Slashdot Mirror

Stop copying me!!! That combo is for MY enjoyment. Well, other than using Astraweb.
SO:
sabnzbd + sickbeard + ( giganews OR astraweb ) = JOY!!!!

Those were good times. Thanks guys.

I don't think Usenet's in much trouble, it's just that the huge level of traffic, and usage relative minority among all Internet denizens is making it into a more specialized area that you have to pay to access. Take for example Giganews, they've been around for quite some time, and they keep upping their retention. Right now they offer 650 days binary retention, 2,522 days text retention, 109,000+ newsgroups and have servers in North America, Europe and Asia. They also just recently added a VPN service free for the top tier accounts, which also get unlimited downloads and SSL encrypted Usenet traffic. All that for $30 a month, the VPN alone is probably worth that, much less all the other stuff. To pull all that off they have to have invested tremendous amounts of money into storage alone, so they're apparently not hurting for money any.

And Giganews isn't alone in offering paid access to Usenet, there's tons of other companies doing it, and it seems that new ones pop up every day. So I think saying Usenet's dying is premature. It may die eventually, but it's not happening now.

Actually, it's more like: INTERNET -> PORT22, since just about anything can be sent through an ssh tunnel. And the encryption makes most types of deep packet inspection impossible.

You missed his point which wasn't about the protocol, but the port being used. If you use port 22, it'll be blocked many places because they don't want to allow you to ssh. If you use port 443 it'll be allowed since https is "necessary", even if you're using 443 to carry your ssh traffic. What's sad is seeing other services move to 443 to be more accessible. Most usenet providers offer SSL encrypted NNTP on port 443 (despite having an RFC port specifically for nntps).

But it is much harder to block if they actually use legitimate looking packets for protocols that get out rather then just it's port. So people have encapsulated IP within real HTTP traffic. Better yet they'll use ICMP or even DNS to carry your traffic. I find the DNS one particularly amusing because it uses your nameserver to redirect the traffic even if the host isn't given any outside access.

You might also consider Giganews. They offer plans starting at $2.99 and you can get SSL encryption if you wish. They are also rolling out a VPN offering soon.

According to Giganews, Usenet bandwidth is currently exceeding 5TB per day. (They have lovely, though slightly dated, graph demonstrating this point.)

That's a lot of storage and network infrastructure to manage for a service that almost none of an ISP's customers care about.

Now, of course, it could be argued that something like nntpcache, running locally on the ISP's network and fed by an outsourced service like Giganews might fit the bill well, by conserving bandwidth and storage on popular items and using very little for unpopular items. And, as someone who had previously (a decade ago) set up a system like this for a local ISP, I think I'm qualified to attest that it does work.

However, here's the way it probably went down with AT&T: Manager opens newspaper, sees some horrific headline about GM bankruptcy, and decides to cull the expenditures. "This Usenet thing is expensive," he thinks to himself, "and I don't think the cost is worth the 0.3% of customers who actually know it exists, let alone ever even use it." And then, just like that, AT&T's Usenet servers get thrown under the bus.

It's a sad state of affairs, I agree - I'm all for using networks efficiently, and BitTorrent just ain't it. But we (users) have to deal with what we've got to work with, and if BitTorrent's horrific network efficiency is the best we can do in a Usenet-free world, then so be it.

ISPs have been putting the axe to hosted Usenet services (or at least alt.binaries, or even alt.*) for years with minimal customer outcry, since almost nobody cares. However, the last time someone tried to fuck with BitTorrent on any grand scale (Comcast), it got the attention of all levels of government and Comcast turned their policy around in a (relative) hurry.

So, again: BitTorrent (or perhaps Giganews) it is.

As an AT&T subscriber, long-time Usenet fan, and someone who remembers when the daily bandwidth of Usenet exceeded that of a then-common 14.4kbps v.32bis modem, I'm neither surprised, shocked, nor offended by this move. *shrug*

Like so much else in life, there is Good, Fast, and Cheap. You can only have two of the three.

I liked Giganews when I read Usenet. They're good, and fast.

Actually Comcast's usenet service was provided by Giganews, albeit with a 2GB/mo cap. So it wasn't just text groups, they had all the binary groups with excellent retention.

May I add another 'No, it's not!' to the comments?

