Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the for-the-moment-anyway dept.
pnevares writes "CNet has the news that the UDP on @Home has been lifted, apparently before the close of business Tuesday. They still have a 30-day probation, but the UDP [Usenet Death Penalty] will not go into effect."
I noticed more than usual expired usenet postings over the last week... was this partially a result of the udp? did it ever go into effect?
Re:did it go into effect?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
No.
Re:did it go into effect?
by
EvilAlien
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· Score: 1
The UDP never went into effect. What David Ritz called for in the UDP posting 5 days ago was a Request for Discussion of implementing the UDP against Excite@Home. No sanctions were actually put in place. The reduction in spam was due to @Home's response and crackdown, as evident in the NANAU group postings from @Home.
The amounts of Usenet spam coming out of machines at the end of cable modems was reduced drastically during the last few days. All the details on this can be found in NANAU.
The UDP might be lifted, but I have gotten a few spams from @home subscribers. No response. Since I have seen no useful information come from them and I enjoy my email, it makes sense for me to block all email from @home.
This has nothing to do with email. The UDP affects usenet posting only.
You are correct that the UDP affects usenet only; however, junk streams from @home in many ways; unless I am only one who is a victim of junk from their direction. Junk news and junk email. One is on the news spool for everyone and the other is thoughfully targeted to your mail spool.
If you are getting large volumes of e-mail spam from @home and no response from their abuse dept, why not start working towards getting them in the RBL? See here for details on the procedure.
Re:Spam from @home
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
No spam. Hell I rarely get any spam anymore. But @home users scan my machine at least a few times a day. Likely spammers looking for open ports to send thier spam from.
I've seen very little spam with forged @home addresses, but a good deal coming from *.home.com. Given the apparant state of their network, blocking outgoing port 25 connections is probably the easiest way to deal with this. There are very few legitimate reasons for wanting to send mail through a mail server other than your ISP's, and pretty much none for sending it directly rather than using a smarthost. For the small number of people who can demonstrate a legitimate requirement for external port 25 access, it should be feasible to provide a waiver thing like I seem to recall they have for 139.
Of course, this would mean extra hassle for the @Home network people and tech support as they have to deal with thousands of users with misconfigured mail setups who want to know why they can't send mail any more. Which probably means that the chances of it ever happening are zero, because everyone knows that getting your people to do work to avoid other people (who aren't on your payroll) having to clean up your mess is stupid. Sigh.
Re:Spam from @home
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
I send my mail through port 25 to make sure the mail gets there. Having my ISP relay the mail and the mail could get delayed. Port 25 let's me make the connection directly and deliver it fast.
Oh, I am not a spammer. I wish the mail sent to friends and family get sent directly to their hosts.
There are other ways to police spam than to block and censor ports by firewalling.
There are very few legitimate reasons for wanting to send mail through a mail server other than your ISP's, and pretty much none for sending it directly rather than using a smarthost.
Not strictly true, the only actually legitimate way to send mail is by first making MX lookups to find out where it should be sent. (Using the "smarthost" concept for SMTP mail is AFAIK mentioned in no RFC, let alone endorsed).
The only reasons for the existance of relaying mailservers are a) handling broken software which can only send mail using this (UUCP style) approach d) on a gateway serving a network with a private IP address space.
Firstly, it's not really censorship - it's not content based, and it's not preventing you from sending mail. Secondly, there's a growing number of ISPs subscribing to the DUL (a list of IP addresses corresponding to dial-up internet connections) who block mail from know dial-up connections. Thirdly, if you don't trust your ISP to deliver your mail, do you trust them to run anything on the network?:)
RFC 2505 (which I've just found with the search engine on faqs.org - I'll admit to not having read any of these things:) ) mentions sending mail through a remote relay with no local SMTP server and the transaction being handled by the MUA. To all intents and purposes, this seems like much the same thing.
There are very few legitimate reasons for wanting to send mail through a mail server other than your ISP's
What if your ISP's mail server doesn't support, for instance, DSN? Or, if your ISP's mail server has an extremely long mail queue and you just want to put your mail through quickly? Your ISP's mail server is down? Or, you have two dial-up accounts and want to be able to send mail through either without re-configuring? There are numerous reasons for using a different mail server. (Oh, and on the ISP's side, this takes some load off their mail server.)
On a related note, the RBL list is really getting in the way of my dial-up mail server... it seems to block all of the dynamic IP addresses in the MSN and Worldnet points of presence in my area. I e-mailed them and received no response. Anyone else having this problem? Suggestions?
In my opinion if anyone is knowledgeable enough about using alternative SMTP servers for legitimate purposes, they should be allowed to use it openly.
