The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):

network, the
The Network

   1.  (Or "the net") The union of all the
   major noncommercial, academic and hacker-oriented networks,
   such as Internet, the old ARPANET, NSFnet, BITNET, and
   the virtual UUCP and Usenet "networks", plus the corporate
   in-house networks and commercial time-sharing services (such
   as CompuServe) that gateway to them.

   A site was generally considered "on the network" if it could
   be reached by electronic mail through some combination of
   Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP (bang-path) addresses.
   Since the explosion of the Internet in the mid 1990s, the term
   is now synonymous with the Internet.

   See network address.

   2.  A fictional conspiracy of libertarian
   hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers
   described in Robert Anton Wilson's novel "Schrödinger's Cat",
   to which many hackers have subsequently decided they belong
   (this is an example of ha ha only serious).

   [Jargon File]

   (1999-01-26)