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|   Supplement       The Wonderful World of Usenet News       FALL 1992   |
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Contents
 
Part I
Introduction 
The Net Works
 
Part II
Computer as a Democratizer 
CityNet in New Zealand 
Learning About Usenet
Freenet BBS's
`Arte', Computers and Usenet News Pt 1
 
Part III
`Arte', Computers and Usenet News Pt 2
 
Part IV
Two Books to Help Users
Liberation Technology
 
                          INTRODUCTION
 
   One day during a programming class, one UAW member explained
that people at Ford had taken classes in BASIC because they
wanted to see what the computer could do.
 
   This special supplement begins a serious answer to that
question by featuring several articles about one of the most
important developments in the world of computers and telecommu-
nications -- the creation, use, and potential of Usenet News. The
different articles in this issue examine this development from
different perspectives. Hopefully they will begin the process of
seriously looking at this important development of our current
times which has been made possible by the computer and the
computer pioneers who have taken on to develop its potential.
 
   Recently, on Usenet News, a professor from Germany, posted a
request for nominations for who was likely to, or should get the
Nobel Prize in Economics. One response was that the prize should
go to reward the significant achievement of the pioneers of
Usenet News instead of to an economist creating useless models,
as usual.
 
   Just a few years ago, such a response would not have been
heard outside of one's small circle of friends. But now such a
response can be broadcast via a highly automated interactive
computer conference system, called Usenet News, using very few
natural resources, to an estimated 3 million people worldwide,
within a very short period of time.
 
   Yet Usenet News, and the telecommunications explosion it is
part of, are rarely discussed in the public arena even though
this achievement, made possible by the work of many computer
pioneers, is perhaps the most important "current event" of our
times.
 
   The interconnection and interrelation among people around the
world made possible by Usenet News is setting the basis for a
thorough going examination of the problems of our society and for
the search for solutions. In our first issue of the Amateur
Computerist, we wrote:

      "There was an effort by administrators of the UAW-Ford 
   program at the Dearborn Engine Plant to kill interest in 
   computers and computer programming. We want to keep interest 
   alive because computers are the future. We want to disperse 
   information to users about computers. Since the computer is 
   still in the early stage of development, the ideas and 
   experiences of the users need to be shared and built on if 
   this technology is to advance. To this end, this newsletter is 
   dedicated to all people interested in learning about 
   computers."
                        ("Introduction", vol I, no. 1, pg.1)
 
   Usenet News has also taken on this task and achieved it in a
way that is remarkable. Not the least amazing is the scale, the
grassroots participation, and the contributions of many computer
users from around the world.
 
   This supplement is being published by the Amateur Computerist
both to make this important development known to our readers and
also to encourage discussion among netnews participants of the
significance of the achievement that Usenet News represents.
 
                        COMMENTS WELCOMED
 
   We welcome your comments on any of the articles in this
Supplement and hope to publish an additional supplement sometime
next year to include both those comments and other articles,
interviews etc. that have been submitted after this Supplement
was finalized. We welcome submissions for this next Special
Supplement on Usenet News. Also we encourage discussion of the
issues raised here in the alt.amateur-comp newsgroup on Usenet
News.
                                          The Editors
 
                          THE NET WORKS
                                    by Lee Hauser
 
   There's a sense of power about it. A phone call, a logon, and
you're connected with the world, a part of something much bigger
than yourself, part of what brought down the Berlin Wall and
broke up the Soviet Union, something that can inform and enter-
tain you and has nothing to do with television.
 
   You're connected to the Internet. Whether you're at a terminal
at school, sneaking a little time at work, or are laying out a
little of your own money for time on someone else's system,
you've joined "cyberspace," that part of reality made up only of
electronic impulses.
 
   The term "cyberspace" was coined by William Gibson in his 1984
novel Neuromancer. Gibson's cyberspace was typified by direct
mind-computer interface and a universally shared metaphor, the
electronic world, a gridded floor over which floated the glowing
Euclidian shapes of data structures and complex systems. Despite
the fact that Gibson had never used a computer when he wrote
Neuromancer, his vision has shaped our views of cyberspace,
perhaps forever, which is firmly in the grand tradition of
science fiction.
 
   Today's cyberspace is the Internet, a large number of
computers connected by modems and various other means, thousands 
of them based at universities, commercial sites, or occupying a 
corner of someone's living room. These computers (the vast 
majority of which use the Unix operating system) regularly 
exchange megabytes of electronic mail, encoded software and 
general conversation. Most of them do it at no charge to the user 
and under no one's central control.
 
   The Internet got its start in the early 1960s as an experiment
in connecting computers that were part of the Department of
Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as ARPANet. It
grew beyond its original defense contractors to include other
educational networks in North America, Europe and the Far East.
One part of the Net, the part that many users find most
interesting is Usenet News, the bulletin board system which now
piggy backs on the Internet and other networks. This netnews
system got its start in 1979.
 
   Usenet News is a world of its own that gets by with a singular
lack of rules. Like the world outside, how you view it will
depend on what you want to see. You can get almost any question
answered, many times and in many ways. There are red-light dis-
tricts and religious discussions, bars and coffeehouses and flea
markets, even institutions of higher learning. There are places
where you can hear old-timers tell stories of the glorious past
and see others invent the uncertain future. There are many joys
to be found and many confusions to be faced on the Net, as it is
called by its regulars.
 
   Usenet is like a worldwide electronic BBS. It consists of
"newsgroups" grouped into "hierarchies" where users post and
reply to "articles." There are nearly three thousand newsgroups
altogether, more than anyone can or would want to keep up with
(while you may be interested in both Croation culture and the
varieties of commercial software available in Australia, most of
the stuff inbetween might very well be meaningless to you).
These groups are divided into several hierarchies such as
Recreation, Talk, Sciences, Computers, Social, Miscellaneous and
Alternate.
 
   Fortunately, you don't have to wade through all the newsgroups
to find what you want -- at least not more than once. Most Usenet
access systems have software for reading the news and managing
newsgroup subscriptions. One of the most popular is "rn" (a
typically cryptic Unix name which stands for "readnews"). It
reads a file called .newsrc which holds the names of all the
newsgroups your system receives and, initially, tells rn that you
are a subscriber of all of them. You can use rn to go through the
newsgroups one by one, look at a few messages and decide whether
or not to keep the group on your subscription list.
 
   Unfortunately, few books on Unix cover rn extensively; two
that do are mentioned in the resource list.* You should also be
aware that most Unix systems have an online manual called (can
you guess?) "man." Typing "man rn" at the command line will get
you the manual pages for rn or other Unix commands.
 
   Usenet access is available from non-Unix systems too. There
are several programs available that will connect PCs to Usenet
News and some PC-based bulletin board systems have Internet mail
and Usenet "feeds." You might have to look around for them even
harder than you would for a public access Unix system.
 
   In addition to the Usenet newsgroups, the Net is used for mail
and file exchange. The foundation for all intersystem services
was originally (and sometimes still is) the Unix-to-Unix CoPy
program, or UUCP. UUCP does the automatic copying of files stored
on one system to another system, whether they be mail, news or
other data and programs.
 
   Another service provided by some systems, and the one that
makes software junkies stand up and take note, is ftp, or "file
transfer protocol." Most systems have this function, which lets
users on one system log onto other systems to download archived
software. This is usually done anonymously, meaning the person
logging on needs no account on the host machine. Many systems
offer archives of public domain and shareware software; one of
the biggest repositories is a system at the White Sands military
complex in New Mexico.
 
   Mail, of course, is one of the key uses of the Internet. Unix
electronic mail (e-mail) is an integral part of the system. You
can mail someone at the other end of the country as easily as you
can someone at your own site; all you need is the e-mail address.
 
   Until a few years ago, Internet addressing was a complicated
matter, more art than science. Everyone had a "bang address" made
up of the name of every system between the sender and the
recipient separated by exclamation points, or "bang" symbols. It
was a source of much Usenet conversation, trying to determine the
most efficient route between any two points, both from the
delivery point of view and the typing point of view.
 
   Nowadays most systems can be addressed by a "domain" address
which usually consists of the user's ID and system name separated
by an "@" symbol. Not all systems recognize this, however. For
instance, the author of this article can be addressed by using
uunet!polari!lsh (his bang address) or polari!lsh@uunet.uu.net
(technically the domain address, with a bang due to the way the
system receives its uucp feed).
 
   Usenet, in particular, and the Internet, in general, are quite
anarchic. There is literally no central control over the system
other than the assignment of each computer's network address. The
amount of access to the network, including which Usenet
newsgroups (if any) will be supported, is entirely up to the
local system administration.
 
   Computers connect in a variety of ways, usually dictated by
the standards of the regional networking organization. Dialup
lines are usually a minimum of 9600 bits per second, while many
subnets have leased lines with higher transmission rates.
Propagation can be amazingly fast; the famous "Internet Worm"
infected over 6,000 sites in a matter of hours in November of
1989.
 
   While the Net as a whole has no central control, machines at
individual sites are under their own site administration. Each
machine has finite capacity to receive information, and the
amount of space and other resources available can determine
whether a full or partial Usenet feed is received. The reception
of particular newsgroups is also subject to administrative
review; a site engaged in biological research may receive all of
the bio hierarchy, but ignore all the rest. Especially subject to
review at some sites (and some would call it censorship) are some
of the alt groups, such as alt.sex, alt.arts.erotica, and other
controversial groups. Nixpub sites, those that provide public
dialup access, usually have all the groups they can get.
Educational sites often do as well, despite periodic outcry over
public money being spent on some of the alt groups.
 
   Of course, it is the alt groups where most of the most
interesting "action" is found. Unlike most hierarchies, where
creating a new group requires some administrative or at least
political input, alt groups can be started by anyone for any
reason and are left to the users to thrive or die. A site that
receives a good selection of alt newsgroups is almost assured of
high usage.
 
   I'm always amazed at the unabashed personality shown by people
online. It may be true that the anonymity of the modem allows a
certain release from one's normal personality, but most posters
append a signature file to their articles that clearly identifies
them and their system of origin. Are they always this arrogant,
this angry, this kinky? Do they care that fellow news readers in
their own offices will see their postings? Indeed, does anyone
else at their sites read news at all? Most users at non-public
sites add a disclaimer to their messages, stating that their
posting does not reflect the opinions of their employer, or
possibly anyone else in the universe.
 
   Usenet is a wonderful place to ask any of the questions that
have been bothering you. There are newsgroups devoted to almost
all subjects, places and times (and if there isn't one devoted to
your subject, place and time, you can create your own and see if
anyone shares your particular smidgen of reality). Find the right
newsgroup, ask a question, and you'll usually get at least one
answer. If there are "N" ways of answering your question you will
probably get at least "N+1" answers. And of course you can throw
in your own answers to whatever anyone else says. Fortunately,
newsreading software has ways of keeping message threads
together, but so much news flows over the lines that messages may
not stay on line very long.
 
   Oh, where are the "fun" newsgroups? Groups of a local nature
are found under regional or city names. In the Seattle area, for
instance, they have names like seattle.general, pnw.general and
pnw.forsale (the "pnw" stands for "Pacific Northwest"). Some
other regional and local hierarchies include "ca" (California),
"ne" for New England, "chi" for Chicago, and even "su" (Stanford
University, where a substantial part of the computer science and
engineering departments appear to hand in their homework over the
Net). There are many others. One of the beauties of these
regional hierarchies is that you can restrict your new postings
to region, so your article putting the summer cabin in Bar Harbor
up for rent doesn't show up on some inflation weary Russian
programmer's system.
 
   If you're really into computers, there's plenty to be had
under the "comp" hierarchy. The comp.sys.msdos, comp.sys.mac and
others deal with everyone's favorite hardware (with everything
from Commodore 64 through Amiga thrown in).
 
   Those with a more sensual bent can check out the voluminous
postings in alt.sex (yes, there are also groups called alt.drugs
& alt.rock-and-roll) and alt.arts.erotica. The alt.callahan's is
the online pub where you can have good conversation, trade bad
puns, and hoist a virtual brew. The alt.chatsubo is a bar on the
seamier side of town, where the razorgirls and console cowboys
play out their cyberpunk fantasies. Star Trek fans will find at
least two groups devoted to their passion, while alt.sf-lovers
takes care of most of the rest of the science fiction world.
 
   There's a lot more out there, too -- networks, software,
advice, help, controversy and argument, enough to keep one
fascinated for hours on end.
 
   Some of the most interesting newsgroups are those that talk
about the Net itself. There are groups such as
news.newusers.questions that help beginners in their explorations
of Usenet and other areas of the Net and news.misc, the group for
talking about Usenet.
 
   At the opposite end of the spectrum are the groups like
"alt.cyberpunk.tech, alt.cyberspace, alt.society.futures &
alt.cyberpunk" that deal with the concept and implementation of
cyberspace. There are discussions of the practicality of mind
computer interfaces, of whether there could be a shared metaphor
of what the electronic world looks like, and other details. The
people doing the discussing are not only science fiction readers,
but network administrators, virtual reality researchers and
others who will be instrumental in the growth and refinement of
cyberspace.
 
