# Introduction

This interview was held on 2018-08-05 and published on 2018-08-08 in the
absmagazin (http://absmagazin.de). Here is the German website of the
interview:

	http://absmagazin.de/Members/radio/sendung/abs180808.mp3

Please see the corrigenda at the end.

Please see the links list for all references.

# Interview Transcription from German

[intro music]

Michael(M): Here's the ABS Magazin - "Arbeit, Bildung und Soziales"
- Your magazine about social policies here on radio x the Frankfurt
citizen radio.

Nice to have you all here! Thanks for listening! We have got a new episode
for you, exciting things from the realm of communication technology.
We want to talk specifically about the internet... No, we do not want to
talk about the internet, neither do we want to talk about the dark net
today, but something even more obscure: Today will be about 'gopher space'.

'Gopher' is a protocol, which has been introduced a bit earlier than
the world wide web. But it has faded a bit into obscurity. A protocol,
which might have to be said, is the way how computers talk to each
other, how they exchange their data. You may have heard about the HTTP
protocol. You are using this when typing an URL into your browser. Or
there is a protocol handling the exchange of E-Mails. And there's the
'gopher' protocol. Which is interesting in particular as it is simple
and similar to the web, such as: Gopher server provide text and provide
links. What they do not provide are pictures, additional features,
JavaScript or other complicated things.

This restriction providing text and links does also mean, that you can
work very fast with it, pages do load super fast. And there are people
saying that the web is too bloated, there's too much advertising, to
much nick-nack. It is getting more and more difficult to get to the real
information on a site. Under these circumstance it is to the point to
have a closer look at the gopher protocol.

We have talked to someone, who's knowledgeable in this field. There
is a group of people who will hold a conference soon, to discuss the
future of the gopher protocol and how to build a real, interesting,
alternative to the world wide web. But now we will have a little bit
of music: Mrs. Beep with 'The spring is coming' a little bit of 8 bit
music. After that we will talk with Christoph Lohmann, who will tell us
something about the gopher protocol.

[...music cut out...]


Yes, now we have Christoph here. He is a bit of a computer nerd, a
hobbyist, who is tinkering with software, hardware, programming and
protocols -- everything that's computer related and how they communicate.

M: Hello Christoph!

Christoph(C): Greetings Michael, here's Christoph!

M: I have read that you are running a project called 'bitreich'. This
project is using some protocols that aren't known widely. But what's
this project about?

C: bitreich's goal is to create simple software. This includes simple
protocols like gopher. Simple principles, software that's fun to use. Our
goals are stated on the website or better the gopher hole.

M: Yes...

C: There are.. Well, we wanted to talk about gopher. It's about replacing
big complex things with simple stuff which you can even implement yourself.

M: Gopher does translate as 'Maulwurf' (German) right?

C: Yes it does, it is derived from the gopher mascot of the MIT,
a university in the US. Also it is a pun on 'to go for'.

M: This protocol has existed for quite a long time now, probably earlier
than the world wide web?

C: It has been developed in 1991, where the goal has been to connect
different databases at MIT with a hierarchical protocol. It has been
surpassed by the web sadly, which has been picked up faster, to put
it simply.

M: How do the web and gopher differ?

C: One has to differentiate between the data transport and display. In
the web there's HTTP for transport, then HTML for displaying the web
page in my browser. In gopher I have one protocol that already defines
simple menus. I know exactly that an item is a link and what will happen,
when I click on it. They are already defined in the protocol. Which
means the structure is more strict. As opposed to the web.

M: So like, when I am on a website often I have to relearn the navigation
and where to find things...

C: That's another issue on the web. There are even languages and
mechanisms, that can hide this from you. And a 'link' nowadays does not
mean 'go to this website' anymore. That's part of the problem. In gopher
you have this simplified, there's a link pointing to somewhere and I
just follow that. On the end of the link there may be another menu and
so on forming a tree of information for me to browse.

