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Does this sound like the perfect opener for a lonely single wanting
to make new friends? If you think so, you might well be a SNAG looking for
a MOTAS, or perhaps if you’re a real exhibitionist, someone who is NIFOC,
even WFYITBWNBLJO.

Welcome to the world of soc singles, which describes itself as ‘the
electronic version of something that’s part way between a cocktail party
and a soap opera’. It offers the squid-talk (right; as well as the list
of bizarre acronyms, above) as an example of the perfect way to get a conversation
going over the network with its 60 000 members worldwide. You can broadcast
a message to all of them if you like, and with a bit of luck someone who
sees a soul mate in your ramblings, tentative or otherwise, will rush a
message back to you. Or you can scan the messages until you’re ready to
jump in and join a conversation on screen. And if your interests are really
exotic, then there are always the specialist sub groups – perhaps alt. personals.
bondage.

As well as its more colourful back streets, the world of electronic
mail meetings already has its legends. An American computer database manager
met her British partner while she was playing interactive games over the
company’s worldwide messaging system. They met electronically for four months
before ever seeing one another, and then immediately decided to live together.
And there is the celebrated story of Mark Cooper from Howden, North Humberside,
who hit the headlines after proposing over the network to Teresa Burtick
from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The couple had never met during their nine-month
romance.

Anne Hooper, an agony aunt and sex therapist in London, says that any
new opportunity to communicate is good news. ‘Four out of five of the letters
I’m looking at now are from the lonely and isolated,’ she says. ‘If you’re
keen on dating and want to make new connections, as an agony aunt I’d advise
you to follow them all up.’

But there are also some disasters. The American manager has seen the
Internet destroy marriages. ‘In one case a guy became emotionally involved
via mail and interactive games. He left his wife and child and flew from
Massachusetts to California. He met the woman and decided she wasn’t the
dream person, but his marriage was destroyed,’ she recounts.

The biggest risks of all may come from interactive games, which allow
you a whole new persona of your choice. No one is who they seem in a multi-user
dungeon (MUD), a complex, on-screen world where you can wander for as long
as you like by typing commands on your computer. You will run into strangers.
‘Dungveld appears’ flashes the message on the screen. ‘Who are you?’ is
the obvious, but dangerous response. Because Dungveld could be anything
he or she wants to be – an elf, warrior, wizard or goblin. You might team
up with Dungveld to pool your fighting strength to slay monsters, sit in
the market square and chatter, or travel on together and meet others. You
might fall in love – or Dungveld might betray you and lead you to a nasty
end.

In these imaginary worlds, a shy man can act out the fierce warrior
woman that lurks in his secret soul, while a tough woman can retreat from
the games-playing nightmare of her office life to become a shy, elfish man.
Whatever your penchant, it could all get a lot more complex in the future
as communication goes beyond mere games. Imagine what could happen when
virtual reality has matured and you can summon a ‘real’, ‘physical’ encounter
with a stranger who might be anybody or nobody, simply by donning a telepresence
suit

But even today, while we can only portray our secret selves in words,
it’s wise not to let your hopes run away with you. MUD addicts tell the
tale of a ‘Viking’ hero who had been ‘travelling’ in his fantasy world with
a blonde ‘Viking’ maiden for weeks. They got on so well that they decided
to meet in a London pub. She turned up every inch the Viking – tall and
athletic with long, blonde hair. Alas, he was short and spotty. When he
returned from the bar, drinks in hand, she had fled and was never seen again
in this world or in cyberspace.

Networks use copper, co-axial or fibre optic cable, satellite or radio
to link computers, one or more of which coordinates the traffic between
the rest. The first experimental networks appeared in the 1960s. A decade
later, computer scientists were looking at ways of linking networks to one
another. By the late 1980s, the most comprehensive network of networks,
the Internet, was crossing political and professional boundaries, bringing
together computer users in business and colleges, schools and government.
Living by, working on and communicating through the net became part of the
common culture.

* * *

Electronic mail, or e-mail, is a nice extra that came with networks.
In the early days of the Internet, anyone sending a message had to work
out in painful detail a route from their machine to the intended recipient’s.
Now, every access point to the Internet has a unique address, which is
all you need to get your message through, no matter how many separate networks
it has to navigate on the way. Internet subscribers send billions of e-mail
messages every week.