   This is one of the reasons the Internet and Usenet are
important -- they are part of the free flow of information
essential to the continuing development of science and tech-
nology. Rather than letters between individuals or articles in
narrowlytargeted technical journals and conferences, thousands of
people can discuss the subject, whatever it may be.
 
   Unfortunately, though the Net is growing all the time and is
available to more users than ever before, there are still
relatively few people who have access to it. Many things need to
happen before widespread electronic communication is available
to most people. Computers or terminals need to be easily and
cheaply available. In France, for instance, the government run
Minitel network gives free terminals with system subscriptions.
Over half of all French households are connected to Minitel.
 
   The infrastructure of a universal network needs to extend to
everyone who wants it. In a sense, of course, it does. The whole
country is wired for telephone, which is the easiest way to enter
cyberspace anyway. But the telephone wires can't carry all the 
information for anything close to Gibsonian cyberspace, or even
more everyday things like real-time video. Eventually the copper
wires we communicate on now may be replaced by more expensive but
more capable fiber-optic lines.
 
   And, of course, there needs to be a reason for people to go
online. Today's electronic services provide attractive services,
such as news, travel scheduling and information, encyclopedias,
even shopping and real-time socializing. This all costs money, of
course, often more than people can afford. Many users think
online services should be free and as universal as telephone
service, so many never proceed beyond their local bulletin
boards.
 
   Another thing that needs to change is the user interface.
Services such as Prodigy and America Online have their own
software to make their services more user-friendly, but each is
unique. DOS-based bulletin boards and Unix systems are
command-line oriented and far from "user friendly." Terminals
need to be as easy to use as telephones before they will be
widely accepted.
 
   Finally, we must retain the freedom to use online services.
There is constant fighting between telephone companies and BBS
operators about telephone line prices. There is also conflict
over how the infrastructure will be extended - who will get ac-
cess to the Net, and how much they will pay. Finally, there is a
necessary upward trend in computer capability that leaves those
who cannot afford computers behind. While computer prices are
coming down relative to their power, there are very few truly
low-end, very inexpensive computers. Just when XT-compatibles
could be truly cheap, very few are being made because they are no
longer fast enough for the people who have a thousand dollars or
more to spend. Computers could achieve wide penetration if
low-end computers were easily available with easy-to-use software
and good reasons to use them.
 
   Now there is growing sentiment to make the Internet fully
commercial, removing its government subsidy and making it pay its
own way. In an interview in the May 25, 1992 InfoWorld magazine,
Mitch Kapor says the commercialization of Internet is needed to
continue its growth and free government money for a new, higher
speed experimental network. Kapor, founder of Lotus Development
Corporation, designer of the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet and
co-founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation, says the
Internet is the best way to bring connectivity to the general
population until the nation can be wired for fiber, which will
support audio and video. Most users of the Net would probably
disagree with Kapor. It is likely that commercializing the Net
would have a negative effect on its open, free-wheeling nature
which is certainly its charm and possibly its reason for success.
The Net was started on a noncommercial basis and continues that
way to this day; it has grown and matured in that atmosphere,
showing innovation and growth without the profit motive that
until recently defined Kapor's success. If the high-speed network
must be experimented with, why not let the commercial interests
take over that work and leave unfixed that which is not broken.
 
   This re-wiring of the nation is still years away, of course.
In the meantime there's no good reason to stay away from today's
Internet and Usenet News. It's part of what computers do best.
 
*RESOURCE LIST

   Using uucp and Usenet, from O'Reilly & Associates (a superior
book, especially for the more technically minded)
 
   The First Book of Unix, by Douglas Topham, from Howard W. Sams
& Co. (an excellent intro to Unix for the complete Unix idiot,
with an excellent intro to mail and Usenet).
 
From: 74230.2702@CompuServe.COM (Lee Hauser)
   Copyright (C) 1992 by Lee Hauser. Permission is granted to
reproduce the text of this document in whole or in part in a
not-for-profit publication provided credit is given to the
author. Publication in whole in a for-profit publication is
prohibited without permission.
 
 
                 The Computer as a Democratizer
                                 by Michael Hauben
 
"...only through diversity of opinion is there, in the existing
state of human intellect, a chance of fair play to all sides of
the truth."
   (John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty, "Three Essays, Oxford, 1975, 
    pg.60) 
 
"In a very real sense, Usenet is a marketplace of ideas."
   (Bart Anderson, Bryan Costales, and Harry Henderson, Unix 
    Communications, Indiana, 1991, pg.224)
 
   Political thought has developed as writers presented the
theoretical basis behind the various class structures from
aristocracy to democracy. Plato wrote of the rule of the elite
Guardians. Thomas Paine wrote why people need control of their
governments. The computer connects to this democratizing trend
through facilitating wider communications among individual
citizens to the whole body of citizens.
 
   James Mill, the father of John Stuart Mill, takes a look at
democracy in his article "Liberty of the Press" from the 1825
Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica. He writes about the
question of a government that works as it should - for the
advantage and gain of the people instead of the advantage and
gain for those in control. Mill sees the government necessarily
being corrupted if the chance exists. Those in the position of
rule, would abuse that power for their advantage. Mill describes,
"If one man saw that he might promote misrule for his own advan-
tage, so would another; so, of course would they all." ( James
Mill, "Essay on Liberty of the Press", pg.20) Mill says that the
people need a check on those in government. People need to keep
watch on their government in order to make sure this government
works in the interest of the many. Mill thus concludes, "There
can be no adequate check without the freedom of the press. The
evidence of this is irresistible." (Mill, pg.18)
 
   What Mill often phrases as freedom of the press, or liberty of
the press, is more precisely defined as the uncensored press. The
uncensored press provides for the dissemination of information
that allows the reader or thinker to do two things. First, a
person can size up the issue and honestly decide his or her own
position. Second, as the press is uncensored, this person can
make his distinctive contribution available for other people to
consider and appreciate. Thus what Mill calls "freedom of the
press" makes possible the free flow and exchange of different
ideas.
 
   Thomas Paine, in The Rights of Man, describes a fundamental
principle of democracy. Paine writes, "that the right of altering
the government was a national right, and not a right of the
government."(pg.341) Mill also expresses that active
participation by the populace is a necessary principle of
democracy. He writes:
 
   "Unless a door is left open to the resistance of the
   government, in the largest sense of the word, the doctrine of 
   passive obedience is adopted; and the consequence is, the 
   universal prevalence of the misgovernment, ensuring the misery 
   and degradation of the people." (Mill, pg.13)
 
   Another principle Mill links democracy to, is the right of the
people to define who can responsibly represent their will.
However, this right requires information to make a proper deci-
sion. Mill declares:
 
   "We may then ask, if there are any possible means by which the
   people can make a good choice, besides liberty of the press? 
   The very foundation of a good choice is knowledge. The fuller 
   and more perfect the knowledge, the better the chance, where 
   all sinister interest is absent, of a good choice. How can the 
   people receive the most perfect knowledge relative to the 
   characters of those who present themselves to their choice, 
   but by information conveyed freely, and without reserve, from 
   one to another?" (Mill, pg.19)
 
     Without information being available to the people, the 
candidates for office can be either as bad as the incumbents or 
worse. Therefore there is a need to prevent the government from 
censoring the information available to people. Mill explains:
 
   "If it is in the power of their rulers to permit one person
   and forbid another, the people may be sure that a false 
   report, - a report calculated to make them believe that they 
   are well governed, when they are ill-governed, will be often 
   presented to them." (Mill, pg.20)
 
   After electing their representatives, democracy gives the
public the right to evaluate their chosen representatives in
office. The public continually needs information as to how their
chosen representatives are fulfilling their role. Once these rep-
resentatives have abused their power, Paine's and Mill's
principle allows the public to replace those abusers. Mill also
clarifies that free use of the means of communication is another
extremely important principle:
   "That an accurate report of what is done by each of the
   representatives, a transcript of his speeches, and a statement 
   of his propositions and votes, is necessary to be laid before 
   the people, to enable them to judge of his conduct, nobody, we 
   presume, will deny. This requires the use of the cheapest 
   means of communication, and, we add, the free use of those 
   means. Unless every man has the liberty of publishing the 
   proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, the people can have 
   no security that they are fairly published." (Mill pg.20)
 
   Ignorance, Thomas Paine calls the absence of knowledge and
says that man with knowledge cannot be returned to a state of
ignorance. (The Rights of Man, pg.357) James Mill shows how the
knowledge man thirsts after leads to a communal feeling. General
conformity of opinion seeds resistance against misgovernment.
Both conformity of opinion and resistance require general
information or knowledge. Mill explains:
   "In all countries people have either a power legally and
   peaceably of removing their governors, or they have not that 
   power. If they have not that power, they can only obtain very 
   considerable ameliorations of their governments by resistance, 
   by applying physical force to their rulers, or, at least, by 
   threats so likely to be followed by performance, as may 
   frighten their rulers into compliance. But resistance, to have 
   this effect, must be general. To be general, it must spring 
   from a general conformity of opinion, and a general knowledge 
   of that conformity. How is this effect to be produced, but by 
   some means, fully enjoyed by the people of communicating their 
   sentiments to one another? Unless the people can all meet in 
   general assembly, there is no other means, known to the world, 
   of attaining this object, to be compared with freedom of the 
   press." (Mill, pg.18)
 
   In the previous quote Mill places his championing of the
freedom of press as a realistic alternative to Rousseau's general
assembly, which is not possible most of the time. Mill expands on
the freedom of the press by setting the rules. An opinion cannot
be well founded until its converse is also present. Here he sets
forth the importance of developing your own opinion from those
that exist. Mill writes:
   "We have then arrived at the following important conclusions,
   -- that there is no safety to the people in allowing anybody 
   to choose opinions for them; that there are no marks by which 
   it can be decided beforehand, what opinions are true and what 
   are false; that there must, therefore, be equal freedom of 
   declaring all opinions both true and false; and that, when all 
   opinions, true and false, are equally declared, the assent of 
   the greater number, when their interests are not opposed to 
   them, may always be expected to be given to the true. These 
   principles, the foundation of which appears to be impregnable, 
   suffice for the speedy determination of every practical 
   question." (Mill, pg.23)
 
   The technology that is the personal computer, international
computer networks, and other recent contributions embody and put
into practice James Mill's theory of liberty of the press. The
personal computer makes it affordable for most people to have an
information access station in their very own home. There are
international computer networks that exist which allow a person
to have debates with other people across the world, search for
data in various data banks, or even play a computer game.
 
   If a person is affiliated with a university community, works
at a business which pays to connect to the Internet, or pays a
special service a fee, he or she can connect to a network of
computer networks around the world. A connection to this interna-
tional network empowers a person by giving him access to various
services. These services include electronic mail, which means the
ability to send private messages electronically to people across
the world who also have electronic mail boxes. The public alter-
native to this is a service called Usenet News. This service is
an example of James Mill's democratic principles.
 
   Usenet News consists of many newsgroups which each cover a
broad, but yet specific topic. People who utilize Usenet News
typically pick certain newsgroups or topics to focus on. Every
group has several items of discussion going on at the same time.
Some examples of newsgroups include serious topics such as
talk.politics.theory, - people "talking" about current issues
and political theory, sci.econ - people discussing the science of
economics, soc.culture.usa - people debating questions of United
States society; and recreational topics (which might also be
serious) such as alt.rock-n-roll - discussing various aspects of
rock music, rec.sport.hockey - a discussion of hockey and
rec.humor - jokes and humor. The discussions are very active and
provide a source of information that fulfills James Mill's cri-
teria for both more oversight over government and a more informed
population. In a sense, what was once impossible, is now possi-
ble; everyone's letter to the editor is published. (Hauben,
Interview with Staff Member, The Amateur Computerist, v.4 n.2-3
pg.14) What is important is that Usenet News is conducted public-
ly, and is uncensored. This means that everyone can both
contribute and gain from everyone else's opinion.
 
   The importance of Usenet News also exists in that it is an
improvement in communications technology from that of previous
telecommunications. The predecessors to computer networks were
the Ham Radio and Citizen Band Radio (CB). The computer network
is an advance in that it is easier to store, reproduce and
utilize the communications. It is easier to continue a prolonged
question and answer session or debate. The newsgroups on Usenet
News have a distribution designation which allows them to be
available to a wide variety of different size areas - local,
city, national, or international. This allows for a variety of
uses. The problem with the Internet is that in a sense it is only
open to those who either have it provided to them by a university
or company that they are affiliated with, or who pay for it. This
limits part of the current development of the computer networks.
 
