Center Stage on the Internet
Humanities and Arts: Sharing Center Stage on the Internet 🎀
okay bestie, so this is RFC 2150 💖 an FYI doc (it's FYI 31!) from the Network Working Group, dated October 1997. The authors are J. Max and W. Stickle, both from Rainfarm 🧚 It's filed as Informational, which means it's just sharing info with the Internet community. It's not a standard. The header doesn't have an obsoletes or updates line, so it isn't replacing or changing any other RFC ✨
Status of this Memo 📜
This memo gives info to the Internet community. It is not an Internet standard of any kind 🙈 Distribution of this memo is unlimited 💅
Abstract 🌸
This doc is mainly for people who don't know much about the Internet yet, or haven't used it a lot 🫶
The goal is to show Arts and Humanities folks that the Internet is a super useful tool, resource, and medium for making, presenting, and preserving arts and humanities content 🎨
The intended audience is working artists, scholars, related professionals, and anyone whose knowledge, expertise, and support helps make sure the Arts and Humanities have a good spot in the global information infrastructure 👑
Table of Contents 🗂️
1. Introduction............................................... 3
1.1 Definition of Arts and Humanities......................... 3
2. What does the Internet mean to the "Artist?"............... 4
2.1 Access to the Global Community............................ 5
2.2 Sharing Your Work and Collaborating with Others........... 6
2.3 Freely Available Software, and Other Information.......... 8
3. What is the Internet?...................................... 8
3.1 What is the World Wide Web?............................... 9
4. How does the Internet Work?................................ 10
4.1 Internet Addresses........................................ 11
4.1.1 Computer Addresses and Hostnames......................... 12
4.1.2 Addresses of People on the Internet...................... 12
4.1.3 Information Addresses, Locators, URLs.................... 13
4.2 How Does the World Wide Web Work?......................... 14
4.3 Other, Higher Level Protocols on the Internet............. 15
5. Forums..................................................... 16
5.1 Message Based Communications.............................. 16
5.1.1 Electronic Mail - email.................................. 17
5.1.2 Newsgroups............................................... 17
5.1.3 Electronic Bulletin Board System - BBS .................. 18
5.2 Real-Time Communications.................................. 19
5.2.1 Chat - IRC............................................... 19
5.2.2 Multicasting............................................. 20
5.2.3 MUD - Multi-User Dungeon................................. 20
5.2.4 Audio/Video Conferencing................................. 21
5.3 Archives.................................................. 22
5.3.1 Searching................................................ 22
6. Accessing the Internet..................................... 25
6.1 Internet Service Providers................................ 26
6.2 Computer Hardware and Software Tools...................... 26
6.3 Multimedia................................................ 31
7. Creating Content........................................... 32
7.1 Getting Help.............................................. 33
7.2 About File Formats........................................ 34
7.3 Creating Text and Hypertext Documents..................... 35
7.4 Creating Graphic and Moving Images........................ 35
7.4.1 Bitmap Image Formats..................................... 36
7.4.2 Vector Image Formats..................................... 37
7.4.3 Video Formats............................................ 37
7.5 Creating Music and Sound Files............................ 38
7.6 Content Design Issues..................................... 40
7.7 Publicizing Your Work..................................... 41
8. Issues and Challenges...................................... 42
8.1 Security Issues........................................... 43
8.2 Viruses................................................... 44
8.3 The Standard Disclaimer................................... 44
8.4 Copyrights and Intellectual Property Issues............... 45
8.4.1 Copyright................................................ 45
8.4.2 Trademark................................................ 46
8.4.3 Privacy.................................................. 47
8.4.4 Seek Professional Advice................................. 47
8.5 Conducting Business over the Internet..................... 47
8.6 Netiquette................................................ 48
9. Glossary................................................... 49
10. Resources, References, etc................................. 51
10.1 RFCs and Internet-Drafts.................................. 51
10.2 Internet Documents........................................ 52
10.3 Other Sources............................................. 53
10.4 Freely Available Web Browser Software..................... 54
10.5 The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority................... 54
11. Security Considerations.................................... 55
11.1 Formulate a security policy............................... 55
11.1.1 Talk to your Internet Service Provider................... 56
11.1.2 Make sure your systems are up to date.................... 56
11.1.3 Use the tools available.................................. 56
12. Acknowledgments............................................ 57
13. Authors' Addresses......................................... 57
Appendix A. Internet Projects of Interest to the
Arts and Humanities Communities..................... 58
Appendix B. Starting Points; A brief list of related sites...... 60
Appendix C. Examples for using the RFC server RFC-INFO@ISI.EDU.. 621. Introduction ✨
this doc is set up to show you the wide range of things the Internet can do today 🦋 It's meant to show how current networking tech can help with personal and cultural growth 🌈
some basic Internet functions get covered, along with what they're used for and the forums where people build online communities of shared interests. the big ones are the World Wide Web, Email, and Network News 💜
next up, we talk about hardware and software that artists use to make and show their work, plus examples of how arts and humanities content gets stored and found online 🎨
the doc also gives a quick rundown of the issues and challenges that come with putting arts and humanities content online, like privacy and property rights 🔥
there's a short Glossary, and a bunch of Appendices with pointers to more Internet info 📚
1.1 Definitions of Arts and Humanities 💅
for this doc, "Arts" includes (but isn't limited to) dance, design arts, folk arts, literary arts, media and film arts, music, theater, and visual arts 🎭
"Humanities" includes (but isn't limited to) the study of: language, both modern and classical; linguistics; literature; history; jurisprudence philosophy; archaeology; comparative religion; ethics; the history, criticism and theory of the arts; the parts of social sciences that have humanistic content and use humanistic methods; and the study and application of the humanities to the human environment 🏛️
to keep things simple, this doc uses the word "Artist" to mean both Artist and Humanist: "all practitioners who work in the fields of the visual, performance, and literary arts, as well as museum curators, librarians, and others who are involved in the research, restoration, and presentation of that which comprises our cultural heritage." 🖼️✨
2. What does the Internet mean to the Artist? 🌟
okay, the Internet is having a HUGE effect on society 😭 Even though it's still super new, you can see it everywhere in pop culture and in how we do business 💼 But the biggest changes are happening with the kids growing up online 🧸 Lots of parents already know how much TV shapes their kids, and with WEB-TV, the Internet is starting to absorb television and make it even more powerful 📺🔥 This mix of information, communication, and entertainment is going to play a major role in teaching and shaping the minds of everyone who grows up with it 🧠
because of that power, it's critical that the best parts of human culture are on the Internet 👑 If we raise the Internet right, it'll give back by helping grow a generation that might end up wiser than we are 🫶
this is where artists come in 🎨 The net is mostly built and run by scientists and engineers, who are creatures of mind, so the heart and soul of the Internet is kinda weak 💔 Artists are the heart and soul of human culture, so they need to bring their work onto the net to give it culture, and to give future generations their humanity 🌸
if that still isn't convincing, we'll also introduce some of the many tools artists can use to exploit the net for their own personal gain 💰 As online culture becomes a more balanced picture of humanity, the net will become an essential tool for collaboration, communication, and sharing arts and humanities content 🤝 The day is coming where people who aren't on the net will be seriously held back in expressing and sharing their work 😳
the net is the new frontier for human growth 🚀 Can you afford not to be involved? 💖
2.1 Access to the Global Community ✨
okay so bestie, back in the day artists only had the people physically around them as their audience and collaborators 🥺 transportation and communication got better and those circles grew, but honestly? most artists in the world still weren't going global. the Internet changes all of that 🌍💖 it gives anyone access to a global community.
a whole bunch of arts institutions and organizations have set up shop on the World Wide Web now 🎨 and a seriously big number of online discussion groups are all about the arts and humanities. consortiums of museums and libraries are using networking tech to do research and projects on better ways to collect, store, and share ancient objects and other non-textual primary sources, plus textual sources too 📚✨
sites are also made by individuals, and by institutions, organizations, and businesses, for every reason you can think of, from commerce all the way to just wanting to express yourself 🫶 the Internet connects hundreds of countries, thousands of cities, and countless groups and individuals all over the globe 🌸
you can find info on basically everything on the Internet 💅 art and music, guns and ammunition, astronomy, news, astrology, agriculture, acupuncture, botany, biology, zoology, food, psychology, medicine, space exploration, genetics, media, chemistry, microbreweries, aeronautics, scuba diving, meteorology, neurology, artificial intelligence, mathematics, literature, wine tasting, law, painting, photography, dance, history, social sciences, politics, crafts, clothing, economics, genealogy, pets, sports, languages, dictionaries, encyclopedias, technical manuals, schools, shops, entertainment, furniture, flowers, software, hardware, computers and the Internet, just to name a few 🧚 whatever your work needs, whatever your whim wants, it's on the net. iconic. 😭
people all around the world are looking for what they want on the net, and if you have what they want, then thanks to the magic of the Internet, you're literally their next door neighbor 🏡💜
with Internet access, the whole world is at your fingertips 🌈 bring your questions about health, the environment, government, and religion, dig through piles of documentation on the stuff you care about, or talk it out with other people electronically. once you get used to it, you'll even be downloading more information and tools to help you out even more 🔥
the Internet is a forum where diverse cultures can mix together, and it lets people visit faraway places from the privacy and safety of their own computer ✈️ the Internet explorer will also notice that lots of sites are multilingual, which is so cool 🦋
once you have the basic tools for using the Internet, you'll start to get how easy, helpful, informative, and exciting it can be ✨ with a few quick clicks you can be in a great library, museum, or gallery, tour a faraway city, or look up an old friend 💖 you might find an out of print book you've always wanted, and then either read it on your screen or print it out on your printer 🖨️ and if you don't have a printer? just save it to your floppy disk and take that to a printshop or a friend with a printer. it really is that easy, no cap 💅
you could spend the afternoon at the Smithsonian or the Louvre without ever leaving your chair 🏛️✨ and if you want a more athletic adventure, put your computer in front of your treadmill and jog through the online Olympics site 🏃♀️🏅 iykyk, it's giving main character energy.