M: If I understood you correctly, the display of data in gopher is mostly
text based?

C: That's how it has been defined, yes. It's all about text. Images
have been added to it, but back in the days there have been all these
terminals with these old screens only capable of displaying text. But
it's about text, it's about a simple way to exchange information. And
that's pure text.

M: Or two people talk to each other, they also can exchange ideas or
information that way.

C: Yeah, text is even more simple. If you take this further, there's for
example Linux, which listeners may have heard about. That's about how I
can do text processing on the command line. With images you'll have to
deal with more complex algorithms and that's not as easy to use.

M: Hearing all this I think this is also about using simple programs
that use less resources? If I transfer a text file it is probably much
smaller than an Image or a video file.

C: Yes, that's right. I can tell a story where I have needed this
badly: In Bhutan in south Asia, north of India, where it's all about
the happiness of people, not like here… They have got a GSM Network
only. There has been a blackout and there has been only this slow data
network. But I have successfully retrieved my needed information via
gopher. It does not need a lot of resources.

M: So it is a protocol that's interesting for areas that are less
developed or where the aren't so many resources available?

C: Yes, gopher saves resources, but over all, since the web's problem is
illustrated with YouTube: Someone reads a text in a video which is served
in HD and viewed on a 4k monitor. I could have sent out the text instead!

M: So the approach is this: Here is a protocol and programs, allowing to
transfer information efficiently and fast. Sometimes as much information
as in a read out video. Is this a new trend?

C: Gopher has been dormant for a long time, since the web has gotten
popular. The current developments are that smart phones are getting
more powerful with more CPU cores on one hand but the systems get
slower more and more on the other hand. This prompted a lot of people
to think about alternatives. Also among experts who know about the web's
complexity. Gopher is a part of this alternative.

M: So there's a movement that strives for less complexity and resource
usage?

C: Yes, it's about the internet, not only the web. There's a lot more
besides the web. Bitreich is the part where software shall become simpler,
since that's all connected.

M: In your bitreich software development you write programs, that you
use for yourself or because they are so simple to use them yourself...?

C: It's about the command line in bitreich, for experienced users. The
graphical user interfaces need a lot of resources. Gopher is the part
for the end user. For developers it's about having nice command line
tools that are fun to use. That's our goal. And that's achievable through
simplicity only.

M: Are modern tools too complicated with their graphical interfaces? Is
that really taking out the fun?

C: Well, in the old days you'd have opened a text editor, which used up
200 kilobytes of RAM. Today when you open up an editor it will load a
browser in the background, this web browser will load JavaScript and
this all uses up to several gigabytes of your RAM. And then this all
has to display your source file. That's the current state of affairs!

M: When you say you want to find new ways with bitreich project, to use
less resources. Does it work? What are your experiences? Is it really
more fun than viewing smooth videos on YouTube?

C: I can see that I won't burn my upper legs when using gopher
as opposed to viewing a website, where my laptop fan goes on and
everything. Currently there are about 300 gopher servers, so we are
a small fraction on the net. The whole web currently uses ~2% of the
global electricity, sometimes even more…

M: But one needs to have a bit of a background to use all this? If I
imagine how easy it is today for average smartphone user to surf the
web or go into a chat with other people exchanging text messages. You
can visit an app store and will find ready made software. One click I'll
get it installed. If I want to use gopher that's not so easy is it? Or
a program to chat with others?

C: There are different layers here. First you start by visiting
gopherproject.org and if you are not using a gopher client you will
be redirected to a 'web to gopher converter'. You'll be able to browse
gopher sites in your web browser. And that's the entry point where you
will get to further gates.

M: So it's a gateway that I can use with a normal browser that does not
speak gopher and still be able to browse gopher sites?

C: There are also plugins for web browsers, at least Firefox and
chromium. One of the problems is that currently there has been a change
in plugins for these so there might be incompatibilities. There are
many more clients listed on gopher project.org.

