Subject: Sunday Times article

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 1993 13:23:45 UTC

>From The Sunday Times (UK), 28 November 1993

"The great love byte; Computer networks By CHRISTOPHER LLOYD"

Computer networks are the singles bars of the 1990s. Christopher Lloyd
decodes the pillow-type.

She was an American, writing children's books in Chicago. He was
British, a student of computer science at Lancaster University.
Although they were nearly 4,000 miles apart, they fell in love by
sending each other coded messages over a computer network. Adrian Hall,
23, and Dorothy McMannus, 21, were married on October 16 this year.

The mysterious world of computer messages, known to some as electronic
mail, to others as bulletin boarding, and generally as cyberspace, is
now one of the most dynamic, but least known, ways that people meet
often in secret and exchange intimate conversation. Every night,
thousands of lonely hearts in Britain, America and all around the world
join people who simply want to 'chat', using their personal computers
to find partners, share hobbies and search out others with similar
tastes and interests.

There are special lines for gays, transvestites, and even
straightforward heterosexuals. There is a forum for sex in politics,
erotic photography and terrorism, as well as other more innocent
pursuits such as butterfly collecting and train spotting. In all, more
than 7,000 discussion groups are chatting away 24 hours a day. Anybody
can drop in at any time from any part of the world.

The busiest computer chat-line, called IRC (Internet Relay Chat),
exists on the world's largest computer network, the Internet, that
connects computer systems from almost every British and American
university, government department, and many large companies. More than
15m people are linked worldwide.

It is a world closed to those who have shunned the computer age, but
one which, for an increasing number of young people, is the gateway to
an endless paradise of interactive flirtation.

'I've been talking on the Internet now for five years, ' wrote Hall, as
we chatted via the Internet last Wednesday night he was in
Philadelphia, I was in London. 'We chatted about her book, about music
and probably just the same sort of things most couples talk about.'

Many of their conversations were in a clandestine code known as
'smileys', a language that uses symbols as a kind of shorthand to
express emotions. The widespread use of the smiley code was highlighted
in last week's issue of New Scientist magazine, which, in a short
feature on computers as Cupid, provided its readers with a selection of
the most useful symbols. Each is read by tilting the head 90 to the
left. For example, :-) is the original smiley that cyberspace chatters
put at the end of a joke, a trend that began about three years ago.
Recently, the language has grown to a vocabulary of thousands of
symbols. Here are a few of the more bizarre examples: !-( means 'black
eye'; $-) means 'yuppie'; %@:-( means 'hung over'; &.(. means 'crying';
(:+) means 'big nose'; :-E means 'buck-toothed vampire' (see list).

'If you have a complete range of smileys to work with, a vast amount of
emotion can be shown, ' says Hall. He and McMannus had about 60 smileys
that they used regularly in their romantic transatlantic computer
pillow-type. 'In November last year I had the chance to go to Chicago,
' said Hall, 'and decided to go and visit Dorothy on the way. I was
intending to spend two days with her in Chicago, but ended up spending
two weeks. I went back for a month in January and we got engaged.

'The majority of people I know who have had electronic romances have
broken up because they put on a false personality to please the other
person, but Dorothy was very much herself on the net.'

Conversing by typing a series of messages to another person thousands
of miles away across the world may sound like a strange way to
socialise, but it has considerable attractions.

First, it is cheap. Most users are able to access the network for the
price of a local call through a specialist provider. They can then
converse freely to anyone, anywhere in the world. Second, so much is
going on. It is like walking into a pub with up to 15m different people
chatting. You can drop in to see what is going on, contribute if you
want, and drop out again. You can't get that from a telephone. Finally,
it is a romantic medium in the way that radio is more romantic than
television because so much is left to the imagination. Your
correspondents are probably ugly, but they may be beautiful.

Even within offices, electronic mail systems are connecting workers
together. They can provide a new medium for budding office romances
foolishly so, many would argue, since the billets-doux so confidently
exchanged by lovers are invariably followed, like episodes of a
high-tech soap opera, by colleagues who furtively hack in. Conversely,
the medium can be used by some to harass others through the sending of
abusive messages between personal computers.

Of course, in offices, people could be banned from using internal email
systems. However, on the Internet it is impossible to regulate abuse
since there is no one body in control (in the same way telephone
conversations cannot be regulated).

There are three ways people communicate over the Internet. All that is
needed is a computer with a modem the device that links a computer to a
telephone line. Access is provided by most universities, an increasing
number of businesses and a collection of specialist providers such as
Compuserve or Cix in the UK. One firm based in Finchley, north London,
called Demon Internet, provides direct access for Pounds 10 a month.
Once connected you are given an electronic-mailing address.

To communicate with other users an email message can be sent (which
costs nothing apart from the brief telephone connection to the Internet
provider usually a local call). However, email is not the ideal medium
for real-time chat, because it can take between three minutes and an
hour to reach its destination, depending on the amount of traffic on
the network.

The next option is Usenet News, a collection of more than 7,000
specialist groups or forums discussing almost every subject imaginable.
Here, you 'post' your comments to all other members of the group
(again, for free) and each time you connect to the Internet provider
all the latest post is downloaded on to your computer.

Finally, there is the IRC (Internet Relay Chat), where most of the real
chat takes place. Because the computer is connected to the network all
the time you can chat instantly with anybody else in the group wherever
they are in the world. Every night, at least 800 channels are created
by people wanting to flirt, discuss politics or just chat. It is
possible to have open chats where anybody can listen in, private chats
involving a restricted number of people, and even secret chats between
just two.

Cliff Stanford, who set up Demon Internet last year, originally just to
provide a cheap way for a few people to get connected, now has nearly
3,000 customers in the UK, and is afraid to advertise because he says
his firm would be unable to keep pace with demand.

'It is incredible what is out there, ' he says. 'Because computer users
can download software off the network, it is like going into a computer
store and being able to pick up one of every product for free.

'Our customers split into about 50% technical and 50% consumers.'

The danger is regulation. Currently anything can be written or passed
between computer users including pornographic pictures, secret access
codes for hackers and even chat lines used by terrorist organisations.

'But it's ridiculous to argue in favour of regulation. Nobody regulates
the telephone, ' Stanford argues. 'If you walk into a pub, which is
much the same as chatting on the network, people are always swearing in
the corner. You can't stop that.'

If, however, you are looking for a secret way of communication, bear in
mind that despite the ability to set up supposedly secret one-to-one
conversations, GCHQ and the police are Demon customers. 'They have
joined, ' says Clifford, 'but they keep very quiet about it.'

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to [email-masked].
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to [email-masked].