the network
the network: n. 1. Historicaslly, 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.
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