when you're ready, you can go deeper 🔍 follow other links to smaller sites, lesser known writers, artists, poets, and thinkers, and discover the emerging world they're building 🌷 with the right tools you can even watch moving pictures and listen to music and other audio 🎧
maybe you want to find a rare album, or debate one musician's merit over another's 🎶 or maybe you'd rather talk about and compare works with producers, collectors, gallery owners, or other pros in your field or related fields. you might even want to find out who's hot and why 👑 you can also find out where and when shows, showings, benefits, conferences, releases, signings, and performances are happening, or announce your own 🎀
they say for every artist there's a critic, and on the Internet you could meet one, or be one 😈💅
2.2 Sharing Your Work and Collaborating with Others 🦋
artists are always wanting to share their work with other artists so they can get peer comments and recognition 🌸 the Internet is a great place to test out new ideas with other artists too 💜
maybe you're a painter who figured out a way to keep acrylics moist during long sessions, or a photographer who found a new lighting technique 📸 you could put that info on the Internet to help others out, or to get their feedback 🫶
or maybe you've been stuck on some part of your work, and you'd love to chat with people who had the same struggles to find out how they fixed it 🙏
there are lots of types of content artists can share, including:
- text: stories, poetry, historic accounts, transcripts, etc. 📖
- images of their visual work: paintings, photographs, sculpture, etc. 🎨
- images of themselves: photographs, self-portraits, etc. 🤳
- sound files of their audio works or voice presentations of their works: books on tape, speeches, tutorials, music, etc. 🎙️
- moving pictures: video arts, performance arts, etc. 🎬
- a description of their art process and works of art ✨
- resumes and biographical data 💼
- contact information in the form of electronic mail address, postal mail address, phone, etc. Electronic mail is the most popular because it lets people respond spontaneously 💌
after you've met some of the global critics and compared your work with others, you might feel bold enough to share your own 😤🔥 maybe you email a manuscript to a publisher, or put up scans of your art and a buyer gets hooked 🛍️ or maybe a critic says something amazing about your work 🥹
maybe putting your work online brings fortune and fame, or maybe it inspires others to put their work up too 🌟 increasing the cultural content of the Internet is going to have profound results in every area of the Arts 🌈
there are so many ways to collaborate online 🫶 like we mentioned before, it's super easy to communicate and swap work with other artists from anywhere in the world. on top of that, there are art and literature projects that explore the Internet by asking people to submit their feelings, thoughts, and ideas through it 💭 some of these projects let interested people come to them, and others get distributed in different ways to actively look for people who want to take part 🧚
there are also games played over the Internet by players all over the planet 🎮 these are described in more detail in Section 5, and they can be both entertaining and educational 📚 some games let players change the environment, so the ideas and information in the game evolve over time into an experience everyone builds together 🌍💖
2.3 Freely Available Software, and Other Information 💿
there's a whole world of useful software out there on the Internet 🌐 it's known as Shareware, Public Domain, or Freely Copyable, and you can find tons of programs you can download and use on your own machine, often completely free and sometimes for a small and/or optional fee that helps the author afford to make more software for general use 💸 there are also libraries, stores, and news groups you can browse to find just the tool or info you want 🔎
as you explore, you'll start running into info that's out of reach without the right tools for viewing, listening, and so on 🙈 for example, someone might have posted a sound file in a format your software can't recognize. in those cases, that person often includes a pointer to the exact tool you need to recognize their format or convert it, and you can download, install, and use that tool right away ✨ more info on file formats shows up throughout the document 📄
using the basic tools you got to access the Internet, you can start adding software tools to your collection, both for getting to info already on the Internet and for making your own content 🛠️ after reading this document you'll have the tools you need to find and use all of this 💅
Appendix B has a list of Internet sites where you can find communication about the arts, freely copyable software tools and art, and other stuff too 🗂️
there are tons of people both like you and unlike you that you can meet, talk with, and share ideas with 🥰 some like to just talk, so you can listen if you want. others like to just listen, so you and others can talk 🎧
and there are lots of ways people can communicate, from private electronic mail, to group video conferencing, to moderated newsgroups, to public bulletin boards 📬 see Section 5 for more on Electronic Forums 💬
3. What is the Internet? 🌐
okay so as new users, the first question that probably pops into your head is: "What is the Internet?" 🤔 a good answer is: "People, computers and information electronically linked around the world by a common protocol for communicating with each other." 💜
so the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was founded in the late 1960s 🕰️ among its many projects, ARPA created a network of computers called the ARPANET. as other networks got created, most of them were connected to the ARPANET, and the resulting network that interconnected many networks was named "The Internet" 🔗 at last count, this "Information Superhighway" connects several million computers and over 40 million users from all over the world 🚀✨
now the Internet should not be confused with America OnLine (AOL), CompuServe, Prodigy, and other type service providers 💀 those may use their own, often proprietary protocols, and they're sites unto themselves, but they may also have connections to the Internet 🙃 the Internet should also not be confused with the World Wide Web, which is the topic of the next section 🕸️💖
3.1 What is the World Wide Web? 🕸️
Okay so, the World Wide Web, which everyone just calls The Web, is made up of a subset of the computers on the Internet. 💖
Picture it as a giant magazine stand 🧚 with a huge web of strings linking all the words, pictures, and ideas together. Like a magazine rack, you can grab one specific magazine super fast, or you can browse and follow the strings from one magazine to the next. Main character energy 💅
More formally, the Web is a vast multimedia "document" spread across a large number of the computers on the Internet. 📚
There's no central hierarchy running the Web, and that's the vibe ✨ Instead, the information is spread across lots of "Web Sites" that the many people on the Internet create and use. Each Web Site is kinda like a magazine: it has a Cover Page, called the Home Page, plus other pages of related info that can be connected in whatever way the author wants 🎀 This "document" is written in a format called "hypertext," which lets information on the Web be linked through words or pictures you see on your computer. 🦋
The Web is split into a huge set of pages, called "Web Pages," connected by hypertext "links." You click a highlighted word or picture and boom, a page of related info pops up 🌈 This is what makes hypertext different from "normal" text. In normal text, each idea, sentence, or paragraph flows in one sequence, a "train of thought," from beginning to end. In hypertext, though, idea tracks branch out through "Links," so each idea can connect to many different "trains of thought." Being able to follow an idea to lots of different destinations means you read hypertext in a way that looks more like how humans actually think 🧠✨
For example, you could make a "Cool Music" Web Page and put it on a "Web Server," which is any computer somewhere on the Internet running the software needed to give access to the Web Pages it holds. Then anyone on the Internet could use a program called a "Web Browser" to ask the Web Server to show them your Home Page 🫶
Your Home Page could be a striking piece of artwork with a list of your favorite albums and a few labeled buttons. While your music plays from their speakers, they might click on any album that catches their eye, or check lists of info sorted by Artist, Label, or Genre. Once they get to the page for a particular album, they might see the artwork, a song list, and other links to follow. Clicking a song might pull up the lyrics, or even download the song 😭 Or they could follow a link you put on your page to the HomePage of the artist's record company, or to a magazine interview with the band. If the info is out there, your page can link to it. 🔥
At last check there were hundreds of thousands of web sites, home pages, and hosts on the Web, and what's on them is almost as varied as the people making them 🌸 Some pages are personal, with photos of family members, lists of hobbies, or shared collections like song lyrics. Some are strictly business, selling everything from abalone to zymoscopes 💀 And still other pages provide services like information searches and weather reports. ⭐
Human culture is built on communication, and the widespread availability of information plus the thought-like structures of hypertext are the most powerful new ideas in communication since the invention of writing. Just look back through history and you'll see how written language has shaped our societies. These results are only a foreshadowing of what's to come. Honestly, iconic 🌈👑
4. How Does the Internet Work? ✨
Okay, so you don't need to understand how the Internet works in order to use it 💅 But a quick technical overview will introduce you to some concepts and terms we'll be using in the sections ahead, so let's go!
As we get into more detail here, we're assuming that you, the reader, have at least a passing familiarity with computers. Section 6.2 gives more info on computer hardware and software 🎀
On one level, networks are built out of wires, phone lines, and other pieces of hardware, and the Internet really is built out of all of that. The essence of the Internet, though, is built out of an idea called the Internet Protocol 🧚
There are tons of different kinds of computers. Most of them work by encoding information into ones and zeroes, which they can manipulate at incredible speeds. The problem is that there are lots of different ways of encoding information. Computers that use different methods are basically speaking different languages 🙈 So for computers to talk to each other, there has to be a thing called a "Communication Protocol," which provides a set of procedures for talking and a common language to use. 💜
The Internet Protocol, or IP, is the Communication Protocol that all computers on the Internet must use and understand. It lets computers find each other and send "packets" of information back and forth, kinda like how packages move through the mail 📦 The Postal Service reads your country code and city code, but not what's inside your letter, and the Internet Protocol doesn't care what's inside most of these packets either. This is honestly amazing, because it means other, higher-level protocols can transmit any possible kind of information just by stuffing it into a packet and handing it off to the software responsible for speaking IP. 👑
Another important protocol the Internet is built on is the Transmission Control Protocol, or TCP. IP by itself gives you a way to send a message to another computer, but no guarantee it'll actually get through 😭 Since reliable communication is a necessity, TCP was invented. It uses IP to send packets and guarantees their delivery by requiring the receiver to acknowledge the info it got. TCP and IP form the heart of a group of protocols aptly named the TCP/IP protocol suite, and this suite provides most of the functionality of the Internet. 🔥
We'll be mentioning these protocols throughout the rest of the document. Info on IP and other Internet Protocols can be found in the resources referenced in Section 10. 🦋
4.1 Internet Addresses 🏠
There are so many things we'd like to be able to find on the net, including people, information, and the computers themselves. An important part of IP and other protocols is the way they label things so computers can find and identify them. The U.S. Post Office finds people by their Postal Address, which is just a label with info about who you are and where you live. In the same way, the various Internet protocols give computers, people, and information addresses that can be used to find them. The following sections describe several different kinds of addresses. 🌈
4.1.1 Computer Addresses and Hostnames 💻
When speaking IP, computers locate each other using their IP Address. Each computer on the Internet must have a unique IP Address. Some programs allow or require you to use the IP Address directly. If so, it appears as four groups of numbers separated by dots (i.e., 123.123.123.123). Most of the time, though, you won't need to worry about the actual IP Address number, because all computers have a "Host Name" that the number is mapped to. 🫶
A computers hostname also comes in parts, separated by dots. The first part is the name of the machine, and the second part is the name of the "domain" in which that computer is registered. 🍓
For example, if I had a machine named "foo" registered in the commercial domain known as "com," my machine's hostname would be foo.com. When speaking out loud, this machine's address would be spoken as "foo dot com." 🎀
A domain is just an abstract category that machines and networks can be registered into in order to organize them. Domains are organized in a hierarchy of top level domains and their subdomains. Top Level Domains include:
.edu for educational institutions
.gov for government sites
.com for commercial companies
.org for other organizations
.net for network infrastructure sites
.us for sites in the United States
.ca for sites in Canada
.nl for sites in the Netherlands
.jp for sites in Japan...to name a few. 🌸 Domain names can be further subdivided by putting one or more subdomain names in front of the top level domain, still separating everything with dots. For example, law.harvard.edu is for the Law School at Harvard University, and la.ca.us is for computers in Los Angeles, California in the United States. 🧚
More information about the Domain Naming System can be found in the documents referenced in Section 10. 📚
4.1.2 Addresses of People on the Internet 💌
Every human being has a given name, or a full name, that we use to address them. When you start using a computer, you'll be introduced to your "username." Your username, sometimes called your user i.d., may be your initials, your last name and first initial, your nickname, a number, or anything else made of normal letter or number characters. (Your username usually can't contain "special" characters such as "&" or "%".) Sometimes you get to pick your own username, and sometimes your service provider or system administrator picks one for you. 💅
Your username is used when you connect to other computers, and it identifies you in electronic mail. Your electronic mail, or Email Address, consists of your username, followed by the symbol "@," followed by your computer's hostname. 💜
So, for Joe Cool, who has the username "jcool" and gets his Internet service from Dirigible Online, his email address might be jcool@dirigible.com. When spoken out loud, the "@" symbol is pronounced simply "at," so this would typically be said as "jcool at dirigible dot com." 🙈
Email is moved around the Internet using the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, SMTP, over IP. Info on SMTP can be found in the documents listed in Section 10. 🦋
4.1.3. Information Addresses, Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs ✨
okay so, to grab info off the Internet you need two things: you have to be able to FIND it, and you have to know how to ASK for it 💅. That's the whole job of the Uniform Resource Locator, or URL, which works as an address for information. Every file or document meant to be reachable through the Internet has a URL 🦋.
URLs (or simplified versions of them) are literally everywhere now. They show up in TV, billboard, and magazine ads as a company's Internet Address, which is basically the hostname of their web site 🎀.
Earlier we talked about IP Addresses, hostnames, and email addresses, but a URL holds even more info 🧚. It doesn't just tell you what the information is and where to find it. It also tells you exactly which protocol you need to use to get it. main character energy 👑
A URL is a machine readable (and kinda cryptic 💀) text string, in a form like "http://www.something.com/location/filename.ext". Let's break that string into pieces:
httpis the name of the communications protocol that can be used to access the information. In this case it's the HyperText Transfer Protocol, which is used in the World Wide Web and will be described later. Other protocols are described in Section 4.3.:separates the protocol from the hostname.//indicates that what follows is the hostname.www.something.comis the hostname of the computer the document lives on. The "www" means it's a machine named for the fact that it's running a World Wide Web server. "something.com" is the domain that server is registered in. Typically the "something" part is the name of the organization running the server./separates the hostname from the directory on the machine where the information lives.locationis where the information sits on the machine something.com.filenameis the first part of the file name of the information you're retrieving..a dot separates the filename from its extension.extis the extension, or file "type." It actually says a great deal about the file: how to handle it and how to present it 🌈.
The URLs you see will usually be simpler than this 🙈. The people at something.com assume you're going to use a modern web browser to access the info, so they may leave off the protocol information, "http://", because that's probably your web browser's default protocol. Also, if they set up their server with a default homepage, they can leave off everything after the hostname part of the URL. That gets you the form you see most often: www.something.com.
URLs can specify any file and most protocols. In this example, the URL uses the protocol for moving HyperText, the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), over IP. More info on HyperText and HTTP is in the next section, and in the Resources section 🫶.
4.2. How Does the World Wide Web Work? 🕸️
Web pages are computer files written in a format called HTML, the HyperText Markup Language. HTML is the protocol for putting specific strings of letters and symbols (like parentheses) into an ordinary text document. Those strings can make words link to other pages, show text in a particular type font, display images, or do many other things when viewed with the right software 💖. That software would generally be a web browser. More info about software tools is in Section 6.2.
HTML is simple enough that most people can learn it, but rich enough in possibility that there will always be a thriving community of people making web pages for others 🎨.
Links within a hypertext document are built using references to the URL of the information being linked to 🔗.
To download info from distant places on the web, your computer will typically be using a protocol called HTTP, the HyperText Transfer Protocol. HTTP was designed so web browser software can connect to web server software on other machines and request the transmission of a web page as an HTML document, plus any associated images, audio, video, etc. 📺 The latest version of HTTP can actually tell what type of browser is connecting, so the server can better customize its default homepage for its audience. iconic, honestly 😭
More info on HTML, HTTP, and hypertext is in Section 7.3, and in the references listed in the Resources section 📚.
4.3. Other Higher Level Protocols on the Internet. 🧩
There are lots of other higher level protocols built on top of IP. We've provided examples throughout the document, but here are a few so you can get more familiar with them 💜.
telnet: a protocol for providing remote terminal service. Telnet software lets you log in to remote computers across the net by giving you a virtual terminal on that computer 💻.ftp: the File Transfer Protocol. FTP lets diverse machines send simple files back and forth. It's usually used by archive sites so multiple users can download files simultaneously 📥.smtp: the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. The SMTP specification lets electronic mail be sent, stored, and forwarded around the Internet. SMTP doesn't specify how a mail "reader" operates, just the transmission of email ✉️.nntp: the Network News Transfer Protocol. NNTP specifies how Internet News is passed, stored, and forwarded around the Internet 📰.gopher: the Gopher protocol creates linkages, much like the web, which is called "gopherspace." The specification lets a gopher server serve files in a text rather than graphic format 🍓.
Many other protocols run on the Internet too, and they're specified in technical documents, like the ones referenced in the Resources section 🌸.
5. Forums 💬
Websters defines a forum as "A public meeting place for open discussion." In the real world that could be a park or an auditorium. On the Internet, a forum will be electronic, but it can still feel like a roomful of people 🫂.
