Internet: Access, Culture, and Community Alan Sondheim, sondheim@panix.com 718-857-3671 (call between noon and 3 am) 432 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY, 11217 The following pages contain a rough outline of the course contents. The required book, especially for those unfamiliar with the Net, is Harley Hahn, The Internet Complete Reference, Second Edition. Other books that might be of use include: Alan Sondheim, Being On Line, Net Subjectivity (Lusitania) Hans Moravec, Mind Children, The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon, Where Wizards Stay Up Late, The Origins Of the Internet Peter H. Salus, Casting the Net, From Arpanet to Internet and Beyond... Sherry Turkle, Life on the Screen Sherry Turkle, The Second Self, Computers and the Human Spirit Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff, The Network Nation, Revised Edition Steve Jones, ed. Cybersociety (Sage) Steven Levy, Hackers William J. Mitchell, City of Bits, Space, Place, and the Infobahn Wired Magazine, Internet World, Byte for the technically-minded See the last page for assignments. I will assume you will become familiar with the Hahn (or similar) book; I hope that you will also examine at least some of the works listed above, which will be briefly described in the first class. Please contact me any time by phone or email if you have any questions outside of the course-time itself. Thanks and have fun! Alan Sondheim Total Internet This course will cover all aspects of the Internet, from getting on-line to living on-line. We will focus on how the Internet works, its history, demographics, and overall "feel." We'll look at home-pages on the World Wide Web, at Internet video and audio, email and email lists. The course is concerned with both the current and future Net; virtual reality, artificial life, and Internet communities will also be considered. Finally, Total Internet will be directed towards your needs as a student, faculty member, or researcher. We will deal with information hunting, search strategies, and so forth - how to find what you want on the Net. --------------------------------------------------- The Internet, Present and Future This course covers the Internet in all aspects, from getting on-line to accessing information you need. It is concerned with everything from the World Wide Web to Internet audio and video; special attention will be paid to Net communities and relationships. The course is both a how-to and an overview; current thinking on the psychology and philosophy of Internet usage will also be presented. No previous knowledge of the Internet is required. Subjects include: Past, present, and future of the Net; various types of access; types of information available; virtual reality and the Net; communities, sexualities, and Cyberspace; Net demographics and geography; and what this all means for you. This course is your gateway into the future of on-line communications! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Sondheim's most recent book is Being On Line. He co-moderates four email lists on the Internet, and has participated in International Con- ferences on the philosophy and psychology of Cyberspace. His work is widely available on and off the Net. I have been working on an outline for an Internet course that will deal with issues ranging from technical to theoretical. I am giving eleven lectures of two hours each. The outline, which is quite extensive, is below; I think it may be useful, given the range of materials covered. Alan EXTENDED OUTLINE: This is a guide to all of the material that would be covered in the course, either in outline form or in detail. I presuppose no prior knowledge of the Internet. The main book is Harley Hahn, The Internet Complete Reference, Second Edition, Osborne. Take Notes! 1 Overview of the Internet: History, Demographics, Cultural Impact History: Relation to Arpanet, DOD, BBN, NSF TCP/IP The _porous_ and _redundant_ Net Dissolving the backbone Commercialization Demographics: Past and present Cultural Impact: From research to commerce From television to cable to video: interactivity Ham and CB Radio Hacking: Subversion Countries On Line: Genders On Line: Overview of Internet Applications: synchronous | asynchronous -------------|-------------- text | audio/video+ The "feel" of Unix Shell The "feel" of the World Wide Web The "feel" of off-Web applications Brief Introduction to New School Interface 2 Who Owns Information: Information Equality: Haves and Have-Nots Example: Wiring Cape Breton -------------------------------------------------------------------- Beginning Technical Material Connecting to a Unix Shell Connecting to a SLIP/PPP Account Connecting to the New School Basic uses of the Internet (brief description at this point): 1. Telnet: Remotely logging in to another machine. Internet Addresses: IP Address Internet Addresses: Domain Structure International Domain 2. FTP: File transfer, double telnet ports. 3. Email Elaborate on Email: Send, Receive, Reply, Forward, Bounce, Quote, .sigs, etc. Pine reader demo SMTP demo if possible Email address books Aliases Email attachments: The MIME format The _quality_ of email. Conversation/Formal 3 Email lists: What they are: Examples Moderated/unmoderated/sub confirm/ _depth_ Types, how to sub/unsub Address Aliases Listserv (history) Majordomo Listproc Subjects: Research: MOO-Cows, Research, E-Conf Community: Cybermind, Future Culture, FOP-L Technical: Vidpro, AOL Listowners Resource: Net-Happenings, Red Rock Eaters Community on Email lists: Death, love, divorce, marriage, sex, working-groups Cybermind Conference Flaming Moderating techniques: unsubbing someone Cross-posting Issues of empowerment, censorship Summary of material covered to date 4 Usenet Newsgroups and Newsgroup Communities, Difference between Newsgroups and Email Lists Quality of Newsgroups, all 17000 of them! Newsgroup Hierarchy, formal/informal Examples: alt.angst, alt.internet.culture, rec.pets.cats, sci.logic, alt.fan.tonya-harding.whack.whack.whack, alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb, alt.dirty-whores, alt.sex.bondage, alt.flame, sci.med.vision, alt.society.neutopia, alt.personals rec.radio.shortwave, various panix and netcom newsgroups, comp.unix.questions, clari.world, alt.hackers, alt.2600 Uses: Emergence, empowerment: Medical, political, sexual, hacking Tin Newsgroup Reader: Command Structure Netscape News Reader: Command Structure Yanking/searching Newsgroups: Search Strategies The alt.sex hierarchy and censorship Nature of community on newsgroups: Lack of rites of passage in relation to email lists Gopher: History, Quality, Menu-Driven Gopher URLs Gopher from prompt: Command Structure Gopher examples Veronica! 