Subject: Front Cover of Purdue's Campus Weekly Date: Wed, 20 Oct 93 7:26:11 EST Unfortunately, MUDing has graced the cover of Purdue's campus Weekly. Who cares you ask? Well, one of our very own was the focus of the article. Her identity shall remain nameless (due to her asking), unless she chooses to reveal herself. But, anyways, here is the article. -- M.U.D. SLINGING ACROSS THE INTERNET Teaser: She's tired. She's wired. Angrily she pecks at the keyboard and squints at the screen. She swears like an automechanic. The computer in the engineering lab has rejected her password. She is no longer a Purdue student. The guy whose account she's trying to get into in no longer her boyfriend. If she can only logon with her alias "LovnRkts," she can open the door between herself and the Internet's infinite space. LovnRkts has MUD in her blood. "When I stared MUDing, I was already on academic probation, :says LovnRkts (pronounces "Love and Rockerts," from the underground comic). She had been majoring in liberal arts. "It's really addicting." MUD stands for "multi-user dungeons" or "multi-user domains." When people worldwide play computer games on the Internet computer network, it;'s known as "MUDing". Because so many computers link up to play them. MUDing sloooooooows the system way down, particularly during peak volume times. MUDs pop up unannounced; they disappear without a trace if the orginating computer crashes or is disconnected. MUDs, LovnRkts says, are like a lot of raves, spontaneous teen parties with no fixed locations. Purdue's computing center forbids the games, but students- and sometimes professors-play them anyway. They usually log on late at night, when the data traffic is lighter and MUDs don't elbow out other transmissions. The Internet is a tangled nest of 17,000 networks, connected by circuits around the world. "It's comfortable for academics. Academia is messy," says one computer consultant, who requested anonymonity. (NOT ME!) In 1984, science fiction writer Willima Gibson described "virtual reality" beore it existed. he had never seen a computer when he wrote the cult favorite _Neuromancer_. In Gibson's virtual reality, computer users attached a wire into their heads through a jack. The "traveled" along a network of connected computers, running into other jack-heads in "cyber-space" along the way. Basically, they were MUDing. When the computer finally accepts her password, LovnRkts sits back and mutters to herself. She pounds the keys and hammrs the spacebar. She's dressed like the tough girl who'd push another kid's head aganist the locker. She's playing "Space Madness," wqhichs broadcasts froma computer at the University of Oklahoma, where MUDing is permitted. Through the MUD, LovnRkts enters a crowded tavern on a firehouse pole through a hole in the ceiling. The tavern is whirling through outer space, circling a black hole. More than 20 disembodied voices of MUDders inthe tavern speak on the screen with names like MegadeatH, Genuine Draft (one of our own elusive haveners), Zippy and Spookyfruit (another havener). When she logs onto the game, somneone asks: "Are you really working in a titty bar, LNR?" In the world of MUDs, lovnRkts is notorious. They warn each other about "shoulderwatchers":people who eavesdrop on screen conversations. They punctuate their messages with "Smileys:" little sideways pictures formed with chracters like the three that follow this colon: 8+) She prefers "social" or "tiny" MUDS in which a group of people talk via computer. "Combat" MUDs, she says, resemble role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. "They're hack-and-slash MUDs with monsters, like muppets or giant barneys, that try to kill you," she says. Some MUDders are at other schools;some work for computer companies like Microsoftr. Others work for the government. "MUDs are running out of NASA and Los Alamos right now," says LovnRkts. iThe number of people who use the Internet grows by 15 to 20 percent each month, says Sunsan Scott of INDnet, an Indiana Internet provider. More than 10 millions people now use the Internet. University policy dictates that the network be used only to send educational or research-oriented data. But many who use the network are guiltyt of sending personal messages via electronic mail. E-mail is instant:no waitng for delivery by "snail-mail," as MUDders call the U.S. Postal Service. International students send instantaneous messages to colleagues and family on ther other side of the world. Professors send private letters to friends at other instutuitions. Students "surf the net," looking for recreational bullentin boards. And it's all "free" to anyone with access to a university account. The federal government foots the bill. The government subsidizes the National Science Foundation, which maintains a "backbone" for the network. Tax dollas are used to pay private companies like Sprint and MCI for the use of circuitry, some of which is fiber-optic cable. The government doesn't want to pay for the Internet anymore. LovnRkts stalks st night from lab to lab, loging onto the Net into one of many stealthily obtained computer accounts. She dropped out of school when she "met this guy," a MUDder from Tuscon. He visited her in West Lafayette on his way to meet another members of a MUD called "Angst." "We made out on the couch, It was cool." It was also broadcast, play-by-play, by a third MUDder in the living room with a laptop. Sex by computer is not uncommon among MUDders. "Sex MUDS," or "Tiny Sexes" are played sometimes with one hand on the keybaord, sometimes with two," says a MUD guide published by the University of Oklahoma MUD. Raf Tordil (my hero), a computing center employee, says that flirting is common over the Internet, but that the blank anonymity of the screen can be misleading. "Sometimes you might not realize what sex the other person is," he says. "They could be lying to you about that." LovnRkts has taken road trips acorss the country to meet other Mudders. "We were having a conversation at three in the morning with these people in Indianapolis, and they aid, 'Do you want to goto Denny's?' so we drove to Indy and met them for breakfast. In 1972, the Defense Department built the skeleton of the Internet to communicate withthe scientists and vendors in the defense industry. the network was designed to withstand partial outages like a bomb blast. It is impossible to control centrally. The Information Superhighway proposed by Al Gore will cut funding to the Internet by selling private companies the rights to control links onto the net. The government is expected to decide by the first of the year who the providers will be. "The cost will probably go up," says Scott Ksander, head of Purdue's Computing Center. Purdue has a direct link to the Internet through a company called ANS. Companies like CompuServe sell private E-mail addresses and other services to the genral public. Users pay a monthly fee, around $30, and then buy other services hourly, usually between $2 and $3 per hour. LovnRkts says CompuServe is a big joke. "its run off of one big VAX and it's slow as hell. Plus, their charges are insane," she says. Ksander can't disclose how much Purdue pays ANS. He says students are not in danger of losing their accounts when the system is privatized. And until they have to start paying for it, MUDders like LovnRkts will keep finding ways to play their secret, addictive computer games. Last summer is West Hollywood, LovnRkts and a friend met the author of _Nuromancer_ at a book-signing. She was amazed to meet the father of Cyber-punk. She asked him if he had an E-mail address. He said he did not. "We tld him: 'Good, don't get one, becuase you'll never get anoy work done,'" she says. --