From: rsb5c@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Richard S. Bondi)
Subject: BIG INTERNET QUESTIONS (IGNORE OTHER VERSION!)
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 13:47:07 GMT

Dear Netters,
I am working on a story for a local newspaper about the Internet. 
The story is for everyone who has never heard of it or used it. 
While I am an Internet user (obviously - I am posting this myself),
and have read a number of articles as well as the NCSA Hypercard
stack on the Internet, I still have a number of questions that no
one seems to have the answers to.  I would very much appreciate any
help on the net with these questions - of course I will credit you
all in the article!  Thank you in advance.

If responding directly, please email to rsb5c@Virginia.edu.

(Questions 2 through 4 are basic, the stuff I am really interested
in begins with question 5.)

1.   In one sentence, what is your technical experience with the
Internet? 

2.   Is the following characterization correct, and if not, please
make any corrections:
     The Internet is a world-wide network of wires, cables, and
satellite connections that connects computers all over the world in
much the same way that telephone connections globally connect
individual telephones.  More specifically, instead of connecting
individual computers, the Internet connects small networks, which
actually connect individual computers.  Thus the a typical
university has a campus-wide network connecting thousands of
university desktops and computers, and this campus network is at
one geographical point connected to the Internet.

3.   Is the following characterization correct, and if not, please
make any corrections:
     Not all small networks use the same program or language -
called a "protocol" - to shunt data from one computer to another. 
Protocols vary depending on what brand of network software you buy. 
Examples include Novell Netware, Banyan, Microsoft, and a few
others.  By contrast, the Internet uses just one protocol - TCP/IP
-, and all small networks that connect to it must either themselves
use TCP/IP, or connect to the Internet via a dedicated computer
that does nothing but translate the small network's protocol to
TCP/IP, and vice versa.  Such a dedicated computer is called a
gateway or bridge.

4.   Is the following characterization correct, and if not, please
make any corrections:
     Macintosh and IBM PC users may have heard of programs like
Carbon Copy or Timbuktu that let one Mac or IBM take complete
control of another.  In other words, on my screen I actually see
YOUR screen, and all the commands and programs I run are actually
run on your computer, not mine.  A program that does this for any
two computers connected to the Internet has been written, and it is
called Telnet.  Since it was written with tax-payers money at the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), it is free. 
The verb "telnet" refers to connecting to another computer on the
Internet (or any network) using Telnet.  Similarly, a very
efficient program called ftp uses a protocol (also called ftp) to
transfer files at incredible speeds from one computer to another,
and "to ftp" refers to transferring files in this way.

5.   Email is free, whether to someone else at your university or
to New Zealand.  When you post something on Netnews, you receive a
warning that the post will cost thousands of dollars - but you
never receive a bill.  Telneting and ftp-ing to sites even across
continents is free.  Who pays for all this?  Similarly, when Email
travels across the country or oceans, it presumably travels over
cables.  Who laid these?  Who paid for them?  And who pays the
salaries of the people on all the wonderful committees like the
Internet Activities Board, Internet, Assigned Numbers Authority,
and so on?

6.   Somehow, the untold thousands of Netnews postings are
assembled.  Where does this assembling take place?  Does one always
telnet to the same place in the world whenever one reads Netnews? 
Who pays the netnews moderators, or do they manage to sift through
hundreds of messages a day in their free time?

7.   Could anyone with enough money attach their PC in their home
directly to the Internet?

8.   Where are the Internet cables?  Can they be seen around town
as easily as telephone and high-tension wires?

9.   Apart from the following, what are some of the major resources
available over the Internet?  email; newsnet; downloading software
and other files over ftp; archie; telnetting to library catalogs;
(genbank for molecular biologists).

10.  How is it possible for Internet connections to be so damn
fast? A server in Finland responds faster than my own desktop
machine can load Lotus. This boggles the/my mind.  Can you give
some insight on how this is possible with so much traffic?

11.  Dialing in to one's unix account with a modem, instead of
logging on campus where one is directly connected to the network,
reduces one back to the clunky line based programs for pcmail,
Netnews, and other programs.  Is SLIP (Serial Line Internet
Protocol) something that could overcome it?  How does SLIP work?

12.  Where can I get a short description of every/most data
archives (publicly) available on the Internet?

13.  Is Gopher anything more (or less) than a program that lets you do
point and shoot telnetting and ftping from a list of internet sites?  What
exactly is Gopher?

Thank you very much for your assistance!

Yours,

Richard Bondi
University of Virginia