1. < jargon , networking > (Or "the net") The union of all the major noncommercial, academic and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet , the old ARPANET , NSFnet , BITNET , and the virtual UUCP and Usenet "networks", plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial time-sharing services (such as CompuServe ) that gateway to them.
A site was generally considered "on the network" if it could be reached by electronic mail through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP ( bang-path ) addresses. Since the explosion of the Internet in the mid 1990s, the term is now synonymous with the Internet.
See network address .
2. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described in Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Schrdinger's Cat", to which many hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an example of ha ha only serious ).
[ Jargon File ]
(1999-01-26)