   An example of a public enterprise, however, is a computer
service called Freenet in Cleveland, Ohio. Freenet is operated by
Case Western Reserve University as a community service. Anyone
with a personal computer and a modem (a device to connect to
other computers over existing phone lines) can call a local phone
number to connect to Freenet. If members of the public do not own
computers, they can use Freenet at the public library. Besides
Usenet News, Freenet provides free access to a vast variety of
information databases and community information. Freenet is just
one example of the computer networks becoming much more readily
available to broad sectors of society. As part of its databases,
Freenet includes Supreme Court decisions, discussion of political
issues and candidates, and debate over contemporary laws. Freenet
is beginning to exemplify Mill's principle that democracy re-
quires the "use of the cheapest means of communication, and, we
add, the free use of those means." (Mill, pg.20)
 
   This is an exciting time to see the democratic ideas of some
great political thinkers beginning to be practiced. James Mill
wrote that for government to serve the people, it must be watched
by the people utilizing an uncensored press. Freedom of the press
also makes possible the debate necessary for the forming of
well-founded opinions by the people. Usenet and Freenet are
examples of the contemporary electronic practice of the
uncensored accessible press required by Mill. These networks are
also the result of hard work by many people aspiring for more
democracy. However, they still require more help from those
dedicated to the hard fight against tyranny.
 
                          Bibliography
 
Anderson, Bart, Bryan Costales, and Harry Henderson, Unix
Communications Indiana, 1991.
 
Hauben, Michael, "Interview with a Staff Member," The Amateur
Computerist, v.4 n.2-3.
 
Mill, James, Essays on Government, Jurisprudence, Liberty of the
Press, and Law of Nations, reprint, Kelley Publishers, New York,
1967.
 
Mill, John Stuart, "On Liberty" in Three Essays, Oxford, 1975.
 
Paine, Thomas, The Rights of Man in Two Classics of the French
Revolution, Anchor Books, Doubleday. New York, 1989.
 
Watkins, Beverly T, "Freenet helps Case Western fulfill its
Community-Service Mission," April 29, 1992, Chronicle of Higher
Education, pg.A21.


 
               CityNet in Wellington, New Zealand
 
From: Steve.Withers@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Subject: Re: Networks as Social Change Tool
 
Another good example is the Wellington City Council's "CityNet"
here in New Zealand's capital city. CityNet offers seven dialin
lines with 24 hour access to unlimited telnet, ftp, USEnet, IRC
and other Internet services worldwide and free of charge.
 
Public terminals are available in the Wellington City Main
Library for people who do not own computers. There is also
Senior Net, run by Wellington City Council and Telecom New
Zealand. Senior Net allows elderly people to converse in real-
time with other seniors in the US and around the world via
computer. The computers are Digital PC's and are located at a
convenient central location.
 
Back to CityNet. Local planning regulation, bylaws, and other
documents of interest are available for ratepayers to read on-
line or download. Ratepayers can also send e-mail to the mayor or
City Councilors or other city administrators.
 
This is a great concept. The ratepayers pay for the service in
the first place - so why not let the ratepayers use it? Sounds
like common sense to me, yet this is very rare among
municipalities.
 
Steve Withers, Wellington, New Zealand
 
 
Learning About Usenet and Freenet
 
From: urkastig@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu (Robert Kastigar)
Subject: HELP learning
 
   I saw your name and address in a new conference that popped up
on my...Hell, I don't even know what to call it! It was a
conference or something on a university computer. It suggested
new computer users and computer training. I thought I'd look.
 
   When it mentioned the outgrowth of a joint union/management
program (that was discontinued) it REALLY got my attention.
 
   When I saw your name, and your affiliation with the Cleveland
Freenet, I decided to send you this message. The funny thing is,
I'm not even sure I'm going to be able to mail it!
 
   Let me introduce myself: I'm a 30 year member of a labor
union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local
1220.
 
   I work as a technician in television. I've been active both in
my union and my trade. I bought my first computer about 13 years
ago. The more I learn, the dumber I realize I seem to be getting.
 
   I have taught groups in computer technology, both within our
union and company. I started a public access dialup Bulletin
Board for our local union about 5 years ago, with moderate
success.
 
   I am also a student at Northeastern Illinois University in
Chicago, an undergraduate. I could have graduated some time ago,
but I haven't finished my education yet.
 
   As "sysop" of our local's Bulletin Board, I am continuously
looking for material for the BBS related to labor. I stumbled
across the Cleveland Freenet some time ago and decided that
this might well be a motherload of material. One drawback: it
was a long distance call.
 
   Then I heard of the Internet (from the Cleveland Freenet) and
found out that, as a student, I had access to it! However, there
was another drawback: learn UNIX, not DOS.
 
   At my advanced age, is there no end to this learning?
 
   So my question, which I hope you can help me with, is this: Is
it possible for me to "log onto" the Cleveland Freenet via this
Internet connection courtesy of the local college? If so, how?
 
   I realize that 'the local college' and this Internet itself,
and this trn (trn is a Usenet News newsreader -ed) service is a
vast repository of information, but I don't know how to access
it! At least the Cleveland Freenet BBS was user-friendly, even at
the cost of a long distance phone call.
 
   I do have an account at the Cleveland Freenet; my logon name
is ce763. My logon name, and address at Northeastern Illinois
University is urkastig@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu. My real life name is Bob
Kastigar! (It occurs to me that maybe I ought to get rid of one
of those two computer names to avoid mail getting sent to the
wrong place. But if I do that, then I won't have a name and
password to get into that system! Is this a problem?)
 
   I really don't expect you to be my 'personal tutor' - just
tell me where to go to get started learning. If you did THAT in
your newsletter, that would be a service. (See article Two Books
to Help Users elsewhere in this issue -ed)
 
   By the way, can I quote/ borrow/ steal from your newsletter
material and use it on my Local's BBS, if I give credit for the
source? Is this 'legit' to do from other TRN (i.e. Usenet News -
ed.) conferences?
 
   I mentioned my local union is one of technicians. You would be
amazed at how few of them realize that the computer can be a
useful tool for communications! Do work, write letters, operate
machine, balance checkbooks - computers are fine for that. But to
use a computer to learn, get information, or write epistles to
other PEEPUL? to communicate? Somehow it strikes terror in some
people.
 
   Thank you for any help you can offer.
 
  (Sorry about the double spacing of this message. I composed it
off-line. Is this like chat? talk?)
 
(Editor's note: The IBEW Local 1220 BBS can be reached at
708-292-1223)
 
                          Freenet BBS's
 
   There are several Freenet computer BBS's that have become
available to computer users who can access the Internet. Also,
these BBS's have local telephone numbers. Following are some of
these BBS's, their Internet addresses and their telephone
numbers:
 
Cleveland Freenet
  freenet-in-a.cwru.edu
  216-368-3888
  (sign in as fnguest)
Youngstown Freenet
  yfn.ysu.edu
  216-742-3072
  (log in as visitor)
Heartland Freenet (Peoria Illinois)
  heartland.bradley.edu
  309-674-1100
  (visitor ID is: bbguest)
Lorain County Freenet
(Lorain County, Ohio)
  Lorain: 216-277-2359
  Elyria: 216-366-9753
  (visitor ID is: guest)
Medina County Freenet
(Medina, Ohio)
  216-723-6732
Tri-State Online
(Cincinnati, Ohio)
  513-579-1990
  (visitor ID is: visitor)
 
                    In Defense of Technology:
    `Arte', Computers and the Wonderful World of Usenet News:
                    A Historical Perspective
                         (in two parts)
 
   "Another advantage of industry and of refinements in the
mechanical arts, is that ...Minds...being once aroused from their
lethargy, are put into fermentation, turn themselves on all sides
and carry improvements into every art and science."
  David Hume, "Of Refinements in the Arts"

   "Can we expect, that a government will be well modelled by a
people, who know not how to make a spinning-wheel, or to employ a
loom to advantage?"
  David Hume, "Of Refinements in the Arts"
 
                          INTRODUCTION
 
   During the past two decades there have been important 
technological breakthroughs. The personal computer, a science 
fiction dream for generations, is now available as a household 
appliance in a way that only the typewriter was just a few years 
ago. Also, a public conferencing network called Usenet News 
carried on telecommunications networks like the Internet, UUCP, 
and others, encourages public discussion and free exchange of 
ideas on a world wide scale.
 
   The social implications of these developments are rarely
discussed in the public arena. Instead the voices dominating any
public discussion usually are those of condemnation of the
computer and of criticism of technological change and
development. This article is an effort to begin serious discus-
sion of these technological advances. It is also an effort to
examine how such technological developments can increase the
social wealth of our society.
 
   Part 1 looks back to how philosophers and other serious
thinkers historically evaluated the role of such new technology
in increasing the social wealth of a society. It examines how
they established the principles needed to answer critics of
technological change and development.
(See 'Arte', page 12)
 
   Part 2 describes one of the most important 
technological achievements of the 20th century - Usenet News. 
Finally this article concludes that it is only by the active 
encouragement and participation in the computer and technological 
revolution that a better world can be won.
 
                             Part 1
      The Role of "Arte" in the Production of Social Wealth
 
   The question of whether technological development benefits
society is an important question. Recently there have been
numerous articles, books, journals, etc. that claim such devel-
opments are only harmful to society. (For references to some of
this literature see "Questioning Technology", The Whole Earth
Review, No. 73, Winter, 1991.) The social implications of new
technological developments like the computer and the
telecommunications networks it has made possible, should not be
dismissed as harmful developments as this literature implies.
Voices defending these developments as the significant social
advances they are, need to become part of the public debate. To
gain some perspective on the principles at stake in this
controversy, it is helpful to look back to early economic writers
and their studies about the value to a society of "arte" or what
modern writers would call the development of technology.
 
   Writing in the Great French Encyclopedia, Diderot (1713-1784)
pointed out the striking contradiction of modern society. Even
though the wealth of society is produced by those who do the work
of that society, they are the least respected and the study of
the "mechanical arts" which is necessary to make work most
productive is treated with disdain and disrespect. Diderot,
defining "Art" describes this contradiction. He writes: "Place on
one side of the balance the real benefits of the most exalted
sciences and the most honored `arts' and on the other side those
of the `mechanical arts', and you will find that the esteem
granted to both has not been distributed in the correct
proportion of these benefits; and that people praised much more
highly those men who were engaged in making us believe that we
were happy, than those men actually engaged in doing so. What odd
judgments we make! We demand that people be usefully employed and
we scorn useful men."(1)
 
   The 17th and 18th centuries were a period of profound social
and economic change. This period of history saw great
transformation in the ability of society to produce the
necessities and conveniences of life for a growing population.
Accompanying this social transformation was a growing concern
with the role that the mechanical arts (called "arte") play in
the production of social wealth on the part of those who tried to
apply the methods of science to economic questions.
 
   Such concern with the question of "arte" was not new.
Philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had examined this economic
category, considering it one of the important categories to be
studied. For Plato, as he explains in his dialogue "Protagoras,"
the mechanical arts were akin to a gift from the gods, the sole
advantage that humans had in their struggle for survival with the
rest of the animal kingdom. They were the essential element which
gave people the ability to survive in a hostile world.
 
   Plato tells the story of how the gods Prometheus and
Epimetheus were charged with populating the world with living
creatures. They created a variety of life, giving to each species
an advantage to help it to survive. But by the time they came to
create humans, they had exhausted the traits they could provide.
"Man alone," remarks Plato, "was naked and shoeless, and had
neither bed nor arms of defense." Plato then explains how
Prometheus, not knowing how else to be helpful to humans, "stole
the mechanical arts of Hephaestus and Athene, and fire with them
(they could neither have been acquired nor used without fire),
and gave them to man." Thus Plato, via this parable, shows how
only the mechanical arts, which differentiated humans from the
rest of the animal kingdom, have made human life sustainable.(2) 
 
   Aristotle demonstrates a similar high regard for "arte" which
is defined as "scientific knowledge and the corresponding skill
of how to produce something in accordance with that
knowledge."(3) In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes
art from nature and explains that "Every art is concerned with
bringing something into existence and to think by art is to
investigate how to generate something which may or may not exist
and of which the [moving] principle is in the producer and not in
the thing produced."(4) He goes on to explain that arte is con-
cerned with things which do not have this [moving] or
regenerating principle in themselves. That arte is concerned with
the production of things that nature does not create on her own.
Hence arte requires the human creator and makes possible the
manifold creations which nature does not provide for on her own.
 
   Several British writers of the 17th and 18th centuries
continued the Greek tradition of respect for "arte" or "techne"
as the Greek word is transliterated. The mechanical arts were
necessary for the production of the food and clothes and shelter
needed to provide for a population that was moving from the land
under feudalism into the towns and cities that would characterize
the industrial revolution. The annual production of such food,
clothing, shelter and other necessities and conveniences of life
were considered social wealth by these writers. And the economic
category "arte" was seen as the means of facilitating the
production of this social wealth. Thus the economic category
"arte" became a pressing concern.
 