My guess that in today's world that would be far less that 1% of users:-)
How to test your web host's tech support: ask them to tell you the location of their httpd's config files.:-) -- Leonid S. Knyshov Network Administrator
Legit uses for port 25 exist, quite clearly. I have a domain that I have hosted with someone else (DSL contract says no hosting, not ready to run Linux cuz I like my free time, etc), so if I want to send mail through there - port 25. I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation.
Another poser is this: my workplace used to provide dialup through a client. That client went away and stopped providing dialup. So I had to go buy dialup access so I could access my shell account (network blocks telnet, and no they don't care if I like it). There's also issue with using SMTP on our network at work. (Recently, it started working with my GTE account. I haven't told anyone, for a reason.) So I had to go looking for dialup access. Since this was for a very slight purpose, I didn't really want to spend a lot of money. I decided to go with a large "freeish" ISP. I couldn't send mail through my domain or GTE. When I found this to not be working, I called their tech support desk and asked if they were blocking port 25. "We prevent spamming." was the response. Great, but I'm not using your servers, I have a legit right to use these servers, and I want to do so. Are you blocking that? They didn't know. Maybe the main office will know. I had them cancel my account. "Don't you want to ask the main office first?" It was late in the day, so I would have had to call them the next day. Um, no. I'll just go to one of roughly 100 dialup providers in Dallas, thanks. I think I was with them for an hour.
Forgive me my rambling, I'm sick. No, with the flu or something similar.
On a related note, the RBL list is really getting in the way of my dial-up mail server... it seems to block all of the dynamic IP addresses in the MSN and Worldnet points of presence in my area. I e-mailed them and received no response. Anyone else having this problem? Suggestions?
Maybe they blackhole anything from their blacklists:) The whole point of the DUL is to force people to use an "approved" relay, apparently no one bothered to read rfc974 before coming up with the idea.
I called their tech support desk and asked if they were blocking port 25. "We prevent spamming." was the response. Great, but I'm not using your servers, I have a legit right to use these servers
Of course spam never comes through ISP provided relays...
One of the reasons spammers use relays is that the work as "multipliers". Anyway is there much practical difference between a totally open relay and one provided by an ISP which allows instant access without verifying a customers identity. (The latter should be trivial with a cable modem or DSL based ISP, though.)
newsgroup excite@home.banned!!!
by
RetroCool
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· Score: 1
I think all the bulk mail censored would have to go to one or more special newsgroups (.censored,.death,.banned,...) to observe the criteria of excite@home.
Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Drakino
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· Score: 2
This whole UDP thing with @Home proves that Broadband ISP's need different user agreements and setups.
By having a faster internet connection and static IP's, the benefits to the end user are nice, but unfornatully the newbie Linux user installing every package in RedHat probably dosen't realise that his internet accessable machine can be used to read and post to newsgroups unrestricted. And since he has a fast connection, he dosen't notice a difference in the bandwith like a modem user would see if the connection is flooded. For ISP's sakes, they need to make sure their users understand their liability in situations like this.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Bryan+Andersen
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· Score: 2
The solution to this is to get all the distributions to make all forwarding type services opt in. That is forwarding services need to be explicitly enabled by the installer. This goes for any type of server, mail, news, IRC, ICQ, whatever. This isn't all that hard of task to do. It only takes some changes in the default configuration files, initial setup code, and documentation.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1
If you believe @Home the problem was windows machines with proxy software. The problem here wasn't really the newbie who can't setup his machine but @home just ignoring all the problems that it caused.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
EvilAlien
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· Score: 1
Heheh.. the main problem seems to be cluebies running open proxies like Wingate. You have to love the default security of this brilliant Windows application:
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
mpe
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· Score: 1
By having a faster internet connection and static IP's, the benefits to the end user are nice,
Static IP also means that it should be easier for to track down abusers. but unfornatully the newbie Linux user installing every package in RedHat probably dosen't realise that his internet accessable machine can be used to read and post to newsgroups unrestricted
Surely that is more an issue for packagers to come up with appropriate "sample setups", indeed this issue affects several operating systems.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
mpe
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· Score: 2
If you believe @Home the problem was windows machines with proxy software.
Banning Windows would be an effective, though not politically correct solution. The problem here wasn't really the newbie who can't setup his machine but @home just ignoring all the problems that it caused.
It's a combination of the software having completly inappropriate defaults, combined with lack of enforcement.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Raffy
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· Score: 2
Drakino writes: By having a faster internet connection and static IP's
This is not the case with all (perhaps not even the majority) of Cable/Broadband ISPs. The service I support uses dynamic IP addressing under DHCP to support our customer base. The only customers who have anything approaching a "static" IP address are those whose machines are on 24/7.
Running/hosting any kind of server on our service is not permitted under the AUP, as is attempting to bypass the DHCP process by assigning a static IP.
While this may upset more knowledgeable users who can -correctly- configure a box to do something, it cuts down on numerous problems. . . problems, apparently, that @Home attempted to ignore and sweep under the carpet.
Personally, I think their "open proxy" solution is 100% BS, and anticipate them getting re-slapped with the UDP within the 30 days they've been put on probation. The only way this might be averted, other than a sudden windfall of clues in their network management department, is if the spammers themselves decide that they like having a big, fat @Home pipeline available and lay low during the next month, only to resume activity once the hot-button interest cools.
Rafe
V^^^^V
-- Rafe
Opinions expressed by the author may not actually exist in the wild.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"It's a combination of the software having completly inappropriate defaults, combined with lack of enforcement." Unless ISP want to supply all the software and all the hardware some users will always set things up poorly. The point? ISPs can only control enforcement. Instead of aliasing abuse@xxx.com to/dev/null they should act on them.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
mpe
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· Score: 1
Drakino writes: By having a faster internet connection and static IP's
This is not the case with all (perhaps not even the majority) of Cable/Broadband ISPs. The service I support uses dynamic IP addressing under DHCP to support our customer base. The only customers who have anything approaching a "static" IP address are those whose machines are on 24/7.
Dynamic IP's are a bad idea from the POV of abuse tracking. The ISP must know not only the IP address, but also the time (preferably in GMT) to even identify the offender. Running/hosting any kind of server on our service is not permitted under the AUP, as is attempting to bypass the DHCP process by assigning a static IP.
But violating a pile of RFC's is ok?
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"If you believe @Home the problem was windows machines with proxy software."
"Banning Windows would be an effective, though not politically correct solution."
And banning Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, Irix, and HP/UX. "Poorly-configured software that allows arbitrary people to send data" is pretty much the dictionary definition of Sendmail.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
Rakarra
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· Score: 1
- wide open with no logging
Well, yes and no. True, Wingate used to ship with that configuration by default, but this was changed to be more secure some time ago -- at least a year or two.
In addition, I've talked to some @HOME customers who said they didn't download/install/configure anything. The @HOME serviceman came and installed the cablemodem and installed the software packages, one of which was a wide-open wingate. Is this anecdotal evidence? Well, yes. But if true, it shows that @HOME is passing the buck a little when it says its not responsible for users who have insecure wingates installed.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
EvilAlien
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· Score: 1
@Home installing Wingate? Not possible. The @Home software in and of itself does not include anything of the sort, in fact some interpretations of the @Home AUP consider Wingate a violation and grounds for sanctions or termination of service. If any particular member cableco of @Home is doing something so idiotic as installing Wingate, I would *love* to know which.
True, Wingate may be more intelligently configured nowadays by default. Still, a great concern has to be users who abdicate responsibility over the security of their own computer. Anyone who blindly lets anyone install software on their machine without being aware of what was installed is still responsible for any activities that machine is used for.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
hime
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· Score: 1
Banning Windows would be an effective, though not politically correct solution.
Gosh, I can see the target market for such a service now - Linux zealots who don't like to pay for anything. And in any given geographical area, there's maybe 3 of them. Plus Mac people. What a way to make money. Sorry people target Windows users, but there are MORE of them, even if they are dumber/less 3l33t. When you're selling something, your goal is typically to sell a lot of them so you can eat.
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
mpe
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· Score: 1
Banning Windows would be an effective, though not politically correct solution.
Gosh, I can see the target market for such a service now - Linux zealots who don't like to pay for anything. And in any given geographical area, there's maybe 3 of them. Plus Mac people. What a way to make money. Sorry people target Windows users, but there are MORE of them
The obvious point is how does an ISP tell what their customers are running... Anyway if an ISP provides special Windows support (or handholding) should Windows users be in effect subsidised by non-Windows users?
Re:Broadband ISP's need different rules
by
mpe
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· Score: 1
In addition, I've talked to some @HOME customers who said they didn't download/install/configure anything. The @HOME serviceman came and installed the cablemodem and installed the software packages, one of which was a wide-open wingate.
This is a very interesting claim... If there is any truth to it then it appears to put responsibility with the ISP. As well as raising the issue of should they be installing any software in the first place.
"Self-appointed administrators"?
by
sparks
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· Score: 2
I don't like the way they used this term to describe the people who work against spam on Usenet. The fact is that most of them do administer news servers. It's their job. They're "boss-appointed!"
Desribing them this way makes it sound like they're just a group of busybodies with nothing better to do than play vigilante. In fact, these are the people who keep Usenet working. They represent the people who own the servers and pay for the bandwidth. In a real sense, they're "in charge". And they rule by consensus.
Re:"Self-appointed administrators"?
by
EvilAlien
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· Score: 3
Furthermore, that is how Usenet works. It used to be how the Internet worked, more or less. The fact is, its the admins who own the boxes, and they have the right to decide which packets they accept.
There is this frightening misconception among some naive users that they have a right to send email, post whatever they wish, etc, but they forget that someone elses property has to be involved in propagating their material. This translates to the use of the network and associated services being a PRIVALEDGE, not a RIGHT.
What about free speech? Well, everone still should have the freedom to say what they want, however they don't have to freedom to force others to carry the message and distribute it.
ISPs such as Excite@Home and AT&T WorldNet say about 10 percent to 15 percent of their subscribers access Usenet. And according AT&T, the percentage has not changed over the years.
Wouldn't this mean that the Usage has increased as there user base has also increased. They first say Usenet is stagnating next they are commenting on how the percentage of usage among there users is the same.
Well I don't remember if they used the exact word "stagnating", but that could be an accurate description of the Usenet's status.
If their percentage remained the same, that means the same number of people, per one-hundred, are using Usenet today as were years ago. That's zero-growth because, even if the total numbers are going up, their significance remains the same. I would say that "stagnant" is a pretty good description.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I actually found the rest of the article far more interesting than the withdrawal of the UDP. Seeing ISPs talking about how many of their users access news makes for interesting reading, especially those claiming the numbers are flat - the volume of news is *far* from flat, I can assure you.
As for comments regarding the alternatives - web-based bulletin boards and the like - I find them far *harder* to use. Point, click, wait, scroll, wait, back-up, point, click, wait... a decent news reader (personally I use slrn) knocks all of this into a cocked hat. And I can read off-line, so I don't pay the whole time I'm reading and replying.
/.'s interface is fairly usuable, for a web-based forum - most of the others I've seen are *far* worse, especially the min-fora that exist as 'feedback to this article' on countless news web sites. But it's still a million miles from threading, kill-files and a real editor.
Wow. Do they really claim that usenet usage is flat? My Usenet provider tells a different story. Here's some statistics from news.alt.net, giving the amount of news they carry. These numbers are in average megabytes per *day*; that is, as of August, they pulled in 50 gigabytes of news per day.
I tend to agree that Usenet is still a useful way to exchange information and carry on discussions, but I don't think that text makes up the bulk of the increase.
Actually, they say the % of subscribers using Usenet is flat, not the total usage. So if the number of subscribers has been doubles evey year months, so would Usenet posting. And, of course, there's always the spammers...
The article also comments on the declining role of Usenet. I quote:-
"But the threat of a ban failed to ignite an outcry from its customers, a symptom of the dwindling use of Usenet. Once a venerable platform for online discussions, the influence of Usenet newsgroups has progressively declined, according to analysts and those in the industry".
I love/. - but its news has a half-life measured in hours, practically Chat. Usenet has a half-life measured in days, diligently archived by Deja News.
I agree that UseNet is better than a web-based forum, but it still seems to be somewhat badly designed to me. If anybody still remembers FidoNet and the other BBS echomail networks, that's more what my idea of a well-designed discussion forum is. All messages in the forum were public, but could optionally be addressed to a user. That was I could go through and look for all replies that were to my messages or any messages written specifically to me, and then when I had more time go through and read the others. With UseNet the only way to do this is to remember which threads I've posted to and read those first (and then I still have to read the whole thread, I can't read just the replies to my posts first).
Any ideas where to find a similarly-designed setup on the internet, now that FidoNet seems to be extremely close to dead?
The arcticle says, The nimber of Users of usenet hasn't been increasing over the last few years - three line later 15% of ATT worldnet users use usenet a figure that hasn't change over the years... The number of user is increasing... because overall users is increasing...
--
none Yet.
Re:FIRST POST
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I'm not sure why that poster does not start his own site. Either he does not have the ability to do it or might be delusional. He might even be psychotic considering the time invested in posting the offtopic crap.
Re:I wonder if @home paid them off....
by
PLaNeTJoe
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· Score: 1
Unfortunately no one will stop clueless morons who refuse to read FAQ's. Actually, I guess refuse to read anything. Imagine scanning the headers in a group and not seeing "how do I view these files", "add me too", "all is see is wierd text", etc...
They should have does the UDP anyway, just to make the point. @home is bad about ignoring spam reports, be it email or usenet. Thank the gods that I decided against using them as a provider.
Could this be a seasonal thing?
by
luckykaa
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· Score: 1
To get useful statistics, we really need more than 9 months of data. It could just mean that people are less likely to post early in the year for some inexplicable reason.
I would only have expected a sudden lurch in september though when the University term starts
Re:Could this be a seasonal thing?
by
bmc
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· Score: 1
Well, okay, I was trying to keep it short, but here's two full years of data:
Dwindling use of Usenet ?!
by
Krollekop
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· Score: 1
But the threat of a ban failed to ignite an outcry from [@Home's] customers, a symptom of the dwindling use of Usenet. Once a venerable platform for online discussions, the influence of Usenet newsgroups has progressively declined, according to analysts and those in the industry.
I certainly disagree with this. Maybe the percentage of the overall internet population who uses Newsgroups has dropped, but it might just be because so many Web surfers don't even know Usenet exists.
I for one visit a couple of new Newsgroups every month or so. I'm usually not debating any serious matter or software release, but am rather looking for help on an hw/sw problem. And I'm happy to notice that helpful people with useful comments are as numerous as a few years ago.
I must however admit that mailing lists' quality have recently increased for both spam filtering and archiving. I give a big Thank You to www.mail-archive.com, for their contribution to this. But nevertheless, most technical newsgroups are certainly far from dwindling.
Re:I wonder if @home paid them off....
by
Lovepump
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· Score: 2
Admittedly, that would be nice!
Consider though, that any clueless user can get access to a fast connection (except in the UK of course!), connect up and put their machine online. They are never aware that they are wide open and all sorts of stuff is being routed via their machine onto the net. They have no idea of firewalling, logging, checking their port configs for holes, etc. No-one ever tells them until it's all too late.
When you want to drive a car, you have to take an exam. You are questioned on your knowledge and you ability to control the vehicle. You are asked about the law and how it relates to your vehicle. You are show the right way to do things and then, once you've satisfied the examiners you are responsible, you are allowed free reign.
I'd like to see a cut-down version for newbies. You get an account, and go on Learner plates for a trial period, and only after passing through this period without major mishap, are you allowed off onto the net by yourself.
I can't see any way in which is could feasibly be enforced or how it would pan out in practise (I'm sure "Freedom of Speech" nuts would have a field day if anyone ever tried to put this into practise) but it might cut down on the number of new-users providing free injection points for spam.....
I did not spam you. Repeat. *I* did not spam you.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Stay the *fuck* away from cancelling *my* posts Mr. Self Proclaimed Usenet Messiah.
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either. So shut the fuck up. You don't know squat.
Am I being a tad arrogant here? Not half as arrogant as anyone who thinks issuing 3rd party cancel messages is acceptable under any circumstances. Do you have to transport @Home traffic? No. Do you ever have the right to attempt to cancel @Home articles that sit on OTHER PEOPLE'S SERVERS. Fuck no.
Imminent Death of Usenet Predicted
by
theonetruekeebler
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· Score: 1
From the article:
According to Dan O'Brien, an analyst at Forrester Research, Usenet remains a "deep techie location on the Web." But as the Internet becomes increasingly populated by less tech-savvy users, the population of newsgroup users has stagnated.
I'm actually old enough to remember when September was only a month long and Usenet was around 20% interesting posts instead of today's less than five percent. Spam, ECP and EMP are so common that regulars are leaving in droves, even ones in groups that have been around for fifteen years or more. Hell, I can remember actually seeing a legitimate job posting in comp.jobs.offered!
The whole of Usenet is becoming like one of those Australian towns that had to be abandoned because it became overrun with mice. Who wants to stand around having a conversation when you have to spend most of your time dealing with goddamned mice? It makes me very, very sad.
In whole, I found the article pretty dumb. Do you really need to repeat "Usenet is old and tired, but some people still find it useful" five or six times in order to get your point across?
It's obvious these people don't really know what SPAM is, and why it's a nusance, or for that matter, any of the history of the Internet and what part USENET plays in it.
Oh well....
-- Your Servant, B. Baggins
Re:I did not spam you. Repeat. *I* did not spam yo
by
Fluffy+the+Cat
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· Score: 1
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either. So shut the fuck up. You don't know squat.
So tell your ISP to get their act together, otherwise eventually everyone else will get fed up with their constant misbehaviour and general annoyingness and stop letting them play. If all else fails, you can buy yourself a shell account somewhere outside the @Home network and post news from that. As long as people don't start dropping all traffic from @Home, that is.
@Home seems to do a pretty good job on the receiving end (or maybe this is just due to cancelbots). But the amount of spam I see on their news servers is pretty tolerable.
They're really fast news servers as well, and they seem to keep several thousand articles in each newsgroup. I was really going to be bummed if I had to read news elsewhere in the mean time...
Email spam, on the other hand, is horrible; I get more spam at @home than anywhere else. One last week looked like someone was actually iterating through all possible eight-character usernames... not sure why @home is such a spam target.
Do they even help Linux users?
by
aschlemm
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· Score: 1
It looks like @Home is available in my area and I will most likely get it since DSL is not available where I live. I'm tried of only being able to get a slow 28.8bps connection with a 56K modem because of crappy phone lines. As far as I can see @Home only supports Windows and Mac openly. It would be nice to see some information on how to setup a Linux gateway even if it is "unoffical" information. I'm sure there are probably many Linux users using @Home and so a "Using Linux with @Home" FAQ or HOWTO could be done with sample firewall scripts etc.
Re:Do they even help Linux users?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
If it's @Home it's either DHCP or static. I don't know if any of them are still giving out static IPs but I guess it's possible. Basically if you can setup a PPP connection setting up a DHCP connection is much easier. DHCP should stuff all the stuff into the right places/etc/resolv.conf
Re:Do they even help Linux users?
by
hime
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· Score: 1
The problem with an unofficial information being made available on a website is that even if you provide detailed instructions, some amount of clueless endusers will want help or a walkthrough.
Re:I did not spam you. Repeat. *I* did not spam yo
by
tskirvin
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· Score: 2
Am I being a tad arrogant here? Not half as arrogant as anyone who thinks issuing 3rd party cancel messages is acceptable under any circumstances.
Go read the Cancel FAQ will ya? That oughta answer your implied question of "who would think that 3rd party cancels are a good idea?".
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either.
Use an old dialup connection, if you have to. Or you can always post through DejaNews or one of the commercial Usenet providers.
- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)
Well, USENET admins are just fucking heroes...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
In fact, these are the people who keep Usenet working. They represent the people who own the servers and pay for the bandwidth. In a real sense, they're "in charge".
Ya know what? If the current crowd of admins weren't there, another set of folks would be. The job would still get done. And no one deserves extra honour nor medals just for DOING THEIR JOB. Not cops, not firefighters, and not news admins. Get off the high horse and get back to work.
I'd like some constructive pointers. OK, I installed Red Hat to serve as a gateway to my static IP cable modem. It may not have been the most elegant solution, but it was not very difficult. I thought that I was doing things right. Here's my ignorant little defense followed by two important questions.
The terms of my contract with ATT prohibit servers of any kind, so no servers of any kind were installed other than IPChains. It refuses telnet and ftp.
I'm tempted to put up a mail server and ftp. ATT can't keep their NT box up, so DNS and mail never work. I use a box on campus for those things, and could live without the mail. I have other workarounds for sharing files withmyself as well, but gee I kind of wanted those things when I signed up for a cable modem. Yuck! I'm waiting for things to change to where I could put up a web server too. If it gets as many hits as any of my other web pages, no one has anything to worry about. The crappy flashing adds here do more damage than I could do any other way.
I read man pages, books, slashdot, and insecure.org, but never thought someone would want to hack my little 486. The uplink is limited to something about as fast as an ordinary modem by the modem box itself.
Is it true? Other posters have repeated @home's claim that the problem is comming from the Windows world.
How can I tell? I've never seen too much utilization on the hub despite the constantlly flickering lights of the COM21 modem box. There seems to be much less activity under linux than there ever was under Windoze.
Re:Newbie here
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
If somebody can hack your machine to do harm to somebody else the chance exists they will try.
It's sad but scum will take advantage of you if they can. OTOH if you have a well secured system that shouldn't be too much of an issue. I think this is what you're asking? The local @Home reps have supposedly told the local @home user group that personal servers are okay. They violate the TOS but they don't mind. So see if somebody local to you has any info on the issue. You're firewall should be logging things. Check your logs.
Re:Newbie here
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
Use ipchains to log incoming TCP SYN packets. It's an enlightening experience. My machine on @Home's network gets a couple connections a day that have no legitimate purpose. Connection attempts to POP/IMAP/FTP/etc. I'm sure all of these are attempts to find vulnerable software versions.
If you'd like, I could give you a copy of my firewall configuration that stops stuff like this. I have a Linux ipchains config and a OpenBSD ipfirewall config which both do basically the same thing. Email me at slamb@oh.yeah.org.
Personally, I am running several servers on @Home's network. I accept connections from anywhere on the ssh, telnet, smtp, domain, and auth ports. I accept connections from a restricted list of machines (my school, some friend's machines, etc) on ftp, finger, http, pop3, ntp, imap, and ntalk.
@Home has never bothered me about the servers I run. Most of them they have no way of knowing about short of sniffing my traffic, since my firewall doesn't even indicate to other machines that a server is running, much less allow access. But even if the @Home admins did know, I doubt they would bother me. Their big concerns are (1) stuff like this UDP and (2) people monopolizing the bandwidth with servers. Since I provide these servers just for myself and friends, I'm not a problem with #2. And since I have this very restrictive firewall configuration, I'm not a problem with #1 either.
So...I say go ahead. Run all the servers you want. Just do it carefully.
My logs look cool, and I like the idea of very restricted connections. I've seen some config files that look like this, host accept I think, and I'll be looking into it.
It's great to see positive constructive comments, thanks AC!
Slashdot Mirror
I noticed more than usual expired usenet postings over the last week... was this partially a result of the udp? did it ever go into effect?
Does anyone else get spam from @home customers?
The UDP might be lifted, but I have gotten a few spams from @home subscribers. No response. Since I have seen no useful information come from them and I enjoy my email, it makes sense for me to block all email from @home.
I think all the bulk mail censored would have to go to one or more special newsgroups (.censored, .death,.banned,...) to observe the criteria of excite@home.
This whole UDP thing with @Home proves that Broadband ISP's need different user agreements and setups.
By having a faster internet connection and static IP's, the benefits to the end user are nice, but unfornatully the newbie Linux user installing every package in RedHat probably dosen't realise that his internet accessable machine can be used to read and post to newsgroups unrestricted. And since he has a fast connection, he dosen't notice a difference in the bandwith like a modem user would see if the connection is flooded. For ISP's sakes, they need to make sure their users understand their liability in situations like this.
Desribing them this way makes it sound like they're just a group of busybodies with nothing better to do than play vigilante. In fact, these are the people who keep Usenet working. They represent the people who own the servers and pay for the bandwidth. In a real sense, they're "in charge". And they rule by consensus.
ISPs such as Excite@Home and AT&T WorldNet say about 10 percent to 15 percent of their subscribers access Usenet. And according AT&T, the percentage has not changed over the years.
Wouldn't this mean that the Usage has increased as there user base has also increased. They first say Usenet is stagnating next they are commenting on how the percentage of usage among there users is the same.
-
off and out
I actually found the rest of the article far more interesting than the withdrawal of the UDP. Seeing ISPs talking about how many of their users access news makes for interesting reading, especially those claiming the numbers are flat - the volume of news is *far* from flat, I can assure you.
As for comments regarding the alternatives - web-based bulletin boards and the like - I find them far *harder* to use. Point, click, wait, scroll, wait, back-up, point, click, wait... a decent news reader (personally I use slrn) knocks all of this into a cocked hat. And I can read off-line, so I don't pay the whole time I'm reading and replying.
/.'s interface is fairly usuable, for a web-based forum - most of the others I've seen are *far* worse, especially the min-fora that exist as 'feedback to this article' on countless news web sites. But it's still a million miles from threading, kill-files and a real editor.
Regards,
Tim.
The arcticle says, The nimber of Users of usenet hasn't been increasing over the last few years - ... ... because overall users is increasing ...
three line later 15% of ATT worldnet users use usenet a figure that hasn't change over the years
The number of user is increasing
none Yet.
I'm not sure why that poster does not start his own site. Either he does not have the ability to do it or might be delusional. He might even be psychotic considering the time invested in posting the offtopic crap.
Unfortunately no one will stop clueless morons who refuse to read FAQ's. Actually, I guess refuse to read anything.
Imagine scanning the headers in a group and not seeing "how do I view these files", "add me too", "all is see is wierd text", etc...
-too fucked to drink.
They should have does the UDP anyway, just to make the point. @home is bad about ignoring spam reports, be it email or usenet. Thank the gods that I decided against using them as a provider.
To get useful statistics, we really need more than 9 months of data. It could just mean that people are less likely to post early in the year for some inexplicable reason.
I would only have expected a sudden lurch in september though when the University term starts
http://news .cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-1526165.html?tag=st.cn.1 .lthdne
-JB
I certainly disagree with this. Maybe the percentage of the overall internet population who uses Newsgroups has dropped, but it might just be because so many Web surfers don't even know Usenet exists.
I for one visit a couple of new Newsgroups every month or so. I'm usually not debating any serious matter or software release, but am rather looking for help on an hw/sw problem. And I'm happy to notice that helpful people with useful comments are as numerous as a few years ago.
I must however admit that mailing lists' quality have recently increased for both spam filtering and archiving. I give a big Thank You to www.mail-archive.com, for their contribution to this. But nevertheless, most technical newsgroups are certainly far from dwindling.
Admittedly, that would be nice!
Consider though, that any clueless user can get access to a fast connection (except in the UK of course!), connect up and put their machine online. They are never aware that they are wide open and all sorts of stuff is being routed via their machine onto the net. They have no idea of firewalling, logging, checking their port configs for holes, etc. No-one ever tells them until it's all too late.
