3/5/2005 - Telnet

I wasn't always as incredibly cool as I am now. There was a time, long ago, that it was blatantly obvious that my ideal career was going to involve The Internet. It all began in 1988, when I first heard of The Internet. There was an article in some computer magazine that was titled something like "The World Needs A Global Network - Can The Internet Fit The Bill?" I was all aquiver.

In 1989, I went off to college, and received a computer account at Western Michigan University. My computer account gave me access to The Internet. I spent a lot of time getting to know what was on the WMU servers, which included a multi-player, customizable text adventure game called Monster. However, The Internet tempted and taunted me. I needed to know more about this thing.

Back in those days, universities just plugged their computers into The Internet all willy-nilly, with no consideration to security. This gave me a big green light to do what is very likely the defining moment of my dorkiness. I telnetted around the world.

Telnet was (is) an application for connecting to other computers over The Internet, putting the user at a command prompt on the remote machine. I sat and thought about how cool this was - it was like I was sitting at a computer hundreds of miles away from me. As I was looking at a big list of university computers around the world that ran Telnet, the thought occurred to me - how far can I telnet?

I don't remember the details, but I think I started telnetting to a computer in the UK. While I was on that computer, I got to thinking - I can connect through telnet on this computer in the UK over to another computer somewhere else. Then, everything I typed would jump over the ocean to the UK, then it would jump to the new computer.

This started getting silly, to be honest. If I recall the chain, it was something like: Kalamazoo -> UK -> Italy -> Israel -> India -> Phillipines -> California -> Chicago. Then, I telnetted from the Chicago computer back to WMU's computers, opened the chat application on WMU's computers, and started a chat session with myself (in the university computer room, I had commandeered two machines for my mad experiment). One chat client was running locally, the other chat client was getting routed through a long chain of telnet sessions that circled the globe.

This probably sounds pointless and ridiculous to everyone reading this, but it gave me that tickle in my soul that cried out to me, somehow, oh somehow, I could use this to align the planets.

I looked at this chat session. This chat application would show every letter that the other person typed as they were typing it, so I began with typing just one letter.

I waited...

And waited...

Five seconds...

Ten seconds...

Maybe more. The scenario seemed so external and surreal that I felt as if I was watching a movie. This signal was going completely around the globe.

I watched... waited... the one letter I typed traveled faster than Santa Claus... mysteriously finding its way... back to...

YEAH! YEEEEEAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!! I JUST TALKED TO MYSELF! I routed a single letter completely around the world!

I sat, with the pure energy of Zen Enlightenment bursting within my mind, expanding beyond any borders, creating an endless, infinite universe within my soul. I typed more. It went around the world. I had channeled a power that perhaps mankind was not prepared to deal with. Yet it was mine.

I reached out and touched the face of God.

And God's omnipotent, yet casual reply... "Jay... my son... you... are a nerd."

Right on.