Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet Part 38

Of more immediate concern to the average Net user are crackers who seek to find other's pa.s.swords to break into Net systems and people who infect programs on ftp sites with viruses.

There is a widely available program known as "Crack" that can decipher user pa.s.swords composed of words that might be found in a dictionary (this is why you shouldn't use such pa.s.swords). Short of that, there are the annoying types who take a special thrill in trying to make you miserable. The best advice in dealing with them is to count to 10 and then ignore them -- like juveniles everywhere, most of their fun comes in seeing how upset you can get.

Meanwhile, two Cornell University students pleaded guilty in 1992 to uploading virus-infected Macintosh programs to ftp sites. If you plan to try out large amounts of software from ftp sites, it might be wise to download or buy a good anti-viral program.

But can law enforcement go too far in seeking out the criminals?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in large part in response to a series of government raids against an alleged gang of hackers. The raids resulted in the near bankruptcy of one game company never alleged to have had anything to do with the hackers, when the government seized its computers and refused to give them back. The case against another alleged partic.i.p.ant collapsed in court when his attorney showed the "proprietary" and supposedly hacked information he printed in an electronic newsletter was actually available via an 800 number for about $13 -- from the phone company from which that data was taken.

11.8 FYI

You can find discussions about IRC in the alt.irc newsgroup.

"A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing," by Darren Reed (May, 1992), provides a theoretical background on why conferencing systems such as IRC are a Good Thing. It's available through ftp at nic.ddn.mil in the rfc directory as rfc1324.txt.

Every Friday, Scott Goehring posts a new list of MUDs and related games and their telnet addresses in the newsgroup rec.games.mud.announce.

There are several other mud newsgroups related to specific types of MUDs, including rec.games.mud.social, rec.games.mud.adventure, rec.games.mud.tiny, rec.games.mud.diku and rec.games.mud.lp.

For a good overview of the impact on the Internet of the Morris Worm, read "Virus Highlights Need for Improved Internet Management," by the U.S. General Accounting Office (June, 1989). You can get a copy via ftp from cert.sei.cmu.edu in the pub/virus-l/docs directory. It's listed as gao_rpt.

Clifford Stoll describes how the Internet works and how he tracked a group of KGB-paid German hackers through it, in "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage," Doubleday (1989).

Chapter 12: EDUCATION AND THE NET

12.1 THE NET IN THE CLa.s.sROOM

If you're a teacher, you've probably already begun to see the potential the Net has for use in the cla.s.s. Usenet, ftp and telnet have tremendous educational potential, from keeping up with world events to arranging international science experiments.

Because the Net now reaches so many countries and often stays online even when the phones go down, you and your students can "tune in" to first-hand accounts during international conflicts. Look at your system's list of Usenet soc.culture groups to see if there is one about the country or region you're interested in. Even in peacetime, these newsgroups can be great places to find people from countries you might be studying.

The biggest problem may be getting accounts for your students, if you're not lucky enough to live within the local calling area of a Free-Net system. Many colleges and universities, however, are willing to discuss providing accounts for secondary students at little or no cost. Several states, including California and Texas, have Internet- linked networks for teachers and students.

12.2 SOME SPECIFIC RESOURCES FOR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

In addition, there are a number of resources on the Internet aimed specifically at elementary and secondary students and teachers. You can use these to set up science experiments with cla.s.ses in another country, learn how to use computers in the cla.s.sroom or keep up with the latest advances in teaching everything from physics to physical education.

Among them:

AskERIC Run by the Educational Resource and Information Center, AskERIC provides a way for educators, librarians and others interested in K-12 education to get more information about virtually everything. The center maintains an e-mail address ([email protected]) for questions and promises answers within 48 hours. It also maintains a gopher site that contains digests of questions and answers, lesson plans in a variety of fields and other educationally related information. The gopher address is ericir.syr.edu.

Health-Ed: A mailing list for health educators. Send a request to [email protected]

K12Net: Begun on the Fidonet hobbyist network, K12Net is now also carried on many Usenet systems and provides a host of interesting and valuable services. These include international chat for students, foreign-language discussions (for example, there are French and German- only conference where American students can practice those languages with students from Quebec and German).

There are also conferences aimed at teachers of specific subjects, from physical education to physics. The K12 network still has limited distribution, so ask your system administrator if your system carries it.

Kidsphere: Kidsphere is a mailing list for elementary and secondary teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and discuss educational telecommunications. You will find news of new software, lists of sites from which you can get computer-graphics pictures from various NASA satellites and probes and other news of interest to modem-using teachers.

To subscribe, send a request by e-mail to kidsphere- [email protected] or [email protected] and you will start receiving messages within a couple of days.