M: What about chat? I know there was a protocol that has been in use a
lot: IRC - Internet relay chat. That's not as popular today is it?

C: It is popular among software developers, because every open source
project has their own channel. That's the easiest way to talk to
developers and users. There are web clients, mobile clients, command
line clients. IRC is implemented almost everywhere.

M: That's capable of doing the things you can do with a messenger on
the smartphone?

C: It could but does not want to?

M: Really?

C: I do have the possibility to share, say a video, in whatsapp or
images. You do not want this on IRC, it is a simple protocol. It's about
sharing text. If I would add media, it would be impossible for hobbyists
to run their own servers. You'd need more infrastructure on the size of
Facebook for example…

M: You have said that 'hobbyists wouldn't be able to run their own
servers'. Does that mean it is easy to set up?

C: There are several possibilities: There's Debian for example, a well
known Linux distribution, there are simple tutorials and instructions
on how to set this up. A server has a monthly cost of about 3 EUR/month,
which will be able to run a IRC server.

M: And that's easy to get running?

C: The server side is a bit more complicated, the client access is
really easy.

M: What other protocols are there, that follow this same idea of
preserving bandwidth and resources while being comparable replacements?

C: Before the web there have been many other protocols already, based
on the TCP/IP protocol. On there are ~65000 different ports that can be
used. Today we send all over one or two ports for HTTP and encrypted
HTTPS. There are many more protocols. For example 'dict': A protocol
to query dictionary servers. You send a request 'I'd like to know the
definition of this word' to the server and get back the definition of
the requested word as text.

M: Is this still in use? How would I use this today?

C: There is dict.org which maintains the protocol. Bitreich has its
own dictionary server for the urban dictionary which contains funny
definitions of words. It's just another service, not inherently difficult.

M: What other protocols are interesting for you?

C: There's newsgroups, but the problem with them is spam. There's
no efficient spam filtering method for newsgroups which is why they
died. They have survived as a medium to exchange binary data. Which
is why they are blocked in a lot of places due to them being used for
piracy. And the servers don't scale since they all need to keep track
of all the data on the network…

Then there's the Tor protocol…

M: Tor has also been around for a while. There have been spectacular
events surrounding the Tor protocol. It's about anonymity right?

C: Yes it is about anonymity. Today we know about the spy agencies
through Snowden and them surveilling all the routers in Frankfurt and
elsewhere. Which means they know where a data packet originates and
ends. Tor packages data in a way that one cannot see the way the a packet
is traveling. But the problem with Tor and the web is that there is a
lot of meta data in a web browser. This can be used to identify users. This
is where gopher can help.

M: So Tor is a method to hide your identity and what websites you are
visiting. When you say that there is too much meta data in a browser,
then this means: Information about the browser's config, installed fonts,
size of available RAM etc. Taken together all this information makes
a user's device unique as there are maybe only ~1000 people having the
same configuration. That's how one can identify users right?

C: Yes, that's how it works. Gopher can help here because there's a
defined amount of meta data: zero. With Tor there are a couple of things
one has to be aware of: I can leave the Tor network to visit a service
outside or I can access a service inside the Tor network. If I stay
completely inside the Tor network, there's no way for spy agencies to
find the 'end trail' of my packets. That's total anonymity. If I use this
to access the Facebook hidden service and I login with my credentials
I identify myself, so that's pointless. But on gopher there's no way
to login...

M: If you use Tor and you login somewhere then your identity isn't hidden
anymore of course…

C: That's a problem for inexperienced users. They download the
Tor-Browser, want to share their secrets about their regime. If I just
hand them a tor browser, it has certain metadata which spy agencies have
special filters for. So they can be found easily. Which means all the
basic layers have to be designed securely that the average whistle blower
will not get in trouble.

M: There have been different attempts at preserving privacy and not
handing over data to big companies, by not taking part in one of the big
networks. Are there alternatives to them? As opposed to using Facebook
& Co.