* * *

The Internet started life as a network known as ARPAnet, controlled
by and run for the US Department of Defense. Its scope broadened in the
late 1980s, when the National Science Foundation in the US wanted all the
country’s academic institutions to have access to five supercomputers.
The easiest way of achieving this was through ARPAnet.

Then some universities in other countries began to set up links, and
the network became international. Access to the Internet is now available
in 60 countries.

By the end of the 1980s, many engineering companies were joining. More
recently the membership has spread to less computer literate companies,
and to computer users at home. The Internet now has 20 million users and
is estimated to be growing by 10 per cent every month.

For the price of a local telephone call, subscribers to the Internet
can use the nearest coordinating computer of their national network to send
files of digital information to other subscribers in any location, be it
the Oval Office of the White House or a uranium mine in the Australian outback.
They can also join one of more than 7000 discussions known as newsgroups,
which cover subjects from computer ethics to how to plan your wedding. Once
you’re online, nearly all this information is free, though some providers
of particularly topical data do charge for their services. One such is Clarinet,
a Californian electronic publisher that provides information from the UPI
news agency over the Internet. Another is the Dow-Jones index.

* * *

Caught in this web of information are the bulletin board systems, which
are like autonomous regions within the global empire of the Internet. A
BBS caters for people with special interests, a sort of sub-culture within
the Net.

The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link (WELL) in San Francisco is one of the
most famous. It began in 1985 as an offshoot of the Whole Earth Software
Catalog (now defunct) and Whole Earth Review. These publications were designed
to support ‘the alternative life style’; the WELL is a forum for the exchange
of ideas on this theme. Other bulletin boards round the world include CIX/Compulink
in Britain, and TWICS in Japan.

* * *

UKnet provided Britain’s first public connection to an international
network in the late 1970s. The international network was ARPAnet, which
at the time was used primarily for military communications. Subscribers
to UKnet gained access to the international network via a computer at the
University of Kent, which was linked to one in Amsterdam with a direct connection
to the US.

Since then UKnet has changed its name to Eunet GB, which has more than
900 customers in Britain. But it faces competition. Most universities in
Britain can now gain access to the Internet via the government-funded joint
academic network (Janet). Several private operators also offer access. For
instance, Demon, which began offering the Internet to computer users at
home in 1992, now estimates that half of the 4000 subscribers to its link
are in business. Pipex, another private operator, has focused on attracting
commercial customers from the outset.

* * *

Looking ahead, the US government is promoting a National Information
Infrastructure, much of which already exists as the Internet, telephone
services and cable TV networks. It wants to frame laws to mould these disparate
links into a coherent network of high-speed connections – the superhighway.

* * *

These changes will bring new users to the Internet – and new problems.
So far the network’s growth has been by word of mouth. Those who hankered
after connections often knew other people on the Net, and people have got
themselves access to the Internet as much to keep in touch with these like-minded
individuals as to reach the network’s affiliated databases or do business.
This ‘community’ spirit has made the Internet relatively easy to police.

* * *

Unifying all the high-speed networks brings with it the prospect of
crime, says Peter Neumann, who runs the Risks Forum newsgroup on the Internet.
Authentication rules and coded messages may help to reduce the risk, but
Neumann sees crime on the network increasing over the next ten years. This
could range from pilfering corporate accounts and delving into secret communications
to extortion and nuisance. There is always the spectre of some dictator
trying to control part of the network, either by aiming to get their message
to the most people, or by preventing a group getting access to communications.

* * *

Roger Malina is chairman of Leonardo, a society for the arts, technology
and sciences in San Francisco. He sees the Internet and its successor,
the superhighway, playing an important role in visual and performing arts.
Malina points to experiments by artists such as Sharon Rabinovitz, who used
the Internet last year to put on ten simultaneous performances of a dance
routine at different locations. Other artists in San Francisco have used
the WELL to collaborate on various works. As it becomes possible to transfer
higher-quality images over the Internet at higher speeds, such collaborations
are likely to blossom. The Net also provides the opportunity for artists
to make a name for themselves without the need for agents or gallery space.

* * *

Entertainment will always be one of the major activities on the Net.
While for some, just logging on, collecting the e-mail and joining a conference
on a bulletin board will be enough, many others will want to play games
such as multi-user scenarios, which evolved from the multi-user dungeons
invented by undergraduates at the University of Essex. As communications
improve, encounters should become more entertaining. Interactive TV, home
shopping and network video games are less than a decade away.

But will the diversification, growth and commercialisation end the net
culture?