ISP-based usenet has always sucked. The retention was lowsy, the propogation was poor (if they even let you post) - or they simply outsourced to one of the Big 3 [giganews,usenetserver,eweka.nl] [http://top1000.org/#stats]

For those of us who know about it, Usenet is thriving - there's more data passing through it than ever. GN is adding 240days of binary retention (which is insane)

With the combination of NZB files [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZB], and SSL, you'd be nuts to ever use a torrent again.
Speed + security + real files.

There are bunch of services:

Combined:
BitNabber.com [Combines NZB + SSL Usenet access]

Usenet only:
Giganews.com [240 days retention, SSL]
Supernews.com [Cleanest / most spam free usenet server]
UsenetServer.com [Solid service, SSL]

NZB Services:
http://www.newzleech.com/ [Free, but automatic, so results will vary]
http://www.binsearch.info/ [Free, also automatic, but with SSL]

NewzBin.com - [Premium + Invite only, but the goliath of NZB sites]

The obit is premature. Usually when a service "dies" it would mean it's no longer available, but anyone can still buy usenet access here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here.
And that is by no means a complete list. If anything, usenet may actually return to a more usable medium again, now that it won't be free for all the spammers and trolls anymore. Then again, it may well not -- it's not like all the illegal traders will just give up and go away, so I guess it depends on how much money the **IA, the BSA, and the morality police want to spend on "eradicating the problem".

Well that's that. Usenet is dead. I am glad that child predators won't have any other way to access the cesspool of child pornography that is Usenet.

Back to the Future:

Re: Wow.

"When AOL gained Usenet access people referred to it as "the September that never ended", referring to the fact that there was now a constant influx of clueless newbies"

But without new blood Usenet ages and dies

What happens if other ISPs decide that maintaining a news server for a handful of Geeks is no longer worth the trouble?

AOL Kills USENET Acess [posting as westlake January 25, 2005]

In 2008, I have my answer.

In June Roadrunner dropped USENET and the event passed with barely a rippple of protest.

Unlimited USENET in 2008 is Giganews at $30/mo with encyption.

Giganews might as well put up a banner add explaining what it is they are really selling. This isn't USENET as an open public forum. It's USENET as a distribution channel for illicit content.

The stereotypes of the geek are reinforced, he is marginalized a little more.

My ISP [Free, in France] provides usenet access, but constantly snips off groups according to its whims.

Since I use Usenet+NZBs, BitNabber works for me.

Others that might work for you:
Giganews.com - 200 days retention, from 7.99 p/m [SSL available] - no nzb service
SuperNews.com - from 3.95 p/m - the owner / admin Daniel is very hardline against spam, possibly the cleanest provider out there

Whilst it's frustrating that service should be cut, it seems that Verizon is behind the curve on cutting NG access anyhow.

Amazon's editors (not the fans/buyers) have been pretty consistent in picking good stuff.
Basically, if you haven't used it before, I'd recommend the following way to get a really good variety:

1.Best of by Years will get you started with some great CD's you haven't heard of.
2. Get a download account
3. An account to find the music.
4. A program to download the music.

Total price is about $20/month, though well worth it to get your collection started. Such a shame the record companies are too thick-headed to get their share of the pie; On the other hand, what value are they providing here with this model, anyway??

That varies widely from provider to provider. A typical ISP, if they bother to offer a Usenet server at all, may retain binary content for just a few days. On the other hand, some of the commercial news servers have much longer retention periods. GigaNews, for instance, now boasts a binary retention period of 200 days.

One word for you. Giganews

What your ISP offers you and a real news service provider (with 120 days of binary retention and nearly 4 years of text retention) are not even close to the same thing.

You can't be serious.

Without checking, I doubt that even if you subscribe to Giganews (and not with an ISP that partners with Giganews or any other usenet provider), you'll get anything close to a 58 days retention. I think 30 days is a more accurate average of the retention you'll get for most binary groups.

hmmm.......

From here...

2. Retention With the world's longest newsgroup binary retention of 90 days and text retention of 1214 days, you'll get all the articles you're looking for without having to camp out in your favorite groups.

Check next time. ;)

If I might make a further suggestion... use http://www.newzbin.com/ which will give you NZB files that work with programs like http://ninan.sourceforge.net/ that make it easy to search and automatically download from NNTP.

I also use personally use http://www.giganews.com/ as my usenet provider since they have something like 70 days of binary retention.

I hope most Slashdot readers are using NNTP by now (not NTP) to use their music, movies, software, pr0n, etc. etc.

You will help out your ISP by only using downstream bandwidth. You can also usually max-out your connection speed. A CD can take only 15-20 minutes to download.