C: There's GNU Social for example or mastodon. If I go to Facebook all
data goes in and I get nothing out again. But if I use one of these
(slightly more complex) protocols on my home server I can exchange
messages with my friend in France, like: 'He has shared this picture or
text message to the group'. That's decentralization.

M: So there's no central data center holding all information, but many
servers holding on to what they need to know only.

C: The Facebook data scandal happened at the right time. There you
noticed that there's political resistance. So Facebook, Microsoft and
others started a project to exchange and export data. But so far Facebook
hasn't delivered.

M: With export you mean exporting user data?

C: I am referring to my timeline and all this.

M: Are there many people using GNU Social or mastodon? Or is this a
niche for specialists and nerds that care more about their privacy?

C: It's really easy to use: enter 'gnu.social' in a web browser and
you will get redirected to a server instance. There are many of them
and you choose the one where all your friends are already in the best
case. You sign up there and then you will use this server to post into
the network. It's all usable within the browser and it looks a lot
like Facebook.

M: We have talked about software and how to install it. You need to have
some background knowledge for using a command line as it is just a window
with text, you enter text commands etc. What do you think about people
getting into this? Does this have the potential to being used by a lot
of people or even becoming mainstream? Can this work? Or is this too
unwieldy and slow and complex for them?

C: Let's look at the argument someone makes when switching from windows
to Linux: But there's only a command line! But if I take interest in
my device then I'll learn how to use it. Back in the days I could fix
a radio myself. Today I don't know what this funny device is doing…

M: Yes?

C: That's the point. It's about having fun with computers. If you regain
that you'll learn how it operates and you'll dig deeper. And you will
be able to modify it yourself.

M: On the other hand a modern radio or computer does have a lot
more features than a cathode tube radio, like searching for stations
automatically, data transfer and offering a combination of different
sources (analog radio, digital radio, internet streams). That's way easier
than fiddling with the station knob yourself until you are listening to
the station you want.

C: I want to make a counter proposal: The problem with this is that you'll
have to buy a new device every year a new protocol is established. But
there are also things like the Raspberry Pi that's running Linux and you
can build your peripherals around that. If you want you can exchange
that for something with more computing power later. It's all about
modularity and wasting less. For computers and smartphones we do see
this developments towards open source hardware. It will take very long
due to vendors actively blocking these efforts.

M: Simple usage also enables more people to use this technology. For
example a navigation service on my smartphone is more comfortable than
carrying around paper maps.

C: That's why we talk about this. People need to know that the price
for all this comfort is being under total surveillance. And the
machine controls me. That's why one needs to know how the machine
works. Otherwise this will all be like magic and magic is never a good
thing. We need more science.

M: I'd like to come back to the navigation example: I've got a smartphone
with an app and can accurately see where I am. That's a service I'd like
to use, but I don't want to wade through complex software and install
text only interfaces. That's too much for most people I think?

C: Yes, no one will get attracted because of that. We do advocate that
every project should be reusable. If we talk about maps, there's a map
database, openstreetmap. There's someone that inputs all the maps into
the database, there's a program generating maps. Now someone can put a
text interface in front of the database to get to the same data. Not like
Facebook where data is hidden behind one web interface. If Facebook's
going out of business all the data is gone. So we say: re-usability. It
would be a huge waste to redo all this data.

M: What's the reason we don't have data reusability today but big
companies that collect all the data and not a lot of small contributions
by people? After all the idea has been around for 20/30 years as well..

C: Consumption is the problem. What's left of our social structure is
the 'I want' and 'I get'. Everything in between the 'waiting', 'I need
to master this' has been lost to Hyper-capitalism.

M: What do you think one can do about this? Is your attempt of focusing
on simple protocols trying to turn back the wheel of time a little or
changing it's direction a little?

