Please read the below. If you're interested and would like to subscribe please send mail to
The purpose of ALIS is to increase and encourage communication between people with interests in computers and technology on a real-time, physical, face to face basis. This includes you: programmers, writers, artists, consultants, cypherpunks, email fanatics, activists, hackers, usenet news readers, frustrated computer users, etc. Your experience is irrelevant, there is no such thing as a stupid question, and nobody knows everything (...yet).
The creation of this open forum will allow people to *physically* meet others with similar interests, ask questions, discuss projects, issues, concerns, ideas, and pass word of future events.
The many virtual communities that exist sometimes lack sufficient communication with the off-line world. And often these virtual communities lack communication between each other. To proliferate political freedom we must communicate openly, widely, and reach as many as possible.
I started this mailing list and the ALIS meetings to help eliminate techno-elitism, to eradicate the mysteriousness, alienation, and expenses of computer use and communication. I hope the Austin Local Internet Society will help broaden the horizons of the electronic frontier and consolidate the Austin community.
The purpose of the mailing list is to ask questions, answer questions, make announcements of upcoming events, forward relevant articles and mail, and to communicate with other computer hobbyists and Internet fanatics.
Some suggestions to keep us happy:
To avoid redundancy, please reply only to the person initiating whatever inquiry and not to the entire group. An exception to this would be the follow up of information that pertains to the entire group. Please avoid excessive and irrelevant mail, mailing lists with an overwhelming amount of redundant traffic are not so informative.
For the time being the list is unmoderated. This means that anyone can send whatever they wish to the entire group. Flames (insults via email) will not be tolerated, absolutely none. If you must insult, destructively criticize, or make fun of someone, please send mail to them directly. Redundant messages and flames will result in people unsubscribing to the list and eventually murdering this list. Enough of manners, everyone knows how to be nice, right?
Again, the purpose of this list is for finding information, posting notices of events, and for forwarding mail that will be informative to the lot and related to Internet, communication, and technological issues. Therefore, if you feel a piece of information is relevant ... send it! If you have a question about usenet news, electronic mail, gopher, ftp, etc, etc. ask it!
An example of an ALIS inquiry is as follows:
The meetings have been friendly and very informative. The discussions range from the future of the electronic frontier and science fiction to economic theory and where to buy a cheap computer. There is no specific subject for discussion at the meetings but it's inevitable for a group of net fanatics to find something in common.
The meetings are what make this mailing list different from others.
The mailing list is what makes the meetings different from others.
I hope to meet many of you (in real life) at the meetings and virtually on this list.
Thanks for the support!
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a u s t i n
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a l i s
The Austin Local Internet Society (ALIS) is a no-funds, no-official-members, no-board of directors, no-direct-official-affiliation with other organizations (however, other organizations are encouraged to participate!), meeting group and mailing list.
w h y a l i s ?
Computers are mysterious machines. They are often seen as dangerous, complex, almost life-like to the inexperienced. Even the most experienced witness strange phenomena and enjoy electronic frustration. A great deal of fears and prejudices surround computer use and users ...and it often results in being a very expensive hobby!
a l i s m a i l
The ALIS mailing list address is alis@bongo.cc.utexas.edu (also referred to as alis@bongo). When you write to the list everyone on the list will receive your message. To acquire a list of persons currently on the mailing list send mail to Majordomo@bongo.cc.utexas.edu and write "who alis" (without the " " parentheses) in the message field.
x@abc.edu: the person with the question
alis@bongo: this mailing list
y@fishy.org: the person with the answer
x@abc.edu to alis@bongo:
I've heard of program that will encrypt my email messages. I'm not sure of
the name nor do I know where to find it. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.
Many thanks!
-x
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y@fishy.org to x@abc.edu:
I saw your message on alis@bongo The program you are looking for is called
pgp, or "pretty good privacy". You can get a copy via ftp from
soda.berkeley.edu in the /pub/cypherpunks/pgp directory. If need some help
getting started with the basics meet me at the next ALIS meeting! Just
ask for y!
Good luck!
-y
a l i s m e e t i n g s
ALIS meetings are held about once a week ...optimally. If anyone wishes to have a meeting please announce the plan to the group. There have been many suggestions about a times, dates, and places. Unfortunately the meetings cannot always fit into everyone's schedule or eliminate geographical restrictions, therefore it is best (I think) to plan the meetings at different times, dates, and places.