Rights and Responsibilities of Participants in Networked Communities (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 121-136
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Appendixes
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APPENDIX A Network Technology NETWORK BUILDING BLOCKS The essence of an electronic network is connectivity between computers. The first computers ran as stand-alone machines that could be accessed only from their immediate physical location.
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However, intermediate nodes forward packets nearly instantaneously, and these packets remain at the intermediate nodes for very short times. Real-Time Connections A real-time connection is one that allows a user on one computer to access a remote computer and directly perform actions on that remote computer.
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For example, networks also support the notion of "one-to-many" communication, a mode that could be characterized as a broadcast mode in which a single source transmits information to many people. Perhaps most important, electronic networks support a mode of communication for which there is no close historical analog a many-to-many mode of communication in which many people write and many people read simultaneously.
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is today the single most common form of communication on electronic networks. E-mail has gone mainstream as it is increasingly used in business settings.
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However, "bulletin board" has also come to mean an automatic mail redistribution site. In this mode, a mail redistribution site is set up to service discussion on a particular topic among a list of people.
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Restricted file transfers are limited to some well-defined group of individuals who, for example, can obtain certain files from certain computers only if they have been granted access rights to those files. Remote Computer Use Another way to obtain information remotely is to use the network as essentially a very long cable that connects a user at a terminal or workstation in New York directly to a computer in California a remote log-in.
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Passwords and other security measures help to control remote access, but facilitating ease of remote use and denying unauthorized access are goals that are inherently contentious. Information Search Services As described above, one major use of electronic networks is to transfer information between sites for the benefit of remote users.
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(If the file is not text, key words may be appended to auxiliary files that point to the desired nontext file.) Information in files Information about a user without knowing the system on which he/she may reside Hyper-text search; a user browses a document and comes across a reference to locate.
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UUCP refers to an associated network that supports only mail but not newsgroups. Fidonet is a network that connects personal computers, primarily those using MS-DOS.7 Computer Bulletin Board Systems From a technical perspective, a bulletin board system (BBS)
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In 1992, Jack Rickard, editor of Boardwatch magazine, estimated the number of publicly accessible bulletin boards in the United States at 45,000, and the number has grown substantially since then.8 Many BBSs are connected to each other or to other networks; other BBSs stand alone. Freenets, of which one of the most famous is the Cleveland FreeNet, are communitybased networks that are open to the public and provide BBS capabilities.
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Thus, the regional network consists of many interconnected state or local networks. For example, the California Education and Research Foundation Network (CERFNet)
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(For example, networks internal to other nations are often similar to regional networks in the United States.) But even these views do not quite explain the "true" nature of the interconnections among Internet institutions.
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The Internet connected 46,000 domains in July 1994,1° and the number of added networks doubles every year.1l These numbers are growing rapidly. For several years, the traffic across the NSFNET backbone (measured in terms of number of packets of information carried)
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