When you want to drive a car, you have to take an exam. You are questioned on your knowledge and you ability to control the vehicle. You are asked about the law and how it relates to your vehicle. You are show the right way to do things and then, once you've satisfied the examiners you are responsible, you are allowed free reign.
I'd like to see a cut-down version for newbies. You get an account, and go on Learner plates for a trial period, and only after passing through this period without major mishap, are you allowed off onto the net by yourself.
I can't see any way in which is could feasibly be enforced or how it would pan out in practise (I'm sure "Freedom of Speech" nuts would have a field day if anyone ever tried to put this into practise) but it might cut down on the number of new-users providing free injection points for spam.....
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either. So shut the fuck up. You don't know squat.
Am I being a tad arrogant here? Not half as arrogant as anyone who thinks issuing 3rd party cancel messages is acceptable under any circumstances. Do you have to transport @Home traffic? No. Do you ever have the right to attempt to cancel @Home articles that sit on OTHER PEOPLE'S SERVERS. Fuck no.
I'm actually old enough to remember when September was only a month long and Usenet was around 20% interesting posts instead of today's less than five percent. Spam, ECP and EMP are so common that regulars are leaving in droves, even ones in groups that have been around for fifteen years or more. Hell, I can remember actually seeing a legitimate job posting in comp.jobs.offered!
The whole of Usenet is becoming like one of those Australian towns that had to be abandoned because it became overrun with mice. Who wants to stand around having a conversation when you have to spend most of your time dealing with goddamned mice? It makes me very, very sad.
--
This is not my sandwich.
It's obvious these people don't really know what SPAM is, and why it's a nusance, or for that matter, any of the history of the Internet and what part USENET plays in it.
Oh well....
Your Servant, B. Baggins
So tell your ISP to get their act together, otherwise eventually everyone else will get fed up with their constant misbehaviour and general annoyingness and stop letting them play. If all else fails, you can buy yourself a shell account somewhere outside the @Home network and post news from that. As long as people don't start dropping all traffic from @Home, that is.
I think what is flat, is the percentage of people on the internet using usenet.
I know I don't use it anymore.
They're really fast news servers as well, and they seem to keep several thousand articles in each newsgroup. I was really going to be bummed if I had to read news elsewhere in the mean time...
Email spam, on the other hand, is horrible; I get more spam at @home than anywhere else. One last week looked like someone was actually iterating through all possible eight-character usernames... not sure why @home is such a spam target.
It looks like @Home is available in my area and I will most likely get it since DSL is not available where I live. I'm tried of only being able to get a slow 28.8bps connection with a 56K modem because of crappy phone lines. As far as I can see @Home only supports Windows and Mac openly. It would be nice to see some information on how to setup a Linux gateway even if it is "unoffical" information. I'm sure there are probably many Linux users using @Home and so a "Using Linux with @Home" FAQ or HOWTO could be done with sample firewall scripts etc.
Go read the Cancel FAQ will ya? That oughta answer your implied question of "who would think that 3rd party cancels are a good idea?".
And, no, I can't just "switch" to another provider. There *is* *no* *other* cablemodem ISP in the area. And no DSL either.
Use an old dialup connection, if you have to. Or you can always post through DejaNews or one of the commercial Usenet providers.
- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@killfile.org)
Ya know what? If the current crowd of admins weren't there, another set of folks would be. The job would still get done. And no one deserves extra honour nor medals just for DOING THEIR JOB. Not cops, not firefighters, and not news admins. Get off the high horse and get back to work.
The terms of my contract with ATT prohibit servers of any kind, so no servers of any kind were installed other than IPChains. It refuses telnet and ftp.
I'm tempted to put up a mail server and ftp. ATT can't keep their NT box up, so DNS and mail never work. I use a box on campus for those things, and could live without the mail. I have other workarounds for sharing files withmyself as well, but gee I kind of wanted those things when I signed up for a cable modem. Yuck! I'm waiting for things to change to where I could put up a web server too. If it gets as many hits as any of my other web pages, no one has anything to worry about. The crappy flashing adds here do more damage than I could do any other way.
I read man pages, books, slashdot, and insecure.org, but never thought someone would want to hack my little 486. The uplink is limited to something about as fast as an ordinary modem by the modem box itself.
Is it true? Other posters have repeated @home's claim that the problem is comming from the Windows world.
How can I tell? I've never seen too much utilization on the hub despite the constantlly flickering lights of the COM21 modem box. There seems to be much less activity under linux than there ever was under Windoze.
It's great to see positive constructive comments, thanks AC!