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M V C o m m e n t a t i o n
March 1994
Note: text copies of all issues of the monthly newsletter can be
found on mv in the public archive; look in /pub/mv/inews. They're
also in the online menu!
Our phones
It is hard to let a newsletter go out without talking about
the telephone situation. In response to some recent congestion we
made several changes to our dial-in configuration. The most
recent change added six lines to the hunt group, and took us off
the air for about 8 hours while this was being configured by
NYNEX. We are looking at ways to lessen this impact in the
future. The big problem is that we add lines to the middle of the
hunt group, in order to keep the hunt group arranged in order of
increasing modem capability, and provide different entry points
into the group for those of you who need different modem classes.
The highest class of modem is the Telebit Worldblazers at the end,
used mainly for UUCP. Our next change is likely to make the
Worldblazer group a hunt group on its own, and we will then be
able to add to the end of the main group without the long disrup-
tions in service.
On the flip side, the six new modems are all Microcom V.fast
modems, and we expect that we'll be using this kind of high-speed
modem at the high end of the hunt group in the future.
Being connected: what it has become
Not long ago, being connected to the Internet had value
mainly to those in computer-related fields, namely researchers,
people in military programs, and computer professionals. We'd
find in the Internet a way to join with people like us, to make
and sustain contacts, to exchange technical notes, and so forth.
Alongside of this technical and professional use grew the talk and
other alternative channels, such as those of political interest,
consumer alerts, recreational discussions, etc. But for a long
time this stuff was largely self-contained; it was like everyday
talk at the corporate cafeteria. Sure there may have been varied
content - both high and low, but from the outside, nobody paid it
much attention. It was strictly a closed forum, a bunch of
techies talking to themselves.
With the explosion of interest in the, umm, Information
Superhighway, it seems like everyone is listening now. The
breadth of content may be the same, but now there are 20 million
people participating - a substantial community, no longer on the
fringe, that commands attention. With this, we find that what
used to consist of closed conversational channels now has the
potential to reach everyone and make major influences in the
world.
People and organizations of all different sorts are finding
it important to be connected to the networks: to reach customers,
contact compatriots, and simply be a participant in a major medium
and exchange information in the best way possible. You can, for
example, give feedback to the news department at WCVB, Boston
television's Channel 5, through electronic mail. The Boston Globe
has electronic mail addresses (at globe.com) for its major depart-
ments and editors, as well as a feature section of the newspaper
devoted to talk about the Internet lifestyle. On a national
level, you can address your mail to members of the CBS network,
NBC nightly news, some FOX departments, certain members of the
Senate, and the President and Vice President of the United States.
You can use gopher to find out what's up at C-Span or even MTV,
get information from the FCC and many other government depart-
ments. During the recent LA earthquake several area radio sta-
tions provided frequent up to the minute reports via IRC (real-
time Internet Relay Chat).
So the Internet forum is no longer akin to the conversations
at the corporate cafeteria. It is now like - and is - conversa-
tion everywhere, about everything, and it has a sweeping influ-
ence. It's now a predominant international communications medium
for people in all walks of life, with brand new and evolving ways
of transacting conversations and information exchange.
What does this mean? Well, it means an awful lot of things,
a couple of which we have room to touch on here.
It means that all sorts of traditional communication is com-
ing - if it has not already come - to the Internet, and the past
and present Internet idiom won't be maintained for long. That
revered Internet culture that we read so much about and perhaps
even remember - that elite core of university and ex-university
constituents, dedicated to preserving an anticommercial environ-
ment - that culture and those who remember it will soon be a small
minority, yielding to a new culture that is yet to take shape.
Think of it: the net is growing at 10-15% per month. This means
that those of you who have been on the Internet for as long as a
year are already in the minority. The culture that is so
chagrined by "newbies" (people new to the Internet that haven't
yet learned their way around, haven't yet learned the ropes and
the unspoken rules of conduct): the newbies *are* the Internet
now.
It means that the Internet's capability to communicate infor-
mation unfettered and uncensored is a perfect breeding ground for
advocacy of all kinds: political, consumer, environmental, what-
have-you. We read on a mineral collectors mailing list about
Federal laws against filching from US-owned lands: do you know,
the list member says, that if you pick up a pretty rock in a
Federal park you can be subjected to great fines? Elsewhere on
the net, a call for comments to be submitted at a Congressional
testimony results in a stack of paper 7 inches thick of comments
received within 24 hours brought to that forum. On the Internet,
we learn instantly of the government's attempts to mandate an
encryption technology that it has the keys to (the
Clipper/Skipjack controversy), and we hear about the FBI's propo-
sal to force telephone companies to build wiretap technology into
all its equipment. Members of one interest group or another will
learn about the specific bills in Congress that affect them, as
they will get the text of those bills delivered right to their
electronic door, as well as where to write and who to write to to
make their opinions known. This perfect forum breeds and assists
citizens groups such as the Nader-based Taxpayers Assistance Pro-
ject, attempting to open up Federal documents to the networks; it
even forms groups of its own. The Electronic Frontier Foundation
is dedicated to preserving this freedom of expression that prom-
ises to make Internet-based advocacy so powerful; locally, the
fledgling Electronic Frontiers New Hampshire is inspired by the
purpose of informing our citizenry, government, media, and of
keeping the nets free of interference by any of those.
It means that the concerns about whether there will be infor-
mation "haves" and "have nots" are no longer just idle questions.
Being online is more than just being able to send mail: it is
being connected, being able to find out about the world, and let-
ting the world find out about you. It is these things in ways
that make the telephone and the radio and the television take a
back seat in providing you access to your society and your human
environment. It will continue to be these things in ways we can't
even imagine. A combination of government, community, and commer-
cial interests are racing to bring service to various groups of
people and businesses, and even though to some people it's not
happening fast enough, some sort of Internet access is available
to most people already, and access is spreading on an accelerating
basis. MV is happy to be a part of this.