Logs for ShadowRN and Associated Mailing Lists

From:	The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject:	Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 00:44:13 -0600

Message no. 1 All this talk of bandwidth wastage makes me think about the burgeoning
technologies that are so integral to the world of Shadowrun. I think that, sad
as it may be, we are witnessing the end of era.

Which era is that? The Free Internet. Up until the last year or so, very few
people knew about it. I had an account for months before sombody (Jason Carter)
showed me what I could do with it; this list was my first foray into the net.
But articles, new commercial nodes and gateways, and the expansion of
computing abilities, as well as the move toward building the neccesary
infrastructure by telecommunication companies, have all exapnded the user
base by an enormous magnitude. I don't have any facts or figures, but from
what I've seen the Net is finally getting used to its full potential.

It's like this: Once there was this beautiful path in the woods that was
spacious and open; now there's a sidewalk with 100 times as many people on
it. It's doable, but the resources are being crunched like never before.

Throughout history, things have been free until demand caught up with or
exceeded demand. Pretty soon, having a free, personal account will be a luxury,
perhaps part of the compensatory package put together for professors and
high-level employees. That information highway-cum-Matrix is just around the
proverbial corner, but it's gonna cost, kids. Just like your phone and
acble bill of today.

Anyway, this is only vaguely related to shadowrun, so I'm sorry if I spammed
your account. I hate to hear that the Administrators at ol' UPS (my former
school) are unhappy with the resources the Gang of Four use up--but they
and other like them are increasing in number on the net. Can you imagine
when everyone has their combination computer/fax/phone/tv hooked up to
the net? It's happening soon: As soon as we get SLIP connections here, Nene,
my 660AV, is going to be wired into the Vax so Eudora can check my mail
and I can phone and fax directly from my room, or open a window and catch
a little TV o DMX. It's happening NOW, so this resource rush is only going
to get worse.

But that's a good sign. It means more people are using the technology
available; it's becoming common. Change isn't easy or cheap, but it happens.
I'm just counting the days till I graduate and my $10/month account on IO.COM
is my only access to the net--or I geta connection from Southwestern Bell.

J Roberson

From:	Luke Kendall <luke@********.CANON.OZ.AU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 17:50:20 +1100

Message no. 2 > Which era is that? The Free Internet. Up until the last year or so, very few
> people knew about it.
> ...
> J Roberson

I think you're taking a somewhat personal view of this. I haven't noticed
any dramatic increase in traffic - it's always been enormous; and disc space
and communication speeds seem to just be matching the growth rate (hmm, funny
that...).

The internet isn't free, either - the costs are simply absorbed by the
larger organisations (universities, businesses) involved. It's been like
this for a good 10 years, now.

Cheer up! It's all working fine, more or less.

luke

From:	The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 02:08:33 -0600

Message no. 3 >I think you're taking a somewhat personal view of this. I haven't noticed
>any dramatic increase in traffic - it's always been enormous; and disc space
>and communication speeds seem to just be matching the growth rate (hmm, funny
>that...).

No, in my discussions with the sysadmin types here, they're trying to figure
out what to do since the resources are getting stretched; the VAX has been down
for upgrades more often in the past three months than the entire year before.
Also, when I log onto UPS now under my own account, there's a rather large
message explaining that they are trying to correct the problems caused by a
number of new users. Granted, UPS is a small school but to me it's
indicative of coming trends. These two personal observations, along with
more commercial addresses and a marked increase in the number of requests
to keep bandwidth low on the three or four lists I'm on, as well as the
rumor that the "no commercial transactions" clause of the NSF may be
dropped, point to the commercialization of the net.

>The internet isn't free, either - the costs are simply absorbed by the
>larger organisations (universities, businesses) involved. It's been like
>this for a good 10 years, now.

Yes, but soon the cost to use it for fun and private stuff will be borne
by the idividual; the universities and corps will provide resources for
research and other organisational needs, but I don't see why they'd continue
to subsidize the use of it for nothing but private needs. I'm not down about
it either; I just think that soon the telecomm will be a regular feature
in the home, but the price we pay will be paying for it as a personal expense,
rather than accessing a service we don't directly pay for.

