"topic:" prompt. Type in the subject for which you want information and hit enter. Hit enter by itself to exit help. `/invite' Asks another IRC to join you in a conversation. `/invite fleepo #hottub' would send a message to fleepo asking him to join you on the #hottub channel. The channel name is optional. `/join' Use this to switch to or create a particular channel, like this: `/join #hottub' If one of these channels exists and is not a private one, you will enter it. Otherwise, you have just created it. Note you have to use a `#' as the first character. `/list' This will give you a list of all available public channels, their topics (if any) and the number of users currently on them. Hidden and private channels are not shown. `/m name' Send a private message to that user. `/mode' This lets you determine who can join a channel you've created. `/mode #channel +s' creates a secret channel. `/mode #channel +p' makes the channel private `/nick' This lets you change the name by which others see you. `/nick fleepo' would change your name for the present session to fleepo. People can still use /whois to find your e-mail address. If you try to enter a channel where somebody else is already using that nickname, IRC will ask you to select another name. `/query' This sets up a private conversation between you and another IRC user. To do this, type `/query nickname' Every message you type after that will go only to that person. If she then types `/query nickname' where nickname is yours, then you have established a private conversation. To exit this mode, type `/query' by itself. While in query mode, you and the other person can continue to "listen" to the discussion on whatever public channels you were on, although neither of you will be able to respond to any of the messages there. `/quit' Exit IRC. `/signoff' Exit IRC. `/summon' Asks somebody connected to a host system with IRC to join you on IRC. You must use the person's entire e-mail address. `/summon fleepo@foo.bar.com' would send a message to fleepo asking him to start IRC. Usually not a good idea to just summon people unless you know they're already amenable to the idea; otherwise you may wind up annoying them no end. This command does not work on all sites. `/topic' When you've started a new channel, use this command to let others know what it's about. `/topic #Amiga' would tell people who use /list that your channel is meant for discussing Amiga computers. `/who ' Shows you the e-mail address of people on a particular channel. `/who #foo' would show you the addresses of everybody on channel foo. `/who' by itself shows you every e-mail address for every person on IRC at the time, although be careful: on a busy night you might get a list of 500 names! `/whois' Use this to get some information about a specific IRC user or to see who is online. `/whois nickname' will give you the e-mail address for the person using that nickname. `/whois *' will list everybody on every channel. `/whowas' Similar to `/whois'; gives information for people who recently signed off IRC. MUDs ==== Multiple-User Dimensions or Dungeons (MUDs) take IRC into the DUM realm of fantasy. MUDs are live, role-playing games in which you enter assume a new identity and enter an alternate reality through your keyboard. As you explore this other world, through a series of simple commands (such as "look," "go" and "take"), you'll run across other users, who may engage you in a friendly discussion, enlist your aid in some quest or try to kill you for no apparent reason. Each MUD has its own personality and creator (or God) who was willing to put in the long hours required to establish the particular MUD's rules, laws of nature and information databases. Some MUDs stress the social aspects of online communications - users frequently gather online to chat and join together to build new structures or even entire realms. Others are closer to "Dungeons and Dragons" and are filled with sorcerers, dragons and evil people out to keep you from completing your quest - through murder if necessary. Many MUDs (there are also related games known as MUCKs and MUSEs) require you to apply in advance, through e-mail, for a character name and password. One that lets you look around first, though, is HoloMuck at McGill University in Montreal. The premise of this game is that you arrive in the middle of Tanstaafl, a city on the planet Holo. You have to find a place to live (else you get thrown into the homeless shelter) and then you can begin exploring. Magic is allowed on this world, but only outside the city limits. Get bored with the city and you can roam the rest of the world or even take a trip into orbit (of course, all this takes money; you can either wait for your weekly salary or take a trip to the city casino). Once you become familiar with the city and get your own character, you can even begin erecting your own building (or subway line, or almost anything else). To connect, telnet to `hobbes.cs.mcgill.ca 5757' When you connect, type connect guest guest and hit enter. This connects you to the "guest" account, which has a password of "guest." You'll see this: Your pager beeps twice, indicating no messages. The Homeless Shelter(#22Rna) You wake up in the town's Homeless Shelter, where vagrants are put for protective holding. Please don't sleep in public places-- there are plenty of open apartments