1. 5 C H A P T E R © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved1 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.

2. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved2 C H A P T E R 5 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.

3. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved3 C H A P T E R 5 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.

4. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved4 C H A P T E R 5 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.

5. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved5 C H A P T E R 5 Netiquette Guidelines

6. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved6 C H A P T E R 5 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.

7. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved7 C H A P T E R 5 Hoaxes Some pretty incredible hoaxes have been propagated across the Internet. The hoaxes are designed to prey upon peoples fears, sensitivities, or desires to keep the hoax spreading to other users over the Net.

8. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved8 C H A P T E R 5 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.

9. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved9 C H A P T E R 5 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 dont say anything in return. Thus, youre lurking!

10. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved10 C H A P T E R 5 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.

11. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved11 C H A P T E R 5 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.

12. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved12 C H A P T E R 5 SHOUTING WHEN YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPS, YOURE SHOUTING! Shouting means to add emphasis by writing in all capital letters.

13. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved13 C H A P T E R 5 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. :-)

14. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved14 C H A P T E R 5 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

15. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved15 C H A P T E R 5 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

16. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved16 C H A P T E R 5 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

17. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved17 C H A P T E R 5 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

18. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved18 C H A P T E R 5 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 : )

19. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved19 C H A P T E R 5 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

20. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved20 C H A P T E R 5 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.

21. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved21 C H A P T E R 5 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

22. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved22 C H A P T E R 5 Jargon on the Net Lurker - One of the silent majority in an electronic forum who posts occasionally or not at all but reads the groups 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

23. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved23 C H A P T E R 5 Jargon on the Net Netiquette - Network etiquette Newbie - Someone new to the network or to a newsgroup Newsgroup - One of Usenets 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

24. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved24 C H A P T E R 5 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

25. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved25 C H A P T E R 5 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

26. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved26 C H A P T E R 5 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

27. © 2001 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved27 C H A P T E R 5 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