LIS 341: Quiz #2
Answers (extracted from your replies to the quiz!)

• Since you know where the friend is all you would need would be the domain name of her program or school and you could try a finger.

• check internic for name of domain of the university, finger the site

• Another option would be to surf the web to that university, find her department and see if they have a student directory either for the university as a whole or within her department.

• Go to the KIS http site and enter name, University of Indiana, and US (country) and check the appropriate search services you want KIS to use.

• Probably the first place I would check is 411 on the WWW, since it is easiest to use (has an easy interface)

• If that did not work I would try one of the search engines such as Alta Vista and ask to search for a person.

2. What is UNIX?

• Unix is an operating system
• UNIX is a computer operating system (like dos, windows or system 7)
• UNIX is the most widely used operating system on the Internet.
• UNIX is an operating system developed at Bell Labs. The operating system was freely distributed. Hence. it became very popular, particularly on university and college computer system.

3. Would you send your credit card in an email message, and why?

• An email message may get sent to multiple computers before it gets to the final destination. A person could technically monitor the transmission and interpret the message.

• No. E-mail messages can be intercepted and read, and they are kept in logs of the systems involved. It would be too easy for someone to read the credit card number.

• Also backup copies of email are standard procedure.

• There have been sites developed with security to allow you to do financial transactions over the Internet, but email is not secure.

4. How is a "mailing list" different from a "newsgroup"?

• A mailing list or listserv is used only by people who subscribe to the mailing list. A newsgroup may be used by anyone who calls up the newsgroup.

• With a mailing list, a person subscribes to the list and when they send a message to the list, every person subscribing to the list receives a copy of the message. On a newsgroup, messages received are posted at a site (with the newsgroup indexed in some w ay at the site) and any individual can access and read the postings of the newsgroup.

• Mailing list information comes to you as an e-mail message whereas you have to go out looking for newsgroups every time

• Newsgroups are a more open forum of communication. Anyone can participate and you have a higher degree of control on how you view messages and how you submit.

• A newsgroup doesn't utilize a mail reading system, such as email.

5. What is an internet "protocol"? Give one or two examples.

• A protocol is a set of rules that allows computers to "talk" to each other.

• An internet protocol is an agreed upon convention of how different computers on a network will interface.

• A protocol, essentially, defines how computers talk to each other.

• Telnet is an example of an internet protocol. It allows access to a remote server.

• Gopher and ftp are internet protocols

• http (hyper-text transfer protocol)