in Tanstaafl Towers, to the southwest of center. There is a small sign on the wall here, with helpful information. Type 'look sign' to read it. The door is standing open for your return to respectable society. Simply walk 'out' to the center. Of course, you want to join respectable society, but first you want to see what that sign says. So you type look sign and hit enter, which brings up a list of some basic commands. Then you type out followed by enter, which brings up this: You slip out the door, and head southeast... Tanstaafl Center This is the center of the beautiful town of Tanstaafl. High Street runs north and south into residential areas, while Main Street runs east and west into business districts. SW: is Tanstaafl Towers. Please claim an apartment... no sleeping in public! SE: the Public Library offers both information and entertainment. NW: is the Homeless Shelter, formerly the Town Jail. NE: is Town Hall, site of several important services, including: Public Message Board, Bureau of Land Management (with maps and regulations), and other governmental/ bureaucratic help. Down: Below a sign marked with both red and blue large letter 'U's, a staircase leads into an underground subway passage. (Feel free to 'look' in any direction for more information.) [Obvious exits: launch, d, nw, se, w, e, n, s, ne, sw] Contents: Instructions for newcomers Directional signpost Founders' statue To see "Instructions for newcomers", type look Instructions for newcomers and hit enter. You could do the same for "Directional signpost" and "Founders' statue." Then type SW and enter to get to Tanstaafl Towers, the city housing complex, where you have to claim an apartment (you may have to look around; many will already) be occupied. And now it's off to explore Holo! One command you'll want to keep in mind is "take." Periodically, you'll come across items that, when you take them will confer certain abilities or powers on you. If you type help and enter, you'll get a list of files you can read to learn more about the MUD's commands. The "say" command lets you talk to other players publicly. For example, say Hey, I'm here! would be broadcast to everybody else in the room with you. If you want to talk to just one particular person, use "whisper" instead of "say." whisper agora Hey, I'm here! would be heard only by agora. Another way to communicate with somebody regardless of where on the world they are is through your pager. If you suddenly see yours go off while visiting, chances are it's a wizard checking to see if you need any help. To read his message, type pager To send him a message, type page name message where name is the wizard's name (it'll be in the original message). Other MUDs and MUCKs may have different commands, but generally use the same basic idea of letting you navigate through relatively simple English commands. Every Friday, SCOTT GOEHRING posts a new list of MUDs and related games and their telnet addresses in the newsgroup `rec.games.mud.announce'. There are several other mud newsgroups related to specific types of MUDs, including `rec.games.mud.social', `rec.games.mud.adventure', `rec.games.mud.tiny', `rec.games.mud.diku' and `rec.games.mud.lp'. When you connect to a MUD, choose your password as carefully as you would one for your host system; alas, there are MUD crackers who enjoy trying to break into other people's MUD accounts. And never, never use the same password as the one you use on your host system! MUDs can prove highly addicting. "The jury is still out on whether MUDding is 'just a game' or 'an extension of real life with gamelike qualities'," says JENNIFER SMITH, an active MUD player who wrote an FAQ on the subject. She adds one caution: "You shouldn't do anything that you wouldn't do in real life, even if the world is a fantasy world. The important thing to remember is that it's the fantasy world of possibly hundreds of people, and not just yours in particular. There's a human being on the other side of each and every wire! Always remember that you may meet these other people some day, and they may break your nose. People who treat others badly gradually build up bad reputations and eventually receive the NO FUN Stamp of Disapproval." Òhe other Side of the Coiï ========================== All is not fun and games on the Net. Like any community, the Net has its share of obnoxious characters who seem to exist only to make your life miserable (you've already met some of them in the chapter on Usenet). There are people who seem to spend a bit more time on the Net than many would find healthy. It also has its criminals. CLIFFORD STOLL writes in "The Cuckoo's Egg" how he tracked a team of German hackers who were breaking into U.S. computers and selling the information they found to the Soviets. ROBERT MORRIS, a Cornell University student, was convicted of unleashing a "worm" program that effectively disabled several thousand computers connected to the Internet. Of more immediate concern to the average Net user are crackers who seek to find other's passwords to break into Net systems and people who infect programs on ftp sites with viruses. There is a widely available program known as "Crack" that can decipher user passwords composed of words that might be found in a dictionary (this is why you shouldn't use such passwords). Short of that, there are the annoying types who, as mentioned above, take a special thrill in trying to make you miserable. The best advice in dealing with them is to count to 10 and then ignore them - like juveniles everywhere, most of their fun comes in seeing how upset you can get. Meanwhile, two Cornell University students pled guilty in 1992 to uploading virus-infected Macintosh programs to ftp sites. If you plan to try out large amounts of software from ftp sites, it might be wise to download or buy a good anti-viral program. But can law enforcement go too far in seeking out the criminals? The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in large part in response to a series of government raids against an alleged gang of hackers. The raids resulted in the near bankruptcy of one game company never alleged to have had anything to do with the hackers, when the government seized its computers and refused to give them back. The case against another alleged participant collapsed in court when his attorney showed the "proprietary" and supposedly hacked information he printed in an electronic newsletter was actually available via an 800 number for about $13 - from the phone company from which that data was taken. FYI: ==== You can find discussions about IRC in the `alt.irc' newsgroup. "A Discussion on Computer Network Conferencing", by Darren Reed (May, 1992), provides a theoretical background on why conferencing systems such as IRC are a Good Thing. It's available through ftp at `nic.ddn.mil' as file `rfc/rfc1324.txt'. For a good overview of the impact on the Internet of the Morris Worm, read "Virus Highlights Need for Improved Internet Management", by the U.S. General Accounting Office (June, 1989). You can get a copy via ftp from `cert.sei.cmu.edu' in the `pub/virus-l/docs' directory. It's listed as `gao_rpt'. Clifford Stoll describes how the Internet works and how he tracked a group of KGB-paid German hackers through it, in "The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy through the Maze of Computer Espionage", Doubleday (1989). See also Bruce Sterling's essay (*Note Statement of Principle::). *"F: When into a room I plunge, I Sometimes find some VIOLET FUNGI. Then I linger, darkly brooding On the poison they're exuding. H: If a 'GOBLIN (HOB) waylays you, Slice him up before he slays you. Nothing makes you look a slob Like running from a HOB'LIN (GOB). K: Cobalt's metal, hard and shining; Cobol's wordy and confining; KOBOLDS topple when you strike them; Don't feel bad, it's hard to like them. T: One big monster, he called TROLL. He don't rock, and he don't roll; Drink no wine, and smoke no stogies. He just Love To Eat Them Roguies. U: There's a U - a Unicorn! Run right up and rub its horn. Look at all those points you're losing! UMBER HULKS are so confusing."* -- The Roguelet's ABC  * Education and the Net *  ********************* If you're a teacher, you've probably already begun to see the potential the Net has for use in the class. Usenet, ftp and telnet have tremendous educational potential, from keeping up with world events to arranging international science experiments. Because the Net now reaches so many countries and often stays online even when the phones go down, you and your students can "tune in" to first-hand accounts during international conflicts. Look at your system's list of Usenet `soc.culture.*' groups to see if there is one about the country or region you're interested in. Even in peacetime, these newsgroups can be great places to find people from countries you might be studying. The biggest problem may be getting accounts for your students, if you're not lucky enough to live within the local calling area of a Free-Net system. Many colleges and universities, however, are willing to discuss providing accounts for secondary students at little or no cost. Several states, including California and Texas, have Internet-linked networks for teachers and students. In addition, there are a number of resources on the Internet aimed specifically at elementary and secondary students and teachers. You can use these to set up science experiments with classes in another country, learn how to use computers in the classroom or keep up with the latest advances in teaching everything from physics to physical education. Some of these resources are listed in the follwoing. Ê12Net ====== Begun on the Fidonet hobbyist network, K12Net is now also carried on many Usenet systems and provides a host of interesting and valuable services. These include international chat for students, foreign-language discussions (for example, there are French and German-only conference where American students can practice those languages with students from Quebec and German). There are also conferences aimed at teachers of specific subjects, from physical education to physics. The K12 network still has limited distribution, so ask your system administrator if your system carries it. SpaceMet ======== If your system doesn't carry K12, but has access to telnet, you can reach it through SpaceMet Forum, a bulletin-board system aimed at teachers and students that is run by the physics and astronomy department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The address is `spacemet.phast.umass.edu'. When you connect, hit escape once. Like K12, SpaceMet Forum began as a Fidonet system, but has since grown much larger. Mort and Helen Sternheim, professors at the university, started SpaceMet as a one-line bulletin-board system several years ago to help bolster middle-school science education in nearby towns. Today, there is a whole series of satellite SpaceMet BBSs in western Massachusetts and SpaceMet itself is now linked to Fidonet and Internet. In addition to the K12 conferences, SpaceMet carries numerous educationally oriented conferences. It also has a large file library of interest to educators and students, but be aware that getting files to your site could be difficult and maybe even impossible. Unlike most other Internet sites, Spacemet does not use an ftp interface. The Sternheims say ZMODEM sometimes works over the network, but don't count on it. Êidspherå ========= Kidsphere is a mailing list for elementary and secondary teachers, who use it to arrange joint projects and discuss educational telecommunications. You will find news of new software, lists of sites from which you can get computer-graphics pictures from various NASA satellites and probes and other news of interest to modem-using teachers. To subscribe, send a request by e-mail to or try and you will start receiving messages within a couple of days. To contribute to the discussion, send messages to . KIDS is a spin-off of KIDSPHERE just for students who want to contact students. To subscribe, send a request to , as above. To contribute, send messages to . Íealth-Ed: ========== A mailing list for health educators. Send a request to . Íemingwaó ========= PAPA is a mailing list about Hemingway and his work. To get on the list, send a request to . NASA Spacelink ============== This system, run by NASA in Huntsville, Ala., provides all sorts of reports and data about NASA, its history and its various missions, past and present. Telnet `spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov' or 128.158.13.250. When you connect, you'll be given an overview of the system and asked to register. The system maintains a large file library of GIF-format space graphics, but note that you can't download these through telnet. If you want to, you have to dial the system directly, at (205) 895-0028. Many can be obtained through ftp from `ames.arc.nasa.gov', however. Newtoï ====== This is another BBS-like system, run by the Argonne National Laboratory. It offers conferences for teachers and students, including one called "Ask a Scientist." Telnet: `newton.dep.anl.gov'. Log in as: cocotext You'll be asked to provide your name and address. When you get the main menu, hit `4' for the various conferences. The "Ask a Scientist" category lets you ask questions of scientists in fields from biology to earth science. Other categories let you discuss teaching, sports and computer networks. Åducational FTP sites ===================== To get a list of ftp sites that carry astronomical images in the GIF graphics format, use ftp to connect to `nic.funet.fi'. Switch to the `/pub/astro/general' directory and get the file `astroftp.txt'. Among the sites listed is `ames.arc.nasa.gov', which carries images taken by the Voyager and Galileo probes, among other pictures. Ìore Educational Resources on the Net ===================================== There are numerous Usenet newsgroups of potential interest to teachers and students. As you might expect, many are of a scientific bent. You can find these by typing `l sci.' in rn or using `nngrep sci.' for nn. There are now close to 40, with subjects ranging from archaeology to economics (the "dismal science," remember?) to astronomy to nanotechnology (the construction of microscopically small machines). One thing students will quickly learn from many of these groups: science is not just dull, boring facts. Science is argument and standing your ground and making your case. The Usenet `sci.*' groups encourage critical thinking. Beyond science, social-studies and history classes can keep busy learning about other countries, through the `soc.culture.*' newsgroups. Most of these newsgroups originated as ways for expatriates of a given country to keep in touch with their homeland and its culture. In times of crisis, however, these groups often become places to disseminate information from or into the country and to discuss what is happening. From Afghanistan to Yugoslavia, close to 50 countries are now represented on Usenet. To see which groups are available, use `l soc.culture.' in rn or `nngrep soc.culture.' for nn. Several "talk" newsgroups provide additional topical discussions, but teachers should screen them first before recommending them to students. They range from `talk.abortion', via `talk.politics. guns' to `talk.politics.space', and `talk.environment'. There are also a number of Bitnet discussion groups of potential interest to students and teachers. *Note Mailing Lists:: for information on finding and subscribing to Bitnet discussion groups. Some with an educational orientation include: biopi-l ksuvm.bitnet Secondary biology education chemed-l uwf.bitnet Chemistry education dts-l iubvm.bitnet The Dead Teacher's Society list phys-l uwf.bitnet Discussions for physics teachers physhare psuvm.bitnet Where physics teachers share resources scimathl psuvm.bitnet Science and math education FYI: ==== Carl Erickson has written an interesting paper, entitled "USENET as a Teaching Tool", published in the Proceedings of 24th, ACM Conference on Science and Education (CSE-2/93-IN). *"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education."* -- George Bernhard Shaw *"Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine."* -- Irsin Edman *"It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical?"* -- Alan Perlis  * "Conclusion: the End?" by Adam Gaffin *  ************************************* *The revolution is just beginning.* New communications systems and digital technologies have already meant dramatic changes in the way we live. Think of what is already routine that would have been considered impossible just ten years ago. You can browse through the holdings of your local library - or of libraries halfway around the world - do your banking and see if your neighbor has gone bankrupt, all through a computer and modem. Imploding costs coupled with exploding power are bringing ever more powerful computer and digital systems to ever growing numbers of people. The Net, with its rapidly expanding collection of databases and other information sources, is no longer limited to the industrialized nations of the West; today the web extends into once remote areas from Siberia to Zimbabwe. The cost of computers and modems used to plug into the Net, meanwhile, continue to plummet, making them ever more affordable. Cyberspace has become a vital part of millions of people's daily lives. People form relationships online, they fall in love, they get married, all because of initial contacts in cyberspace, that ephemeral "place" that transcends national and state boundaries. Business deals are transacted entirely in ASCII. Political and social movements begin online, coordinated by people who could be thousands of miles apart. *Yet this is only the beginning.* We live in an age of communication, yet, the various media we use to talk to one another remain largely separate systems. One day, however, your telephone, TV, fax machine and personal computer will be replaced by a single "information processor" linked to the worldwide Net by strands of optical fiber. Beyond databases and file libraries, power will be at your fingertips. Linked to thousands, even millions of like-minded people, you'll be able to participate in social and political movements across the country and around the world. How does this happen? In part, it will come about through new technologies. High-definition television will require the development of inexpensive computers that can process as much information as today's work stations. Telephone and cable companies will compete to see who can bring those fiber-optic cables into your home first. High- speed data networks, such as the Internet, will be replaced by even more powerful systems. Vice President ALBERT GORE, who successfully fought for a landmark funding bill for a new high-speed national computer network in 1990, talks of creating "information superhighways." Right now, we are in the network equivalent of the early 1950s, just before the creation of the Interstate highway system. Sure, there are plenty of interesting things out there, but you have to meander along two-lane roads, and have a good map, to get to them. Creation of this new Net will also require a new communications paradigm: the Net as information utility. The Net remains a somewhat complicated and mysterious place. To get something out of the Net today, you have to spend a fair amount of time with a Net veteran or a manual like this. You have to learn such arcana as the vagaries of the Unix cd command. Contrast this with the telephone, which now also provides access to large amounts of information through push buttons, or a computer network such as Prodigy, which one navigates through simple commands and mouse clicks. Internet system administrators have begun to realize that not all people want to learn the intricacies of Unix, and that that fact does not make them bad people. Coming years will see the development of simpler interfaces that will put the Net's power to use by millions of people, just as the number of host systems offering public access to the Net will skyrocket. Gophers and Wide-Area Information Servers have become two of the fastest growing applications on the Net. They are relatively simple to use and yet offer access to vast amounts of information. Mail programs and text editors such as Pico and Pine promise much of the power of older programs such as emacs at a fraction of the complexity. Some software engineers are looking at taking this even further, by creating graphical interfaces that will let somebody navigate the Internet just by clicking on the screen with a mouse or by calling up an easy text editor, sort of the way one can now navigate a Macintosh computer - or a commercial online service such as Prodigy. *Then there are the Internet services themselves.* For every database now available through the Internet, there are probably three or four that are not. Government agencies are only slowing beginning to connect their storehouses of information to the Net. Several commercial vendors, from database services to booksellers, have made their services available through the Net. Few people now use one of the Net's more interesting applications. A standard known as MIME lets one send audio and graphics files in a message. Imagine opening your e-mail one day to hear your granddaughter's first words, or a "photo" of your friend's new house. Eventually, this standard could allow for distribution of even small video displays over the Net. All of this will require vast new amounts of Net power, to handle both the millions of new people who will jump onto the Net and the new applications they want. Replicating a moving image on a computer screen alone takes a phenomenal amount of computer bits, and computing power to arrange them. The legislation pushed by Gore in 1991 will eventually replace the existing Internet in the U.S. with the National Research and Education Network. At the center of NREN will be a "backbone" that, in one second, will be able to move as much as 3 billion bits of information from coast to coast - the equivalent of shipping the contents of a large encyclopedia from New York to Los Angeles electronically. That seems like a silly thing to do. But that kind of speed allows for widespread distribution of complex files, such as video loops, without bogging down the entire Net. Its capacity will let millions more people onto the Net. As these "superhighways" grow, so will the "on ramps," for a high- speed road does you little good if you can't get to it. The costs of modems seem to fall as fast as those of computers. High-speed modems (9600 baud and up) are becoming increasingly affordable. At 9600 baud, you can download a satellite weather image of North America in less than two minutes, a file that, with a slower modem could take up to 20 minutes to download. Eventually, homes could be connected directly to a national digital network. Most long-distance phone traffic is already carried in digital form, through high-volume optical fibers. Phone companies are ever so slowly working to extend these fibers the "final mile" to the home. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is working to ensure these links are affordable. Beyond the technical questions are increasingly thorny social, political and economic issues. Who is to have access to these services, and at what cost? If we live in an information age, are we laying the seeds for a new information under class, unable to compete with those fortunate enough to have the money and skills needed to manipulate new communications channels? Who, in fact, decides who has access to what? As more companies realize the potential profits to be made in the new information infrastructure, what happens to such systems as Usenet, possibly the world's first successful anarchistic system, where everybody can say whatever they want? What are the laws of the electronic frontier? When national and state boundaries lose their meaning in cyberspace, the question might even be: WHO is the law? What if a practice that is legal in one country is "committed" in another country where it is illegal, over a computer network that crosses through a third country? Who goes after computer crackers? *What role will you play in the revolution?* *"The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it."* -- Abbie Hoffman *"The only act of revolution left in a collective world, is thinking for yourself."* -- Bob Geldof, "Is that it?" *"And all else is silence."* -- Shakespeare, "Hamlet"  * "A Slice of Life in my Virtual Community" by Howard Rheingold *  ************************************************************* By *Howard Rheingold* (1) Editor, "The Whole Earth Review", 27 Gate Five Road, Sausalito, CA 94965. NOTE: In 1988, "Whole Earth Review" published my article, "Virtual Communities." Four years later, I reread it and realized that I had learned a few things, and that the world I was observing had changed. So I rewrote it. The original version is available on the WELL as `/uh/72/hlr/virtual_communities88'. Portions of this will appear in "Globalizing Networks: Computers and International Communication", edited by *Linda Harasim* and *Jan Walls* for MIT press. Portions of this will appear in "Virtual Communities," by Howard Rheingold, Addison-Wesley. Portions of this may find their way into Whole Earth Review. This is a world-readable file, and I think these are important issues; encourage distribution, but I do ask for fair use: Don't remove my name from my words when you quote or reproduce them, don't change them, and don't impair my ability to make a living with them. I'm a writer, so I spend a lot of time alone in a room with my words and my thoughts. On occasion, I venture outside to interview people or to find information. After work, I reenter the human community, via my family, my neighborhood, my circle of acquaintances. But that regime left me feeling isolated and lonely during the working day, with few opportunities to expand my circle of friends. For the past seven years, however, I have participated in a wide-ranging, intellectually stimulating, professionally rewarding, sometimes painful, and often intensely emotional ongoing interchange with dozens of new friends, hundreds of colleagues, thousands of acquaintances. And I still spend many of my days in a room, physically isolated. My mind, however, is linked with a worldwide collection of like-minded (and not so like-minded) souls: My virtual community. Virtual communities emerged from a surprising intersection of humanity and technology. When the ubiquity of the world telecommunications network is combined with the information-structuring and storing capabilities of computers, a new communication medium becomes possible. As