J Roberson

From:	"J.D. Falk" <jdfalk@***.GWU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 04:59:13 -0500

Message no. 4 [all that stuff about streched resources, etcetera]

Well, here's a good example: I was within the first two hundred people to
join CapAccess, which is the Washington, D.C.-area freenet, piggybacking
on George Washington University's 'net connections. Its still in its
infancy, but has over 3,000 registered users, and got about 800
applications last month alone!
It's not unique in offering free Internet EMail...many of the FidoNet
boards do that as well. Not is it unique in offering limited access to
newsgroups like this one...that's availiable on at least one board I've
contacted.
But it is growing. And growing. And growing. And there's no full
Telnet, no FTP, limited Gopher, and very little real help in finding
information...its just a gateway to other information resources, with a
bunch of local information thrown in by volunteers (including myself)
whenever a volunteer can be found!
And you say that Internet use isn't rising? Drek!

I found an article buried someplace in the 'net which was posted in 1980,
saying that money poured into telecom worldwide was expected to double by
1990. It more than sextupled, by my estimates (if anybody's interested,
I'll try to find the file and post it -- its short, less than 30 lines.)

P.S. -- for more information on CapAccess, either telnet to cap.gwu.edu
(login: 'guest', password 'visitor') and look around, or ask me.

From:	Mark Imbriaco <mark@**.ODU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 08:20:31 -0500

Message no. 5 The Deb Decker writes:

> No, in my discussions with the sysadmin types here, they're trying to figure
> out what to do since the resources are getting stretched; the VAX has been down
> for upgrades more often in the past three months than the entire year before.

Outdated or broken equipment is a fact of life. It has been
since the beginning of the net and the beginning of computers
for that matter.

> Also, when I log onto UPS now under my own account, there's a rather large
> message explaining that they are trying to correct the problems caused by a
> number of new users. Granted, UPS is a small school but to me it's
> indicative of coming trends. These two personal observations, along with
> more commercial addresses and a marked increase in the number of requests
> to keep bandwidth low on the three or four lists I'm on, as well as the
> rumor that the "no commercial transactions" clause of the NSF may be
> dropped, point to the commercialization of the net.

Sure you're gonna have an influx of users, but if your admins
are removing accounts that are no longer needed, or put more
restrictions on who can get access period, this could probably
alleviate some of the problem. Growth of one university, that
is causing problems, is not IMHO indicative of a problem with
the net as a whole.

> >The internet isn't free, either - the costs are simply absorbed by the
> >larger organisations (universities, businesses) involved. It's been like
> >this for a good 10 years, now.
>
> Yes, but soon the cost to use it for fun and private stuff will be borne
> by the idividual; the universities and corps will provide resources for
> research and other organisational needs, but I don't see why they'd continue
> to subsidize the use of it for nothing but private needs. I'm not down about
> it either; I just think that soon the telecomm will be a regular feature
> in the home, but the price we pay will be paying for it as a personal expense,
> rather than accessing a service we don't directly pay for.

I don't see this happening in the forseeable future. They have
been `subsidizing' it for quite a long time now. Whether or not
they have access to the net, they are going to require new hard-
ware and such to keep up with the growth of the department. If
they are getting that many new users, that is a `good thing'
because it kind of means that they are also getting more tuition
money, and should be able to support the system with some of this
money.

Mark

From:	The Reverend <mdb0213@******.TAMU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 13:59:03 -0600

Message no. 6 ] Sure you're gonna have an influx of users, but if your admins
] are removing accounts that are no longer needed, or put more
] restrictions on who can get access period, this could probably
] alleviate some of the problem. Growth of one university, that
] is causing problems, is not IMHO indicative of a problem with
] the net as a whole.
Actually, it is. Because it's not just ONE university. More and more people
are going to college, or so it seems to me. Also, the world is suddenly
"discovering" the Internet, and it's helped (?) by the fact that main-stream
services such as AOL, CI$, even *F*raudigy are getting internet access. The
more you know about it, the more you want it. It's becoming VERY easy to get
an internet account, and once you get it, you want to keep it. So anyone who
can is planning on making sure that they keep their accounts, whether or not
it's "no longer needed".

] I don't see this happening in the forseeable future. They have
] been `subsidizing' it for quite a long time now. Whether or not
] they have access to the net, they are going to require new hard-
] ware and such to keep up with the growth of the department. If
] they are getting that many new users, that is a `good thing'
] because it kind of means that they are also getting more tuition
] money, and should be able to support the system with some of this
] money.
While the Clinton/Gore administration is trying to create (?) the "Data
Superhighway", at the same time they are shooting themselves in the foot,
as they are also cutting the budget for certain "parts" of the net (such as
stopping funding of certain satellites that help the net exist cross-continent)

Also, considering that certain businesses are setting up shop on the net, with
such things as "virtual magazines" (Meta), mail-order services (CDC), etc,
I think that the Gummint is probably going to say "if you're going to be making
money off of this, you should be putting money back in". It's fine for the
Gov't to be subsidizing a pure research network, or even a totally private one,
but I don't think that will be the case once everyone jumps on and starts
making money on it.