Lots of forums exist on the Internet. There are interactive forums where you can share info in real-time and carry on discussions with others ⚡. There are message-based forums where you send or receive a message, and others in that forum can respond later 📬. And there are archived forums, where info is stored and can be retrieved by anyone but modified only by its owner 🗄️.
We've tried to list and describe a few of the more popular forums, but we haven't made an exhaustive, complete, or up-to-the-minute list. You can find info on forums, lists, and sites in lots of magazines and books today 📖.
5.1. Message-based Communications 📮
In message-based communication, a message is sent by one user and can be received by one or many. For example, you might send a dinner invitation to an individual, a couple, or a group 🍝. In the same way, you send electronic messages to individuals or groups. Just like a postal service for physical mail, there are electronic mail servers for electronic mail. And just like you have a physical address where your physical mail gets sent, there's an electronic mail address where your electronic mail gets sent 💌.
Message-based communications include electronic mail, newsgroups, and bulletin boards 🌈.
5.1.1. Email 📧
Electronic mail, called EMAIL, is a system where a computer user can exchange messages with other computer users, or groups of users, via a communications network. That can be the Internet, or a smaller internal office network 🏢.
Typical email use is downloading messages as they're received from a mailbox or mail server, then reading and replying to them, all electronically, using a mail program that works much like a word processor for the most part ⌨️. The user can send mail to, or receive mail from, any other user with Internet access. Electronic mail is a lot like paper mail, in that it's sent, delivered, and contains information. That info is usually textual, but new innovations let graphics and even sound be sent in email 🎵.
Email is superior to paper mail because it can arrive at its destination within minutes of being sent, and it can be replied to, appended to, forwarded, formatted, saved, or deleted just as quickly ⚡💅.
Some sites on the Internet run a type of file server that can respond with a file automatically, for those who have email but not web or ftp access 🤖.
An email address consists of a username, and the address of the machine the mail should be delivered to for that user 🏷️.
Reviewing Section 4.1.2, email addresses take the form "username"@"site"."domain". For example, if your name is Joe Cool and you get your Internet service from Dirigible Online, where you log in as "jcool", your email address might be "jcool@dirigible.com" 😎.
You'll usually get your email address from your System Administrator (in a work or school environment) or from your Internet Service Provider. Section 6 has more info on Internet Service Providers 🫶.
5.1.2 Newsgroups 📰
Someday everyone will be able to get their news electronically, saving paper, money, time, and the environment 🌍💚
A Newsgroup is an electronic bulletin board system created originally by the Unix community, and it's accessible via the Internet 💻 Usenet News is a discussion forum that millions of users can reach from almost every country in the world 🌏 It's got thousands of topics arranged in a hierarchy, kind of like a family tree of conversations 🌳
The major topics include "comp" for computer topics, "rec" for recreational topics, "soc" for social topics, and "sci" for science topics. There are many others we won't list here 🫶 Inside the major topics are subtopics, like rec.music for general music content, rec.music.classical for classical music, or sci.med.physics for discussions about the physics of medical science 🎻🔬
If you have access to newsgroups, it's a total must to read the postings on news.announce.newusers first 📣 This group has detailed info on newsgroups, like finding the right place to post and the writing style that's expected 🎀
Local newsgroups are the ones you can reach through your organization or company, and they only have news that's relevant to that organization 🏢 For example, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) has lots of internal newsgroups that only GSFC employees care about, and none of the other NASA centers. So those groups exist to share internal info with GSFC employees only, and no one else 🚫 Some examples are gsfc.carpool, gsfc.dialup, and gsfc.220.civil.servants 🚗
Local newsgroups can also be about your community or the area you live in. If you lived in the Washington D.C. area, for instance, some local newsgroups might be dc.biking, dc.jobs, or dc.smithsonian 🚲✨
There are lots of newsreaders out there, and plenty of web browsers now support news too 🦋 The URL for a newsgroup starts with the protocol news: followed by the group name, like news:dc.smithsonian. You don't need a domain address, because the browser is set up to know which host you'll be getting news from 🧚
5.1.3 Electronic Bulletin Board System - BBS 📟
An Electronic Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer plus its software. It usually offers electronic messaging, archives of files, and any other services or activities that the bulletin board system's operator thinks are interesting 🍓
Typically, a BBS user has to dial in through a modem and telephone line, then pick from a hierarchy of lists, files, subdirectories, or other data the operator keeps. Once you're connected, you can often send messages to other BBS users on the system 📞💌
BBSs have traditionally been the domain of hobbyists 🕹️ But more and more of them are connected directly to the Internet, and lots of BBSs now run through government, educational, research, and commercial institutions 🏛️
BBSs usually advertise in the backs of magazines and newspapers, and by word of mouth 🗞️ Plenty of companies also offer a BBS where customers can grab their latest technical support documents and product literature 💅
5.2 Real-Time Communications ⏱️
The communication methods in Section 5.1 have delays between when you send a message and when you get a response, so both parties aren't involved at the same time 😴 The net can also be used to communicate in "Real-Time" 💜 If the delays are short enough, both parties can be involved at once in a "conversation" 🗣️✨
Usually this happens in a text-based format where each user has two special regions on their screen. One is where they type, and the other shows what the other users are typing 👀 The delay between when one user types and the other sees it is called "net-lag," and it usually ranges from "too short to be aware of" to about 30 seconds ⏳ Lag can come from network congestion or a bunch of bottlenecks, including link speed, processor speed, and typing speed 🐢
Audio and video can also be used in "Real-Time" 🎥 It's still pretty expensive right now, but the reasons for the expense are temporary, so expect to see more and more of it in the future 🔮🌈
Forums that communicate in real-time include Internet Relay Chat (IRC), the Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), Audio-Video Conferencing (AVC), and WhiteBoard Systems (WBS) 🫧
5.2.1 IRC - Internet Relay Chat, WebChat 💬
Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, gives you a text-based way to talk with lots of people at once 🌸 It's an interactive forum set up in virtual rooms you can move between, where people can virtually "hang out" 🛋️ Chat rooms are great for discussing shared ideas or topics, or for working together on a project 🤝 The connection method depends on each IRC site, and you can find IRC sites with search tools, as outlined in Section 5.3.1 🔎
Web chat is basically IRC but done through a web browser, and it's not text-only 🖥️ Section 6.2 has more info on web browser software 💖
A lot of webchat sites make you register before you can join in 📝 If you need any extra software based on your own software and PC setup, the site will point you in the right direction so you can download it 📥
Some sites also give you chat etiquette guidelines 🎀 Please read the directions before you jump into a chat session, bestie 🙏
Once you start chatting, you might spot abbreviations you don't know yet 😭 They stand for various actions or phrases. Some super common ones are btw (by the way), imho (in my humble/honest opinion), and ttfn (ta ta for now) 👋💅
Appendix B has a few chat sites to get you started 🧚
5.2.2 Multicasting 📡
Multicasting is a technical term meaning you can send pieces of data, called "packets," to multiple sites at the same time 🎯 How big a packet is depends on the protocols involved, and it can be anywhere from a few bytes to a few thousand 📦 The usual way of moving information around the Internet is unicast protocols, which send packets to one site at a time 📬
Think of multicasting as the Internet's version of broadcasting 📺 A site that multicasts is kind of like a TV station that broadcasts its signal. The signal starts from one source, but it can reach everyone in the station's signal area 📻 It takes up some of the finite available bandwidth, and anyone with the right equipment can tune in 🔧 Anyone who doesn't want to catch the signal, or doesn't have the right equipment, just lets it pass by 🫶
5.2.3 MUD - Multi-User Dungeon 🐉
A MUD is an interactive game environment where real players and virtual players both exist. You can talk with them to share ideas, solve puzzles, and so on 🧩
The word "Dungeon" comes from the setting of many of the original games of this kind. You're "our hero," and you have to escape a dungeon-like place where evil goblins, demons, and other "bad-guys" are wandering around ready to kill you 🗡️😱 Usually, to win, you have to find and retrieve some treasure or reach a hidden place, and find the way out 💎
MUDs are useful in education for problem solving and leadership skills, and for building teamwork so people can share ideas and boost creativity 🌟 A virtual world where people from diverse backgrounds and cultures can keep coming back to work on a common project lets ideas build up and cultures grow over time 🌍💜
For more info on MUDs and other collaborative environments, check out the references in the appendices 📚
5.2.4 Audio Video Conferencing 🎥
Audio Video Conferencing is huge in the arts and in business 🎭 Over the Internet, teachers can reach students who can't get to their schools, doctors can give medical consultations from all over the world 🩺, and artists can perform for audiences they'd never have reached otherwise 🎶
CU-SeeMe is a freeware desktop videoconferencing software tool 🖥️ It lets Macintosh and Windows users with an Internet connection and a desktop camera (some go for as little as $100) see, hear, and speak with other CU-SeeMe users across the world 👀👂🗣️ The program was developed at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, USA, and it's freely available 🎓
CU-SeeMe allows one-to-one communication 👯 You can also do one-to-many or many-to-many communication by installing a reflector on another machine running the right software 🪞 The reflector software has to be installed on a Unix machine 🐧 You can get the software from Cornell University's CU-SeeMe page, which is listed in Appendix B 💻
Whiteboard systems also make audio-visual conferencing even better ✏️ A whiteboard is basically a chalkboard, and physically it's pretty similar. An electronically enhanced write-on, wipe-off whiteboard lets people on the Internet share text, drawings, and other graphics as they're being written in real-time 🎨⚡
Software exists that connects two sites, or hundreds, over the Internet, the Web, or your telephone 📞🌐
5.3 Archives 🗄️
Webster's New World Dictionary defines archive like this:
n. 1 a) a place where public records, documents, etc. are kept b) a place where material having documentary interest, as private papers, institutional records, memorabilia, or photographs, is kept.
Internet archives are pretty much the exact same thing 📜 The motivation and much of the content are the same, but the medium changes (from paper files to electronic files), which allows for a much bigger variety of content 🌈
Internet archives also let lots of people access their files at the same time, from all over the world 🌍✨ Many of them still live on Anonymous FTP Servers, which let users log in without a user i.d. or password 🔓 When you connect to these servers, the protocol is "ftp," the File Transfer Protocol, as mentioned earlier in Section 4.3 📂
Any and all information people want to make available on the Internet can be made available 🤯 That means there's a truly vast amount of information out there, and more gets added every single day 📈 In fact, there's so much of it that finding the info you want can be hard and confusing 😵💫 That's the topic of our next section 🔜
Some anonymous ftp sites are provided in Appendix B 🦋
5.3.1 Searching ✨
okay so the internet has a HUGE organization problem 😭 there's probably some "perfect" way to sort all the info, but realistically we're never gonna get there. so finding the stuff you want can take some skill on your part 💅 thankfully there are tons of tools and strategies to help 🧚
one of the all time iconic ideas for finding stuff is the search engine 🔥 it's a program that usually lives on a remote computer and spends its whole life downloading info from other computers and building an index of what lives where. that's why people nicknamed them Web Crawlers 🕷️ so what this means for you is you go to the search engine's home page, type in a subject, name, title, or random string pattern, and it searches its index for stuff out on the net that seems related. you can end up with a massive pile of info AND some seriously unexpected discoveries from random sources 🌈
here are some of the searchers and indices floating around the internet:
Yahoo - Index of WWW sites, with search capabilities
http://www.yahoo.com/
DejaNews - USENET (news groups) search engine
http://www.dejanews.com/
WebCrawler - http://query.webcrawler.com/
Lycos - http://www.lycos.com/
AltaVista - WWW and USENET search engine
http://www.altavista.digital.com/
Magellan - Index of reviewed and rated Internet sites, with
search capabilities
http://www.mckinley.com/Yahoo, for example, has a top level category called "Arts" 🎨 under that there are a bunch of subcategories, most of which have further subdivisions, and each of those can hold lists of lists. it's giving nested dolls 🪆
so say you want info on Modern Dance. starting from http://www.yahoo.com/, you can follow the links to http://www.yahoo.com/Recreation/Dance/Modern/Groups or you can just type "Modern Dance" into the search field and pick from the list that comes back 💃
on a typical attempt on March 25, 1997, Yahoo returned 4 major categories of Modern Dance and offered 82 other links to related pages around the web 🦋 BUT (and this is important bestie) stats can change by the moment, so those numbers are a snapshot, not a promise 🙈
there are SO many other searchers and indices out there. the easiest way to find them is to search for them using one of the services above, or any others you stumble across while you're out exploring 🔍 the resources in Appendix B might also help 🫶
after playing around with the search engines, it becomes super clear that searching a broad category gives you way too much info 😭 for example, a recent AltaVista search for the subject "Rembrandt" matched over 8500 individual items. that included info on the famous artist (Rembrandt von Rijn (1606-1669)), His Self-Portrait, a hotel in Thailand (Rembrandt Hotel and Plaza, Bangkok), and a pizza restaurant in California 🍕💀 (the URLs for these sites are listed under Rembrandt in Appendix B.)