we've learned from the history of the telephone, radio, television, people can adopt new communication media and redesign their way of life with surprising rapidity. Computers, modems, and communication networks furnish the technological infrastructure of computer-mediated communication (CMC); cyberspace is the conceptual space where words and human relationships, data and wealth and power are manifested by people using CMC technology; virtual communities are cultural aggregations that emerge when enough people bump into each other often enough in cyberspace. A virtual community as they exist today is a group of people who may or may not meet one another face to face, and who exchange words and ideas through the mediation of computer bulletin boards and networks. In cyberspace, we chat and argue, engage in intellectual intercourse, perform acts of commerce, exchange knowledge, share emotional support, make plans, brainstorm, gossip, feud, fall in love, find friends and lose them, play games and metagames, flirt, create a little high art and a lot of idle talk. We do everything people do when people get together, but we do it with words on computer screens, leaving our bodies behind. Millions of us have already built communities where our identities commingle and interact electronically, independent of local time or location. The way a few of us live now might be the way a larger population will live, decades hence. The pioneers are still out there exploring the frontier, the borders of the domain have yet to be determined, or even the shape of it, or the best way to find one's way in it. But people are using the technology of computer-mediated communications CMC technology to do things with each other that weren't possible before. Human behavior in cyberspace, as we can observe it and participate in it today, is going to be a crucially important factor. The ways in which people use CMC always will be rooted in human needs, not hardware or software. If the use of virtual communities turns out to answer a deep and compelling need in people, and not just snag onto a human foible like pinball or pac-man, today's small online enclaves may grow into much larger networks over the next twenty years. The potential for social change is a side-effect of the trajectory of telecommunications and computer industries, as it can be forecast for the next ten years. This odd social revolution - communities of people who may never or rarely meet face to face - might piggyback on the technologies that the biggest telecommunication companies already are planning to install over the next ten years. It is possible that the hardware and software of a new global telecommunications infrastructure, orders of magnitude more powerful than today's state of the art, now moving from the laboratories to the market, will expand the reach of this spaceless place throughout the 1990s to a much wider population than today's hackers, technologists, scholars, students, and enthusiasts. The age of the online pioneers will end soon, and the cyberspace settlers will come en-masse. Telecommuters who might have thought they were just working from home and avoiding one day of gridlock on the freeway will find themselves drawn into a whole new society. Students and scientists are already there, artists have made significant inroads, librarians and educators have their own pioneers as well, and political activists of all stripes have just begun to discover the power of plugging a computer into a telephone. When today's millions become tens and hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, what kind of place, and what kind of model for human behavior will they find? Today's bedroom electronic bulletin boards, regional computer conferencing systems, global computer networks offer clues to what might happen when more powerful enabling technology comes along. The hardware for amplifying the computing and communication capacity of every home on the world-grid is in the pipeline, although the ultimate applications are not yet clear. We'll be able to transfer the Library of Congress from any point on the globe to any another point in seconds, upload and download full-motion digital video at will. But is that really what people are likely to do with all that bandwidth and computing power? Some of the answers have to come from the behavioral rather than the technological part of the system. How will people actually use the desktop supercomputers and multimedia telephones that the engineers tell us we'll have in the near future. One possibility is that people are going to do what people always do with a new communication technology: use it in ways never intended or foreseen by its inventors, to turn old social codes inside out and make new kinds of communities possible. CMC will change us, and change our culture, the way telephones and televisions and cheap video cameras changed us - by altering the way we perceive and communicate. Virtual communities transformed my life profoundly, years ago, and continue to do so. ---------- Footnotes ---------- (1) Copyright (C) 1992 by Howard Rheingold. All rights reserved. À Cybernaut's Eye View ====================== The most important clues to the shape of the future at this point might not be found in looking more closely at the properties of silicon, but in paying attention to the ways people need