C: I cannot convert the whole world. That's impossible. It's about showing
a different way. Someday someone will come along and use all this because
it fits his needs. If I only have a generation of smartphone users that
never have touched a personal computer, then they need to know that
there's a cleaner and simpler way. Your hand does not have to get warm
when surfing the web.

M: If I may exaggerate a little: We have had steam engines and horse
carriages back then, today's tools are a lot better, more efficient and
comfortable and enable us more?

C: No! We beg to differ: Some of the old protocols could not reach
everyone due to technical problems. But now I have gigabit internet
connections and so on, content distribution over gopher is instant. You
will see a difference. Try moving the mouse on a current Microsoft Windows
machine and compare it to a Windows 95 device. The older machine will
be faster. There are less layers of abstraction at work, it's simpler. A
computer has to do some real work, not existing in pure theory, like in
a bureaucracy. It's about practicality and fun.

M: Having fun with the computer is a recurring topic. Is this a central
point for you and your allies?

C: Yes it is like in any other club out there. If it is no fun, why
go there? We are hobbyists, working 8-10 hours per day, then I need
a good reason for doing this. That may be why there's often rougher
communication happening. Maybe due to us being human and not service
staff. Then it may happen that we demand some signs of self help from
others. This is not a self-service shop but a hobby. If I want to be
part of that I have to do my share...


[radio jingle]

M: Here's the ABS Magazin: Arbeit, Bildung und Soziales. Your magazine
about social policies here on radio x the Frankfurt citizen radio. We
have talked about the gopher protocol, the simple way of exchanging text
over the internet. We will continue our talk with Christoph as there
are now some people that want to take care of the future development
of gopher. What's the current state of affairs and how to move on? That
will be one of the topics of an upcoming conference and we would like
to know what will happen there. What's it about?

C: It's about 'bitreich con' or conference. That will take place next
Saturday and Sunday in Rodez, d  partement Aveyron, South France as
there's a bitreich member living there. But you can also follow the
event online. There's the slides available on the gopher hole via ssh,
an audio stream via gopher and IRC chat. So everyone can participate.

M: So one can listen to talks, the discussions and ask questions via
the IRC channel.

C: Exactly! And your upper legs won't get burned while doing so.

M: What's the schedule for the conference?

C: On Saturday we will talk about bitreich and what has happened there. We
have made changes to our manifest, new members and projects. On Sunday we
will talk about gopher exclusively. A lot of Americans will be looking
forward to this as there hasn't been a gopher con in a long time. And
they are mostly part of the older gopher community. So this will be the
first time that we will all meet together again.

M: And what will happen there? Will there be talks, programming sessions
or just a social event with discussions?

C: The most important thing for gopher is that we restart a discussion
that has been dormant for the last years. We need some kind of team
spirit again. As I said we do have 300 gopher servers this year, last
year there have been 100. So there's an increase. The protocol itself
has some sharp edges and warts that need to be discussed as well to
define them in the future. Especially interaction between gopher and
the web is still undefined. And we want to establish a discussion panel,
to keep in touch with each other.

M: You say there are 300 servers. What's on them? When I browsed through
them I have found a log of 'phlogs', something you would call a blog on
the web, right?

C: Yes phlogs, just like blogs. There are many of then and there have
been a lot of new phlogs. Because distribution of content is so simple,
you upload your text and it's there to be read. Very simple, just as it
should be. There's nothing more that for a blog as well really. A lot of
people do this due to a retro chic, like enjoying it like in the good
old days, some also do it due to it's idea of simplicity. Let me open
up my slides for a talk I have prepared so I can tell you some services
that might be interested for newcomers in the gopher space.

M: Gopher space is the whole part of the network, all servers running the
gopher protocol and all information on them? Just like the world wide web?

C: Yes, that's what I mean by that. As an example we have the following
services: A gopher fronted for mastodon/GNU Social as an alternative
to Facebook. Then there's an interface for the pirate bay's search,
an Interface for YouTube (search only), Wikipedia, a search searx which
works like Google or duckduckgo but federated. Project Gutenberg, where
old books are collected and there's even a search fronted for Netflix.