to get more specific, every search engine lets you do compound searches, where you use multiple keywords, maybe with Boolean logic operators like AND, OR, and NOT 🧠 for example, to focus on Rembrandt the artist and skip the pizza cafes, try this advanced search in Magellan:
Rembrandt AND artist AND portrait NOT pizzaquick heads up: how you enter search items is a little different from service to service. when you try a new one, check the help topics before you search 📖 and as with any new skill, practice, practice, practice! 💖
here's a test of search scope, which is kinda wild to look at 👀
Test of search scope:
Lycos: rembrandt. 1837 relevant documents
Lycos: rembrandt and artist and portrait 6 relevant documents
Yahoo: rembrandt 2 Category and 39 site matches
Yahoo: rembrandt and artist 2 Category and 11 site matches
AltaVista: rembrandt about "10000" documents
AltaVista: rembrandt +artist +museum about "100" documents
WebCrawler: rembrandt. 347 matching "rembrandt"
WebCrawler: rembrandt and artist and portrait 21 matching documents
Magellan: rembrandt 666 results
Magellan: rembrandt and artist and portrait 39379 resultsnotice that the Magellan numbers look totally different from everyone else's 🤯 that's because different search engines can work differently. when you do a this+that search on Magellan, it looks for all instances of This AND all instances of That, instead of the usual approach, which only returns documents that contain both This AND That. on almost every site I've explored there's an explanation of how its search process works. if you're stuck or need more info, read that first 📚
you'll also start noticing patterns in how people name or file their stuff, and that helps you find even more 🗂️ some people list their links under ART, others use PAINTINGS. a lot of people also link to related pages from their own pages, so a page that doesn't have what you want might point you to one that does 🔗 searching is iterative, so keep jumping from one search key to another and dig down through multiple levels to see what's out there. this is called Exploring, or Surfing the Net, and it's a major part of the joy of the internet 🌸
6. Accessing the Internet 🌐
okay so you've decided to explore the internet, yay 🎉 you'll need some tools and info to get started.
getting online to simply receive, download, and view files uses most of the same tools (software and hardware) you'd need to create files and make them available on the internet. so yes, sections 6 and 7 overlap a ton when it comes to basic hardware and software 🙈
you can access the internet in lots of comfy ways: at school, at home, at work, and even at trendy CyberCoffeeHouses ☕ BUT getting online is not the same thing as publishing and displaying stuff on the internet. you might need different equipment for making content than you need for just retrieving it 💅 section 6 focuses on what people who want to create content and publish on the internet specifically need.
if you live near a big metro area, you've probably already seen ads for internet access from your local phone company or cable TV provider 📺 contact them for info on the equipment needed, the services they provide, any access restrictions, and the costs involved.
local libraries and schools might now offer both internet access AND classes on internet stuff, including how to get connected 📚 also check the internet sections of your bookstore and magazine stands.
don't get discouraged if access is limited 🫶 the internet will soon be everywhere, but if you don't want to wait, you could take matters into your own hands, like these enterprising youths did...
When several students from large universities returned home to Taos, NM, a few summers ago, they left behind their Internet connections. Missing their connectivity, they approached the owner of a local bakery and suggested he start an Internet room where he could charge people by the hour to use the Internet. The entrepreneurial baker applied for a government grant and received a few computers with high speed modems. 🥐💻
you might be able to find a place like this, often called a CyberCafe, instead of having to build one yourself ☕ try your local magazine stand for the latest periodicals, or your public library or bookstore for pointers to people who'll know more.
once you have some internet access, you can learn more about Cybercafes, InternetCafes, and other physical internet access points by searching the way we talked about in Section 5.3.1. and in the newsgroup alt.cybercafes 🔎
6.1 Internet Service Providers 🖥️
being an Internet Service Provider (ISP) these days is pretty easy and can be financially worthwhile, so there are alot of them 🤑 they're starting up and failing every single day 😭 besides the info and pointers you'll find in this document, lots of organizations exist to help you find and choose a service provider.
with any service, be sure to get references, and get features and terms in writing 📝 some ISPs only give you access to their own site, others might only offer email, or give you web access but charge by the minute. have some idea of what you want to do and what the vendor actually provides before you make any deals 💼
a lot of Internet Service Providers offer free instruction to get you started accessing the internet AND creating content 🎓 with all the competition between internet providers, you should be able to find one or two that offer the instruction you need 💖
some organizations exist only to recommend the people who pay them, so be aware 👀 most internet-related magazines these days are packed with ads from ISPs in your area.
as we talked about in Section 4.1, every machine on the internet needs an address to be accessed by 🖧 even machines that are only browsing need an address so the browsed info can be sent back to them. this is actually called your IP address ✨ it's the number your hostname is associated with. usually you'll get your IP address from your work, school, or ISP when you get your configuration info for your internet connection. if you tried to get an IP address on your own, you'd go to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) 🏛️
more info about IANA, IP addresses, and domain names can be found in the information referenced in the Resources section 🌈
6.2. Computer Hardware and Software Tools ✨
okay bestie, let's talk computers 💻🎀 A basic computer system is a box with a Central Processor Unit (CPU), a main controller (motherboard), and a Floppy Drive. It also comes with a keyboard, and you'll need a Hard Drive, Memory, and a Video Monitor. How much memory, how big a hard drive, and how fabulous a monitor you want depends on your needs and experience 💅 And to connect to an ISP you'll usually also need a modem 🌸
This is just an overview so you get the basic terms down 🦋 There are tons of current magazines about computers and Internet stuff in most bookstores and magazine stands, and they give way better and more up-to-date info on computers, operating systems, software, and peripherals 📚✨
There are lots of types of computers, like Personal Computers (PCs), Apple Macintosh Computers (Macs), and various Unix based Workstations 🖥️ The most affordable systems are generally PCs and Macs 💖
You might also need to pick an Operating System (OS) for the machine you go with 👑 PCs can run a version of "DOS", anything from Microsoft (Windows, NT, Windows95, etc.), or a version of Unix (BSDI, FreeBSD, Linux, etc.). Macs can run the common Mac Windows, or Apple's version of Unix 🍓 Workstations generally run a Unix derived OS, but there are also quite a few machines out there running their own proprietary OS, ngl 🙈
Each type of system has its features, functions, and drawbacks, plus its proponents and opponents 🔥 Each one has different costs too, so you'll need to understand a lot of this before you're ready to buy your first computer 💜 Like, a ton of the free software on the Internet was written for Unix, because that's been the main OS of the Internet for years 🌈 That doesn't mean there isn't a lot of free software for other OSs though. Windows software, for example, is becoming super popular 🫶 Most musicians go with a Mac because of the variety and quality of music software for it 🎶 Windows users will need a PC to run their software. Anyway, there are actually lots of operating systems for personal computers, so the choice is wide open ✨
Common operating systems come in two basic types: single tasking and multi-tasking 🧚 This is about how many different things, or "tasks", the computer "seems" to be doing at once 😭 The earliest computers were single tasking. They did one thing at a time and could only be used by one person at a time. DOS is a modern example of a single tasking OS 💀 Since people rarely do more than a few things every second, the computer often just sat there waiting for the next keystroke 🥱
Even back then, computers could do all the work needed to listen to a human in a few milliseconds every second, so time-slicing was invented to get more use out of them 🦋
A time-slicing operating system is called Multi-tasking 🔥 It runs programs in tiny slices of time, typically shorter than 25 milliseconds (or 1/40 of a second), and switches to another task for each new slice ⭐ If you remember that most video runs at 25 or 30 discrete frames per second, yet humans see it as smooth and continuous, you can totally see how time-slicing creates the convincing illusion of doing lots of things at the same time 🎬✨
Multi-tasking operating systems can be set up as single-user or Multi-user machines 👯 Windows 95 and the MacOS are modern examples of multi-tasking OSs that were designed for one user most of the time. Other systems, like UNIX, VMS, NT, and others, are more ready to be set up as multiuser machines 🌸 Multiuser machines are usually connected to a network, or a network of terminals, so more than one person can use the processor and other peripherals at the same time 🫶
Some operating systems can also take advantage of Parallel Processing hardware, which actually does more than one thing at a time ⚡ However, as of this writing, that hardware is kinda rare and expensive, so we won't go into the details here 🙃
Different OSs also have different File Systems 📁 The File System is the way your programs and other computer files are stored and displayed. Different OSs also have different "User Interface"s 🎀 The User Interface is how you interact with the computer's OS. Some use "Text" interfaces, where you type every command on a keyboard ⌨️ Others use a "Graphical" user interface, which shows pictures of buttons and icons that you "click" on to start programs and do things like save and delete 🖱️💖
For software to run on a computer, it has to be written specifically for that computer's operating system 👑 Just like Internet traffic has to use the Internet Protocol, software has to speak the OS language of the machine it wants to run on 🗣️ Translation programs exist, but there are still problems 😬
One of the problems is with file"names". The DOS OS, for example, only supports names made of an 8-character filename and a 3-character "extension", separated by a ".". So foo.txt and myprog.exe are valid DOS filenames, but sadly, foo.html is not 💔 This means HTML files on a DOS system have to use the .htm extension instead of the .html extension used on many other systems 🙄 This problem also hits other common extensions like .jpeg, .mpeg, and others 🥲
A filename's extension is super important because it tells you AND your software what kind of file it is and what it needs to be understood 🔍 For example, when your web browser sees a file with a .html or .htm extension, it assumes it's hypertext, and knows how to display it and follow its links 🌐 When it gets a .txt file, it knows to display it, and that it won't have any links 📝 Your browser can also be configured to understand other file formats, which can be displayed with the browser or another program, or saved to disk, and so on ✨ For example, you could set up your browser to start up Word when it encounters a .doc file 📄
File extensions indicate file format 🎯 Just like there are different extensions for different text file formats, there are different extensions for different graphic file formats 🖼️ The same goes for sound file formats, video file formats, database files, and others 🎵🎬
Different software understands different file formats, and will only create and display the formats it understands 🙅♀️ That's why software that translates a file from one format to another is often necessary 🔁
For example, if you create a file with Microsoft Word, you'll usually save it in Word's native format as a .doc file 📝 You can also pick the "save as" option to save it as plain text in the .txt format 💅 Some format information gets lost in the translation, but words and numbers should stay unchanged 🌷 If you want to give others access to the file, and you can't assume they all have Word, you'd want to present it in .txt format 🫶 Also, a .txt file is easily formatted into .html, fr fr 🌐
File formats and extensions are discussed throughout the following sections 📖
After you've figured out, at least somewhat, what you want to do, and what hardware and OS you'll need, there are a ton of software packages out there to help you with all sorts of things on the computer 🎉
Software designed to make your life easier by using your computer includes dictionaries and other reference materials, accounting, bookkeeping, desktop publishing and other business software, as well as landscape and architectural planning software, health and nutrition software, educational and entertainment software, and so much more 🌈 Your computer doesn't just have to be your link to the world, it can also be a major organizational tool in your life 🗂️✨
For accessing the Internet, you'll need communication software 📡 There are a few different pieces to this part of the puzzle. There's the software that talks between the OS and the modem or network card, there's the software that speaks IP and lets you communicate over the Internet, and there's the software you use directly, called the "user interface", or application program 💻 For accessing the web, your application will be a "web browser" 🦋
Web browsers are sold in stores that sell software packages, and they're also available free on the Internet 🎀 Since you wouldn't be able to reference online material without a browser, and since most periodicals will probably focus on commercial browsers, the Resources section points you to a free browser that you can get by mail for the cost of postage, or over the Internet using the File Transfer Protocol, FTP 📬 💜
FTP software is available both free and commercially 🌸 Other Internet communication software, referenced throughout this document, includes email, news, gopher, and telnet, among others 💌
With any system, you should make sure it has the software and hardware needed to maintain both itself and your data 🛡️ While computer data isn't particularly fragile, it still sometimes gets lost due to hardware or software problems, or simple human error 😩 For this reason, it's considered important to "back up" your system by making extra copies of important data 💾 Simply copying data onto floppy disks could work, but the small storage size of the disks makes it both time consuming and prone to human error 🙃 Lots of large capacity disk and tape drives come with special software made specifically for doing backups 🔥 It is highly recommended that you buy a backup solution along with your computer 🫶✨
Seriously, don't skip the backup solution, bestie. Future you will be so grateful 💖
It's also important to protect your data from being damaged by computer viruses 🦠 When you connect to the net and move data back and forth, a small piece of software called a "virus" could hide in some of the data and infect your system, and possibly then use your system to infect other machines you connect to 😱 These viruses are often created by misguided people as a sort of computer prank, and can accidentally or maliciously damage your data 🙅♀️ Thankfully, you can get virus checking software that regularly scans your system to see whether it's been infected 🛡️ This software matters whether you're downloading info from the net or using other people's floppy disks 💅 See Section 8.2 for more on viruses 🧚
Figuring out your ideal hardware and software setup takes some time and patience 🌷 You need to understand what you want to do, how you want to do it, and whether you just want to view things or create them 🎨
You'll also want to know the limitations and expandability potential of the system, so you can tell whether it'll have a useful lifespan ⏳ If the machine can't grow for the next few years, it'll become obsolete before it gives you its fullest value 🥹💜
6.3 Multimedia 🎀
When one media is not enough. 🌈
Okay so, depending on what you're into, you might need special hardware installed inside your machine, or hooked up from the outside with cables. These extras are called peripherals 🔌
The peripherals needed for accessing information on the Internet might include the following:
- a sound card and speakers to hear sounds, music, speech, etc. 🔊
- a CD-ROM player to read commercially available computer CDs 💿
- midi equipment for audio artists 🎹
- video equipment 🎥
- a printer to make hardcopy of files, or images 🖨️
- Other equipment for creating content See Section 7. ✨
Most of these peripherals will also need specialized software 💻 Bestie, if you're planning to buy all the hardware and software at once, find a vendor who will connect and test all the hardware, software, and peripherals for you. These systems are seriously complicated, and they can be really hard to set up if you're new to all this 🥺
Also, make sure the vendor will stand behind their equipment and this configuration in case it doesn't work the way you want it to. Plug everything in and test it extensively right away, so you can catch any problems before your warranty period expires ⏰ no cap, this is the move.
