ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9702280040
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
If you've never used it or seen it in operation you may wonder What's all the fuss about this Internet thing, anyhow?
You may be shocked at what you're missing.
When history is written, the creation of the Internet may be ranked alongside Johann Gutenberg's printing press and Marconi's radio as among the major advancements in human communication.
At its essence, the Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks - a linking of computers around the globe and the enormous amounts of information stored within those computers.
The information can be in the form of written documents, spanning the realm of human knowledge; photographs; art; personal opinions; music and videos. The information can be good and useful or it can be erroneous and harmful. It can range from an electronic reproduction of the Mona Lisa to pornographic photos of children.
The Internet is not a place for the naive. It should be navigated with an alert, open and skeptical mind.
The Internet was created by the U.S. military as a way of communicating in case a nuclear war knocked out conventional phone lines. Scientists developed a way of assembling information in small electronic "packets," which are transmitted by one computer and received and reassembled by another at the end of the line.
The military shared the network, called Arpanet, with university researchers, who found they could use it to send each other electronic mail and to post items of shared interest on electronic bulletin boards. During the 1980s, the National Science Foundation replaced Arpanet with its own technology at five supercomputing research centers around the country.
The Internet became easier to use with the development of the World Wide Web, a section of the Net that incorporates graphics and pictures with text. People "surfing" the Web can move from one piece of information to another with the simple click of a computer's mouse.
Although some schools and technology companies in the area have had access to the Internet for years, public access with a local phone call became easier in 1994, when InfiNet, an Internet service with which The Roanoke Times is affiliated, began operations. Now there are roughly a half-dozen local Internet service providers in the Roanoke area as well as major companies such as AT&T, Bell Atlantic and America Online.
At The Roanoke Times, the Internet is gradually becoming as indispensable as the fax machine, another piece of technology that wasn't around 20 years ago, but which we would find hard to live without now.
For instance, I used e-mail and an Internet site at the Federal Communications Commission to help gather information for the accompanying story on Internet service providers.
On my computer I have stored the addresses for a variety of World Wide Web sites that sometimes prove useful in researching background information for news stories.
One site, Edgar, is operated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. On Edgar a user can find financial reports and other information that publicly traded companies are required to file with the SEC.
Another useful site for reporters and other watchers of state politics and legislation is operated by the Virginia General Assembly. It allows users to call up the full text of bills and resolutions and to track their progress through the legislature. Thomas, a site named for Thomas Jefferson, allows visitors to do the same kind of thing with legislation before the U.S. Congress.
Many companies also maintain sites on the Internet. At Norfolk Southern's site, for example, visitors can find company history and news releases among a wealth of other railroad-related information. From this site, a visitor can keep track of the NS merger fight for Conrail or jump to the Conrail or CSX Web sites and get those companies' versions of events.
At the American Farm Bureau Federation and Progressive Farmer sites a visitor can discover the latest farming trends. At one of a variety of searchable directories on the Web, anyone can find the phone numbers for people all over the country. You can even track down long-lost friends.
Those are just a few of the thousands of examples of how the Web can be useful to anyone else needing information.
But, again, it's important to remember that any information is just as good as its source. You don't want to be burned the way Pierre Salinger, President Kennedy's former press secretary, was a few months ago when he declared the U.S. Navy was responsible for last July's crash of the TWA jetliner off Long Island. Salinger was apparently unwittingly quoting a piece of fabricated electronic mail that he thought was an official government document.
Because of the Internet's wide-open and freewheeling nature, when you use it, it's more important than ever to remember the old admonition of "Let the Buyer Beware."
LENGTH: Medium: 87 linesby CNB