Further, your troubles with the RIAA/MPAA/Homeland Security are likely to be limited to when you, say, post on a heavily visited site about your activity but forget to post anonymously.

For the best binary newsreader (to download files) from USENET, I reccomend Power Grab -- small, fast, free, and doesn't fiddle around with your registry.

You will probably need to subscribe to a USENET service as well; I reccomend easynews or if you plan to download more than 20 GB per month than Giganews.

Sadly you are exactly right! I used to belong to a Netflix type company until one too many discs went 'missing' (i always returned them next day). I was charged for the disc. In response I cancelled my membership and joined an alternative company which doesn't require the physical shipping of the disc itself.

Customers are willing to play fair but if the media company's want to stop piracy they'll have to play fair too.

Legit, bought and paid for, just don't wanna deal with the hassle copy protection puts on you, or your source for warez. Whatever the reason ... LONG LIVE USENET!

http://www.giganews.com/ combined with http://www.newzbin.com/

PS - Who the fuck needs TIVO -- alt.binaries.tv -- if it ain't in there it wasn't worth watching anyway...

Screwed up the links somehow. Giganews, EasyNews, Newsfeeds.com.

And then there is the completely ignored realm of Usenet. Newsgroups carry most popular (or cult popularity) shows. Really popular shows like Lost are usually ripped from HDTV sources and encoded to DIVX or XVID at a high bit rate (say 700MB for a 40 minute show).
Now content is dependant on your ISP's retention, but downloads are usually extremely fast. Alternately you can use a pay Usenet service like EasyNews or Giganews which have crazy retention periods.
How do you know what's up there and which group to access to find it? The handy dandy site newzBin is a searchable index of binary files available on Usenet.
I have Tivo and use it for a lot of stuff, but I started just grabbing HDTV rips of Battlestar Galactica off Usenet because the quality was so good.

Usenet is still thriving and there still many very active groups out there, some of which actually have comments in them as opposed to "erotica", although there's still plenty of that too, of course. Better yet, now that October is nearly here at last, the signal to noise ratio should go up too. Sure, many ISPs might be giving up their own Usenet servers, but if they don't outsource to a dedicated provider like SuperNews or Giganews, you can always get an account with them yourself. Failing that, you can hunt around for one of the numerous free servers, and there's always Google Groups of course, but they often don't carry as broad a selection of groups.

But without new blood Usenet ages and dies.

I think with AOL the issues were the quantity of newcomers and the rate at which they appeared. Prior to AOL people joined Usenet at a relatively slow rate compared to the size of the existing body of posters. This meant that newbies who didn't know netiquette were heavily outnumbered so they were more likely to conform to the existing standards. When AOL began providing Usenet access this changed. The sheer number of AOL members was so great that the they didn't feel any pressure to conform to the existing standards. This may have been a neutral or even positive development if they had brought a new standard but instead it was just chaos.

What happens if other ISPs decide that maintaining a news server for a handful of Geeks is no longer worth the trouble?

If that happens then the people who really care about Usenet will use providers like Giganews while those who don't care will stop using it. I think certain groups (particularly technical groups) might welcome this; other, more social groups might not.

One advantage that Usenet provided in the days before the web was that it was a central location for discussing things. (Note that I don't mean architecturally; the actual servers are distributed). These days, for a lot of subjects there is no central location to discuss things, which just leads to a bunch of separate, smaller groups that can't provide the same breadth of experience and perspective.

I can saturate my connection to Giganews at any time of the day (~380KB/sec on my 3Mbit line). Of course they are only 8 hops with a max of 12ms away. Giganews reverse traceroute

For a growing number of ISP's, outsourcing to specialized usenet providers is becoming the ISP's news source. Short term it makes sense for users and providers for consistancy and quality (retention and speed) but for long term usenet existance, consolidation seems like a bad idea. Imagine how easy it would be for 5 or 10 large usenet companies to come under fire and be shutdown. Down goes usenet.

That's the part that worries me. I typed my first Usenet post over ten years ago, shortly after getting my first internet account (yeah, I know, I was on AOL, but we were all young and stupid once.) What struck me about Usenet was the properties that I soon learned applied to the Internet as a whole: Nobody owns Usenet or its content, nobody can easily regulate or censor Usenet, and Usenet tends to find its way around any distruptions in service (since it's not all stored on one giant server.) One day DajaNews started collecting and saving Usenet posts, making them available through their web site. I found that idea disturbing, sort of like when I saw my first Canter & Segal spam. I quickly realized, however, that given enough disk space and bandwidth I too could archive all the chatter and discourse that is Usenet, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop me. Usenet discussions could theoretically be made immune to virtual book burning.