One final point: traditionally, fees have been relatively inexpensive, due to
the lack of use by most of the students (fees here are cheap since almost NO
one uses them, except people like me, MUDders, and people who are dragged,
kicking and screaming, into e-mail and USENET). If EVERYONE decided that they
wanted to use their account, it would probably overload the system. And fees
would probably increase 10-fold. (Everyone's paying about $30 a semester.
Whether or not they use it. If EVERYONE started to use it, it would probably
jump in price at least 5-fold).

Just my $5 (before taxes and inflation, and increased "computer access fees")
Rev

---
The Reverend "They called me the Reverend when I entered the church unstained"
Fear the Information Revolution...for it has reached the hands of the strange.
PGP 2.2 Public Key Block available upon request

From:	Mark Imbriaco <mark@**.ODU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 16:24:55 -0500

Message no. 7 > Also, considering that certain businesses are setting up shop on the net, with
> such things as "virtual magazines" (Meta), mail-order services (CDC), etc,
> I think that the Gummint is probably going to say "if you're going to be making
> money off of this, you should be putting money back in". It's fine for the
> Gov't to be subsidizing a pure research network, or even a totally private one,
> but I don't think that will be the case once everyone jumps on and starts
> making money on it.

There have been .com sites on the net that have been reaping the
profits for years, along with commercial providers of the net.

> One final point: traditionally, fees have been relatively inexpensive, due to
> the lack of use by most of the students (fees here are cheap since almost NO
> one uses them, except people like me, MUDders, and people who are dragged,
> kicking and screaming, into e-mail and USENET). If EVERYONE decided that they
> wanted to use their account, it would probably overload the system. And fees
> would probably increase 10-fold. (Everyone's paying about $30 a semester.
> Whether or not they use it. If EVERYONE started to use it, it would probably
> jump in price at least 5-fold).
>
>
> Just my $5 (before taxes and inflation, and increased "computer access
fees")

At my Uni, we don't pay any _extra_ fee to use the net, but
we do limit access to CS or Computer Engineering majors, and
we enforce quotas on those students in those categories that
are not actively enrolled in a class. T1 connections are
~$2000 per month, so anyone who sees the net as being 'cheap'
right now, is deluding themselves.. :) Oh well, that's just
my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.. ;)

Mark

From:	The Reverend <mdb0213@******.TAMU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 17:21:31 -0600

Message no. 8 (and here I was, assuming this list was getting dull...;)

] There have been .com sites on the net that have been reaping the
] profits for years, along with commercial providers of the net.
Here's the main difference: whilst before there were a few companies, these
new group are planning on advertising ALL OVER the net, as well as doing other
stuff that hasn't been done before. There was an article on this in MacWeek
in the past couple months; I'll refer you to that.

] At my Uni, we don't pay any _extra_ fee to use the net, but
We get charged for using the computers, period. No extra fees to get e-mail,
etc, but they charge regardless of what you do with it. Even if that's nothing.

] we do limit access to CS or Computer Engineering majors, and
Anyone can get an account here. Even History majors! (*grin*)

] we enforce quotas on those students in those categories that
] are not actively enrolled in a class.
You just need to be enrolled in the university. And there's supposed to be
ways around that.

] ~$2000 per month, so anyone who sees the net as being 'cheap'
] right now, is deluding themselves.. :) Oh well, that's just
2000 divided by several hundred people IS cheap. Or in our case, several
thousand. I pay ~$35 a semester. As does everyone. What is 35 * 40000?

] my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.. ;)
Probably the same thing Hamilton said about Vice-Presidents. ;)

Rev
(p.s. Hayden, mind if we continue this discussion? Or has it just devolved?)
---
The Reverend "They called me the Reverend when I entered the church unstained"
Fear the Information Revolution...for it has reached the hands of the strange.
PGP 2.2 Public Key Block available upon request

From:	The Deb Decker <RJR96326@****.UTULSA.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Tue, 23 Nov 1993 22:56:56 -0600

Message no. 9 ZARCH! You have to pay for your student account, Rev? As far as I know, my
general tuition covers mine. But your points are well taken. . .I had one
guy who wants to stay on after graduation asking me how he gets to be a node
on the net. (teehee. Silly boy. Go buy a 486 and put Unix on it, and pay an
exorbitant fee to someone to be connected to their network. :)

Srun Relevancy: This is the dhape of things to come. If we figure out how things
is gonna be, it's a new way to screw players. Fer instance, in my cpunk
campaign, the network is, like Internet, a network of networks--meaning if the
decker wants to get to a node on AT&T but has to access from a Compuserve node,
he has to route his way through a gateway, which may involve going through
several other nodes. The more nodes he's going through, the slower his reaction-
but it also puts lots of points for a Trace to slow down, like in Sneakers
where they routed the phone call through several systems and satellites to
get more time while being traced.

