Beginning with a brief outline of Usenet's general structure and development over the past few years, the book addresses the problems of exploring virtual communities and distributed information systems in general, and of finding information in electronic information environments. It covers traditional approaches such as information filtering, collaborative filtering and information retrieval, outlining their successes and failures, and discusses the prospects of novel approaches such as visualisations of social processes and social navigation.

Usenet. It is a strange term is it not? Almost like something Neo might have used in The Matrix film. The term conjures up images of archaic bulletin boards from the 1980s in which jacking in meant astronomical charges every month. Well. No longer. Ignore those who say "Don't talk about Usenet". No longer can you afford to leave your IP address out there for the world (and lawyers) to see. You want privacy & anonymity? Come to Usenet. Learn to be a ghost in the machine called the Internet, and do it anonymously. I will teach you how in an hour, not weeks. - Learn how to use Usenet - which groups to join, which to avoid - Learn how to be anonymous online - Learn why anonymity will decrease with peer-to-peer systems but increase with Usenet - Everything you need to know to set up a Usenet account and leech to your heart's content - How to use Tor, How to use PGP, Remailers/Mixmaster, SSL. - How to use encryption (and how it preserves anonymity) - How to use a VPN with Usenet - Which Vpn and Usenet companies rat you out, and which won't. - How to Stay Anonymous Online (Be Invisible) The time is coming when politicians may try to silence the freedom Usenet offers. So dont wait for that to happen. Act now and see a wonderland of free files, data, speech and zero censorship benefits to say whatever you feel to whomever. Because now is the time! Long live Usenet!

The authors conducted online research to find out what makes the Internet "tick", resulting in this examination of the pioneering vision and actions that have helped make the Net possible. "Netizens" is a detailed description of the Net's construction and a step-by-step view of the past, present, and future of the Internet, the Usenet and the World Wide Web.

A thorough, easy-to-understand, non-technical introduction to the USENET--an important and exciting part of the information superhighway. Fristrup introduces the novice to the concept of electronic information exchange via USENET newsgroups--showing how conversations are organized and distributed, the dynamics of discussions, and basic terminology. Includes a listing of established newsgroups and five hours FREE access time to USENET.

Discussion groups - they are really the prehistory of contemporary social networking portals. Discussions on the newsgroups, so called Usenet, it really was the beginning of building communities (social groups) on the Internet. What is interesting - Usnet still works and is even quite dynamicly. You should know how to get there, because many Linux specialists and hackers are still using this mean of communication.

Newsgroups cover a wide range of subjects and attract people throughout the world to exchanger opinions and engage in electronic debates. This book focuses on every aspect of USENET discussion groups - finding, subscribing and contributing - and explains how to avoid making netiquette blunders. It also explains how to navigate the newsgroups to find useful information. An encylopaedic section fully describes the focus, mission and character of nearly 800 useful newsgroups.

This book will help the millions of beginning and intermediate Internet users become more productive with newsreader software, learn how to send and receive graphics and other files, avoid getting flamed, and become accepted by the Internet community. The disk includes Windows and Mac versions of a newsreader program and graphics decoding and viewing programs.