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Everything You Needed To Know About the Internet In May, 1994

Posted by samzenpus on from the in-the-year-2000 dept.

harrymcc writes "On Saturday, I picked up a copy of a book called How To Use the Internet at a flea market. It was published in May, 1994, and is a fascinating snapshot of the state of the Net at that time — when you had to explain to people that it wasn't a good idea to say 'thank you' when issuing commands to a machine, and the World Wide Web was an alternative to Gopher that warranted only four pages of coverage towards the end of the book. I selected some choice excerpts and wrote about them over at TIME.com."

26 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Poignant by Gumug · · Score: 5, Informative

    FTA: E-mail: “Never forget that electronic mail is like a postcard. Many people can read it easily without your ever knowing it. In other words, do not say anything in an e-mail message which you would not say in public.”

    1. Re:Poignant by jellomizer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In many ways we get all up an arms about Governments and Corporations "spying" or "profiling your information" however the internet wasn't ever really meant for private information. It design doesn't make private information easy. Sure we have came up with encryption and other crazy hacks to try to make us more secure, we are still communicating on a public network, to systems that we shouldn't fully trust.

      Encryption and other privacy methods are akin to putting a lock on the door (Good enough to stop most casual attempts to poke around), often not enough to be rally secure, against any group that really wants to get it.

      Remember this fact if you are going to choose a SaaS or Cloud solution. Not that using such systems are Bad or Evil like RMS likes to claim, however if you are going to trust your information to an outside source, you better be sure that you could handle a breach.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Poignant by bmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      FTA: E-mail: âoeNever forget that electronic mail is like a postcard.

      I said this the other day.

      It made people angry.

      So, like, whatever, man. If you don't want people reading your stuff, encrypt it. Not every country has the same laws. Not every country has the same 3 letter agencies. And just because it's not been revealed by Snowden's archive yet doesn't mean it's not happening.

      --
      BMO

    3. Re:Poignant by Tom · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In many ways we get all up an arms about Governments and Corporations "spying" or "profiling your information" however the internet wasn't ever really meant for private information.

      Those two statements do not clash.

      Postcards are not meant for private information, either. But a government agency systematically intercepting and reading them would still run afoul of the wiretapping laws.

      Remember this fact if you are going to choose a SaaS or Cloud solution. Not that using such systems are Bad or Evil like RMS likes to claim, however if you are going to trust your information to an outside source, you better be sure that you could handle a breach.

      That depends entirely on your threat model and your own capabilities. For many small companies who can't afford to have any in-house security know-how, an outside service provider could actually reduce the probability of a breach.

      The problem with SaaS and Cloud solutions isn't that they are inherently less secure or anything like that. The real problem is the all-your-eggs-in-one-basket issue. If a major cloud provider ever has a serious breach, everyone has been breached, not just one unlucky target.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    4. Re:Poignant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      While that is technically true, it is simply part of how sorting and routing mail works. I work for a private mail processor and our sorters do the same thing (we presort down to carrier level before we tender to the PO), There is no central storage or organization of images, or much retention, but we can get the images off the individual machines for troubleshooting purposes up to maybe a week later.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/02/postal-service-photos_n_3694589.html

    5. Re:Poignant by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's odd that when someone points out flaws in a system, they are considered to be whining.

    6. Re:Poignant by Prof.PatPending · · Score: 4, Informative

      Heck, I've found myself walking near people (in downtown Philadelphia) who were on their phone GIVING THEIR CREDIT CARD INFO! The first time I heard it I thought the person was just some random idiot, but I've since heard half a dozen other people doing the same thing!

      --
      WARNING: I cannot be help responsible for the above, as apparently my cats have learned how to type.
    7. Re:Poignant by semi-extrinsic · · Score: 4, Funny

      1. Walk around Philadelphia
      2. Carry voice recorder in backpack
      3. ???
      4. PROFIT!!!

      --
      for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
    8. Re:Poignant by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm sure you felt better after passing that little sermon, but quality of life in Western Europe and Scandinavia, which still has at least some social democracy, is way better than in the US except for the few at the top (those few also giving the impression that the US is "richer").

      Ideology is for freshmen and propagandists - reality combines principles and practical compromise. This is one reason why RMS has been successful, I think: his main licences are surprisingly practical, when they could try (and fail) to do a lot more to prevent the things he dislikes.

    9. Re:Poignant by Sique · · Score: 4, Insightful
      So a country that has a police and courts of law is no free country according to your definition. You either are an anarchist who only considers ad hoc self organization as freedom, or your idea of freedom is fundamentally flawed, as it misses out some of the founding principles of (state guaranteed) freedom.

      Something that often gets lost in a dispute about freedom is that it's never the human alone who is free (except he is really alone and no one in his vincinity), it's always the organisation of the humans into groups and relationships that gives various degrees of freedom.

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  2. How quaint by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Insightful

    FTA:

    Online etiquette: “Flaming is generally frowned upon because it generates lots of articles that very few people want to read and wastes Usenet resources.”

    That horse made it out the door long ago. Entire websites and careers are built on that now.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:How quaint by PPH · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The phenomenon known as Eternal September was new and little understood back in those days.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
    2. Re:How quaint by Joining+Yet+Again · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Dammit, I can find The Warez Song, but not the AOL Song by the same guy. Although I did only spend 20 seconds looking.

      I got on the 'net in 1994, a few after before eternal September... although it was via Compuserve, and I didn't use direct PPP/SLIP access for another year. Then Demon Internet in 1996, and that was it.