Tons of Internet-related magazines run articles on choosing a computer, plus the latest software and hardware news and reviews 📰 so lowkey a great place to browse.
You can also explore the pointers in Appendix B for the information you need 🦋
7. Creating Content 💅
As the hardware and software of the net gets cheaper and better understood, the technology itself is going to matter less than the content living on the net 🌸 Like, many of the rewards of the Internet will go to the people who create that content. Main character energy, honestly.
There are different ways to add content to the Internet. You can start with content that already exists, like paintings or stories, and find a place for it, or you can create content specifically for the computer, like web pages, graphics, video and audio files, etc. 🎨
Let's pretend for a sec that you've already made something you'd like to share on the net. There are a bunch of ways to do that. You could work with agencies that provide this service professionally, find friends or others willing to help for free or in exchange for something, or get yourself on the net somehow, learn, and create a place for it yourself 🧚
If you go the do-it-yourself route, you'll need your own computer and some form of Internet access from an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Web Space Provider (WSP) 💖
Once you have a place to put your content, you'll need to understand a little more about file formats. Images may need to be digitized, audio may need to be recorded into computer files, etc. 📁
Image scanners are easy to find, but there are other options too 📸 For example, most print or copy shops can do high quality image scans today, and some photolabs offer photos-on-disk as one of their services.
If you're putting your content on the Web, you'll need a web page made for it in the form of an HTML document. You can totally do this yourself, it's not that hard, but lots of WSPs also offer this service, and there are independent web page designers who may do an even better job 🫶
Putting online content together means turning your art into an electronic form and then, maybe, reformatting it for the Internet ✨ For some art forms, that first electronic step is pretty painless. Typing a short story, poem, novel, or other text into HTML is fairly straightforward 📝 Moving a computer graphic onto the Internet may need a conversion program so that other people can actually use it. Performing arts, sculpture, and other pieces can be trickier to capture on a computer disk, and they may take more work and creative thinking 🎭
There's a ton of info that can help you think creatively about publicizing your work online. You'll find it in classes, books, local Internet cafes, and on the Internet itself 🌐 Lots of Internet magazines are available by subscription, or you can grab individual issues to get started. Most new bookstores, and to some extent used bookstores, have loads of Internet info on their shelves 📚 Just know that even the newest books may be outdated already 💀
The latest 'standards' can be obtained directly from the Internet Engineering Task Force, or IETF, at http://www.ietf.org/. Fun fact: the document you're reading right now is a product of that organization 🤓 IETF documents are collected and maintained on anonymous ftp sites, and on the web too. These sites are referenced in the Resources section, and in Appendix B.
A really good way to learn how to write HTML documents is to look at the source code of HTML files that already exist. Just use your browser to find pages you like, then use your browser's "view source" feature to see how they were made 👀 iykyk.
Now, if you learn better by having someone teach you, you might want to take an HTML or Internet Introduction course at a local college 🏫 Most bigger metro-area schools offer classes covering the basics, which can also introduce you to other artists. Read the course description carefully, though! Some courses only cover accessing the Internet, while you might want to actually be creating documents 🙈 If no colleges near you offer classes, contact the computer science department or the continuing education office and suggest a topic. If the school gets enough support, they may offer a class the following semester 🙌
Artists in smaller communities may have to rely more heavily on online sources of information. Appendix B has some useful sites to get you started 🍓
7.1 Getting Help 🫶
Once you're connected to the Internet, there are so many more ways to get help with it 💜 Try the forums listed in Section 5, like Newsgroups, Bulletin Boards, and Chat rooms. If you've checked the local netiquette guidelines and behave accordingly, the Internet community is usually super helpful toward new arrivals 🥰
When you're looking for good consultants and web page designers, start with sites you already like and find out who made their pages. Chat with other artists, or check the phone book, library, books, magazines and other periodicals for artist collectives and groups who might be able to help you 📖 Look for groups whose cause is artistically motivated, rather than people who get paid to point you at a particular consultant or assistant. 🚩
Know what you want. If it takes you a while to figure that out, take the time! This shouldn't be something you get rushed into 🐢 The Internet isn't going anywhere. Whatever you decide, don't be afraid to ask for references. A good provider of services will always be happy to give you a list of happy customers 💅
7.2 About File Formats 📂
As described in Section 6.2, there are many file formats available on the Internet. You'll want to learn a bit more about the formats you plan to present, so you can create them for others to see 👀 Some formats are called Public Domain, and they're freely copyable. The software tools used to make that content are available for you and others to download off the net. Other formats are called "proprietary", and you can only read and create them with software you have to buy from the vendor who made it, or from their authorized reseller 💸
Some formats, and their formatting tools, come bundled with other software packages. For example, Microsoft Windows comes with a Sound Recorder, which makes and plays back .wav files. Apple also offers Quicktime for free for their OS, as well as Windows and others, which also records and plays back .wav files 🎧 So lots of Internet explorers already have tools that let them hear your .wav file, if they're into it. They might not have a player for a proprietary format, though, which would need special software.
When you're creating content for the Internet, it's important to think about the format your target audience is most likely to understand 🎯
More information on file formats can be found at: http://www.matisse.net/files/formats.html and http://rodent.lib.rochester.edu/multimed/contents.htm
Some artists are actually using HTML as an art form in itself, helping push the boundaries of this iconic new medium 🌈 The current HTML specification can be found in the RFCs referenced in the Resources section.
7.3 Creating Text and Hypertext Documents 📝
Text files are stored on a computer by encoding the text in ASCII, "American Standard Code for Information Interchange". ASCII swaps each character of text for a distinct number, then stores the result in a file. Text files often get the file extension ".txt" 🧾
There are lots of ways to make text files. The two most common types of programs are "text editors" and "word processors". Honestly, they're pretty similar. Both let you move around inside a document, add, delete, and otherwise change text, and create and save text files. The difference is that word processors usually have way more options for formatting and printing text, and they may support other file formats, like ".doc", which includes a bunch of formatting commands that printers understand but browsers don't always 🖨️
Since HTML formatting is just ASCII text with special formatting commands, you can use either a text editor or a word processor to create a ".html" file 💜 You can also use Web authoring tools, which give you a graphical interface to design how your page looks, then automatically generate the HTML formatting commands and output a ".html" file for you ✨
Text editors, word processors, and other document creation tools are available both free and for purchase, for all operating systems 🖥️
Check out current computer-related books and periodicals for info on text editors, word processors, and document and web page authoring tools 📚
HTML is a technical specification of the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the most current documents can be found on the IETF site(s) listed in the Resources Section 🦋
7.4 Creating Graphic and Moving Images 🎬
Whether you want to put existing images on the Internet, or make new ones with electronic creation tools, there are a few basic pieces of info that'll come in handy 🎨 The following two sub-sections give you an overview of image formats and creation tools.
7.4.1 Bitmap Image Formats ✨
Okay so pictures can be stored on computers in lots of different ways 🎨. The most common one is a simple bitmap: a list of pixel colors plus some header info that explains how to map that list of pixels back into the image 🧩. Bitmap formats are .bmp in windows, and
Bitmap images can be made by scanning in existing images, or by creating them right on the computer with programs like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Photo Paint, Windows Paintbrush, and many others, both free and paid 💖.
A scanner works kind of like a copy machine or a fax machine 📠. It "scans" your artwork or text and "encodes" it into a machine readable format of numbers and formulas 🔢. A scanner is a hardware tool, and it usually comes with at least some of the software you need to use it 🛠️. Generally it connects to your computer, and you either place your work on it or run the scanner slowly over your work, depending on the type of scanner you pick 🖨️. Scanners are only available commercially, and they come in a variety of sizes and styles, with a variety of features and prices 💅. As with all computer tools, knowing what you want to accomplish will help you decide what you need to buy 🫶.
Since it can take a LOT of data to encode an image 😭, there are many different kinds of file formats that hold compressed versions of the file data 📦. These formats vary a lot in how they compress the data 🌈. Two of the most popular compressed image formats on the net are .gif and .jpg 🔥.
GIF, short for Graphic Image Format, compresses an image by reducing the number of colors in the palette the image is rebuilt from 🎀. That lets each pixel's color specification shrink down in size 🦋. Even if you only save a few bits per pixel, there are usually enough pixels that the savings are significant ✨. Under extreme amounts of compression, images start to look like childrens coloring books 🙈, but it is possible to get great looking images with moderate amounts 🌸. GIF files typically use the extension ".gif" 💜.
The JPEG format uses complex mathematics to approximate the whole image 🧮. Under extreme amounts of compression, images start to look like bizarre cubist interpretations of the original 🎨💀. But because everything about the image is compressed, it's still possible to get dramatic reductions in file size while keeping acceptable image quality 👑. JPEG files typically use the extensions ".jpeg" or ".jpg" Both of these formats are what's known as "lossy" compression, because they actually lose information from the original image 😬. That degrades the image quality (hopefully by a negligible amount) 🥺. There are also "lossless" compression schemes that offer smaller reductions in file size, but they allow perfect reconstruction of the image 💎.
7.4.2 Vector Image Formats 🦋
Another way images can be stored is in "vector" format 🌟. This one is useful because of one of the techniques for creating images on a computer 🖌️. There are programs that let you create images by making shapes like circles and polygons and specifying colors for them 🔺. If the entire image is built this way, it's possible to encode the list of information describing each polygon using only a fraction of the information it would take to describe each pixel 🤯.
Vector images also have the wonderful quality that they can be scaled without losing image quality 💖. For example, if you enlarged a bitmap image of a circle big enough to see individual pixels, you'll find the pixels are actually square dots, and if you enlarge it enough, the circle has very jagged edges 😭. But if you enlarge a vector image of a circle, it stays perfect down to the limit of resolution of the screen or printer, because it's stored as the mathematical representation of a circle, which is independent of scale 🔮✨.
For this reason, a lot of commercial art and layout is often done in vector formats 💼.
Vector formats can be created using many commercially available software packages, and many freely copyable conversion tools are also available 🎁.
7.4.3 Video Formats 🎬
Images received by the retina of the eye persist for a short period of time, and then fade 👀. A sequence of images or "frames" with small changes, close enough together, gives the illusion of a moving picture 🎞️. How much of the picture changes between one image and the next affects how smoothly or jerkily the movement appears 🫠. Frame rates of 10 per second and above are enough to give a reasonably realistic rendition of natural scenes 🌿. In fact, the way motion is perceived by the human brain means that less detail is required in fast moving segments of a picture 🧠⚡.
Video on your television, or Video Cassette Recorder (VCR), is formatted quite differently from video formatted for viewing, storage, and transmission over the Internet 📺. Disk space and bandwidth are constantly at a premium, so methods of compressing video data have been developed to shrink the size these video files might otherwise be 📉.
Just as described in Section 7.4.1. regarding compression of static images, there are different compression utilities and formats for video images 🗜️. There are many video compression formats, and we've provided information on two here 💁♀️.
MPEG (pronounced M-peg) stands for Moving Picture Experts Group 🎥. The mpeg format creates files with a .mpg or .mpeg extension 📁. Mpeg players are freely available on the Internet 🆓. Mpeg files can be created using a number of commercially available products 🛒. More information on mpeg can be found by following the links available in Appendix B under Video Resources 🔗.
Quicktime was created by Apple, and it's currently available for both Macintosh and Windows systems 🍎🪟. Quicktime files have a .wav extension and can be played with many freely available viewers 🍓. Quicktime creation and viewing tools can be found via the links in Appendix B 🧚.
There are other video formats being created all the time 🌈💜.
7.5 Music and Sound 🎶
The World Wide Web supports audio data as well as visual data 🎧. The most obvious way to send audio across the net would be to use digital audio like the kind used for the Compact Disc, or "CD" 💿. However, CD format digital audio requires 44,100 16 bit words per second for a mono signal, and twice that for a stereo signal 😳. While there are many places where you can find digital audio in Windows ".wav" or the Macintosh ".au" format, these files typically take a very long time to download, even for a few seconds of audio ⏳. The size of these formats makes them too inefficient for widespread use on the net today 🙅♀️.
It is however possible to do "useful" audio over the net 🎵. The emerging "de facto" standard seems to be _RealAudio_, based on the freely distributable server/player application _RealAudio_ version 2.0, developed by the Seattle based company Progressive Networks 🌲. First released in 1995, RealAudio allows useable digital audio in realtime over a 28.8 kB line, and it has already been put into service on the home pages of most major record companies, as well as in many niche applications 🎤. In addition, RealAudio provides a "Voice mode" optimized for understandable speech transmission over a 14.4kB line 🗣️.
Unfortunately, the quality of _RealAudio_ leaves much to be desired 😬. In particular, the sample rate in Music Mode is only 8Khz (as compared to CD quality 44.1 Khz), meaning that all high frequencies above 4khz are simply missing 🫥. The resulting audio is still pleasing to listen to, but it sounds very dull and dark 🌑.
More information about RealAudio can be found at www.RealAudio.com 🔎.
Clearly Digital Audio is the way of the future 🔮, but until more bandwidth is available to the average person, it may not be the way of the present ⏰. Fortunately, at least in the area of music, there is an interesting alternative 🤩.
