From: emv@msen.com (Edward Vielmetti)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services
Subject: Re: BigFun
Date: 26 Aug 92 16:20:00 GMT
Organization: Msen, Inc. -- Ann Arbor, Michigan
NNTP-Posting-Host: nigel.msen.com
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joe@decoy.uoregon.edu (Joe St Sauver) writes:
: indubitably true for the MUD and IRC services, but there are many other
: network services which are only provided by special effort and at some 
: expense in money, time, machine resources, bureaucratic overhead, etc., 
: for people who have a legitimate need to access and use them. Examples
: of this include collections of geophysical data, and literary resources
: to name but a few.

Fooey.  Don't scare people into not experimenting with the Internet
because they might be trampling on someone's precious resource.  There are
a number of very reasonable ways of controlling user access if use of a
particular resource does get out of hand; that should not stop people who
want to explore from trying things out and seeing if they work.

: 
: Contrast the following more extreme examples of how the Internet can be
: used:
: 
:     Online Public Access Card Catalog Patron 1: As part of a network 
:     wide 'electronic scavenger hunt,' OPAC Patron 1 connects to every
:     network accessible library card catalog and searches for the 
:     occurence of a particular diphthong or ligature in the 
:     description of cataloged items. Naturally, this takes some time,
:     and is simultaneously (and frivilously) being done by hundreds if
:     not thousands of other similar participants across the network.
: 
: Enough instances of Case #1 and services disappear...

Hopefully this hypothetical person has developed some software which
automates the task of connecting to 1000 libraries.  Though it might have
been done ``frivolously'' to start out with, that's a tremendously
valuable tool which could then be put to good use by serious researchers
trying to find out serious things.  E.g. something that would connect to
1000 places and test whether the collection included a certain copy of
_Brunhilda_ - without the need for some poor soul to type in 1000
different login scripts -- that's real valuable!  I have more than once
tried to find something in catalogs by slowly and painfully telnetting to
them one at a time.

: My point is that while the Internet may seem like a billion dollar
: toy, it isn't, and like most things which seems like a toy (but
: aren't), there are effects associated with misuse or frivilous use.

Goodly sized parts of the Internet are funded for "research and education"
purposes.  Research often includes things which are experimental, of
uncertain value, and otherwise not necessarily of positive value on the
first try.  Education - in particular educating the populace that the
Internet has stuff on it that covers a wide range of interests - is a
valuable result as well.  

Billion dollar toy?  I think you have it too low by a few zeros.  With 10
million people on the net, that would be only $100 worth of computer for
each of them, which I think you could argue is low by a factor of 10; or
if you just count 1 million computers or there about it's only $1000 per
each which still sounds low.  And I'm not even counting the cost of the
wires or the routers or the network management.

As to the particular case of a dead old Webster server being advertised on
a big list of Internet services, hey, that's part of the risk of trying to
catalog an ever growing and ever changing net.  Responsible catalogers
will verify their efforts before publishing, which makes this "Big Fun"
list guilty only of poor editorial practice; and there's no way to really
criticize that until you see a 2d and 3d edition come out with corrections
made and (hopefully) more services added.

  Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, Msen Inc. emv@Msen.com
        Msen Inc., 628 Brooks, Ann Arbor MI  48103 +1 313 998 4562
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