   Sir William Petty (1623-1687) who has been called "The Father
of Scientific Political Economy" isolated four economic
categories as being crucial for the production of social wealth.
They were labor, land (i.e. nature), arte and stock. Petty main-
tained that the two essential categories were labor and land, and
that labor was the active element and nature the passive element.
He wrote "Labor is the Father and active principle of wealth as
Lands are the Mother."(5) Though human beings could survive
without 'arte', Petty believed that 'arte' was an important
component of life, making it possible to produce more of the
goods and necessities of life with less labor. "Art," he explains
is "equal to the labor and skill of many in producing
commodities."(6)
 
   In order to increase the public wealth available to society,
Sir William Petty saw only two alternatives. "People must either
work harder," he wrote, "or introduce labor saving processes."
These labor saving processes, according to Petty, save the labor
of many hands and provide more riches for society. "One man by
art," Petty writes, "may do as much work as many without it." (7)
He gives several examples: "viz one Man with a Mill can grind as
much Corn as twenty can pound in a Mortar; one Printer can make
as many Copies, as a Hundred Men can write by hands; one Horse
can carry upon Wheels, as much as Five upon their Backs; and, in
a Boat, or upon ice, as Twenty...."(8) 
 
   For Petty, the choice facing society was to have "few hands"
"laboring harder" or "by introducing the Compendium and
Facilitations of Art" to have a few workers doing the work of
many.(9)

   He refers to the example of Holland which had the advantage of
being able to use Windmills instead of hand labor and thereby the
"advantage of the labor of many thousand Hands is saved, for as
much as a Mill made by one Man in half a year, will do as much
Labor as four Men for five years together."(10) Petty reasoned
that the use of arte to save human labor was a continuing benefit
to society. He demonstrated the long term social advantage gained
from arte over simple labor by an illustration comparing the
production by 'arte' with that of simple labor. "For if by such
Simple Labor," writes Petty, "I could dig and prepare for Seed a
hundred acres in a thousand days; suppose then, I spend a hundred
days in studying a more compendious way, and in contriving Tools
for the same purpose; but in all the hundred days dig nothing."
If he takes the remaining nine hundred days to dig two hundred
Acres of Ground, "then," Petty concludes, "I say, that the Art
which cost but one hundred days Invention is worth one Man's
labor forever; because the new Art, and one Man, performed as
much as two Men could have done without it."(11) 
 
   The social advantage of arte, according to Petty, is that a
large portion of the population is freed from having to produce
the goods needed by society and thus available for other
important work, especially for scientific pursuits. The remaining
people, Petty writes "may safely and without possible prejudice
to the Commonwealth, be employed in Arts and Exercises of
pleasure and ornament; the greatest whereof is the Improvement of
natural knowledge."(pg.12)
 
   When Petty identifies and describes "arte", his writing is a
part of a body of economic literature during the 17th and 18th
centuries which set out to scientifically define this economic
category. In his article "`Art' and `Ingenious Society'"
reprinted in his book Predecessors of Adam Smith" [1937] (New
York, 1960 reprint, Chapter XIII), E. A. J. Johnson gathers
several descriptions of "arte" and looks at what Petty and other
17th and 18th century economic commentators considered as the
role of "arte" and the effect it has had on the development of
society.
 
   David Hume (1711-1776), one of the economists Johnson
discusses, echoes Plato's emphasis on the importance of "arte" in
distinguishing human beings from other animals. "There is one
fundamental difference between man and other animals," Hume
wrote, "...Nature has `endowed the former with a sublime
celestial spirit, and having given him an affinity with superior
beings, she allows not such noble faculties to lie lethargic or
idle, but urges him by necessity to employ, on every emergence,
his utmost art and industry'." (Predecessors of Adam Smith,
pg. 264.)
 
   In this sense "Art" is, according to Johnson, "an ennobling
faculty, implanted by Nature, which separates man from the rest
of the zoological world by making greater production
possible."(Ibid.) Writers like Petty and Hume saw "arte" as the

ability to utilize technology to abridge labor, and thus as a
wondrous faculty peculiar to humans as part of the animal
kingdom.
 
   Other literary figures, like Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) in Plan
of the English Commerce and writers of economic tracts like The
Advantages of the East India Trade to England Consider'd (1707),
provide examples of the environmental and economic benefits which
accompany the increased use of tools and machines to abridge the
labor necessary for production. In Russia, Defoe explains, where
"Labor was not assisted by Art" there was "no other Way to cut
out a large Plank, but by felling a great Tree and then with a
multitude of Hands and Axes hew away all the Sides of the Timber,
till they reduced the middle to one large Plank." The Swedes or
Prussians, on the other hand, Defoe explains, "could cut three or
four, or more Planks of the like Size from one Tree by the Help
of Saws and Saw Mills. The Consequence" Defoe points out, is
"that the miserable Russian labored ten times as much as the
other (the Swedes and the Prussians -ed.) for the Same Money." 
(13) Not only does "arte" make it possible for more goods
to be produced by less labor, but "arte" also makes it possible
to produce more planks of lumber from each tree. When "arte" is
used, fewer trees need to be cut down. And high wages can be paid
to those workers using the most modern technology as they produce
more goods with less labor than workers who use backward produc-
tion techniques.
 
   The anonymous author of The Advantages of the East India Trade
to England Consider'd (1707) equates advanced technology with the
ability to produce goods more cheaply though the workers
producing them continue to earn higher wages. This writer
maintains, "Arts, and Mills, and Engines, which save the labor of
Hands, are ways of doing things with less labor, and consequently
with labor of less price, though the Wages of Men imploy'd to do
them shou'd not be abated." (pg.66) He also demonstrates the
beneficial catalyst such modern technology provides in encour-
aging new inventions and discoveries. He writes, "And thus the
East India Trade by procuring things with less, and consequently
cheaper labor, is a very likely way of forcing Men upon the
invention of Arts and Engines, by which other things may also be
done with less and cheaper labor, and therefore may abate the
price of Manufactures, tho' the Wages of Men shou'd not be
abated." (pg.67) By using "arte", this writer contends, all
aspects of the production process are improved. He writes that
'arte' "is no unlikely way to introduce ...more Order and
Regularity into our English Manufactures...." (pg.67)
 
   John Cary, in An Essay on the State of England in Relation to
its Trade (1695, reprint England, 1972), observes that because of
"arte" the price of many manufactures like glass bottles, silk
stockings, sugar, etc. went down even though the wages of the
workers weren't cut. "But then the question will be, how this is
done?" he asks, and he answers "It proceeds from the Ingenuity of
the Manufacturer, and the Improvements he makes in his ways of
working, thus the Refiner of Sugars goes thro' that operation in
a Month, which our Forefathers required four Months to effect."
And "the Distillers draw more Spirits, and in less time...than
those formerly did who taught them the Art." (pg.145-6) 
 
   Cary goes on to list other examples of how improvements in
arte have led to changes in production that have increased the
goods available to the population though they cost less labor and
so are cheaper. He writes: "The Glassmaker hath found a quicker
way of making it out of things which cost him little or nothing,
Silk Stockings are wove instead of knit; Tobacco is cut by
Engines instead of Knives; Books are printed instead of
written;...Lead is smelted by Wind-Furnaces, instead of blowing
with Bellows; all which save the labor of many Hands, so the
Wages of those employed need not be lessened." (pg.146)

   Cary observes that the price of goods has come down, even
though their desirability has improved. He writes, "The variety
of our Woollen Manufactures is so pretty, that Fashion makes a
thing worth both at Home and Abroad twice the Price it is sold
for.... Artificers by Tools and Laves fitted for different Uses
make such things as would puzzle a Stander by to set a price on
according to the worth of Men's Labor; the Plummer by new
Inventions casts a Tun of Shott for Ten Shillings, which an
indifferent Person could not guess worth less than
Fifty."(pg.146) After showing how a similar trend has occurred in
the Navigation trades, Cary concludes, "New Projections are every
day set on foot to render making our Manufactures easy, which are
made cheap...not by falling the Price of poor People's Labor."
 
   Also, he shows how these advances lead to a general
environment of improved methods of production. "Pits are
drained," Cary writes, "and Land made Healthy by Engines and
Aquaeducts instead of Hands; the Husbandman turns up his Soil
with the Sallow, not digs it with his Spade; Sowes his Grain, not
plants it; covers it with the Harrow, not with the Rake; brings
home his Harvest with Carts, not on Horseback; and many other
easy Methods are used both for improving of Land and raising its
Product, which are obvious to the Eyes of Men versed therein,
though do not come within the Compass of my present Thoughts."
(pg.147-148) And, he notes, these improvements not only lessen
the number of laborers needed to do the work, but also make
possible the payment of higher wages.

   According to these early British economists, Government has a
role to play to support the development of technology. "It should
therefore," writes Johnson, "be the duty of the state to increase
`art'." (Predecessors, pg.266)
 
   Once the sense of "arte" as the abridgement of labor via some
mechanical or scientific means is established, it is useful to
look at the effect "arte" has had on the life and health of
society.

   Several essays written by David Hume consider the role arte
plays in determining whether a society flourishes or decays, and
thus whether the society can produce the wealth needed to support
its people. Hume observes the correlation between a society's
support for the mechanical arts and its political and
intellectual achievements.(14)
 
   "The same age," writes Hume, "which produces great
philosophers and politicians, renowned generals and poets,
usually abounds with skillful weavers and ship-carpenters."
 
   Describing Hume's model of the role "arte" plays in the
evolution of social progress, Johnson writes:
 
   "The metamorphosis of society from a rude and simple state to
a refined and polished one was clear: first came the development
of `art' whereby the products of the earth were worked up; this
increased the productivity of a nation's land and its population,
thereby permitting the population to expand further; the existing
`art' and its cumulative progress increased the number of
occupations (together with the incomes derived therefrom);
lastly, higher incomes and higher levels of comfort `gave birth
to new desires'." (from Predecessors, pg.276-7)
 
   Hume maintains that a vibrant intellectual environment is the
product, not the cause of social support for mechanical invention
and the mastery of mechanical techniques. "By means of the
`arts'," he writes, "the minds of men, being once roused from
their lethargy, are put into fermentation, turn themselves on all
sides and carry improvements into every art and science." ("Of
Refinement in the Arts," in Writings on Economics, pg.22) Thus
every area of human thought is affected by the development of
"arte", every area becomes subject to scientific analysis. By
example, Hume shows how social support for technology and
mechanical invention will lead to more productive means of
farming as the farmer will then subject agriculture to analysis
and observation and, as Hume writes:
 
  "When a nation abounds in manufactures and mechanic arts, the   
  proprietors of land, as well as the farmers, study agriculture 
  as a science, and redouble their industry and attention.... By 
  this means, land furnishes a great deal more of the necessaries 
  of life...."
                     ("Of Commerce," in Writings on Economics," 
                     pg.11 [Johnson ref. pg.271])
 
  Thus attention to the mechanical world stimulates ferment in
all other intellectual areas. As Hume explains in his essay, "Of
Refinement in the Arts":
 
   "In times when industry and the arts flourish, men are kept in
   perpetual occupation, and enjoy, as their reward, the 
   occupation itself, as well as those pleasures which are the 
   fruit of their labor. The mind acquires new vigor; enlarges 
   its powers and faculties; and by an assiduity in honest 
   industry, both satisfies its natural appetites, and prevents 
   the growth of unnatural ones, which commonly spring up, when 
   nourished by ease and idleness."
                    (Writings on Economics, pg.21)

   Similarly, there is a negative effect when people are deprived
of the ability to interact with the mechanical arts: "Banish
those arts from society, you deprive men both of action and of
pleasure; and leaving nothing but indolence in their place, you
even destroy the relish of indolence, which never is
agreeable...." (Ibid., pg.21-22)
 
   Hume explains how the development of the liberal arts is
dependent upon the development and support for the mechanical
arts. He writes:
 
   "Another advantage of industry and of refinement in the
   mechanical arts, is, that they commonly produce some 
   refinements in the liberal (arts-ed)." 
                             (Ibid., pg.22)
  
   He sees the development of the mechanical arts as the primary
activity which leads to the development of the liberal arts.
However, to develop each, he explains, attention must be paid to
the development of the other as well: "Nor can one be carried to
perfection, without being accompanied, in some degree with the
other." (Ibid.)
 
  "The same age," he explains, "which produces great
philosophers and politicians, renowned generals and poets,
usually abounds with skillful weavers, and shipcarpenters. We
cannot reasonably expect," Hume observes, "that a piece of
woollen cloth will be brought to perfection in a nation, which is
ignorant of astronomy, or where ethics are neglected. The spirit
of the age affects all the arts....Profound ignorance," he
writes, "is totally banished, and men enjoy the privilege of
rational creatures, to think as well as to act, to cultivate the
pleasures of the mind as well as those of the body." (Ibid.)
 