M: Those aren't static sites like text or audio or image files. But
there are interactive elements?

C: That's included in the gopher protocol. It's a search feature where
you send a search request to a server and get a response back. That's
how it is used in the pirate bay search for example where I send a search
term and get back a list of torrents to download.

M: That's not very different from websites…

C: Oh yes, it's different! I have mentioned the structure imposed by
gopher before. The looks will always be the same. I have a list of menus
and links, which I can follow until there's a file behind it or more
information. On the web you'll often have trouble finding your content
due to all the ads.

M: So the web currently is very heavy on graphics giving web designers a
lot of possibilities to create a page. And then there are factors that
have contributed to rising advertisements and the increasing resource
hunger of these websites. Wouldn't it also be a proposal to say: Let's
just use HTML 1.0 like in the beginning of the web? You'd get images  and
links but no extra code execution via JavaScript. Is that in alignment
with your goals?

C: I still have in mind what I have said about meta data and Tor. It would
be a step in the right direction but many have tried this and many many
have failed. That's a problem. The only thing you can do on the web to day
is to browse the mobile version of a site and suddenly it's accessible.

M: When you say 'failed', who do you tell? Does that mean it's too
complicated to create even simple websites? Or did they fail because they
look old and too retro? How can you tell that their attempt has failed?

C: It's the same problem why we won't see gopher taking over the
world. It's all too big. The same technology is everywhere but is seen
differently in India or Africa than here. Everyone has a different
knowledge level. The same is true for repairs. Knowledge gets lost. The
current generation does not do this. It's important to show them that it
can be different, it's about preserving that knowledge.

M: With repairs you are referring to the ability to repair your own
devices because they are designed in a simple way?

C: Yes, but there's more to that today. We are in an era of 3D printing
where Airbus will get 40% of the parts for an airplane out of a 3D
printer. If done right we can do this also for the end user.

M: So the HTML 1.0 revival has been an interesting idea from your point of
view but it's not really suited to keep to simple and essential protocols?

C: The problem with web development is that it's just piling up
layers of software. There's JavaScript on top of JavaScript on top of
JavaScript. The same is true for all commercial development. Why is it
the hobbyists that have to take care of simplification? Everyone lives
in their own filter bubble and as long as there's profit there's no need
for change. That's a problem and that's why we have to show a new way
as an alternative.

M: If I keep piling up layers upon layers and build it so that I can
still access the older layers then that's surely an advantage? To be
able to continuously carry on work while being backwards compatible
without making hard cuts where old content will not work anymore -

C: That's a totally different problem: Take archive.org, the people
trying to archive the web. They have huge problems scraping modern
web pages trying to find content and archive it. That's due to the core
problem of us not using text anymore. That has to be solved. We use
abstractions not text.

M: Currently when using HTML, text files are transferred. Or are you
fearing that there's just binary data exchanged in the future, to present
you an image containing text?

C: That's really happening at the moment, it's called web assembly. So
there's binary programs being executed in the browser which further
complicates it all. This also implies more access to the computer
hardware, another issue we have been warning about since Snowden. It
will get a lot worse.

M: That sounds pretty fatalistic, the web is a lost cause and cannot be
saved. Is it really that bleak?

C: It will get more complex and nontransparent. I cannot see it
differently. The developments of the last 20 years have been going in
this direction. We currently have only 3 web browsers left, that's also
a sign. With gopher one can implement a client in a couple of minutes
in virtually any programming language. There are only 3 browsers left
because not a single person will manage to write another one in their
lifetime. That's impossible with current standards.

M: Do you have to recreate everything from scratch? Isn't it a
possibility to stand on the shoulders of giants and do great things
with that? Otherwise we will again have to solve the same problems with
primitive tooling that have been solver already.

C: That's the same argument we have already had. The world's too big. We
offer one proposal how to make things simpler. Sometimes it gets picked
up, sometimes it isn't. But it's about spreading this idea: It's possible
to make it simpler! There are many people out there doing simple web
pages but total and absolute simplicity will not happen. If we'd all use
the same web browser for example we'd also have all the same security
flaws. That's another point: With Linux everyone can build their own
system and is independent. Like with natural selection mono culture makes
us fallible to the same virus.

M: You say: We need to experiment, we need to be diverse we need to create
things as we want them as users which is not the same as companies would
like to design web pages and our communications.

C: Companies may do what they want, once they see that people use our
things because they are fun… as it is happening at Microsoft, they
switch over to Linux because Linux is fun and they are having trouble
finding developers that do Microsoft. That's why Microsoft is developing
a Linux subsystem and is porting Linux software to it. Because there's
no one who wants to work with this tedious and boring Microsoft stuff.

M: Really? I have got the impression that windows is widespread in
industry applications where software is available for windows only. Or
in the games industry where a x86 windows platform is the prime one and
Windows the tool of choice.

C: That depends on your point of view! Linux has simply won!

M: *laughs*

C: Take the smartphone: 90% is running Linux and there are whole
generations of people in Africa that use their phones as their sole
device. Those are all Linux users. Industry and commerce applications
are niche products and niches move very slowly. Maybe we'll see a change
there in 20-30 years. And that's the point: Now we have the possibility,
now that there are no developers for Microsoft that do it with all their
heart, it's all about passion anyway, then we have people here on the
other hand, that switch all over to Linux. Microsoft is supporting docker,
they even distribute their own Linux images for their cloud service. Linux
has won.

M: You said that in some countries the desktop is irrelevant now, a
smartphone more important. Do you think that's a development that will
also reach us? Will the smartphone replace the laptop?

C: I can simply tell you an observation: We have had a village festival
here the other day and all the young ladies where sitting there using
their smartphone.

M: Okay...

C: That's a sign isn't it!

M: I see that you have a clear picture in mind… How's the reach of
your project with gopher, IRC and alternative social networks. Do you
see any international recognition? Or is it more some experiment of
people in the industrial nations?

C: Americans, as these are the old Gents that have been tinkering with
gopher in the old days, but there is also a wide reach in Europe. I have
seen a world map yesterday containing all the gopher servers. There
have been 3 in Africa, Japan has had a couple, Asia… there are
interested people everywhere. I know 2 enthusiasts from Argentina through
bitreich. We are international, English is our language as we are small.

M: Is there a way to access gopher on smartphones?

C: Proxies are the easiest way, seconded by 'overbite'. That's a gopher
plugin for browsers made by Cameron Kaiser, an American developer. He has
build solutions for Firefox and Chromium. You can find this through your
web browser. There are also graphical clients but those you'll have to
build yourself, so that's not suitable for beginners. But it's the same
as on the desktop: The advanced users have their command line where they
can run any of the command line clients, as it is a Linux system. And
the people specialized on the web can access it through a proxy. So
there's accessibility on all levels including 'backwards' compatibility.

M: You'll have your conference soon, where you will exchange ideas. Will
there be a way to read up on this later?

C: Yes the recordings and slides will be available online.

M: Being available online is the right clue! You all know that
you can listen to all of episodes of the ABS Magazin on our website
absmagazin.de. There you can listen again to how this all works, have a
look at the show notes where we will put in all the links that have been
mentioned on the show.

You have been listening to this week's episode of the ABS Magazine. You
have seen that there are many possibilities and a lot of them you can
use for yourself, to create your information channels as you want them
to be. Thanks for being with us, thanks for listening! You can join
us again next week at 4pm on radio-x, 91,8MHz your Frankfurt citizen
radio. So long!

# Corrigenda

* Gopher was developed at the UMN, not the MIT.