To contribute to the discussion, send messages to [email protected]

KIDS is a spin-off of KIDSPHERE just for students who want to contact students. To subscribe, send a request to [email protected], as above. To contribute, send messages to [email protected]

Knoxville Using the newspaper in the electronic cla.s.sroom. This News- gopher site lets students and teachers connect to Sentinel the newspaper, and provides resources for them derived Online from the newsroom. Use gopher to connect to gopher.opup.org

MicroMUSE This is an online, futuristic city, built entirely by partic.i.p.ants (see chapter 11 for information on MUSEs and MUDs in general). Hundreds of students from all over have partic.i.p.ated in this educational exercise, coordinated by MIT. Telnet to michael.ai.mit.edu.

Log on as guest and then follow the prompts for more information.

NASA s.p.a.celink: This system, run by NASA in Huntsville, Ala., provides all sorts of reports and data about NASA, its history and its various missions, past and present.

Telnet s.p.a.celink.msfc.nasa.gov or 128.158.13.250.

When you connect, you'll be given an overview of the system and asked to register. The system maintains a large file library of GIF-format s.p.a.ce graphics, but note that you can't download these through telnet. If you want to, you have to dial the system directly, at (205) 895- 0028. Many can be obtained through ftp from ames.arc.nasa.gov, however.

Newton: Run by the Argonne National Laboratory, it offers conferences for teachers and students, including one called "Ask a Scientist."

Telnet: newton.dep.anl.gov.

Log in as: cocotext

You'll be asked to provide your name and address. When you get the main menu, hit 4 for the various conferences.

The "Ask a Scientist" category lets you ask questions of scientists in fields from biology to earth science.

Other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and computer networks.

OERI: The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Resources and Improvement runs a gopher system that provides numerous educational resources, information and statistics for teachers. Use gopher to connect to

gopher.ed.gov.

s.p.a.cemet Forum: If your system doesn't carry the K12 conferences, but does provide you with telnet, you can reach the conferences through s.p.a.ceMet Forum, a bulletin-board system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the physics and astronomy department at the University of Ma.s.sachusetts at Amherst.

Telnet: s.p.a.cemet.phast.uma.s.s.edu.

When you connect, hit escape once, after which you'll be asked to log on. Like K12Net, s.p.a.ceMet Forum began as a Fidonet system, but has since grown much larger. Mort and Helen Sternheim, professors at the university, started s.p.a.ceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system several years ago to help bolster middle-school science education in nearby towns.

In addition to the K12 conferences, s.p.a.ceMet carries numerous educationally oriented conferences. It also has a large file library of interest to educators and students, but be aware that getting files to your site could be difficult and maybe even impossible. Unlike most other Internet sites, s.p.a.cemet does not use an ftp interface. The Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over the network, but don't count on it.

12.3 USENET AND BITNET IN THE CLa.s.sROOM

There are numerous Usenet newsgroups of potential interest to teachers and students.

As you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. You can find these by typing l sci. in rn or using nngrep sci. for nn. There are now close to 40, with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the "dismal science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the construction of microscopically small machines).

One thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups: science is not just dull, boring facts. Science is argument and standing your ground and making your case. The Usenet sci. groups encourage critical thinking.

Beyond science, social-studies and history cla.s.ses can keep busy learning about other countries, through the soc.culture newsgroups.

Most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a given country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture. In times of crisis, however, these groups often become places to disseminate information from or into the country and to discuss what is happening. From Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, close to 50 countries are now represented on Usenet. To see which groups are available, use l soc.culture. in rn or nngrep soc.culture. for nn.

Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions, but teachers should screen them first before recommending them to students. They range from talk.abortion and talk.politics.guns to talk.politics.s.p.a.ce and talk.environment.

One caveat: Teachers might want to peruse particular newsgroups before setting their students loose in them. Some have higher levels of flaming and blather than others.

There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential interest to students and teachers. See Chapter 5 for information on finding and subscribing to Bitnet discussion groups. Some with an educational orientation include:

biopi-l ksuvm.bitnet Secondary biology education chemed-l uwf.bitnet Chemistry education dts-l iubvm.bitnet The Dead Teacher's Society list phys-l uwf.bitnet Discussions for physics teachers physhare psuvm.bitnet Where physics teachers share resources scimath-l psuvm.bitnet Science and math education

To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the GIF graphics format, use ftp to connect to nic.funet.fi. Switch to the /pub/astro/general directory and get the file astroftp.txt. Among the sites listed is ames.arc.nasa.gov, which carries images taken by the Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures.

CHAPTER 13: Business on the Net