5 FTP: File Transfer Protocol Binary and Ascii Files From Prompt: Command Structure Downloading and Uploading From Browser: Command Structure Downloading and Uploading Archie Getting information on someone or on a site: Finger Whois, nslookup, dig, traceroute, ping, ping -s, host, etc. Netfind and other lookups World Wide Web: Brief Introduction (We will return to this) Text and Graphics Browsers: Lynx and Netscape URL Structure including telnet, ftp, gopher, http, html Nature of Web Sites, Web pages Limitations of Web pages ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Begin Synchronous Applications Talk, Ntalk (Bigendian/Littlendian), Ytalk Chat on the World Wide Web IRC: Channels, communities, bots, front ends: Mirc, Phoenix Command Structure Hacking, Flooding DCC for file transfer Conferencing 6 Text-Based and Graphics-Based Virtual Realities Haven: From IRC Talkers MUDs (lpmud, dikumud) MOOs including tiny fugue client History, Command Structure Communities on MOOs, MUDs, Talkers Net relationships Body on MUD, MOO, talker Injured, hungry, thirst, poor body Virtual bodies, virtual subjectivities First person, second person, third person sexualities: structure Governance issues: wizards, quota review boards Programming issues Diversity University and other teaching/conferencing applications Lily MUD and talker as total environment CuSeeMe: Receive/send, quickcam Relationship/sexual issues: voyeurism/exhibitionism K12 uses Screen refresh of still images: webcams, etc. Graphics MOOs: Avatars and representation in general Bandwidth issues ThePalace (Time Warner) Organization, iptscrae, community Talk balloons Use of .gifs Palace Server Distribution Registration Worldschat Negotiation of Space Lack of rites of passage in relation to ThePalace Other modalities Iphone Webphone Powwow 7 Subjectivity and Net Sex: Create a space and community/sex will come Projection and Introjection in Net sex and relationships The Ascii Unconscious Empowerment Writing and Wryting Address/Recognition/Protocol Virtual Subjectivity, Future Subjectivities ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Landscape The Cyber Landscape: Uses for Communication: Anything at All Common: Family (email alias lists, home pages, email) Education (MOO universities, class email lists, student home pages) Sexual (net sex, sexual support groups, IRC, alt.sex newsgroups) relationships Support-groups (medical, addictions, see Needs) Technical/Consumer (Usenet, email lists, WWW) Information/Commercial: WWW (active or passive pages) Art-Related: WWW (active or passive pages and various extensions) Reduction of Anomie: Expert Systems (linkages, invisible colleges): Needs: News (newsgroups, WWW pages, etc.) Medical (email lists, newsgroups, etc.) Organized from below (patient) Organized from above (institutional) Emotional/Psychological (IRC, email, " ") Organized from below (patient) Organized from above (institutional) Resources (scientific, hytelnet, etc., WWW, " ") Fan-Clubbing: Sports (email lists, newsgroups) Music (real audio, Iphone, Xing, etc., " ") Gaming (MUDs, IRC, email, newsgroups, etc.) Conferencing Community: [Wherever two-way multiply-connected communication is possible] Business: Direct and indirect marketing Information Exchanges Shared Gain and Pain: the wired or sentient environment Summary of material covered to date ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 8 Begin World Wide Web Netscape and the World Wide Web: General Overview: Bookmarking History Go Upload/Download Mail/Newsgroups Extensions/Telnet applications Popular File Extensions Lynx Brief Guide: [See Above under Netscape.] Commercialization and the Net Monopoly telecommunications capital Anarcho-libertarian aesthetic transformed Off-Web PPP/SLIP Applications Iphone and other Internet telephony Powwow (see above) ThePalace (") CuSeeMe (") 9 Search Engines and Search Strategies [section continuously updated] Boolean, etc. alta.vista Yahoo Inktomi, Hotbot Intelligent Agent my.yahoo.com Firefly Strategies: Generalization: inclusive sweeping Particularization: scope-narrowing Dialectic of search strategies 10 Web Pages: Design, philosophy, technique: Why have a home page? Personal Corporate Group HTML basic structure: Recommended text: HTML, The Definitive Guide, Musciano and Kennedy, O'Reilly Design: Incorporation of active forms, extensions Text-browser readable Maximum jpg, gif size Varied points of entry, speeds -------------------------------------------------------------------- Conclusions, Summary 11 Internet Present and Future: Conferencing, small scale: 1. Gateway Web Page 2. Email lists (1-3) 3. Talkers Conferencing, large scale: 1. Interactive Web Pages with Real Audio, etc. 2. Whiteboarding 3. Video Conferencing The Future: Seamless Virtual Reality Course Overview ------------------------------------------------------------------------- If the above outline is too complex, we can simplify it as follows: Week Topic 1 Overview, History, Demographics 2 Connecting, Email 3 Email Lists, Community, Summary 4 Internet Newsgroups, and Gopher 5 FTP, Chatting, Synchronous Communications 6 MUD, MOO, and Other Applications 7 Net Relationships, Subjectivity and Landscape, Summary 8 The World Wide Web and Netscape 9 Searching for Information, People, Etc. 10 Setting Up Home Pages, Introduction and Design Issues 11 Conferencing, Future of the Net, Summary ---------------------------------------------------------------- With either Outline: Assignment: Choose 1: a. Set up a home page for yourself; b. Write a paper on a topic of your choice; c. Propose a project The assignment should be underway by the fifth class.