                         Reflections of a Modem Junkie
                      Copyright 1995 by Leonard Grossman


 This may be the greatest moment in the history of online communications.
 Right now internet access is relatively cheap and, for those who have
 enough interest in computers to read this magazine, it is relatively
 easy. . . .and then again, it may not last!

 Basic internet accounts range upwards from $10 a month for a shell
 account to slightly more than twice that amount for full access.  With
 the advent of new software utilities like Slipknot, which enables Web
 access even from a shell account, almost everyone can afford to get
 online.  And right now the internet remains, for the most part the
 relatively open system that has made it such an efficient and effective
 means of sharing information and infotainment.  But both cheap access and
 the very openness of the system are under attack!

 In addition to the local and national Internet access providers like MCS,
 InterAccess,  Netcom,  WWA, the older large commercial online services
 like Compuserve, Prodigy and America Online (AOL) are really getting into
 the act. The competition is hot.  On some usenet groups the current joke
 is that some of us have received enough pro-motional discs containing the
 front end software for America On Line that we could back up Win95,  or
 even OS/2.  It seems a new disk is in the mail every few weeks.  Every
 few days one of the major services announces additions to its internet
 services.

 Why are the older providers working so hard to hook us now? Be-cause
 Win95 is now scheduled for release on the 24th of August of this year.
 Whether or not it is actually released on time, its release will be one
 more factor in the great sea of change in the world of online
 communications expected to occur in the next year or so.  Just as almost
 every machine sold today has Prodigy or AOL already installed, as well as
 DOS and Windows, within a few months every new machine will contain Win95
 and with it the online software for the Microsoft Network (MSN).  When
 you boot up Win95, the MSN icon will be waiting on the desktop.  Just
 click and you can register online - if you have your credit card handy!

 If the Justice Department allows it, the advent of MSN will provide
 incredible competition to the old providers.  But, how will all this
 effect delivery of services?  First, the major services do not yet have
 wide availability of fast modem connections.  Second, the big services
 charge by the minute or by the message while most access providers charge
 by the month or even longer periods except for the most basic accounts.
 Even if you can get high speed access to one of the big boys you are not
 home free.  Compu$erve charges even higher rates for higher speed access.

 On the other hand, with the major service providers, the end user doesn't
 have to do much more to get their machine ready than to install the
 provider's access software and log on.  The options will all be on the
 provider's server.  With direct access it's usually up to the user to
 assemble a suite of software that will do everything the user desires.
 This method offers greater freedom but can be fraught with frustration.
 Loss of freedom is what is really threatened by the encroachment of the
 major providers and MSN.  The user is forced into their selection of
 internet clients, their interface and their options.  But there are two
 greater threats to the internet.

 The big threat everyone worries about is censorship.  With Congress
 pandering to the lowest common denominator and the squeaky wheel, there is
 real risk that in an attempt to prevent the one or two percent of the
 online world who are children from access to pornography, or to silence
 the distribution of unpopular and perhaps even hateful literature and
 ideas, it is possible that the net itself will be destroyed.  The entire
 concept of the net is open architecture and easy access to systems and
 servers.

 Every firewall, every barrier, every "protection" built into the system
 reduces its effectiveness as a medium of communication.  What a pleasant
 surprise to hear Newt Gingrich's comments on this issue.    (I feel
 better, now,  about that "newt" icon appearing on my screen every time I
 load Chameleon.)

 Here, my objections to the big providers may prove to be wrong headed,
 for if they can provide front end software which will permit the end
 user, read "parents", with the  ability to restrict access on the user
 end, we may have the best of both words.  Open systems with user control.
 Ahh fantasy land.

 But the real threat to the system isn't from the censors but from a new
 breed of on line entrepreneurs.  "After all what," they say,  "is the net
 for if not to make money?"  That last statement would have been anathema
 a few months ago.  Remember the outcry when a lawyer spread his
 advertising over the net.  That seems long ago indeed.

 Just a few months ago, virtually, no pun intended, every site on the
 World Wide Web could be  accessed.  Just click on a URL (Universal
 Resource Locator) and within a few seconds you were connected.  It was
 fascinating.  More amazing were the number of commercial publications
 which offered free and unfettered access.  Time Magazine, Ziffnet, the
 New York Times.

 But slowly that's changing.  It seems they were just getting us hooked.
 While few sites actually charge for access, there are a number of sites
 which require registration and passwords.  No longer can I merely click.
 Now, to read the NandO Times, an excellent source of national and
 international news, I have to get down my little card file and look up my
 user name and password.  At least I didn't have to provide a credit card
 number as I did for MSN, even though theres no charge yet.

 Commercial charges for online information are nothing new. Lexis and
 WestLaw have long charged outrageous sums for access to what is
 essentially public information.  But now there are commercial sites on
 the Web itself.  Paid subscriptions required. There is no free lunch, but
 for the moment there is a very inexpensive ride.  Who knows what it'll be
 like next year.

 A FINAL THOUGHT

 It's a gorgeous summer day.  Temperature in the 70's. Gentle breeze
 blowing.  It's time to let the modem cool off and get some fresh air.
 And I'm sitting at the keyboard writing this column.

 Actually it isn't that bad.  We just returned from a five day weekend in
 Michigan --  early breakfasts,  long hikes before lunch.  Long naps in
 the afternoon, with a good novel to fall asleep over.  And then a walk on
 the pier or a good dinner in the evening.   No keyboard, no modem.  Just
 good conversation and that novel by one of my favorite authors, Richard
 Powers, whose "Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance," blew me away a
 number of years ago.

 I should have been forewarned.  Even the dust jacket makes it clear that
 the new book, "Galatea 2.2"  ((Farrar Straus Giroux, NY) in-volves a
 confrontation with a computer. Its an attempt to enable a computer to
 compete with real students in a "Turing Test" and pass a masters degree
 exam in literature.  Real danger lurked when I read the words with which
 the book opened, "It was like so, but wasn't.  I lost my thirty-fifth
 year. . . ."

 Within a few pages we learn that the narrator had free access to what he
 calls the world web.  I've lost at least a year that way too. Just
 published, the book is set in that time, seemingly light years ago, but
 really not much more than a year, before the advent of the graphic
 browser, but still the author-narrator's excitement mounts as page after
 page he describes the addictive delights of  connecting to machines all
 over the face of the earth.  "The web: yet another total disorientation
 that became status quo without anyone realizing it."

 The novel is much more than technobabble, it is a fascinating tour of the
 subject of intelligence, literature and love.  Logoff, pick up a copy and
 a tall cool one.  Sit out on the deck and enjoy.

 Leonard Grossman is a lawyer with the Department of Labor and is a
 regular WindoWatch contributor. He can be reached at grossman@mcs.com or
 leonard.grossman@syslink.mcs.com








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