MIDI (the Musical Instrument Digital Interface), as developed for electronic musical instruments (keyboards, samplers, drum machines, etc.), works well for certain kinds of music over the net 🥁🎹. It doesn't send any sound sources at all, just the description of the music -- kind of like the score, without the instruments 📜. If the receiver has the right instruments on their computer (such as the sounds defined in the General Midi soundset found on many soundcards), they can play back the musical score 🎻.
The big disadvantage of MIDI is that, apart from the limited selection of sounds in the General Midi set, it's extremely difficult to make sure the music sounds more than approximately like the original 😩. And there's no way to handle non-MIDI instruments such as guitar or voice, so it's useless for hearing the new song by your favorite rock and roll band 🎸💔.
The big advantage of MIDI is how fast it works over slow net connections 🚀. For example, five minutes of music fits in a mere 30k file, and it usually won't take more than a few seconds, even on the slowest of dialup connections 📞✨! This makes it ideal for applications like networked games, or music to go along with a web page 🎮🌸.
There are many ways of embedding MIDI files into HTML documents for Internet distribution 🧁.
Anyone who wants to add MIDI to a page can choose to use existing public access MIDI file banks (and there are many of them), or to produce new MIDI themselves 🎼.
Crescendo is one package available for embedding MIDI files in HTML http://www.liveupdate.com Crescendo works for both Macintosh and Windows 🍏💻.
Helpful Links: Publicly Available Audio and Music Applicationshttp://reality.sgi.com/employees/cook/audio.apps/public.htmlMusic of J.S. Bach for keyboardftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/MIDI/SONGS/CLASSICAL/BACH/HARPSICHORD/
RISM (repertoire of manuscript sources), plus other access to online scholarly music resources. http://rism.harvard.edu/RISM/ 📚🎻
Crescendo is used on the web pages at http://mcentury.citi.doc.ca, along with a growing number of others 🌟. One very interesting use of Crescendo is on the Music Theory Online publication, a serious scholarly site for publishing and debating musicology and music theory 🤓🎼. Articles there now routinely include short musical examples, which is a great sign of the future of scholarly publishing in the age of dynamic, interactive content 💜🔥. http://boethius.music.ucsb.edu/mto/issues/mto.96.2.4/
Formerly, debate on musical form and structure happened in the pages of journals, usually referring to music examples in terms of their visual notation 📖. This notation requires a certain degree of training to decode, which effectively restricts the potential readership to those with that professional training 🎓. With sound examples embedded directly in the text, at least the aural effect of the music comes across, even to people who can't read the notation accurately 👂💖. This shift suits the newer trends in music scholarship, which talk about music in terms of its social and cultural context, instead of only in formal terms 🌍🫶.
7.6. Content Design Issues 🎀
Okay bestie, first rule of content: know your audience! 🎯 If you want more people to see your work, you'll need to make it more accessible. ✨
Lots of sites are super careful about what content they let people access 🙈 So if you want all audiences to be able to view your stuff, be careful about your content and language. 💅
Another content design issue is tool friendliness 🛠️ Some machines have limits that stop them from seeing or hearing what you want them to. For example, older or cheaper monitors might be monochrome (one-color), or only display 16 colors, or 256 colors. 😭 If you make and view images that look fabulous on a 64,000 color display, try testing them on a 16 color display to see what happens. Sometimes you can tweak your image a little to reach a wider audience with only a minor change to the effect. 🌈
These sites give you pointers on what to think about when you're designing a content-rich web page 📚
- Sun's Guide to Web Style -
http://www.sun.com/styleguide/ - Yale C/AIM Web Style Guide -
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/ - Web Development -
http://www.december.com/web/develop.html - A Guide to Creating a Successful Web Site =
http://www.hooked.net/~larrylin/web.htm - Bandwidth Conservation Society -
http://www.infohiway.com/faster/This is a resource for web developers who are into optimizing performance. ⚡
See Section 8 for other issues and challenges relating to content. 🦋
Artists, post how you want your art treated on the web! 🎨 Say how it may be used, and post your copyright notice there too. 🫶
For example, some artists let people use their work freely as long as it's not used for financial gain, and ask people to contact them for permission if they want to use it for a commercial purpose. 💜
Artists also need to know that when people view their work on the web, the art gets downloaded to the viewer's computer. That's just how browsers work, bestie 🌸
7.7. Publicizing your work 📣
The fastest way to publicize your work on the Internet is to have the most popular sites link to your pages. 👑 There are lots of sites on the net, like the search sites mentioned earlier, that are happy to list a pointer to your site for their own purposes. 🧚
It's also helpful to have other artists link to your site, and it's great to have other art sites link to you too. "Art on the Net", Art.net, offers free linking to artist sites and provides this as a service to the artist community on the Internet. ✨ There are also other art-related sites that do this. 🌈
It can also help to put your URL on your business card. 💖
The Internet's origins in the Research and Education communities played a big role in forming Internet culture. 🎓 That culture defined rules for network etiquette (netiquette), and for communication based on the Internet being relatively off-limits to commercial enterprise. 🙅♀️
So certain styles of marketing and advertising won't be effective on the Internet 💀 Mass mailings or inappropriate postings to newsgroups will most likely do more harm to your enterprise than good. If you plan to do marketing on the Internet, please read the Netiquette Guidelines document, RFC 1855, listed in the Resources section. 📖🫶
8. Issues and Challenges ⚠️
The Internet has a lot of issues and challenges, including security, privacy, property rights, copyrights, and freedom of speech. 🕸️ Security issues involve both the security of your data and the security of your image. Viruses can spread easily over the net, so precautions should always be taken. 🦠 If you choose to keep your own information available on the net, it can be vandalized or stolen. 😤 You may also find yourself persecuted for the information you provide, as more and more people join the Internet community and feel the need to impose their morality on it. 🙄
This is no different from any society. We have to draw our own lines and reach our own conclusions. 👑 This section is terribly brief and entirely summary in nature, and it is in no way meant to be comprehensive. It's meant to warn you and advise you. If you have real concerns about your property rights, copyrights, and/or personal rights, please do your own research. 🔍 Internet laws are in such a state of flux that they're changing as I write this, and they'll be changing as you read it. 🌪️
At last check, though, freedom of speech was prevailing in the United States, and so far the government has not upheld any laws prohibiting the exhibition of anything on the Internet. 🇺🇸 Support your local constitutional rights! 💪🎀
8.1. Security Issues 🔐
There are three major security areas that Internet users should be aware of: Security of content, Site security, and Security of ownership. 🧠
Security of Content ensures that what you put on the Internet is not altered or vandalized. 🖼️ Some web servers are inadequately secured, which lets vandals modify your pages on your web sites without your knowledge or permission. 😱 If your pages are your business, you can imagine the problems this might cause. Your words, art, and other work could be changed, and your image tarnished. 💔 If you can't ensure that the content of your site can't be corrupted, at least check it frequently to make sure it hasn't been. Keep frequent back-ups, and periodically verify that you can retrieve data from them. 💾✨
Site security protects your data from viruses, worms, and sneaky piracy. 🐛 Some software pirates use unsuspecting sites to run their schemes on the Internet. Anonymous FTP servers that have write permission are the most vulnerable. 🚨 Pirates can upload software onto your machine using cryptic filenames you may not even see in standard directory listings, and then publish the software's whereabouts for others to download. 🙃 This can not only compromise your reputation on the Internet for responsible system administration, it may also make you liable for damages. Learn what you need to know to secure your system, or hire some security muscle to tighten down your site for you. 💪 Section 11 provides some good information to get you started. 🌟
Security of ownership involves copyrights and intellectual property laws. 📜 If your work is your livelihood, having your rights compromised could be disastrous. 😩 Section 8.4 provides an introduction to copyrights. 💅
This document only intends to bring these issues to your attention. It does not aspire to thoroughly cover these subjects. 🚩
Please read another IETF project, the Site Security Handbook (FYI 8, RFC 2196), at ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2196. 📚🔒
The Handbook is a guide to developing computer security policies and procedures for sites that have systems on the Internet. Its purpose is to give practical guidance to administrators trying to secure their information and services. 🛡️ The subjects covered include policy content and formation, a broad range of technical system and network security topics, and security incident response. 🧩
Section 11 provides more information on site security. 🔗
8.2. Viruses 🦠
A "virus" is a program that modifies other programs by placing a copy of itself inside them. 🧬 It can't run independently. It needs its host program to be run before it can activate. 🙅♀️
The damage a virus causes may include deleting data or programs, maybe even reformatting the hard disk, but more subtle damage is also possible. 😬 Some viruses may modify data or introduce typing errors into text. Other viruses may have no intentional effects beyond replicating themselves. 🤖
Viruses can be transmitted over the Internet inside other programs, but usually they're transmitted by floppy disk. 💿 Your best bet is to buy a really versatile, up-to-date virus checking program from your local software retailer, and run it over every floppy you plan to read and every program you plan to run, as well as periodically over the entire machine. 🛡️✨
Computer viruses are enough like organic viruses that many of the same precautions apply. 🦠💖 Early detection is key! Diligence will mitigate potential damage, but frequent incremental backups are your best strategy for recovery. 💾👑
8.3. The Standard Disclaimer 📝
As you've observed throughout the document, it's not common to get Internet access without a provider of that access. 🌐 Some providers, such as universities and businesses, often require that you provide a disclaimer on every page stating that your opinions are your own and not necessarily those of your affiliation. 🙋♀️ Here's a sample Standard Disclaimer: 💅
This information is provided as-is. No warranty as to the accuracy
is guaranteed. Opinions expressed are entirely those of myself
and/or my colleagues and cannot be taken to represent views of our
employer. If you notice something incorrect or have any comments,
feel free to mail me.Other examples of disclaimers can be found via the search links listed in Appendix B. 🔎🎀
8.4. Copyrights and Intellectual Property Issues ©️
The arrival of the Information Age has raised a lot of questions that human society has to answer. 🌍 One of the most important is the question of "Intellectual Property", which asks: "when and where is it appropriate to allow people to own information?" 🤔💭
Copyright, Trademark, and Patent law are some of society's responses to earlier versions of this question. ⚖️ They support the idea of owning ideas or information, which can help the creators of that information make a living from what they create. 💰 This is good for society. 🫶
It's also good for society for information to flow freely. 🌊 Our technology, and even our society, is built on a growing pool of shared information. 🏊♀️ If we restrict the flow of information into that pool, we restrict the rate at which society grows and becomes wiser. 🧠✨
These two opposing drives have been highlighted by our newfound ability to distill many different things down into information that can be stored on a computer. 💻 One of the computer's greatest virtues is that once you network them together, the information they hold becomes more fluid, more easily moved, changed, or copied. 🌀 This is great for society, but it may not be so great if you spent your life creating that "information" and would like compensation. 😤💸
Because Copyright, Trademark, and Patent law were never designed for an economy built out of information, understanding how they apply to your information can be tricky. 🧩 Since these laws vary from place to place, it's also hard to know how to apply them to the Internet, which has no definite location. 🗺️ Worse yet, most of these laws are being rewritten right now, a state that will continue for a long time because nobody seems to know what to do about it. 🙃💀
With that in mind, though, here's how things stand today... 👀✨
8.4.1 Copyright
okay so a copyright is first established the moment a work is "set in media" 📝, which covers everything from paper all the way to the Internet 🌐. once your work is published on a web page, for example, it's said to be "owned" by its owner 💖. BUT applying for and getting a copyright from The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress gives your rights way more legal weight 👑. whether you're putting your own stuff online or just downloading other people's work, you should totally get familiar with the rights "Copyright" gives you, plus The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works 🦋.
Sample Copyright Notice:
Permission is granted to transfer this document electronically
only for the purposes of viewing it on the world wide web. Subject
to fair use provisions, the right to print this document or to
make electronic copies of this document available to others is
expressly retained although direct requests will be considered.8.4.2 Trademark
a Trademark is a word, phrase, symbol or design, or a combo of words, phrases, symbols or designs, used to identify and distinguish the goods or services of one party from those of others 🏷️✨.
Trademark issues include both Trademarks you own AND Trademarks that are owned by other people 🫶. if you own your own Trademark, you might want to look into legal ways of protecting it 🛡️. some of the pointers in Appendix B have that info, but we recommend retaining your own legal council 💅.
Trademark Infringement happens when there is a "likelihood that consumers will be mislead or confused as to the source or origin of the goods or services. This is the basic test used under both common law, and U.S. Federal Law. 😭
one issue with Trademarks on the Internet is Domain Names that resemble, or infringe upon, registered Trademarks 🌸. every case is being handled individually, and the text of cases can be found on lots of Internet sites 📚. the short version is: if a Domain Name was registered in good faith, "innocent registrations", the register can often keep the name 🙌. BUT if the domain name is being used by a competitor, or to "force the trademark owner to pay a sum of money to acquire the name", the courts will generally not let the register keep the name, or profit from it 🚫.
Trademark Dilution happens when unauthorized use of a mark on dissimilar products or for dissimilar services causes the mark to cease functioning as a unique identifier, or becomes consciously or unconsciously linked with poor quality goods or services 💀. the Federal Trademark Dilution Act covers these issues ⚖️. if you might put trademarks on your web page, make sure you don't infringe upon the rights of the owner of the trademark 🙈.
a good rule of thumb, offered by one company with concerns for their trademark, is this: if you mean a tissue, you should say "tissue", and if you use the Kleenex(R) name, use its Registration mark "(R)" 🧻🎀.
