Big Dummy's Guide To The Internet by Electronic Frontier Foundation (early reader chapter books .txt) 📕

Craig.

Don’t send any cards to the Federal Communications Commission,

either.

In 1987, the FCC considered removing a tax break it had granted

CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the

national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users

of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this “modem

tax.”

Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an “urgent” message

warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is

NOT true. The way you can tell if you’re dealing with the hoax story

is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on

KGO radio in San Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a

story about the tax in the New York Times.

Another way to tell it’s not true is that it never mentions a

specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments.

Save that letter to your congressman for something else.

Sooner or later, you’re going to run into a message titled “Make

Money Fast.” It’s your basic chain letter. The Usenet version is always

about some guy named Dave Rhodes who was on the verge of death, or

something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money

— by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. Yeah,

right.

4.5 BIG SIG

There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones

information in their .sig files — their names and e-mail addresses,

perhaps their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or

profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer.

Still others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are

those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes,

hideous ASCII “barfics” and more e-mail addresses than anybody could

humanly need. College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at

these. You can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord

newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as:

######################################################################### # # # ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** # # * * * * ** ** * * * * # # * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** # # * * * * * * * * * * * # # * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * # # # # **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** # # * ** * * * * * * * * # # **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * # # * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * # # **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** # # # # T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y # # # # “Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years…” # # # # # # “The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at # # least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point # # by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a # # user who not only flames people who don’t agree with his narrow- # # minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many # # pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented # # newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I # # might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic # # dump sites.” # # — Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr # # President of The Mega Big Sig Company # # September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm # # During his speech at the “Net.abusers # # Society Luncheon” during the # # “1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention” # # # # # # Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales # # —