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242 lines
11 KiB
Text
242 lines
11 KiB
Text
==Phrack Inc.==
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Volume Four, Issue Thirty-Eight, File 8 of 15
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Wide Area Information Servers
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How Do I Use It and Why Should I Care?
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by Mycroft
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mycroft@gnu.ai.mit.edu
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Introduction
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~~~~~~~~~~~~
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This file serves as an introduction to "information servers," and in
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particular to the WAIS system from Thinking Machines Corp.
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Overview
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~~~~~~~~
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The Wide Area Information Server (or WAIS) system provides a way for
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people ("providers") to make information sources ("sources") accessible via a
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network, with a very simple interface to search for and retrieve particular
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pieces of information ("documents").
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Essentially, you pick a source and specify a few keywords, and the WAIS
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search engine tries to find documents that match those specific keywords. Each
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document is scored, and the highest scoring documents are listed first. In
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addition, there is a mechanism ("relevance feedback") for feeding information
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back to the server about which documents are most interesting to you, and
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having it narrow the search based on this.
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To summarize: WAIS gives you a fast and easy way to search vast amounts
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of information, and to provide access to it to other users on a network.
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Why Should I Care?
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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You should care because I, through the goodness of my heart, have made all
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the issues of Phrack Inc. available through WAIS. :-) I'll soon be adding
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issues of the LOD/H TJ, NARC, NIA, Worldview, and a lot of other files. If
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anyone would care to donate files, I'd appreciate it.
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There are also many other sources currently available that will probably
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be of interest to you.
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Step 1: Compiling A Client
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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To use WAIS, you need a client program. There are currently 4 available
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that I know of:
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Xwais - for the X Window System
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SWAIS - terminal-based
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Mac WAIStation
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NeXT WAIStation
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(I vaguely recall something about a Windows client.)
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Xwais and SWAIS both come in the standard distribution, with the search
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and index engines.
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You can FTP any of the above from think.com, in directory /wais. The
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relevant files are:
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wais-8-b4.tar.Z - contains the search and index engines, as well Xwais and
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SWAIS
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WAIStation-0-63.sit.hqx - the Mac WAIStation
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WAIStation-NeXT-1.0.tar.Z - the NeXT WAIStation
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After you choose a client and get the source, compile it. There are
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decent directions on how to do this in each package.
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Step 2: Finding An Information Source
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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To find a source, you just do a search in the "directory of servers" -- a
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source containing pointers to all the registered WAIS sources on the net.
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For example, if you're using Xwais:
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(I am *not* going to go into the details of how to use the scrollbars and
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whatnot. If you're stuck, ask a Mac weenie for help.)
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Tell me about:
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.----------------------------------------------------------------. .------.
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|phrack | |Search|
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`----------------------------------------------------------------' `------'
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In Sources: Similar to:
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.------------------------. .----------------------------------------------.
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|directory-of-servers.src| | |
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`------------------------' `----------------------------------------------'
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.----------. .-------------. .------------+ .---------------. .----. .----.
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|Add Source| |Delete Source| |Add Document| |Delete Document| |Help| |Done|
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`----------' `-------------' `------------' `---------------' `----' `----'
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.+------------------------------------------------------------.
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Resulting || 1000 551 phrack.src /proj/wais/wais-sources/ |
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documents: || |
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.----. || |
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|View| || |
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`----' `+------------------------------------------------------------'
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.-----------------------------------------------------------------.
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Status: |Found 1 document. |
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`-----------------------------------------------------------------'
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The lines in the "Resulting documents:" window break down into three
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parts:
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Score -- How well it matched your query, as compared to other
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documents.
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Size -- <In bytes> of the document.
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Headline -- The "headline" is generated while building the index.
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For source files, it's broken down by filename and path. For the p/h/c/a
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server, it's the title of the article, the authors, and the issue and file
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number.
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So double-click on the document, and you'll get another window (shortened
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a bit):
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Source Edit
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Name: phrack.src
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Server: hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu
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Service: 8000
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Database: /src/wais/wais-sources/phrack
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Cost: 0
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Units: :free
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Maintainer: mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu
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Description:
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.+------------------------------------------------------------------------.
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||Server created with WAIS release 8 b3.1 on Jan 31 12:30:28 1992 by mycro|
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|| |
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||Here are all the issues of Phrack for your edification. |
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|| |
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||Phrack is an old hacking, cracking, phreaking, and general anarchy |
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||newsletter. Articles range from how the phone system works to making |
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||------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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`+------------------------------------------------------------------------'
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.----. .------.
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|Save| |Cancel|
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`----' `------'
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The fields work like this:
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Name: Filename to store this source under on *your* machine.
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Server, Service, Database: Where the source lives (my machine).
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Cost, Units: How much it will cost you to access the information.
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Maintainer: Me!
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Description: What is there.
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You really want this one, so just click the "Save" button. This will
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create a "source file" on your machine, which you can then access with the "Add
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Source" button of the question window. This setup is sort of a lose, because
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your copy could get out of date and not work. I've proposed a way to fix this
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problem, but so far it hasn't been implemented. This bit me once when I moved
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the files to their current location.
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Step 3: A Query
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Now, let's make another query. I can't remember where I saw this, so:
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Tell me about:
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.----------------------------------------------------------------. .------.
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|that night with tuc | |Search|
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`----------------------------------------------------------------' `------'
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In Sources: Similar to:
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.------------------------. .----------------------------------------------.
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|phrack.src | | |
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`------------------------' `----------------------------------------------'
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.----------. .-------------. .------------+ .---------------. .----. .----.
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|Add Source| |Delete Source| |Add Document| |Delete Document| |Help| |Done|
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`----------' `-------------' `------------' `---------------' `----' `----'
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.+------------------------------------------------------------.
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Resulting || 1000 24.9K "Phrack World News Issue XIV, Part 2", compiled |
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documents: || 967 29.9K "Phrack World News Special Edition III", compile|
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.----. || 800 74.9K "Phrack World News Special Edition II", compiled|
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|View| || 467 6.1K "Phrack Pro-Phile V: Tuc", by Taran King (issue |
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`----' `+------------------------------------------------------------'
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.-----------------------------------------------------------------.
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Status: |Found 40 documents. |
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`-----------------------------------------------------------------'
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All you have to do is double-click on one of the documents. After a while
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you'll get another window:
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.+------------------------------------------------------------------------.
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|| |
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||"Phrack World News Issue XIV, Part 2", compiled by Knight Lightning (iss|
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|| |
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|| |
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|| PWN ^*^ PWN ^*^ PWN { SummerCon '87 } PWN ^*^ PWN ^*^ PWN |
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|| ^*^ ^*^ |
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|| PWN Phrack World News PWN |
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|| ^*^ Issue XIV/2 ^*^ |
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|| PWN PWN |
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|| ^*^ "SummerCon Strikes" ^*^ |
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|| PWN PWN |
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||------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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`+------------------------------------------------------------------------'
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.-----------. .--------. .----. .--------. .------------. .----.
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|Add Section| |Find Key| |Next| |Previous| |Save To File| |Done|
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`-----------' `--------' `----' `--------' `------------' `----'
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Status:
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The "Add Section" button is used for relevance feedback. You select a
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region of text and press "Add Section" and it will show up in the "Similar to:"
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box in the question window.
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"Find Key," "Next," and "Previous" are used to search for the keywords in
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the document. The rest is pretty obvious.
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What Else?
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~~~~~~~~~~
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There are more powerful ways to use WAIS. For example, using the "waisq"
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and "waisretrieve" programs, you could query the directory of servers nightly
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to get the latest copy of phrack.src. This would ensure that yours is never
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more than a day out of date. (I recommend subscribing to the wais-discussion
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list and/or reading alt.wais instead, though, since it's more interesting and
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won't put a load on the directory of servers.)
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Or if you keep an archive of your mail, you could use it to index that.
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(I know several people who do this, including Brewster.)
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Or whatever. Take a look at some of the existing sources to get an idea.
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Conclusion
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~~~~~~~~~~
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WAIS is a very useful tool for finding information. It is still under
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development, though, and there a few rough edges that need to be worked out.
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In particular:
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* Source files getting out of date.
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* Multiple servers for a single source (for reliability and speed).
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* Multiple indices for the same source on a given server (for transient
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information).
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* Index overhead. (The Phrack index, for example, is currently larger
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than the text itself!)
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_______________________________________________________________________________
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