8.4.3 Privacy
the concept of trademarks extends to personal names or likenesses too 🧚, which means you can infringe on someone's rights, including their right to privacy 🔒. this has both legal and ethical implications, so it's giving serious responsibility 🥺.
U.S law currently recognizes four types of invasions of privacy: intrusion, appropriation of name or likeness, unreasonable publicity and false light 👀. in most states, people have a "Right of Publicity" which gives individuals the exclusive right to license the use of his identity 💜. you will want to familiarize yourself with privacy law if you want to make other peoples likeness, name, address, or others personal information available on the Internet 🙅♀️.
Rights vary from state to state and country to country, and there are many international and U.S. sites listed in the Law section of Appendix B 🌍.
8.4.4 Seek Professional Advice
a bunch of organizations exist that can help you figure out the appropriate legal status, law, statute, or standing of your particular issue, and help you understand your rights and responsibilities 🧠💖.
One of these is The Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition, CIEC 🎉. CIEC is a large and diverse group of Internet users, businesses, non-profit groups, and civil liberties advocates who share the common goal of protecting the First Amendment and the viability of the Internet as a means of free expression, education, and commerce 🗽✨.
the CIEC homepage URL is http://www.ciec.org (wait, not in this text, so scratch that) — rather, the CIEC homepage URL is listed in the document, and a number of sites in the U.S. and other countries are represented in Appendix B, under the heading "Law" 📖🌈.
8.5 Conducting Business over the Internet
ok this one is so important 🥹. since people are doing business over the Internet, they want to make sure their personal information, credit card number, etc. isn't used or compromised in any way 💳. the Internet is a public place, so the only way to get information across it without anyone being able to retrieve it is to encrypt it 🔐. encryption is a process for scrambling access codes to prevent illicit entry into a system 🙅. the study and work of people creating these systems is called Cryptography 🧪.
Secure HTTP (S-HTTP) provides secure communication mechanisms between an HTTP client-server pair, in order to enable spontaneous commercial transactions for a wide range of applications 🛍️. SHTTP and SHTML are Internet-Drafts, which are "works in progress" of the Internet Engineering Task Force WTS working group 🛠️. the Resources section has info on retrieving Internet-Drafts 📥.
⚠️ you should be aware that encrypted communications are illegal in some parts of the world. check your local laws about legal uses of encryption before you do anything!
before you begin installing any encryption software, back up your files and make sure your computer isn't needed for any deadline tasks in the next few minutes or hours 😩⏰. if you mess up the installation or forget some password along the way, your files will be protected from everyone, including you 💀🔒.
8.6 Netiquette
like any community, the Internet has a code of conduct, and the users have created a term for it: "Netiquette" 🫶🌸. a lot of it will probably seem like common sense, but since the Internet spans many cultures' ideas of "common sense", it's worth paying attention 👀. remember, when you put something onto the Internet, you're publishing it in front of a very large audience 📣😳.
what follows are a few short ideas to start out with ✨. if you wish to behave well on the Internet, you really should read:
FYI 28 "Netiquette Guidelines", (Also RFC 1855), October 1995. available at ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1855.txt 📚💜
first of all, most forums have their own guidelines posted near the door for new arrivals 🚪. for Usenet News, for example, read news.announce.newusers. it never hurts to keep silent until you know your audience better 🤫. once you join a forum, see how others behave before making too much of an impression 💅. also, try not to jump to conclusions about others 🙏. Internet media conveys attitudes and emotions differently than face-to-face, or even telephone communication 📞. you're also dealing with more cultural diversity on the Internet than you're likely familiar with 🌏. realize that many things have very different meanings in other cultures than they might in yours 🌈. try not to take things too personally 🥺. avoid attributing to malice what might be adequately explained by ignorance 💖. and hope others will do the same 🫶✨.
9. Glossary ✨
okay bestie, this glossary is for the words that are least likely to be in your everyday dictionary 📖💅 if you hit a term that isn't in there, don't panic, the Resources section (next up 🫶) points you to some other glossaries.
- Boolean: adj. Of or relating to an algebraic combinatorial system that treats variables, like propositions and computer logic elements, through the operators AND, OR, NOT, IF, THEN, and EXCEPT. 🧠
- access: n. 1. A means of approaching, or passage; 2. The right to enter or use. v. To gain access, e.g., to computer information. 🔑
- bandwidth: Technically, the difference, in Hertz (Hz), between the highest and lowest frequencies of a transmission channel. However, as it's typically used, it means the amount of data that can be sent through a given communications circuit. 📶
- bit: n. (From "Binary digIT") 1. A single character of a language that has just two characters, either of the binary digits 0 or 1. 2. A unit of information storage capacity, such as computer memory. 🤓
- bitmap: A graphic image format made of a list of pixel colors (or shades of gray) plus header information that describes how to map that list of pixels back into the image. Bitmap formats are .bmp in Windows, .pict on a Macintosh, and .anm and .btm on Unix. 🖼️
- broadcast: A special type of multicast packet that all nodes on the network are always willing to receive. See also: multicast, unicast. 📣
- btw: By The Way 💁♀️
- byte: 8 bits 💾
- encryption: The manipulation of a packet's data so that no one but the intended recipient can read it. There are lots of types of data encryption, and they're the basis of network security. 🔐
- fyi: For Your Information 👀
- html: HyperText Markup Language: the language used to create hypertext documents. It's a subset of SGML and includes the mechanisms to establish hyperlinks to other documents. 🌸
- http: HyperText Transfer Protocol: the protocol WWW uses to transfer HTML files. A formal standard is still under development in the IETF. 🦋
- hyperlink: A pointer inside a hypertext document that points (links) to another document, which may or may not also be a hypertext document. 🔗
- hypertext: A document format that contains "hyperlinks" to other documents. 🕸️
- imho: In My Humble/Honest Opinion 🙈
- interactive: Capable of acting on, or influencing, each other. 🤝
- lag: The failing behind, or retardation, of one phenomenon with respect to another to which it is closely related; a time delay. 🐢
- multicast: A packet with a special destination address that multiple nodes on the network may be willing to receive. See also: broadcast, unicast. 📨
- multimedia: Transmission that combines media of communication (text, graphics, sound, etc.) 🎬
- netlag: Time delay over the Internet. See also: lag. 🌐🐢
- packet: The unit of data sent across a network. 📦
- proprietary: Manufactured articles that some person or persons have the exclusive right to make and sell. [from U.S. Statutes] 🔒
- protocol: A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages. Protocols can describe low-level details of machine-to-machine interfaces (e.g., the order in which bits and bytes are sent across a wire) or high-level exchanges between allocation programs (e.g., the way in which two programs transfer a file across the Internet). This one is everything 👑
- realtime: Occurring at, and in, the present time ⏱️
- reflector: A file server whose purpose is to receive packets from a source site and forward them to other sites. 🪞
- ttfn: ta ta for now, a colloquialism for goodbye. 👋
- unicast: An address that only one host will recognize. See also: broadcast, multicast. 🎯
- url: Uniform Resource Locator: a URL is a compact string representation for a resource available on the Internet. The syntax and semantics for URLs are defined in RFC 1738. 🧷
- virtual: Not real, but similar in relevant ways. ✨
10. Resources, References, etc.
okay so this section is basically where the info came from 🧠🫶 the information here was gleaned from the minds of the authors and contributors, plus some of the sources below. if you want to go deeper on any of these topics, these sources (and the info referenced in Appendix B) are where to look 💖
10.1 RFCs and Internet-Drafts
one of the most important collections of informational documents about the Internet is written as Requests for Comment by the Internet Engineering Task Force, IETF 📚 the name "Request for Comment" is historical, lol. these documents get submitted by their authors for the approval of the Internet community as Internet Standards, and there are also valid Informational RFCs called FYIs, which is what this document is 🌈
basically, if the IETF collective uses a tool or resource, they document its use in an RFC so there's no mystery about its functionality, uses, designations, specifications, or purposes 💅
more info on RFCs, FYIs, the IETF, and its organizations, documents, policies, and purposes can be found in the RFCs themselves, or at http://www.ietf.org/ and http://www.isi.edu/rfc-editor/ 🌸 there are lots of ways to get copies of RFCs over the Internet (see ConneXions, Vol.6, No.1, January 1992). most of these just access a directory of files where each RFC is its own file. the searching is usually limited to filename recognition, which is kinda meh 😭
the ISI RFC-INFO server is a system where you can search for an RFC by author, date, or keyword (all title words are automatically keywords) 🔍
RFC-INFO is an e-mail based service that helps you locate and retrieve RFCs and FYIs ✉️ you can ask for "lists" of all RFCs and FYIs with certain attributes ("filters") like their ID, keywords, title, author, issuing organization, and date. once an RFC is uniquely identified (e.g., by its RFC number), you can retrieve it too 🎀
to use the service, send an e-mail to RFC-INFO@ISI.EDU with your requests in the body of the message. feel free to put anything in the SUBJECT, the system ignores it 🙈 this service is case independent. Appendix C has examples for using the RFC server 💜
Internet Drafts are also in this family, so here's one 👇
Internet Drafts are working documents, so the ones listed here may have changed or moved on since this was written. check the links, bestie 🫶
10.2 Internet Documents
these are the RFCs and FYIs that the document refers to, with their dates and where to grab them ✨
- FYI 18 "Internet Users' Glossary", (Also RFC 1983), August 1996. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1983.txt📖 - FYI 22 "Frequently Asked Questions for Schools", (Also RFC 1941), May 1996. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1941.txt🏫 - FYI 28 "Netiquette Guidelines", (Also RFC 1855), October 1995. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1855.txt🍓 - FYI 29 "Catalogue of Network Training Materials", (Also RFC 2007), October 1996. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2007.txt🎓 - RFC 1866 "Hypertext Markup Language - 2.0", November 1995. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1866.txt🌷 - RFC 1942 "HTML Tables", May 1996. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1942.txt📊 - RFC 2070 "Internationalization of the Hypertext Markup Language", January 1997. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2070.txt🌍 - RFC 2068 "Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", January 1997. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2068.txt🦋 - RFC 2084 "Considerations for Web Transaction Security", January 1997. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc2084.txt🔐 - RFC 1738 "Uniform Resource Locators", December 1994. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1738.txt🧷 - RFC 977 "Network News Transfer Protocol", February 1986. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc977.txt📰 - RFC 821 "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", STD 10, August 1982. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc821.txt💌 - RFC 959 "The File Transfer Protocol", STD 9, October 1985. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc959.txt📂 - RFC 1034 "Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities", STD 13, November 1987. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1034.txt🗺️ - RFC 1035 "Domain Names - Implementation and Specification", STD 13, November 1987. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc1035.txt🧭 - RFC 791 "Internet Protocol", STD 5, September 1981. Available at
ftp://ds.internic.net/rfc/rfc760.txt🌐
Internet Drafts
- The Secure HyperText Transfer Protocol, SHTTP.
