THE ANARCHIST'S GUIDE TO THE INTERNET (part 1)
by cardell

The Internet is a collection of computer networks that interacts as a
whole on a direct basis, i.e. the computers are directly linked to
each other all the time. On the net there is lots and lots of
information to collect, and lots and lots of people to meet. The
following is the first part of a guide for the anarchist to this
collection of networks. In it you will find information on how to get
access to the net, what you can do when you're on and where to find
the information you want.

This guide also includes information concerning Fidonet, a hobbyist
computer network for electronic mail, and how you can reach Internet
from Fidonet.

Introduction
============

If you're reading this on the net you might as well skip the entire
article. In coming parts there might be some useful information for
you, but this is for the netless persons out there.

There's lots and lots of information on the net that can be useful
to us in different situations. If we want legal advice in a sensetive
matter, there's the online library catalogs to give us the help we
need by recommending books and written material. If we need more
practical advice to make certain things go *BOOM* we can easily find
that too.

Perhaps you just need to get in touch with the right people. Well,
that can be arranged over this marvellous net as well. There's
chatting capabilities, either individual person-to-person (talk), or
group chats (IRC). There's also public forums called newsgroups that
discusses various topics, e.g. drugs, anarchy, activism etc. You can
also find information, or at least references, through huge public
databases. There's even more -- stay tuned.

If you find errors or incomplete information please send me
corrections or more information so I can update this file for future
re-publication. Write to:

Internet: cardell@lysator.liu.se
Fidonet:  Mikael Cardell, 2:205/223
Snailnet: Mikael Cardell
          Gustav Adolfsgatan 3
                  S-582 20 LINKOPING
                  Sweden
Voicenet: + 46 13 12 31 01

Access to the net
=================

Get a computer or a terminal. Got that? Great, now get a modem
(modulator/demodulator), a neat little thing that translates the bits
of information from the computer into tones that can be sent over
telephone lines. Connect it to the computer, fire up your
communications program, and you're on. Well, not quite, you must have
somewhere to call too.

The most important thing, of course, is to have access to the
Internet. There are several ways to go:

* Call a Bulletin Board System (BBS) near you that has a connection
to Fidonet (a hobbyist computer network). These BBSes are usually
free of charge or very cheap to use. Ask around among friends with
computers to get the numbers.

* If you're on a university or a college, be sure to get access to
the computers. You'll need an account, ask the people in charge of
the computers.

* Join a computer club that has access to Internet or to Fidonet.
Again, ask around among friends with computers for more information.

You might also contact some big corporation that want your monetarian
units, but that's a different matter completely, so I won't even go
into examples. Furthermore these corporations usually just offer you
their proprieraty electronic mail service that leaves you out in the
cold since you cant get out from their system.

If you're allready on Fidonet you can reach the Internet through
gateways like Chalmers Datorforening (2:203/125) here in Sweden.
Write to UUCP at the node specified above and put the Internet
address, usually in the form user@site.country (as in my address
cardell@lysator.liu.se), on the first row in your message. Take a
look in the nodelist for gateways closer to you.

On the other hand, if you haven't heard of either Fidonet nor
Internet and your wondering what I'm babbling about you can ask
around among friends and I'm sure you will get the information you
need to get on. Ask for bulletin board systems and if they have
access to Fidonet.

In Sweden at least there's lots of computer clubs with different
degrees of access to the Internet. The academic computer clubs at the
universities, e.g. Lysator at Linkoping university, Stacken at the
Royal Technical Institute in Stockholm and Solace at the University
of Harnosand/Sundsvall, usually has full access, but you need to be a
student at the university to become a member. But then again, there's
a lot of other clubs, e.g. ABC, proxxi and AUGS in Stockholm, that
would be glad to have you as a member for a small fee. I'm sure
Sweden isn't the only country to have a lot of computer clubs like
these.

Come on -- get online!