   Not only does the fermentation stimulated by mechanical
activity and invention lead to a renaissance in intellectual
development, but it also affects sociability. Hume writes: "The
more these refined arts advance, the more sociable men become:
nor is it possible that, when enriched with science, and
possessed of a fund of conversation, they should be contented to
remain in solitude, or live with their fellow citizens in that
distant manner, which is peculiar to ignorant and barbarous
nations. They flock into cities; love to receive and communicate
knowledge; to show their wit or their breeding; their taste in
conversation or living, in clothes or furniture...." (Ibid.)
 
   This ferment leads to the development of social organizations,
Hume explains:
 
   "Particular clubs and societies are everywhere formed: Both
   sexes meet in an easy and sociable manner: and the tempers of
   men, as well as their behavior, refine apace. So that, beside 
   the improvements which they receive from knowledge and the 
   liberal arts, it is impossible but they must feel an increase 
   of humanity, from the very habit of conversing together and 
   contribute to each other's pleasure and entertainment."
                                  (Ibid., pg.22-23)
 
  He summarizes, "Thus industry, knowledge, and humanity, are
linked together by an indissoluble chain...." (Ibid., pg.23)
 
   People privately benefit from the development of technology
and industry; more importantly, a public benefit is achieved.
"But industry, knowledge, and humanity," Hume writes, "are not
advantageous in private life alone: They diffuse their beneficial
influence on the public, and render the government as great and
flourishing as they make individuals happy and generous. The
increase and consumption of all the commodities, which serve to
the ornament and pleasure of life, are advantageous to society;
because, at the same time that they multiply those innocent
gratifications to individuals, they are a kind of storehouse of
labor, which, in the exigencies of state, may be turned to public
service." (Ibid., pg.23-24)
 
   Not only did Hume show how attention to and support for the
mechanical arts leads to an increase in social wealth, he also
contends that the form of government, and the development of the
political structures of the society are dependent on the level of
development of the industry in that society. He writes:
 
   "Laws, order, police, discipline; these can never be carried
to any degree of perfection, before human reason has refined
itself by exercise, and by an application to the more vulgar
arts, at least of commerce and manufacture. Can we expect, that a
government will be well modelled by a people, who know not how to
make a spinning-wheel, or to employ a loom to advantage?" (Ibid.,
pg.24)
 
   Similarly, Hume connects bad government with ignorance in the
mechanical arts, "Not to mention that all ignorant ages are
infested with superstition, which throws the government off its
bias, and disturbs men in the pursuit of their interest and
happiness." (Ibid.)
 
   Furthermore, Hume relates the development of political liberty
to the development of technology. He writes, "The liberties of
England, so far from decaying since the improvements in the arts,
have never flourished so much as during that period." (Ibid.,
pg.27) 
 
   He finds a symbiotic relationship between the progress of the
mechanical arts [i.e. `arte'- ed] in a society and the
possibility of good government. In societies which encourage the
mechanical arts to develop, larger sections of the population
have the time and know how to fashion a more democratic and
responsive government. Where technological development is
discouraged, a greater part of the population has to spend all of
its time producing for subsistence and has no time to devote to
oversight of the government. Hume explains:

   "If we consider the matter in a proper light, we shall find,
   that a progress in the arts is rather favorable to liberty, 
   and has a natural tendency to preserve, if not produce a free
   government. In rude unpolished nations, where the arts are
   neglected, all labor is bestowed on the cultivation of the
   ground; and the whole society is divided into two classes,
   proprietors of land, and their vassals or tenants. The latter    
   are necessarily dependent and fitted for slavery and 
   subjection; especially where they possess no riches, and are 
   not valued for their knowledge in agriculture; as must always 
   be the case where the arts [i.e. mechanical arts - ed] are 
   neglected."
                          (Ibid., pg.28)
 
  He observes that in a land based society, tyranny is the norm:
 
   "The former naturally erect themselves into petty tyrants; and
   must either submit to an absolute master, for the sake of 
   peace and order; or if they will preserve their independence, 
   like the ancient barons, they must fall into feuds and 
   contests among themselves, and throw the whole society into 
   such confusion, as is perhaps worse than the most despotic 
   government."
                           (Ibid.)
             
   Not only was Hume a proponent of public support for
technological development, he also maintained that increasing the
wealth available to all strata of the population was beneficial
to industrial development. He observed that increasing the share
of the social wealth, and even of the luxury available to poorer
sections of society makes possible more democratic political
institutions. "But where luxury nourishes commerce and industry,"
he writes, "the peasants, by a proper cultivation of the land
become rich and independent; while the tradesmen and merchants
acquire a share of the property, and draw authority and
consideration to that middling rank of men, who are the best and
firmest basis of public liberty. These submit not to slavery,
like the peasants, from poverty and meanness of spirit; and
having no hopes of tyrannizing over others, like the barons, they
are not tempted for the sake of that gratification, to submit to
the tyranny of their sovereign. They covet equal laws, which may
secure their property, and preserve them from monarchial, as well
as aristocratical tyranny." (Ibid., pg.28-9)
 
   Thus he traces the development of the government in England
attributing changes to the level of technological development of
the nation's industry.
 
   Hume describes how the House of Commons in England evolved
from the growth and expansion of industry:
 
   "The lower house is the support of our popular government; and
   all the world acknowledges, that it owed its chief influence 
   and consideration to the increase of commerce, which threw 
   such a balance of property into the hands of the commons. How 
   inconsistent then is it to blame so violently a refinement in 
   the arts, (i.e. mechanical arts -ed.) and to represent it as 
   the bane of liberty and public spirit!"
                          (Ibid., pg.29)
 
   Hume's defense of technology against its detractors has a
familiar ring. His writings represent a criticism of those who
dismiss the benefits of the computer because of a supposed loss
of privacy or increase in the potential for government control
over the lives of its citizens. Hume's writings challenge these
efforts to blame the computer for such problems and instead they
point an arrow to the democratic achievements of the last part of
the 20th century that are the result of computer technology.
  
  One of the most exciting of these achievements is the
development of what is known as Usenet News, a worldwide computer
conferencing network that makes possible democratic and
uncensored debate and communication on thousands of subjects for
computer users around the world. Hume's discovery that "arte"
(i.e. the development and support of the mechanical arts) leads
to the possibility of a more democratic set of institutions and
then to the ability to preserve those institutions is being
demonstrated by some of the dramatic applications that have de-
veloped as a result of the widespread use of computer technology.
 
   Johnson's discussion of "arte", the writings of Plato,
Aristotle, Petty, Defoe, and others, and the essays David Hume
wrote on the question of "arte", provide a theoretical
foundation to understand the important advance represented by
Usenet News.
 
NOTES (Part 1)
 
1. "Art", in The Encyclopedia: Selections, edited and translated
by Stephen J. Gendzier, N.Y., 1967, pg.60. A modern example of
such arte is provided by Carl Malamud in Exploring the Internet
(N.J., 1992), pg.100. He writes: "The system takes raw timber and
figures out the most efficient way to saw up the log to produce
the most lumber. In an economy where 30 to 40 percent of GNP is
based on forestry, this system proved quite popular."
 
2. From "Protagoras", in the Works of Plato, vol I, The Franklin
Library, Penn, 1979, pg.81.
 
3. Aristotle's Selected Works, translated by Hippocrates G.
Apostle and Lloyd P. Gerson, 1986, pg.676.
 
4. Ibid., Nicomachean Ethics, 1140a 6-23.
 
5. "A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions", in The Economic
Writings of Sir William Petty, edited by Charles Hull, vol I,
pg.68.
 
6. "History of Trade", Petty Papers, vol I, London, 1927, pg.211.

7. "Political Arithmetick", The Economic Writings, vol. I,
pg.249.
 
8. Ibid., pg.249-250.
 
9. "Verbum Sapienti", The Economic Writings, vol I, pg.118.
 
10. "Political Arithmethic", The Economic Writings, vol I,
pg.256.
 
11. "The Political Anatomy of Ireland", The Economic Writings,
vol I, Works, pg.182.
 
12. "Political Arithmetick", The Economic Writings, pg.270 and
271.
 
13. A Plan of English Commerce, 1730, Augustus Kelley reprint
edition, N.Y., pg.36.
 
14. These essays are from Political Discourses, [Edinburgh,
1752]. Several of the essays have been reprinted in D. Hume,
Writings on Economics, (ed. E. Rotwein [1955] Madison, 1970
reprint).


                    In Defense of Technology:
    `Arte', Computers and the Wonderful World of Usenet News:
                    A Historical Perspective
                         (in two parts)
 
                      Part 2 - USENET NEWS
 
   Usenet News is a world wide public conferencing network that
makes it possible for computer users around the world to have
public discussions, raise questions or problems so they can get
help, or send e-mail (i.e. electronic mail) to each other in
short spans of time. One user explains that it is like a
newspaper where "everyone's letter to the editor is printed." (1)
Usenet News has also been described as a series of electronic
magazines. "These magazines," called `newsgroups,' are devoted to
particular topics, ranging from questions about UNIX, programming
languages, and computer systems to discussions of politics,
philosophy, science, and recreational activities."(2) Usenet News
has been compared to an electronic town meeting of the world or
to a series of electronic soap boxes. Others have observed that
"It's now as if everyone owns a printing press" or even better "a
publishing house." 
 
   Computer users with access to Usenet can read articles on a
broad range of topics. They can contribute their responses or
post articles of their own on any subject in an appropriate
newsgroup. Their submissions are then copied electronically to
computers around the world which are also part of the Usenet
network. Usenet News demonstrates what happens when people are
encouraged and allowed to develop computer technology.
 
   When it was first initiated in 1979, the Usenet logical
network was made possible as a result of the capabilities built
into the UNIX operating system (developed at Bell Labs) and its
networking capacity known as UUCP. (i.e. UNIX to UNIX CoPy)
Today, however, this netnews network involves most of the great
variety of computers and operating systems in use. This network
traffic is carried on a variety of physical networks including
the Internet and UUCP.
 
   Usenet News is estimated to involve 3,000,000 users world wide
and the number of users is continually growing. It was initiated
in 1979 by Tom Truscott and James Ellis, graduate students at
Duke University, and Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the
neighboring University of North Carolina. According to accounts
of the early days that have been circulated on the Net (as Usenet
News is sometimes called), Truscott and Ellis thought of hooking
remote computers together, using homebrew autodial 300 baud
modems connected to telephones. They envisioned creating a poor
man's ARPANET (i.e. The U.S. Department of Defense Network, only
available to those involved with D.O.D. research contracts).(3)
An informal conference was convened by Truscott, Ellis and
Bellovin, where interested people hashed out the basic principles
and needs, and then Bellovin went on to write the first version
of Usenet News in a period of about two weeks. The program was
installed and operating at the first 2 sites: "unc" (i.e. the
University of North Carolina's Computer Science Department) and
"duke" (Duke University's Computer Science Department). Another
site "phs" (the Duke University Medical School's Department of
Physiology) was added early in 1980. They got the software to
work at these three "original sites". A rewritten version of
NetNews software by Stephen Daniel, called "A" version, was later
placed on the conference tape at the Academic UNIX users
association USENIX, at a meeting in 1980.(4)
 
   The early software included the capacity to automatically
swap, via telephone and modem, updated message files among remote
machines. The initial software developed in 1979 was written in
the script language built into the UNIX shell. "The original
shell script implementation involved simply checking the time
stamps on files and sending the files that had changed since the
last check to some other machine," explains Gregory G. Woodbury
in his account of these early days.
 
   He writes, "Under the conditions of the academic UNIX licenses
in those days, the software was placed in the `public domain' and
it was the most popular program from that (USENIX) Conference
Tape. I do not recall that anyone was quite expecting the
explosion that followed."(5)
 
   The original assumption of the programmers of Usenet was that
it would provide a way for a local group of machines to share
news. "The model," Woodbury writes, "was that a campus of a
university would have a news network, and it might be shared with
another university that was logically and physically close to it,
but spatially inconvenient for folks to get together physically,
and that netnews would allow them to share information in a
timely manner."(6)
 
   What developed, though, took everybody by surprise. Woodbury
recounts, "When the direction of evolution took an unexpected
turn, and a continental network emerged, spanning the continent
from California to North Carolina, and Toronto to San Diego, it
was sort of a shock to realize what had happened."(7)
 
   This phenomenal and surprising growth is explained by two
elements. The most important Woodbury emphasizes is "that people
wanted to communicate and would cooperate in effecting that
communication."(8)
 
   The second important element, according to Woodbury, is that
the early Usenet News program was created under the conditions of
the academic UNIX license which then provided that the program be
put into the public domain. And since everyone involved at the
time was working in an academic environment (including Bell Labs
which Woodbury notes was "academic really") where information was
shared, the emphasis was on communication, not on copyright or
other proprietary rights. "Everyone wanted to be on the Net," he
notes, "and it was clear they were cooperating in doing so."(9)

   The phenomenal growth of Usenet News during the early 1980's
was an acknowledgment that it was a superior means of dealing
with the growing mailing lists on various subjects that had
developed on the early ARPAnet network, created under the
auspices of the U.S. Dept. of Defense for its research purposes.
The original script files had been rewritten in C by Steve
Bellovin for use at "unc" and "duke", according to Gene
Spafford's history of the period. Stephen Daniel, Spafford
explains, "did another implementation in C for public
distribution."(10) After Tom Truscott made modifications in this
program, the software became known as the A News release of the
Usenet News program.
 
   "Under the strain of being an international network," Woodbury
explains, "with several new machines being added daily, certain
limitations in the basic assumptions made themselves painfully
obvious." The continuing expansion led to a rewriting of the
software in 1981 by University of California at Berkeley graduate
student Mark Horton and high school student Matt Glickman. This
version was released to the public as B News, version 2.1 in
1982. Then in 1985, the still ever expanding nature of Usenet
News led Henry Spencer and Geoff Collyer at the University of
Toronto to set to work on what is now known as C News which
they released in 1989. Spencer and Collyer paid very careful
attention to the performance aspects of C News. The result is
that it has been able to handle the phenomenal expansion of
Usenet News which continues today.(11)
 
   The administration and coordination of this world wide network
depends to a great extent on the cooperation and diligent work of
the system administrators at the participating sites. In the
early development of Usenet News some of these administrators
knew each other and worked together to establish a series of
general procedures for processes like adding newsgroups. Known as
the "backbone cabal", this group worked together to hash out ways
to deal with problems that threatened the voluntary, cooperative
nature of the net.
 
   This informal structure would contact new site administrators
who joined the Net. The character of the Net as a voluntary
association of people who posted because they wanted to
communicate was conveyed. And the fact that posts were entered
into the "public domain" was established as an essential
principle of the Net.(12)
 
   Usenet News is now made up of thousands of newsgroups
organized around different topics. The number of groups is
constantly growing as there is a democratic procedure established
to provide for new groups. If 100 more users vote for a new group
than vote against it, the group can be started.(13) This
procedure governs new groups in what is known as the "Seven
Sisters" hierarchy which was the collection of the seven
newsgroups at one point known as Usenet News. Some people have
defined Usenet News as those sites receiving the seven main
groups; comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, and talk newsgroups, and
the group news.announce.important. Others have defined Usenet
News as those sites that receive at least one of the newsgroups
that appears on the list of Usenet News newsgroups. There is also
an alternate hierarchy which includes alt, gnu, and other groups.
A more informal procedure is provided for creating an alt group.
The guidelines provide for posting a proposal to the alt.config
newsgroup and then the newsgroup can be set up as an alt group
when a new newsgroup control message is posted to the control
newsgroup.
 
   The phenomenal growth and richness of Usenet News demonstrates
the important role "arte" still plays in the development of
social achievements. Many of the people using and contributing to
Usenet News are people who have respect for and work with
computer technology. Many of these people have a need for Usenet
News to get help with problems they encounter in dealing with
computer technology. One of the early functions of Usenet News
was to help identify bugs in new technology and to identify and
propagate ways to deal with the problems.(14) 
 
   My experience using Usenet News has been inspiring. I was
interested in discussions involving economics and the history of
economic thought. When I first got onto Usenet News I couldn't
figure out where such discussions would take place. I managed to
get access to the misc.books.technical newsgroup. I didn't know
what the other newsgroups were or how to find out. Not knowing
how to proceed I entered the following post:
   From: au329@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Ronda Hauben)
   Newsgroups: misc.books.technical
   Date: 10 Jan 92 07:48:58 GMT
   Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, 
                 Ohio, (USA)
   Nntp-Posting-Host: cwns9.ins.cwru.edu
 
   I am interested in discussing the history of economics -- i.e.
mercantilists, physiocrats, adam smith, ricardo, marx, marshall,
keynes etc. With the world in such a turmoil it would seem that
the science of economics needs to be reinvigorated.
   Is there anyplace on Usenet News where this kind of discussion
is taking place? If not is there anyone else interested in
starting a conference .economics and how would I go about doing
this. This is my first time on Usenet News.
      Ronda
      au329@cleveland.freenet.edu
 
   One of the many responses I received said:
   "Start discussing on sci.econ. We're all ears."(15)
 
   I received several other responses via e-mail also pointing me
to the sci.econ newsgroup or indicating interest in the topic.
Also, a computer user from California sent me e-mail with a list
of all the newsgroups that existed. Another user from Scotland
wrote telling me the name of the news file which listed the names
of the newsgroups. It is considered good NETIQUETTE (i.e. Network
Etiquette) to help new users and many of the experienced users
are very willing to do so.
 
   A few users suggested that I might want to try to start a
newsgroup for the history of economics, but that it would
probably be a wise idea to either wait awhile until I got used to
netnews before trying to initiate a group, or else try to get a
user with more experience to help.
 
   The list of newsgroups posted on Usenet News in various news
newsgroups like news.misc contains descriptions of each group.
Sci.econ is described as "the science of economics."(See also
UNIX Communications, pg.248)
 
   I have found the discussions in this newsgroup valuable. There
are often debates over important economic questions. Many of the
questions discussed concern broad social issues -- for example,
wage slavery, the development of different social forms of
society, whether economics is a science, whether the so called
"free market" has ever existed to regulate production, etc. There
has been discussion of a variety of economic and political issues
- like social security, rent control, strikes in Germany,
national health care reform, the need for shorter hours of work,
the GM plant closures, taxes, the economic programs of
presidential candidates, the role of markets in setting prices,
the economic program of Henry George, etc.
 
   Many of the other newsgroups on Usenet News are related to
computers and computer subjects. There are newsgroups where one
can ask questions regarding access to Usenet News, or about books
that are recommended for people who want to learn more about UNIX
or any other area of computer usage, etc. It is also possible to
write to someone who has posted a question and ask them to
forward a copy or summary of the responses they receive so the
post doesn't have to be duplicated. There are also newsgroups
dealing with political issues, social issues, current events,
hobbies, science, education, etc.
 
   When someone posted a critique of GM plant closures the night
that GM announced that it would lay off 70,000 people, several
people sent e-mail to the person who entered the comment saying
that it was good to see the post. Thus when someone makes an
interesting post, it is possible to send e-mail to the person and
begin to correspond, or just encourage the user to continue.
 
   Also there are political components being developed. For
example, there was an announcement that a vote was in progress to
determine whether or not there should be a classics newsgroup. If
one wrote voting "yes" or "no", the user would then be told to
verify that the vote was accurately recorded when the list was
posted announcing the final totals. Thus a procedure has been
worked out on Usenet News acknowledging that votes can't be by
secret ballot, but must be open and posted, with the person
voting having the ability to verify the outcome. 
 
   Unfortunately there are also frustrating aspects of Usenet
News. The great variety and number of posts can take considerable
time to survey and thus it is difficult to keep up with the
volume at times. A variety of software readers have been created,
to help deal with this problem.(16) Though these readers have
been copyrighted, many are freely available as long as they are
being used for personal use, not for profit. Despite the
difficulty keeping up with volume and other problems that have
developed in the course of building the netnews network(17), many
of the users on Usenet News are willing to be active participants
in the development and working out of the content and form of the
network. Many people send e-mail or post public responses when
they have something to say about a post. In this way,
communication is encouraged and exciting as one person builds on
another's contribution, and all become more knowledgeable through
the process of democratic discussion and debate.
 
   Usenet News has thus evolved a functioning governing structure
that is democratic and open in ways that have only been dreamed
of in the past. Many of the details of the copying, distribution
and propagation of Usenet News are done via automatic machinery
and programs which require that the system administrators who
make the system function work together to solve their common
problems. This same kind of cooperative relationship has been
encouraged by these system administrators among the users of
Usenet News and this cooperative standard of activity is known as
Netiquette.
 
   Many on Usenet News call the structure which functions
anarchy. But, Jean Jacques Rousseau, in A Discourse on Political
Economy, explains that the best laws are those which the
population implements voluntarily rather than via force. Thus
"Netiquette" is a system of rules or standards that users on the
Net are encouraged to follow. Also, commercial traffic and
commercial uses of netnews have been strictly limited and
circumscribed for several reasons. Among these have been the need
since the early days of Usenet News to keep commercial self-
serving traffic from both escalating the phone costs and the
noise (i.e. proportion of useless information to useful
information) of Usenet News. When the Internet became one of the
major transport mechanisms of Usenet News traffic, the prohibi-
tions against commercial traffic arising from the public funding
of the NSF backbone became a factor.(18) This restriction of self
serving and private profit making commercial purposes has
resulted in the open communication and cooperation which
proprietary self serving corporate agendas would make impossible.
Thus the governing laws (Netiquette) and structures (cooperative
and helpful) are the demonstration that more democratic
government is now possible and can achieve significant social ad-
vances and also facilitate the development of technological labor
saving breakthroughs (`arte'). On the net, the participants gain
from being active and from helping each other. People who post or
send e-mail are contributors to the culture and all gain from
each other's active efforts. A vibrant and informative bottom up,
interactive grassroots culture has been created and a broad,
worldwide, informative and functioning telecommunications network
is the product of their labors.
 
   Thus the intellectual ferment that David Hume describes as the
result of one's participation in the development of technology,
is an appropriate description of the phenomenal growth and
achievement of Usenet News. This ferment is the needed support
for the development of technology and the development of this
technology makes possible the needed political and social changes
that are required to have the technology function. The study of
economic writers who discuss the importance of such technology is
helpful in assessing the significance of such practical
developments of our contemporary times.
 
   In the 2nd half of an "Interview with a Staff Member" in The
Amateur Computerist (vol 4, no 4), there was the prediction that
connecting to Usenet News would be a significant leap forward, as
it would represent the connection for computer users with the
world. That prediction has been fulfilled by the exciting world
of computers that is available to a user who has access to Usenet
News.(19) Also, the achievement of Usenet News demonstrates the
importance of facilitating the development of uncensored speech
and communication -- there is debate and discussion - one person
influences another - people build on each other's strengths and
interests, differences, etc.
 
   Traditionally, it would require the labor of many people, much
paper, ink, and other supplies to accomplish such a massive
communication network via traditional means of newspapers or
magazines, etc. With Usenet News, however, this communication
among people and computers is accomplished via a high degree of
automation. By participating in Usenet News, millions of people
and their computers are connected into a machine that is part of
"the largest machine that man has ever constructed -- the global
telecommunications network." (20) Also, Usenet News makes it
possible for people to print up their own copies of what is
available online, without using all the paper or ink that has
traditionally been required for a press.
 
   So Welcome to the Wonderful World of Usenet News - it's
happening and it is one of the most important achievements of the
20th Century. It is very exciting to be connected with it and
just as David Hume observed over 200 years ago, participating in
the world of technology and automation being used for
telecommunications and Usenet News is indeed the basis for
beginning to do the work needed to bring the better world that
the computer is now making possible.
Ronda (ae547@yfn.ysu.edu)
 
Notes (Part 2):
* UNIX and AT&T are registered trademarks of AT&T Bell Labs.
 
(1) See "Interview with Staff member," The Amateur Computerist, 
vol 4, no 2/3, pg.10.
 
(2) Unix Communications, by Bart Anderson, Brian Costales, and

Hart Henderson, Indiana, 1991, pg.213.
 
(3) This account of the early days of Usenet News is taken from
two articles: Gene Spafford's "Usenet Software: History and
Sources" and Gregory G. Woodbury's "Net Cultural Assumptions".
 
(4) Accounts differ as to when Usenet was first introduced to the
Unix users community. Gene and Greg place the introduction of
Usenet News software on the Usenix conference tape at the Winter,
1980 meeting. Communication received from other Usenet News
pioneers like Tom Truscott, Steve Bellovin, Henry Spencer and
Geoff Collyer, however, suggests that Jim Ellis made a short
presentation about Usenet News at the Winter, 1980 Usenix
Conference in Boulder, Colorado, and handed out a five page
description "Invitation to a General Access Unix Network". The
Usenet News software, however, did not appear on the conference
tape until the Summer, 1980 Usenix meeting which was held in
Delaware. Communication from Bruce Jones, who is writing a
thesis about the history of Usenet News, supports the latter
chronology.
 
(5) Gregory G. Woodbury, "Net Cultural Assumptions".
 
(6)Greg cites a communication with Steve Bellovin agreeing with
this model and adds that "At the most they had envisioned local
clusters of machines sharing local groups and perhaps sharing ONE
group with a wider audience."
 
(7) Gregory G. Woodbury, "Net Cultural Assumptions".
 
(8) Ibid.
 
(9) But he does take note of the concern of some people at Bell
Labs that AT&T's rights in and to UNIX source code and
proprietary information be protected. Greg however emphasizes
that individual posters were concerned with the ability to
communicate, not with copyright protection.
 