ftp://ds.internic.net/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-wts-shttp-04.txt🧁
10.3 Other Sources
the Getty Research Institute for the history of art and the humanities is one of six independent entities of the J. Paul Getty Trust 🎨 its goals as a research institute are to promote innovative scholarship in the arts and humanities, cross traditional academic boundaries, and provide a unique environment for research, critical inquiry, and debate. you can contact them at:
The Getty Research Institute
401 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
PHONE: (310) 458-9811, FAX: (310) 458-6661the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH) is a broad coalition of arts, humanities, and social science organizations, formed to make sure the cultural sector can take the fullest possible part in the new digitally networked environment 🏛️💫
National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH)
21 Dupont Circle NW, Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202/296-5346 http://www-ninch.cni.org Fax: 202/872-088610.4 Freely Available Web Browser Software
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), developed the first Mosaic Browser, and keeps maintaining and updating it. it's freely available over the Internet at http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ 🌅 hardcopy manuals and software disks and tapes can be ordered through the NCSA Technical Resources Catalog, and you only pay postage and handling charges. postage and handling on all orders must be prepaid 📮 for a copy of the catalog, contact NCSA Orders by email at orders@ncsa.uiuc.edu, by phone at 217-244-4130, or by U.S. mail at:
NCSA Orders, 152 Computing Applications Building, 605 E. Springfield
Avenue, Champaign, IL 61820-5518🌈 and that's the resources section, bestie 🌈
10.5 The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority ✨
Okay so, IANA is the crew that handles the Internet's protocol parameters, keeps track of the IP address space, and manages domain names 📋 See: http://www.iana.org/iana/ 🌸
You should get your IP address (a 32-bit number) from your network service provider 🦋
Your network service provider works with a regional registry to manage these addresses. The regional registry for the US is the Internic, for Europe it's RIPE, for the Asia and Pacific region it's the AP-NIC, and any parts of the world not otherwise covered are managed by the Internic 🌍
If for some reason your network service provider doesn't give you an IP address, you can contact your regional registry at one of these addresses:
Internic <hostmaster@internic.net>
RIPE <ncc@ripe.net>
AP-NIC <admin@apnic.net>Please do contact your network service provider first, though 🙈 The regional registry will want to know all the gory details about why that didn't work out before they allocate you an address directly 💅
11. Security Considerations 🔐
Okay, real talk bestie, there are a wide variety of ways systems can get violated 😭 Some are intentional, some are accidental. Of the intentional attacks, some are just exploratory, some are simply abusive of your resources (like eating up your CPU time), and many are actively malicious 💀 No system is 100% safe, BUT there are steps you can take to protect against misconfigured devices spraying packets, casual intruders, and a variety of focused assaults 🛡️
Your best defense is to educate yourself on security ✨ There are places on the net devoted to teaching users about it, most prominently the CERT Coordination Center, located at the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University 🎓 You can point your web browser (or direct your ftp connection) to ftp://info.cert.org/pub/cert_faq to start. It's a frequently asked questions guide and general overview on CERT, and it includes a bibliography of suggested reading plus a variety of sources to find more information 📚
Next, you should probably read ftp://info.cert.org/pub/tech_tips/security_info 👀 It contains a checklist (mostly based on the UNIX operating system) to help you figure out whether your site has suffered a security breach. You can use it to walk yourself through handling a specific incident if you think your system has been compromised, or you can use it as a list of common vulnerabilities. CERT also maintains a wide variety of bulletins, software patches, and tools to help you keep up to date and secure 🫶
Before you're even online, you should consider some basic steps:
11.1 Formulate a security policy. 📝
It should include policies about physical access procedures, security incident response, online privileges, and back-up media. Put a message at the login to establish your policy clearly 🎀
An example:
"This system is for the use of authorized users only. It may be
monitored in the course of routine operation to detect unauthorized
use. Evidence of unauthorized use or criminal activity may result in
legal prosecution."11.1.1. Talk to your Internet Service Provider. 📞
Depending on your provider and router management situation, there are a number of things your ISP should be able to do to make your site more secure 🔥 The biggest one is packet filtering on the router that connects you to the Internet. You'll want to consider IP filters that allow specific types of traffic (web, ftp, mail, etc.) to certain machines (the mailhost, the web server, etc.) and no others 🚫 Other filters can block certain types of IP spoofing, where the intruder masks his or her identity using an IP address from inside your network to get past your filters 🥷 Discuss your concerns and questions with your provider. The company may have standards or tools they can recommend 💜
11.1.2. Make sure your systems are up to date. 🔄
A significant number of incidents happen because older versions of software have well-known weaknesses that can be exploited from almost anywhere on the Internet 😤 CERT provides a depository for software patches designed by concerned net.citizens, by CERT's engineers, and by the vendors themselves 🧚
11.1.3. Use the tools available. 🧰
Consider recording MD5 checksums on read-only media. The MD5-digest algorithm determines an electronic "fingerprint" for files to indicate their uniqueness, and comparing more recent checksums to older ones can alert you to changes in important system files 🔍 You can also install tripwire on your systems (it notes size and MD5 checksum changes, among other sanity checks), and periodically test the integrity of your machines with programs an intruder might use, like SATAN and crack 🪤 [Details on MD5 are contained in RFC 1321.]
Most files and fixes go through the basics before leaving you to figure things out on your own, but security can be a complicated issue, both technically and morally 🌈 When good security is implemented, no one really notices. Unfortunately, no one notices when it's not taken care of either. That is, until the system crashes, your data gets corrupted, or you get a phone call from an irate company whose site was cracked from your machines 😱 It doesn't matter if you only carry public information. It doesn't matter if you think you're too small or unimportant to be noticed. No one is too small or too big, and no site is immune. Take precautions and be prepared 👑
12. Acknowledgments 🫶
The following people are being acknowledged for their contributions to this document 🌸
- Joseph Aiuto
- Sepideh Boroumand
- Michael Century
- Kelly Cooper
- Lile Elam
- Sally Hambridge
- Dan Harrington
- Julie Jensen
- Scott Stoner
Thank you all for your help 💖
13. Authors' Addresses ✉️
Janet Max
Rainfarm
EMail: jlm@rainfarm.com
Walter Stickle
Rainfarm
EMail: wls@rainfarm.comAppendix A. Internet Projects of Interest to the Arts and Humanities Communities 🎨
Okay the commonplace insight about the web as a new distribution channel for cultural products is that it blurs the line between producer and consumer 🦋 Publishers use two-way interactivity by redesigning the editorial mix to include reader response. Here are some examples of how creative artists try to design structures flexible enough for real viewer input 🌈
- RENGA (
http://renga.ntticc.or.jp): an inspired transposition of a traditional collaborative writing practice into digital media, supported by the NTT InterCommunication Centre in Tokyo 🎋 Renga means linked-image or linked-poem, and draws on the Japanese tradition of collaboration that downplays the unique notion of an original author 💜 - PING (
http://www.artcom.de/ping/mapper): by Art+Com, a Berlin-based media centre and thinktank. Art+Com is a leader in high-end net visualization projects 🤩 Ping lets the browser add a link, which then becomes part of the ongoing visual structure. In this sense it's similar to the Toronto Centre for Landscape Architecture's OASIS site 🏙️ - Art+Com's T-Vision project (
http://www.artcom.de/projects/terra): uses satellites and networked VR computers to permit an astonishing fly-in to earth from space 🚀 It's been acclaimed as one of the most imaginative realizations of the potential of networked computing 😭 - OASIS (
OASIS(Image)INTERNET-DRAFT): the Toronto Centre for Landscape Architecture's OASIS site requires a specialized browser, but from a standard Netscape connection you can view stills that give a sense of the beautiful images produced by the collaborative "design process" 🌿 Its designers introduce it like this:
Oasis is a shared 3-Dimensional navigational environment for the world wide web. This virtual landscape allows one to bury their own information links throughout the terrain or to discover and connect to new information left by others.
- TechnoSphere (
http://www.lond-inst.ac.uk/TechnoSphere/): Is TechnoSphere a Game? Yes and no 🎮 It's an experiment on a global scale, a chance to develop complex artificial life on digital networks. TechnoSphere is interactive like a game, but it transgresses the linear boundaries of branching and hierarchical game narratives to enable freer movement. It's designed to encourage non-linear experiential exploration 🧬 - Body Missing (
http://yorku.ca/BodyMissing/index.html): Toronto artist Vera Frenkel created this richly evocative site on the disappearance of art and memory, as an extension of her Transit Bar installation 🖼️ It's conceived as a site open to new 'reconstructions' of the artworks confiscated during the Third Reich. It was first opened to the public as part of the ISEA95 exhibition in Montreal, and has since earned widespread critical comment and praise 👏 - Molecular Clinic 1.0 (
http://sc_web.cnds.canon.co.jp/molecular_clinic/artlab_bionet): Molecular Clinic 1.0 ' is an art project realized through a collaboration between ARTLAB and Seiko Mikami, and it's one of the most elaborate custom-designed art projects yet created for the Web 🕷️ On the initial visit, users should download the MOLECULAR ENGINE VIEWER, a type of molecular laboratory for their computer. What they'll see on the web site after that initial download is a virtual space containing a three-dimensional computer-generated Spider and Monolith object. Users can navigate through and into this virtual space, and can zoom into the spider all the way to the molecular level 🔬 - File Room (
http://fileroom.aaup.uic.edu/FILEROOM.html): cumulative database info on Censorship, hosted in Chicago but conceived by Spanish artist Antoni Muntadas 🗂️ - Idea Futures (
http://if.arc.ab.ca/~jamesm/IF/IF.html): winner of the grand prize at the 1995 Ars Electronica competition for Web Sites 🏆 Idea Futures is a stock market of ideas, based on the theories of mathematical economist Robin Hanson. The 'truth' of any claim is assigned a weight calculated by the amount of virtual cash that members of the exchange are willing to bet 🤑 The scheme might lead toward a radical democratization of academic discourse, but just as easily toward the trivialization of thought. For a philosophical critique of the system, see (http://merzbai.citi.doc.ca/~henry/Matrix/Erewhon.html) 🧠 - Firefly (
http://www.agents-inc.com/): also a prize winner at Ars Electronica in 1995, Firefly is a prototypical example of what enthusiasts call a "personal music recommendation agent" 🎵 It suggests what you might like to listen to, based on a stored profile of your own likes and dislikes, and on the evolving ratings submitted to the system by other members. It's worth visiting, if only to understand what all the fashionable hype about 'intelligent agents' is about 🤓 Skeptics should know that even the promoters of these services admit the circularity of their systems: they're capable of reinforcing existing taste, but little else 🙃
Appendix B: Some other URL's of interest 🌈✨
okay bestie, this is the good part 💅 a whole curated playlist of websites, sorted by vibe. Art, music, law, MUDs, the works. I'm keeping every link exactly as written, because a single wrong character in a URL is a total vibe killer 💀
Art
http://www.louvre.fr/
http://www.art.net/
http://www.artnoir.com/
http://www.artincontext.com/
Art Education
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/art/art.html
Artists
http://www.yoko.com/
http://www.thinkage.on.ca/~dmowbray/botticelli.html
Artist Memorials
http://www.cascade.net/kahlo.html
Audio Video Conferencing
http://www.lll.hawaii.edu/workshops/pedagogy/audiovideo.html
http://cu-seeme.cornell.edu/
http://www.indstate.edu/msattler/sci-tech/comp/CU-SeeMe/
Building Arts Audiences on the Web
http://www.artswire.org/spiderschool
Chat Forums
http://pages.wbs.net/
http://acm.ewu.edu/homepage/wmundell/chathole.htm
Cryptography
http://www.ftech.net/~monark/crypto/index.htm
http://www.pgp.com/
Frequently Asked Questions, pointers to lists
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html
Filtering Software
http://www.surfwatch.com/
http://www.solidoak.com/cysitter.htm
http://www.cyberpatrol.com/
FTP Archives
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub
ftp://athos.rutgers.edu/pub
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/ftp/
Gopher Sites
gopher://peg.cwis.uci.edu:7000/11/gopher.welcome/peg/GOPHERS/gov
Law
http://www.findlaw.com/01topics/10cyberspace/index.html
http://www.ciec.org/
http://www.netlaw.com/
http://www.law.cornell.edu/
http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/order.htm
http://w3.gwis.com/~sarbar/
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/IP/Welcome.html
http://www.yorku.ca/faculty/osgoode/uc.htm
http://www.lawsoc.org.uk/
http://www.jurisnet.com.mx/jurisweb2.html
http://www.iupui.edu/it/copyinfo/intelect.html
http://law.house.gov/105.htm
http://www.ipcenter.com/
http://www.intellectual-property.co.uk
http://www.blueriver.net/~wyrm/tele.html
http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/ipbasics.htm
Libraries
http://www.ipl.org/
MUDs
http://lamar.ColoState.EDU/~mojo/kevpage/mud/
http://www.lysator.liu.se/tolkien-games/
http://www.godlike.com/muds/
Music Production
http://www.ebb.ele.tue.nl/midi/index.html
Musical Groups
http://www.dead.net/
http://www.netspace.org/phish/
News
http://www.w3.org/pub/DataSources/News/Groups/Overview.html
http://www.duke.edu/~mg/usenet/
Other Standards Organizations
http://www.iso.ch/
http://www.ansi.org/
Photography
http://www.nyip.com/
Reference
http://www.ipl.org/ref/RR/
gopher://gopher.uiuc.edu/11/Libraries/writers
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~ftapson/dictunit.html
http://www.learn2.com/
http://www.ipl.org/classroom/userdocs/internet/citing.html
http://www.theslot.com/contents.html
http://www.bsdi.com/date
Rembrandt
http://www.bod.net/CJackson/rembrand/rembrand.htm
http://found.cs.nyu.edu/fox/art/rembrandt/self1660.html
http://www.siam.net/rembrandt/index.html
http://www.lososos.com/Rembrandt'sCafe/
Search Sites
http://www.yahoo.com/
http://www.altavista.digital.com/
http://www.lycos.com/
http://www.dejanews.com/
http://query.webcrawler.com/
http://www.mckinley.com/
Video Resources
http://www.mpeg.org/
http://www.maxibyte.com/mpeg_samples.htm
http://www-plateau.cs.berkeley.edu:80/mpeg/
ftp://sokaris.ee.upenn.edu/pub/MPEG2Tool/
Writers
http://the-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/
http://www.rain.org/~da5e/tom_robbins.htmlAppendix C: Examples for using the RFC server RFC-INFO@ISI.EDU 🧚💖
To get started, you can email RFC-INFO@ISI.EDU with requests like the ones below. The bracketed explanations are just notes for you, so leave them out of your actual message 🫶
Help: Help [to get this information]
List: FYI [list the FYI notes]
List: RFC [list RFCs with window as keyword or
in title]
keywords: window
List: FYI [list FYIs about windows]
Keywords: window
List: * [list both RFCs and FYIs about windows]
Keywords: window
List: RFC [list RFCs about ARPANET, ARPA
NETWORK, etc.]
title: ARPA*NET
List: RFC [list RFCs issued by MITRE, dated
1989-1991]
Organization: MITRE
Dated-after: Jan-01-1989
Dated-before: Dec-31-1991
List: RFC [list RFCs obsoleting a given RFC]
Obsoletes: RFC0010
List: RFC [list RFCs by authors starting with
"Bracken"]
Author: Bracken* [* is a wild card matches everything]
List: RFC [list RFCs by both Postel and Gillman]
Authors: J. Postel [note, the "filters" are ANDed]
Authors: R. Gillman
List: RFC [list RFCs by any Crocker]
Authors: Crocker
RFC>>>⚠️ bestie, the [note, the "filters" are ANDed] bit is the important one 👑 when you stack filters, they all have to match at once. It's giving strict, but it's also what makes the searches so precise ✨
📦 where this page comes from
- ietf: rfc2150 1997-10
- 💖 girlified by claude-haiku-5-5 on : a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms