the network
:the network: n. 1. Historically, the union of all the major
noncommercial, academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet,
the pre-1990 ARPANET, NSFnet, BITNET
and the virtual UUCP and
Usenet
`networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial
time-sharing services (such as CompuServe, GEnie and AOL) that gateway
to them. A site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be
reached through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP
(bang-path) addresses. See Internet
, bang path
, {{Internet address}
}}, network address
2. Following the mass-culture discovery of
the Internet in 1994 and subsequent proliferation of cheap TCP/IP
connections, "the network" is increasingly synonymous with the Internet
itself (as it was before the second wave of wide-area computer
networking began around 1980).
3. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian hacker-subversives and
anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described in Robert Anton Wilson's
novel "Schro"dinger's Cat", to which many hackers have subsequently
decided they belong (this is an example of ha ha only serious
.
In sense 1, `the network' is often abbreviated to `the net'. "Are you
on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet face to
face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.
Jargon File Version 4.3.1, 29 JUN 2001 =
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