(10) Spafford's "USENET Software: History and Sources".
 
(11) Details are described in the article "News Need Not Be
Slow", by Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer, Winter 1987 "USENIX
Conference Proceedings".
 
(12) Woodbury's article "Net Cultural Assumptions" describes how
the `public domain assumption' changed when the US government
revised its copyright law and became a Berne signatory in the
late 1980s. The implications of this change have been debated on
Usenet News in the past year.
 
(13) But whether the new newsgroup will be carried has
traditionally depended upon the system administrators of the
largest systems and the new group's inclusion in the list of
newsgroups.

(14) Per conversation in August, 1992, with Henry Spencer about
the early days of the net.
 
(15) Per e-mail from Adam Grossman.
 
(16) See Gene Spafford's "USENET Software: History and Sources"
for a history and description of many of the software readers now
available.
 
(17) Various problems have been developed for users to deal with.
Some involve the efforts to impose copyright restrictions on
posts on Usenet which would make the copying and propagation
impossible; there are some users who try to intimidate people who
post by attacking them (called `flaming'), etc. But these
problems must be looked at in the context of the significant
advance that this netnews network represents.
 
(18) The National Science Foundation (NSF) has had an Appropriate
Use Policy (AUP) governing what is allowed to be transported
across the nets that it funds with public moneys. It has limited
usage basically to research and education activities. As Usenet
has been transported across the NSFNet backbone, this policy of
the NSF has helped Usenet to develop as an educational rather
than commercial network. (It is questionable whether a commercial
network could have been developed, given the secret and
proprietary activities of commercial enterprises.) However the
AUP is being challenged now by the growing commercial use of
networks like ANS (Advanced Networks and Services) a company
founded by MCI and IBM that is now part of the MERIT, NSF, ANS
organizational chain, which is opening up access to commercial
traffic endangering the development and education and research
function that the net thus far has achieved. Also, many large
corporations, though seemingly restricted in their use of the net
to educational and research purposes, are also the backbone sites
along which netnews is transferred. Some corporations use Usenet
for their research and educational functions, but run a separate
private net alongside of their Usenet News operation for their
commercial purposes.
 
(19) A system of Freenets, including Cleveland Freenet and
Youngstown Freenet in Ohio, USA, Ottawa Freenet in Canada, etc.
some of which provide public access to Usenet News, are beginning
to develop. These are open to the public and Usenet News is
fairly easy to access from these once one has set up an account
which is available at no charge.
 
(20) Ithiel de Sola Pool, Technology Without Boundaries, ed. Eli
Noam, (Cambridge, 1990) pg.56.
 
   Special thanks to the many people on Usenet News who commented
on this article in its various draft stages and for their helpful
comments and criticisms. Also thanks to the pioneers of Usenet
who answered questions and made material available for the part
about the early days of Usenet News.



 
                     Two Books to Help Users:
                      "Using UUCP and Usenet" 
                               and
           "The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog"

                 The Town Meeting of the World:
                  Usenet News, UUCP & Internet
 
   A worldwide computer users network has developed into a series
of democratic electronic town meetings on different topics that
are available to users around the world. Known as Usenet News,
this netnews network has evolved into a set of forums on dif-
ferent subjects where participants can discuss and debate their
differing viewpoints in an effort to find solutions to some of
the very difficult problems in today's world.
 
   Several books give some background of the origin of this
worldwide netnews network and provide users with advice about how
to obtain and use software that makes it possible to participate.
Usenet News is a logical network which is transported via
physical networks like the Internet and UUCP. Beginning in this
special issue of the Amateur Computerist we will attempt to
introduce some of the books that provide users with the
information and help needed to take part in these technological
advances.
 
   The book Using UUCP and Usenet News by Grace Tolino and Dale
Dougherty (O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1986, corrected 1991), is
an introduction to the wonderful world of Usenet News. "Usenet,"
they tell the reader, stands for "user's network". Originally it
was "a collection of UNIX systems that runs the netnews
software." (pg.12) Usenet, which now runs on many other  operat-
ing systems, "is a worldwide network of computers that run the
netnews software," they explain.(pg.99)
 
   The authors describe the origin of Usenet News. "Usenet News,"
they write, grew out of UNIX users network (Usenet). (pg.xii)
 
   One of the networking facilities for the UNIX operating system
is known as UUCP (which stands for Unix-to-Unix CoPy). "UUCP,"
the authors explain, "is a networking facility for the UNIX
operating system. It's software consists of files and programs
for configuring and administering this facility and a number of
programs that give users access to it."(pg.2)
 
   Many of the news reading programs, though copyrighted, are
freely available for the personal use of computer users who have
access to UNIX. And there are also programs that mimic the
capability of these programs that are available for other types
of computers such as IBM and Macintosh.
 
   By posting a question or opinion or response to another post
on Usenet News, the computer user in Dearborn, Michigan, for
example, becomes connected with computer users in Berlin,
Germany, or Palo Alto, California, or Oslo, Norway, etc. The set
of public posts are passed on around the U.S. and around the
world, via a worldwide network that has developed in the past
decade.
 
   The authors of Using UUCP and Usenet News explain how Usenet
News, functions:
 
   "The net (as it is commonly called) is a public forum for the
   exchange of ideas in the form of news articles that are 
   broadcast to member sites. Net users can post articles, 
   forward mail, send followup articles to previous articles, or 
   simply read the news using netnews programs." (pg.12)
 
   At the time Using UUCP and Usenet News was written (there have
been several updates), the authors, Grace Todino and Dale
Dougherty, reported that a posting was transmitted all over North
America within two hours of being posted.
 
   "The net is a noncommercial network," they note. Probably this
accounts for the amazing growth and development of Usenet News
within the short period of a decade. Most of the participants are
often unpaid and they make every effort to help new users and to
encourage what they feel are constructive developments. "When
used properly," the writers of Using UUCP and Usenet News
explain, "the net is a unique way to stay informed and up-to-date
on categories from UNIX to politics." (pg.13)
 
   There is the benefit of first hand information on a strike in
Germany or how to teach a course in physics. "When you use
Usenet," they write, "you don't just receive it; you interact
with it." Thus Usenet has led to the existence of a world wide
network of computers and a world wide network of computer users.
 
   The book also describes the UUCP network which formed the
physical foundation on which Usenet News was developed. "The UUCP
network currently consists of thousands of UNIX installations
worldwide, and they can be reached if you know the network
pathnames to them. Your link to the UNIX network becomes your
link to the world and the world's link to you." (pg.11)
 
   The book explains how this network functioned, basing itself
on backbone sites. "You can think of a backbone site as the
center of a web with local networks growing into and out of it.
News that is sent to a backbone site is passed on to other
backbone sites as quickly as possible, so that it gets
transmitted over a wide area in a short time." (pg.12)
 
   "The articles on the net," write the authors, "are classified
into `newsgroups,' according to subject matter. You can think of
a newsgroup," they explain, "as a bulletin board or forum devoted
to one topic." There are groups on using various programs or
computers, groups devoted to different programming languages,
groups discussing politics, or economics or the developments in
Eastern Europe, etc.
 
   At one time, newsgroups were divided into two different
categories, "net, consisting of groups to which anyone could
post," and "mod, consisting of groups in which postings had
first to be approved by a moderator." (See footnote pg.101) By
November, 1986, newsgroups were organized into seven major cate-
gories. These major categories were:
  comp- Groups relating to some aspect of computer science
        (e.g. comp.lang.misc).
  sci-  Groups relating to science or technology
        (e.g. sci.physics or sci.math)
  news- Groups relating to netnews or of interest to all Usenet
        News users (e.g. news.misc)
  rec-  Groups discussing recreational activities.
        (e.g. rec.backcountry)
  soc-  Groups discussing social issues (e.g.soc.culture.usa,
        soc.culture.german)
  talk- Groups discussing controversial issues
        (e.g. talk.politics.theory, talk.politics.misc)
  misc- Groups that are outside the other categories
        (e.g. misc.activism.progressive, misc.jobs)
 
   Other areas are also represented on the net, especially a
large classification of groups called alt. which are groups that
can be set up temporarily or more quickly than the standard
newsgroups in other categories. For example, an alt.rodney.king
group was set up during the rebellion in Los Angeles in May,
1992. Other alternative groups include:
  gnu-    Groups devoted to the Free Software Foundation which
          has pioneered a battle for open programming code to 
          encourage the exchange of ideas among programmers.
  bionet- Groups involved with the exchange of biological
          information.
 
   Appendix D of the book provides a list of the newsgroups that
were available in 1990, many of which are still functioning. This
list gives a sense of the great variety and diverse interests
represented on Usenet News. About 600 different groups are
described in this list. (There are now estimated to be about
2,500 newsgroups.)
 
   Also, the book tells the user how to acquire and use the
software necessary to participate in Usenet News. There are
directions for using some of the programs that are commonly used
to read Usenet News, such as rn, readnews, or vnews. Procedures
used for posting on Usenet News are described, using postnews
and Pnews. The book also describes how to transfer files between
networked UNIX systems. And it describes how to use the
electronic mail capabilities of Unix to send mail via the
networks across the world.
 
   The authors of Using UUCP and Usenet News recognize that it is
"more than anything...the people who give much of the flavor and
color to the net." (pg.12) It is the computer users on the Net
who have, working together, and building on each other's
contributions and differences, shown that the primary
achievement of early New England, the New England Town Meeting,
is now possible and what's more, it's happening, on a much
broader and diverse basis. The Net now makes possible a Town
Meeting of the World via computers.
 
   The Whole Internet User's Guide & Catalog by Ed Krol,
(O'Reilly & Associates, California, 1992) updates the earlier
O'Reilly publication about Usenet News and also describes the
Internet, one of the networks that Usenet News is carried on.
Krol gives some history of the Internet in Chapter II. He
explains that the origin of the Internet lies in the ARPAnet set
up by the U.S. Defense Department 20 years ago as an "exper-
imental network designed to support ...research." (pg.11) The
book guides the reader through how to use the Network News
(called nn) newsreader for Usenet, from setting up an nn
directory to posting a Usenet article, to sending replies via e-
mail.
 
   Using directions in this book about how to do a subject or
author search of Usenet News with netnews, I located an article
by one of the founders of Usenet News. After sending him e-mail,
he was particularly helpful in both answering questions and in
suggesting how to trace out further information.
 
   Also, the book has sections on electronic mail and Net
utilities available on the Internet like ftp, archie, gopher and
wais. It guides the reader through how to use Unix programs like
talk and chat. It also contains a section called "The Whole
Internet Catalog" which describes some of the resources available
on the Internet and how to access them. The Whole Internet User's
Guide & Catalog is a welcome addition to the scarce literature
for users about the treasures being made available by the
telecommunications revolution.
 
   The disappointment of Krol's book is that it encourages
commercialization and privatization of the Internet. For example,
Krol writes "...commercial use of the Internet will become
especially good for small business.... Most people in the net-
working community think that privatization is a good idea."
(pg.17) But such changes are contrary to the 20 year development
and history of the networks. The terms `commercialization' and
`privatization' as applied to the Internet are relatively recent
and were coined two years ago at a workshop in 1990 at Harvard
University, according to Eric M. Aupperle. (See "Internet and
NSFNET Evolution," Internet Society News, Summer, 1992, vol 1, no
3, pg.3) Previous to that proposed change in direction, the
research and education mandate of the National Science
Foundation's Acceptable Use Policy restricted commercial and
private interests using the net to research and education
purposes. At the same time, academic and educational institutions
were encouraged to utilize the network. The goal was set of
broadening public use and accessibility of the Internet by
making it available to all school children in the U.S. but this
has not yet been achieved. Nor has any serious legislation or
plan been put forward to implement this goal. The current
promotion of private and commercial purposes or ownership of the
Internet or parts of it is in conflict with this goal of
increased public accessibility. It also threatens to impede the
continued development of this technological breakthrough.
 
   The technological and other educational functions of the
Internet, which have served to support computer users and
developers by providing a community of people to help solve
problems, are threatened by any detour from the research and
education orientation which has nourished network development. It
is not that "most of the people in the networking community think
that privatization is a good idea," as Krol writes. (pg.17)
Rather there is much concern and opposition, particularly among
academic and noncommercial network users, to efforts by certain
commercial users to try to appropriate the benefits of much
publicly funded research and development for the narrow private
profit making interests of a few commercial users. The issue of
how best to support the continued development and evolution of
networking technology and connectivity is a serious question that
needs to be broadly discussed and debated. The Internet and its
prototypes like the ARPANET have been developed by U.S.
government agencies via a large expenditure of public funds and
resources. Also, these advances have benefitted from a great
deal of volunteer labor of computer users of these networks.
 
