© 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved 1

5C H A P T E R Internet Etiquette

(Netiquette)

Netiquette is the observance of certain rules and conventions that have evolved in order to keep the Internet from becoming a free-for-all in which tons of unwanted messages and junk mail would clog your in-box.

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Objectives:

Define the term netiquette and explain its derivation.

Know what it means to “spam” someone on the Internet, and what to do if someone spams you.

Be prepared to protect yourself against unethical users who use e-mail to spread hoaxes and send viruses that can damage your computer or the programs and data it contains.

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Objectives:

Understand the concept of lurking, and know when you should lurk.

Know what it means to “flame” someone on the Internet.

Understand the concept of SHOUTING on the Internet and become sensitized to not overdoing it.

Recognize the more common smileys and other emoticons used on the Internet, and know how to look up the meaning of less common symbols.

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Objectives:

Understand what the more common three-letter acronyms mean, and know where to go on the Web to look up more esoteric acronyms.

Understand some of the more commonly used Internet jargon, and know where to find a more complete listing of Internet terms and definitions.

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Netiquette Guidelines

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Spam

On the Internet, the term spam refers to unwanted messages posted to newsgroups or sent to a list of users through e-mail. The term can be used either as a verb or a noun.

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Hoaxes

Some pretty incredible hoaxes have been propagated across the Internet. The hoaxes are designed to prey upon people’s fears, sensitivities, or desires to keep the hoax spreading to other users over the Net.

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Viruses

Some of the more harmful chain letters and hoaxes have transmitted viruses across the Internet.

The best way to guard against catching a virus through e-mail is never to open an attachment to an e-mail message, especially if the attachment has an executable filename extension such as .exe, .vbs, or .class.

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Lurking

To lurk means to participate in a conversation on the Internet without responding to any of the messages.

You receive and read the messages, but you don’t say anything in return. Thus, you’re lurking!

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Flames

On the Internet, a flame is a message written in anger.

To flame someone is to send them an angry message.

Angry messages that people send you are known as flames.

If you are real mad and send a hastily written flame, you may regret it later on.

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Firefighters

Sometimes flaming can get out of hand. People start sending more-heated

messages, and things can get ugly. Someone has to step in and write a

message intended to restore peace. Since that puts an end to the flames,

such peacemakers on the Internet are known as firefighters.

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SHOUTING

WHEN YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPS, YOU’RE SHOUTING!

Shouting means to add emphasis by writing in all capital letters.

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Smileys and Emoticons

To give the person reading your message a clue as to what your emotions are, emoticons were invented.

Emoticons are combinations of a few characters which, when turned sideways, conjure a facial expression.

The most common form of emoticon is the smiley. :-)

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Three-Letter Acronyms (TLAs)

To shorten the amount of keyboarding required to write a message, some people use three-letter acronyms, which are appropriately known as TLAs.

Some examples are: brb = be right back bbl = be back later btw= by the way

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Jargon on the Net

Admin - Administrator; the person in charge on a computer.

ASCII - American Standard Code for Information Interchange; the file format of a plain-text (.txt) file

Avatar - An icon or representation of a user in a shared virtual reality

back door - A hole in the security of a system deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers

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Jargon on the Net Bandwidth - The volume of information

per unit of time that a computer, person, or transmission medium can handle

Banner - Opening screen containing a logo, author credits, or copyright notice

Baud - Bits per second, a measure of telecommunication speed

BBS - Electronic bulletin-board system Beta - Mostly working, but still under test

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Jargon on the Net

Bit - Binary digit; a computational quantity that can take on one of two values, such as true and false, or 0 and 1

Byte - Eight bits; 1 byte can hold 1 ASCII character (see ASCII)

Channel - The basic unit of discussion in an IRC

channel op or chanop - Someone who is endowed with privileges on a particular IRC channel

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Jargon on the Net Cookie - A handle, transaction ID, or other

token of agreement between cooperating programs; also, a record of the mouse clicks made by a user at a Web site

Cracker - Someone who breaks security or intentionally causes operational problems on a computer system

Egosurfing - Typing your own name as a key word into an Internet search engine

Emoticon - A character combination used in e-mail or news to indicate an emotional state; the most famous is the smiley : )

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Jargon on the Net FAQ - Frequently asked question; also, a list

of frequently asked questions and their answers

Firefighter - A peacemaker on the Internet who intervenes to stop a flame war

Firewall - Provides security by preventing unauthorized data from moving across a network

Flame - To send an e-mail message intended to insult or provoke; also used as a noun to refer to the insulting e-mail message

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Jargon on the Net

flame war - An acrimonious dispute conducted via e-mail or newsgroups

Flamer - A person who flames habitually

Giga - A billion; abbreviated G, as in GB, meaning a billion bytes, which is also called a gigabyte

Hacker - A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities; someone who can program quickly.

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Jargon on the Net

IRC - Internet Relay Chat, a worldwide “party line” network that allows one to converse with others in real time in chat rooms on the Internet

ISP - Internet service provider, a company that sells Internet access

Kilo - A thousand; abbreviated K, as in KB, meaning a thousand bytes, which is also called a kilobyte

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Jargon on the Net

Lurker - One of the silent majority in an electronic forum who posts occasionally or not at all but reads the group’s postings regularly

Mega - A million; abbreviated M, as in MB, meaning a million bytes, which is also called a megabyte

MUD - Multi User Dimension; also Multi-User Dungeon

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Jargon on the Net

Netiquette - Network etiquette Newbie - Someone new to the network

or to a newsgroup Newsgroup - One of Usenet’s many

discussion groups; see Usenet Nick - Short for a nickname; in a chat

room, every user must pick a nick Ping - A tiny network message sent by

one computer to check for the presence and alertness of another computer

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Jargon on the Net

POTS - Plain old telephone service Rave - To persist in discussing a specific

topic when other users wish you would drop it

snail mail - Paper mail, as opposed to electronic mail

Sneakernet - Term used to refer to transporting data by carrying physical media such as diskettes from one computer to another, instead of transferring the data over the Internet

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Jargon on the Net

Spam - To send unwanted messages to newsgroups or listservs; also used as a noun to refer to the unwanted messages

Surf - To browse the Internet in search of interesting stuff, especially on the World Wide Web

Sysadmin - System administrator; the technical support person in charge of a server

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Jargon on the Net

TCP/IP - Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol; the wide-area networking protocol that makes the Internet work

URL - Uniform resource locator, an address that identifies a document or resource on the World Wide Web

Usenet - A distributed bulletin-board system hosting more than 10,000 newsgroups

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Jargon on the Net

Virus - A cracker program that searches out other programs and infects them by embedding a copy of itself in them. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the infection

Wannabee - A would-be hacker yo-yo mode - The state in which the

system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down