J Roberson

From:	"J.D. Falk" <jdfalk@***.GWU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 01:01:41 -0500

Message no. 10 TODAY'S TOPICS: A response to Luke Kendall
A published estimate on World Telecom doubling 1980-1990

On Wed, 24 Nov 1993, Luke Kendall wrote:

> > And you say that Internet use isn't rising? Drek!
>
> I said:
>
> I haven't noticed any dramatic increase in traffic - it's always been enormous;
> and disc space and communication speeds seem to just be matching the growth
> rate.
>
> If you think that that says Internet use isn't rising, you have a problem.

I wasn't replying to just you -- I usually read a few posts on a
topic before replying. So if you think I was flaming you, YOU have a problem.

> In my opinion, someone predicting a doubling of traffic from '80 to '90
> (that's about a 7% annual increase) was being extraordinarily naive.
> The volume increase seems like about 5 times, to me, over that period.

Yeah, that was my point...here's the article I mentioned.

WORLD TELECOM TO DOUBLE BY 1990
ONLINE NEWSLETTER
NOVEMBER 1980
Msg. NL0424 Category: TELECOMMUNICATIONS

WORLD TELECOMMUNICATIONS WILL MORE THAN DOUBLE BY 1990 -

According to a recent study by Arthur D. Little, Inc. the world
telecommunication market will expand from $50 billion in 1980 to over
$87.5 billion by the early 1990's. The fastest growing region will be
Asia, which should have about $27 billion of the market by 1990. The
countries primarily responsible for this growth will be the USSR, Japan,
Korea, China and Turkey. Presently the USSR dominates one-third of the
Asian market with about $3.5 billion worth of business. By 1990 Asia will
surpass Europe in the telecommunication market and will be second only to
North America.

Hope y'all find the above as interesting as I did... =^>

"Well on his way, his head in a cloud,
The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud
But nobody ever hears him, /--------------------\
Or the sound he appears to make, | J.D. Falk |
And he never seems to notice..." | jdfalk@***.gwu.edu |
-The Beatles \--------------------/

From:	The Reverend <mdb0213@******.TAMU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 03:57:47 -0600

Message no. 11 ]ZARCH! You have to pay for your student account, Rev? As far as I know, my
]general tuition covers mine.
Well, it's a "student fee". Which means everyone pays for it, whether or not
they use it.

]But your points are well taken. . .
Thanks! Always nice to be acknowledged.

]but it also puts lots of points for a Trace to slow down, like in Sneakers
]where they routed the phone call through several systems and satellites to
]get more time while being traced.

sr relevancy:
1) Gopher to panix.com, and tell me that that's NOT what Shadowland is going
to look like! (note items 17, 4,10,16, and the rest)
2) the way they did it in sneakers is close to how you do it; ask any phreaker
(not me! I just research it)

It's coming guys. Personally, the matrix is more or less here; you just need
a good imagination!

Rev

From:	Julian M Wiffen <ne95003@******.AC.UK>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Wed, 24 Nov 1993 13:46:25 +0000

Message no. 12 Here at Oxford university all students can have an account at no charge -
can anyone out there tell me how much this is likely to be costing the
university? Of course it doesn't get fully used, especially not by those
taking arts degrees (technophobes!)

Julian

From:	Robert Watkins <bob@**.NTU.EDU.AU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Thu, 25 Nov 1993 11:37:16 +0930

Message no. 13 >
>Here at Oxford university all students can have an account at no charge -
>can anyone out there tell me how much this is likely to be costing the
>university? Of course it doesn't get fully used, especially not by those
>taking arts degrees (technophobes!)
>
At my university, if you need it for a course you get it. (You might lose it
when you complete the unit, though. This happens every semester to the
engineering students, for some reason). If you don't need it, but can think up
a good excuse, you often get it.

As for what it costs: Well, the branch of the 'Net in Oz, called AARNet, is
funded by the universities. I think here it costs $30K/pa (that's $A, not $US,
of course)

ObSR: I make my deckers pay for matrix connections. (Of course, any decker
worth the title can get around this)

--
Robert Watkins bob@******.cs.ntu.edu.au
Geek Code: GCS d-(?) p---@ c++++ !l u+ e+(e-)(e*) m+(m-) s-/* n-(n---) h++(h*)
f g+ w+ t++ r+(r--) y+
Real Programmers never work 9 to 5. If any real programmers are around at 9 am,
it's because they were up all night.

From:	James Charles Hall <jch8169@******.TAMU.EDU>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Thu, 25 Nov 1993 04:29:28 -0600

Message no. 14 Von dem Reverend:

> ] At my Uni, we don't pay any _extra_ fee to use the net, but
> We get charged for using the computers, period. No extra fees to get e-mail,
> etc, but they charge regardless of what you do with it. Even if that's nothing.

However, the repercussions of every student claiming their computer account
would be an influx--nay, a veritable deluge of "net novices" the prospect of
which is so nightmarish in its contemplation, that I should rather not
pontificate further upon it.

> ] we do limit access to CS or Computer Engineering majors, and
> Anyone can get an account here. Even History majors! (*grin*)

Ahhh, an inter-disciplinary jibe! May I remind you that you *ARE* replacable
by any common household appliance?

> ] my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.. ;)
> Probably the same thing Hamilton said about Vice-Presidents. ;)

To wit: "The office of the vice president is not worth a warm bucket of s***."

Although, I should like confirmation of such a statement...as it is hearsay,
as far as I am concerned. [Similar to various rumors regarding Catherine
the Great oftentimes heard during one's college career, many of which are
completely erroneous.]

Colonel Count von Hohenzollern und von Doom, DMSc, DSc, PhD.

Doom Technologies & Weapon Systems -- Dark Thought Publications
>>> Working on solutions best left in the dark.
<<<
[ Doctor Doom : jch8169@******.tamu.edu ]
^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
"Attack, attack, and when in doubt, ATTACK!" -- Frederick the Great of Prussia

From:	The Powerhouse <P.C.Steele@*********.AC.UK>
Subject:	Re: Resource Rush
Date:	Thu, 25 Nov 1993 16:52:20 GMT

Message no. 15 The internet I have to admit is an excellent idea but it is a service that
will one day have to become commercial when the services it provides begin
to compete with what private companies provide though the standard telephone
network. Personally I am against such commericalisation, but it is inevitable,
companies across the world are beginning to realise the true advantages of
being connected to the internet, the main one in my view being information
availability.

An example, sat at my terminal here in Newcastle, England, I can download
satellite photographs of weather conditions from around the world, I can
access stockmarket information, I can find out what is on at the local pictures
tonight, I can log onto a chat line and talk in real time to people from all
round the world, exchanging cultural views and so on. If I have a special
interest I can use USENET and talk to other people with my same interest some
of whom may be significantly more knowledgeable than I.

The list is endless but unfortunately I do believe we are currently in the
hayday of internet access. As users increase, which they will as Univeristies
advertise their resources to members from none computer science courses,
usage will increase dramatically, there will as one person said be huge influxes
of net novices, but this is the way things will go. The main effect of
increased usage will be the slowing down of networks as telecommunication
lines already operating near to their full bandwidth are flooded with more
requests.

This will result in one of two things, either the internet degrades and it
becomes less feasible, or huge cash injections pay for faster switching
circuits, more optical cables, more channels on satellites, and more technicians
to keep the thing running. The cost will have to fall to the user. Here in
the UK the internet is not that widespread as America, most Universities are
connected and so are most Govt establishments and large corporations, but
small buisinesses are lucky if they've even heard of the internet, never mind
connected to it, and as to individual users, forget it.

Well at the moment Newcastle Uni funds free internet access to all it's staff
and students, any costs being part of the grant each student gets to pay their
fees (some things in Britain are well worked out you see :> ). If for some
reason in the future students have to pay their own fees then I can see the
situation where if the Uni's are not given grants by the govt to pay for
internet access then the cost will come out of the student pockets.

Well I hope this doesn't come about but I think it's like hoping for the free
local phone calls that Americans so enjoy, it's misplaced hope.

Phill.
--
Phillip Steele - Email address P.C.Steele@***.ac.uk | An Uzi a day keeps the
Department Of Electrical & Electronic Engineering | politicians at bay O O
University Of Newcastle Upon Tyne, England | |
Land of the mad Geordies | The Powerhouse \_/

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