In message <9o809c19w165w@bwalk.dm.com>, Dr. Dimitri Vulis writes: [...]
The notion is very realistic (but the flashy displays in the movie were not). At the recent PC Expo at the Javitz Center in NYC, there were tens of PCs running various Web browsers to try out. No one was watching over most of them I entered the URL telnet://uunet.uu.net:119, and sure enough, got connected. It accepted 'IHAVE', but I was too lazy to type in an entire Usenet article. I (and the heroine) could have telnetted to someone's port 25 just as easily.
That's odd. "uunet.uu.net" has had no A records for over a year. Perhapse you mean "news.uu.net"? At a recent the-net-is-hot-and-we-want-in show I appear to have torqued off some sales drones 'cause I managed to get their Kosak-mode web browser to give me a telnet. They had left a "search the net" link on their pages (pointing to Lycos or Info Seek - I don't remember which), and I used it to locate one of my pages which has a "type the URL" field (it issues a redirrect). I guess they didn't realise that if they give you a "global" search box you can get anywhere as long as you remember enough of the text on the page...