      The 'net was SnR-wise so much better before ~1998 - mostly a place for geeks, nerds and business types hang out, and while it had a social element, it wasn't just bringing the bullshit of the real world onto the 'net, but it's own form of community. Now it's just an extension of the real world - and if I want that, I'll go outside, tyvm.

    3. Re:How quaint by cold+fjord · · Score: 5, Informative

      The phenomenon known as Eternal September was new and little understood back in those days.

      Though the ruin of Eternal September blotted out the sun in the memory of those who endured it, it is a relic of the Second Age of the internet.

      The First Age of the internet also saw its battles and flames, though they are now but a distant memory and few speak of them. A record of one of the notable battles follows:

      THE "GREAT RENAMING"

      In 1986-87, Usenet underwent a thoroughgoing shakeup and reorganization which has come to be known as the "Great Renaming." At its inception, Usenet had only top-level hierarchies, mod and net. This was later expanded by the addition of the "fa" groups as well as some domains with only local distribution. When a complete reorganization of Usenet was proposed, a massive and now-legendary "flame war" (online discussion/argument) commenced.

      The most significant flame war of Usenet history was over the "Great Renaming" when the seven main hierarchies {comp,misc,news,rec,sci,soc,talk} were created and the old groups {net,fa,mod} were all moved around. There was great gnashing of teeth as groups were sorted and tossed around and relegated to their polities. -- [Woodbury, 1992]

      more

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    4. Re:How quaint by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

      TINC

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  3. Misty watercolor memories by jtownatpunk.net · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That's about the time I helped develop a "how to use the internet" class for my department at UCSB. In preparation, we rolled out a bunch of clients to our Mac workstations for usenet, gopher, talk, ftp, http (Mosaic, of course), etc. After the class, everyone went straight to Mosaic. I was pretty impressed that someone had found a bunch of Elvis sound clips and figured out how to play them within minutes. Then I was concerned for the amount of bandwidth they must have been sucking up. I believe our part of campus was sharing a T1 at the time...

    1. Re:Misty watercolor memories by Creepy · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For me it was gradual...

      I probably didn't discover Mosaic until late 1994 and nobody had told me about it. I randomly downloaded and ran stuff from our ftp site, which had mirrors of stuff shared by most major universities. At first I was majorly disappointed to discover it was a web browser, having used a text based one in 1993 and pretty much scrap-heaped the technology (compared to gopher it was a huge leap back). Two things with Mosaic grabbed me, though - the content was graphical, and there was a View Source that showed how it was done. I was mildly intrigued, especially since the default page contained graphics. I created my own pages, adding more and more content and graphics using Photoshop, aligning pages with tables, and showing others how it was done. It was probably the only thing I did more than usenet while working my job, which was TA the worst shifts at the deadest labs because I was the noob. I usually got the 8 hour Saturday shifts, spending the first 4 on my homework and the rest trying not to go nuts from boredom.

      While Mosaic was neat, the Netscape beta utterly blew me away. I told my dad to buy Netscape stock when they went public. He didn't. He regretted it later. I would have told him to sell the second Microsoft announced they were releasing a competing browser, because no matter how bad IE 1.0 was, I had watched Microsoft destroy too many companies with bundling agreements with PC hardware companies where they would get Windows and Office for hundreds of dollars less with a bundle (and probably if they excluded competing products) and I knew Netscape was doomed (WordPerfect and Spyglass in particular - that last one was a real dick move... we'll pay you a royalty for every copy sold... gives away for free and absorbs the expense by upping the price of Windows, then insists it's NOT part of the operating system, then later when they have their own code, insists it IS part of the operating system). My prophecy proved correct.

    2. Re:Misty watercolor memories by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Interesting
      I used lynx. It was preferable because I could get on the terminals and be on T3 speeds. But with the GUIs, it went through a diffferent network, with greater constraints. So downloading something to the mainframe from my terminal account would get it on a computer fastest. From there, I'd FTP it to my PC.

      I had watched Microsoft destroy too many companies with bundling agreements with PC hardware companies

      I solidified my opinion of MS when they did a deal with Stack for DoubleSpace for DOS 6.0 based on Stack's IP they looked at but didn't buy, then screwed around with the lawsuit and bought part of Stack to help it go away.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
  4. In today's NSA Internet . . . by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Internet uses YOU!

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  5. World Wide Web..? by twicepending · · Score: 5, Funny

    "World Wide Web was an alternative to Gopher"
    Hang on while I look up World Wide Web on Gopherpedia

  6. Blast from the past by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This article isn't quite as geeze-worthy as something earlier this week I'd mentioned: Fidonet!

  7. Ahem... by djupedal · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know what's even more fascinating? Being there when it happened instead of reading about it...

  8. Still not a good idea by ThatAblaze · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's still not a good idea to say thank you to your machines. After all, if they start thinking they are our equals than the robot revolt is just one step closer.\

    It's far better to end every message with "screw you." That will show them.

  9. Re:Netscape tonight by GreyFish · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Quite the opposite. If modern sites had old weak cipher suites enabled then a mitm attack could force your browser to use them (a downgrade attack). Sites that have disabled the old cipher suites are doing the right thing and should be praised for being diligent.

  10. Also LaQuey's book, 1993 by Creosote · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just pulled it off my shelf. "The Internet Companion" by Tracy LaQuey, introduction by Sen. Al Gore, Addison-Wesley 1993. Was one of the best general introductions in its day, and had a brief section on the WWW.

  11. Re:Not much changed by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...and people stealing screen names!