DejaNews was eventually bought by Google, which continues to archive most of the non-binary groups, as well as provide a web-based portal to Usenet. It does not, however, have the only copy of Usenet. Other companies like Yahoo, Delphi, ( and even Slashdot) have created their own user group systems, accessable only from their servers, and viewable only with a web browser (after all, what good is the Internet if you can't put banner ads on it?) If you don't like the way that your newsreader sorts & displays, you can get a different one, or even write your own. If you don't like the spam posts that Delphi weaves among regular ones, or the spam page that they present to you before allowing you to see a group, tough sh*t. You'll read Delphi postings the way they want you to , or you won't read them at all. If Delphi goes belly up, all their archived posts could go to the highest bidder, or maybe just disappear completely.

Google has always worn the white hats, so far. If they become as popular with these groups that "aren't actual Usenet groups." as they've gotten with their search engine, what happens if Usenet slowly dissappears when everyone jumps on the Googler bandwagon? What happens if this central database, owned by a single company, is no longer freely accessable?

BTW, I highly recommend GigaNews Usenet service. I've used them for about 5 years now; good consistant service, & they never tried to pull anything sneaky.

Got $10/month? Giganews has 40 day retention of 99% of all newsgroups and they're extremely fast. (not affiliated, just have the 1Gb free through my ISP deal)

Which would you rather have: possible bursts of 3MB/sec or dependable 1.5MB/sec?

Service in my area has not been burstable, it has been constant, so far..
I can pull my full 3Mb/sec at any time during the day or night on any day of the week. I have never seen a time when the speed delivered to my house was less then 3Mb/sec (or roughly 350-380KB/sec of actual downloaded data). My speeds are noted when pulling from Giganews which averages about 5 ms away. Speed tests to other sites like CNet vary widely and are not consistant as is any ftp or web site.

While I don't have actual values for the Web (which would be hard to get), here are some statistics from an ISP that runs a newsgroup server. It's a bit skewed because they don't carry the high bandwidth stuff like movies, warez, or even mp3s, but it's worth a shot.

Of course, the major Usenet providers, like EasyNews, Giganews, and RemarQ would never publish these statistics, because they would expose themselves for what they are, and why people pay for them. It certainly isn't for the text files or the discussion, that's for sure.

While GigaNews isn't an ISP, they got this whole bandwidth problem right. First off, they don't claim to give you unlimited bandwidth, but have different levels you can buy into. The thing they really do well, imo, is they offer a recycling option. If you want, they'll automatically send you an email when you get near your limit. Go over the limit, and they'll kick off into another month's billing cycle. So, you can intelligently plan your bandwidth usage, and if you want, you can pay to go over easily, without even doing anything. And best of all, changing plans is easy and painless to do. If ISPs are going to start capping user's bandwidth usage, I hope they do something like this.

Port blocking is just putting a band-aid on the problem. For the end-user there will ALWAYS be ways around this - someone creates a p2p app that uses port 80 as the transport. The cable/DSL companies goofed on this one and now they are struggling to come up with these half-assed temporary fixes that really don't provide a good long-term solution. Sometimes good solutions to these problems can be found in other areas that have nothing to do with the internet. One area that comes to mind that might provide a solution for this problem is the concept of a toll road. Typically toll roads are built as an alternative for people to use rather than the slower and longer public routes. Its a win/win situation - the drivers are happy because they get a faster and more convenient route and the owner of the toll road is happy because he gets money that helps pay for keeping the road operational. Keeping that win/win concept in mind we can apply it to this bandwidth problem. Users who want to use extra bandwidth (faster download/upload speeds) will have to pay a little extra for it and Cable/DSL companies will use the extra money to provide circuits that can accommodate the "high bandwidth" users. This solution is similar to what Giganews does. As most of us know, Giganews is a news service that provides access to USENET newsgroups (including most of the popular warez and pr0n groups). The pricing plan is based on how many bytes the user downloads - the more you download the more you pay. Bottom line is that p2p and other high bandwidth application networks aren't going away. As more and more new p2p users are added to the network the Cable/DSL companies need "widen their roads" to support them - and if that means that I have to pay a few more bucks a month to have a reliable network then sign me up.

Then get a better news server.