   The contributions of time, information, discussion, and
involvement of computer users around the world, as well as the
programs developed and made available by computer programmers to
make the net a reality, demonstrate the important capability of
the UNIX world that most home computer users have not yet become
acquainted with. Currently, there is pressure on the U.S.
Congress to privatize the networks that Usenet News is built on.
(See for example "Congressional Hearings on Internet Held March
12," The Boardwatch, May, 1992, pg.53-4)
 
  The history of the evolution of the ARPANET and then the
Internet shows that these technological breakthroughs were only
possible because commercial traffic and participation were
actively restricted and private profit making interests were not
permitted to impede technological development. The future
direction of the Internet is a serious concern which needs to be
examined and discussed in the light of its historical evolution.
Krol's comments on this issue lack this historical perspective
and fail to provide the needed all sided discussion of the
controversy over the future direction of the Internet. There is a
need for the public to know how the network developed and for the
future course to build on the lessons of this history so that
this technological advance can continue to evolve and so that it
will be used to benefit the public and the computer users who
made such an important breakthrough possible.
 
   Krol's support and encouragement of commercialization and
privatization is a detracting aspect, but in general, Krol's
book is helpful because together with Using UUCP and Usenet, it
is helping to spread the use of Usenet News, UUCP and the
Internet.
 
   Just as the development and spread of industry and commerce
played a pivotal role in the development of more democratic
political institutions in the 1700s, communication and the broad
ranging public discussions which are daily occurring on Usenet
News are the basis to introduce order and good government into
our modern world in the 1990s. And just as Adam Smith in the The
Wealth of Nations (Modern Library edition, pg.385) realized that
very few people understood the new political institutions
developing in his day, similarly, today, very few people
recognize the important political legacy of modern
telecommunications technology, especially of computer networks,
i.e. of Usenet News and of the Internet.
 
                      Liberation Technology
             Equal Access Via Computer Communication
                              by Norman Coombs
               (e-mail: NRCGSH@RITVAX.ISC.RIT.EDU)
 
   Western Civilization has had a centuries' long romance with
technology and has often worshipped it as the "savior of
mankind". Alternately, anti-utopians, ever since Shelly conjured
up Frankenstein, have depicted it as the destroyer of humankind
and human values. Technology is power and, as such, can serve
many purposes. Whereas an earlier vision of the computer
predicted an Orwellian "big brother" utilizing a centralized
computer system to control society, the advent of the personal
computer has turned this power pyramid on its head. Increasing
thousands of people have a computer on their desk with as much
capability at their fingertips as once was housed in an expensive
and complicated mainframe. Obviously, the decentralization of
power is no guarantee that the people will make good or wise use
of it.
 
   Computer telecommunications contain the potential for removing
barriers to social access for many disadvantaged persons.
Traditional means of helping such people have usually been
paternalistic in nature. Today, more and more of the
disadvantaged are asking for empowerment so they can help
themselves. They want the freedom to compete with the rest of
society on a more nearly even playing field.
 
   I am a blind professor, at the Rochester Institute of
Technology and I use a computer with a speech synthesizer. I
regularly teach a class of students online with a computer
conference. Most of these students have no physical handicap.
Some of them, however, are hearing impaired, and some are totally
deaf. I have team taught another course at the New School for
Social Research, some 350 miles away, with a teacher who is
confined to a wheelchair and who is both blind and partially
paralyzed. On the computer screen, our handicaps of blindness and
mobility make no difference.
 
   One of the courses I teach online is in African American
history. In that class, some of the students are white, some are
black, others are Asian and still others are Native American.
Obviously, some of the class members are male and others female.
All of these differences, like those of handicaps described
above, become unimportant on the computer screen. It isn't that
these distinguishing characteristics disappear because
participants share their identities, their views and feelings
freely. However, these differences no longer block communication
and community. In fact, conference members often feel free to
make such differences one of the topics for discussion. A student
in my Black History course said that what he liked about
conducting class discussion on the computer was that it didn't
matter whether a person was male, female, black, white, red,
yellow, blind or deaf. He appreciated that his comments were
accepted for their own worth and not judged by some prior
stereotype.
 
   The standard myth about the computer is that it is cold,
depersonalizing and intimidating, the mystical province of a few
wizards. When I began utilizing the computer to communicate with
students, I had no idea of its potential to change my life and my
teaching. First, it began by liberating me, a blind teacher, from
my dependence on other people. As I now have all my assignments
submitted through electronic mail including frequent take-home
exams, I have very little need for human readers. This experience
prepared me to become a member of a pilot study using computer
conferencing to replace classroom discussion for students in some
continuing education courses. Those with a personal computer and
modem could work from home or the office. This freed them from
the time and bother of commuting and also let them set their own
schedule. The computer conference was available online 24 hours
a day.
 
   We are using the conference system, VAX Notes produced by the
Digital Equipment Corporation. It does facilitate a genuine group
discussion without the class having to be in the same place nor
having to be connected at the same time. I found it easy to send
frequent short personal notes to individual students, and, in the
evaluation questionnaire, the students rated my helpfulness and
availability at 4.8 out of 5 points. I, too, felt I had more
contact with individual students than is usual in a face-to-face
classroom. This system had immediate appeal for three groups of
our students. Off-campus continuing education students were happy
not to have to commute. Those who had been taking mainly
television or correspondence courses valued the easy exchange of
information both between themselves and their teacher and between
themselves and other students. The third group turned out to be
regular day students with scheduling problems. This kind of flex
scheduling is especially valuable for those students whose sched-
ules are filled by laboratory courses.
 
   Although computer conferencing had obvious benefits for me, a
blind professor, I had failed to grasp its significance for
disabled students in general. Only when a deaf student joined the
class did I come to realize its potential. This young deaf woman
said that this was the first time in her life that she had con-
versed with one of her teachers without using an interpreter
intermediary. She further commented that this had been her most
valuable course in her college experience because she could share
in the discussions so easily and totally. Computer conferencing,
because it avoids commuting, can be a benefit to persons with
mobility impairments. They can go to school while they stay at
home. The distance involved could be anything from a few miles to
all the way across the continent or across an ocean. Students
with motor impairments can also use this system. There are a
variety of alternate input devices to let motor impaired persons
use a computer even though they cannot handle a keyboard.
 
   Like others who use computer communications, I discovered that
it liberates more than the physically disabled. Students became
free to share more of themselves than in a classroom, and shy
students found themselves less inhibited. Once students got over
any initial computer phobia, many shy students found it easier to
share this way. Where there is no stage then there is no stage
fright. While some educators prefer to keep the teaching process
academic and objective, others are convinced that students learn
more and better when they become emotionally engaged in the
process. I was surprised and pleased to find my classes sharing
experiences about their families and themselves. In a discussion
on welfare, one woman in her twenties confessed to being on
welfare and described her feelings about it. In a Black History
course, students described personal experiences as victims of
racism. White students admitted to having been taught to be
prejudiced and asked for help and understanding. Black students
shared that they had prejudices about various shades of color
within their own community. As a teacher, I often felt that I was
treading on privileged ground. These were experiences I had never
had in the 29 previous years of my teaching career. The students,
themselves, became aware of what they were doing and usually
began to discuss their interaction as one of the class topics.
They appreciated that they were sharing in an unusual way and
thanked me for creating the opportunity for them.
 
   Freedom to speak one's mind is a two-edged sword. Computer
communications is infamous for people making thoughtless and
irresponsible attacks on one another, often known as "flaming".
In my experience, happily, there has been almost none of this.
First, the teacher has the opportunity to set ground rules and,
more importantly, an emotional and professional atmosphere.
Second, a computer conference is different than electronic mail.
Once a mass mailing has been sent, it is irretrievable. While the
contents of a computer conference are posted publicly for all its
members to see, a message can be removed. On very rare occasions
I have removed a posting before it was read by most of the class.
Usually, I prefer to leave controversial material on the
conference and utilize it as a group learning experience. Actu-
ally, most students seemed intuitively aware of the potential
for misunderstanding and, before criticizing someone, they
frequently asked questions to be sure that they understood what
had be meant by the previous author.
 
   Am I suggesting that computer conferencing and allied
technologies will become the "savior" of American higher
education? Not really! It is only one teaching methodology among
many. Most students would not choose to pursue their entire
college degree using computer communication. However, it will
have a growing significance in special situations. First, its
asynchronous format is a way to solve scheduling conflicts.
Second, it permits students living in remote locations the
opportunity to get a quality education from a reputable
institution. Third, when moderated carefully, it provides a safe
setting for students to share their feelings on controversial
topics. This can be helpful in courses related to sensitive
social issues. The teacher can continue to focus on academic
content while the class may explore its relevance to their
personal lives.
 
   Finally, I am personally excited about the ability of computer
net-working to provide more equal access to education and
information for many persons with physical disabilities. In the
fall of 1991, The Rochester Institute of Technology and Gallaudet
University in Washington will conduct an experiment involving two
courses: one taught from Rochester and the other from Washington,
DC. Students from both campuses will be enrolled in both classes.
While some use will be made of videos and movies, class
discussions and meetings between a student and a teacher will all
be done with computer telecommunications using Internet as the
connecting link. Some students will be hearing impaired, and one
teacher will be blind. In the future, such systems could include
learners from anywhere with an Internet access.
 
   Computer communications has other important implications for
both the print handicapped and those with motor impairments.
Library catalogs can already be accessed from a personal
computer and a modem. Soon, growing numbers of reference works
will be available online also. While the copyright problems are
complex, it seems inevitable that large amounts of text material
from periodicals and books will also be accessible on a computer
network. I still have vivid memories of the first time I
connected my computer to a library catalog and found my book was
really there. It was only a year ago that I had my first
personal, unassisted, access to an encyclopedia. Not only is this
technology liberating to those of us who have physical impair-
ments, but in turn, it will help to make us more productive
members of society.
 
   Not all handicapped persons rush to join the computer world.
Many have become dependent on human support systems. Some of the
hearing impaired students in my classes were very slow to become
involved. Sometimes, independence is frightening, and handi-
capped students may need special assistance to get started. One
such student complained that such a computer course would be
good for someone who had more self discipline than he had.
Another problem is cost. While the personal computer has de-
centralized power and is seen as a democratizing force in
society, it works mainly for the middle class. Unless there is a
deliberate policy to the contrary, such technology will leave the
under class further behind.
 
   Visually impaired computer users, at present, have one growing
worry. They fear that graphic interfaces and touch screens may
take away all that the computer has promised to them. Recently
passed federal legislation has tried to guarantee that future
computer hardware and software be accessible to all the
physically disabled. However, there is no real mechanism to
enforce this. Besides, voluntary awareness and cooperation by
computer providers is a far better approach to the problem.
Educom has established EASI to work within the academic community
for software access, and it is having an important impact on
voluntary compliance. Others believe that adaptive software and
hardware can be produced which can adequately interpret graphic
interfaces for the visually impaired.
 
   Physical disabilities serve as an isolating factor in life.
They also create a tremendous sense of powerlessness. Computer
communications, however, serves to bring the world into one's
home and puts amazing power at one's fingertips. Not only can
this empowerment liberate the handicapped to compete in society
more equally, but the sense of power changes how one feels about
oneself.
 
(Reprinted with permission from EDU Magazine, Digital Equipment
Corporation)
 
                           In Memorial
 
   The Editors and Staff of the Amateur Computerist want to
express our condolences to one of our Founding and Current
Editors, Bill Rohler and to his family on the death of his
father, Roy Rohler. Roy Rohler attended the Ford Trade School
and worked at Ford Motor Company for 42 years, following in the
footsteps of his father, and Bill's grandfather, Roman Rohler,
who also worked at Ford. Bill is thus a third generation Ford
worker.
   Though we are saddened by the loss, we are grateful for the
contributions made by Roy Rohler both to his family and to the
production that has built the U.S.
 
   The Editors and Staff of the Amateur Computerist also want to
express our condolences to another Founding and Current Editor,
Norman O. Thompson and to his family, on the death of his father,
Ernest Thompson. Ernest Thompson was born in South Carolina, and
worked at many different jobs. In 1926 he came to Detroit. In
1943 he hired in at Rockwell International and worked there for
25 years, retiring in 1968. The obituary read at his funeral
explained that he was "self-educated and knew all about life".
Ernest was a UAW member, acting as shop steward for a while dur-
ing the early days of the union. Thus Norman is a second
generation UAW member. Ernest was one of the generation of
workers known as tough cookies who were hardened by their years
of work in pre union days. This generation was responsible for
the many gains made by the unsung pioneers who built the UAW.
   We are saddened by the loss, but grateful for the strength and
integrity Ernest Thompson passed on to his family and friends.
 
 
     ELECTRONIC EDITION AVAILABLE  
                               
     Starting with vol 4, no 2-3,   
     the Amateur Computerist has    
     become available in electronic 
     mail form. To obtain a copy,   
     send e-mail to:                
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     or:   ae547@yfn.ysu.edu        
     Also, the Amateur Computerist  
     is now available via anonymous 
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     It is stored in the directory: 
            /doc/misc/acn           
 
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