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SBC/Pacbell To Filter 90% Of alt.binaries Groups
An Anonymous Coward writes: "I received an email from PacBell.net (Pacific Bell's ISP), stating that they're transitioning their usenet services to Prodigy. They're making a few changes along the way."
He excerpts from the email: "In addition, after evaluating possible copyright infringement issues,
newsgroup usage and the cost of providing newsgroup access, we will no
longer offer some alt.binary newsgroups. For a list of alt.binaries that will no longer be offered, please refer to our FAQ at http://global.pacbell.net/usenet_update.html.' Note that the link currently doesn't go to the right place. After telephoning SBC, I was informed that upwards of 90% of the alt.binaries.* groups are going to be blocked."
Although I agree that a big, fat news server does make an ISP more attractive...
when I buy internet service, I want IP routing, PERIOD. I don't *want* to pay for whatever wierd services they think they need to run. I'll do my own mail, dns, everything else.
If tehy don't want to waste resources (legal or technical) in carrying some newsgroups.. fine. I guess it sucks for their customers who like it....
but I've been paying for access to news-servers separately for years now. It just makes sense. They are far less likely to change policies and rip you off when it's their sole business.
I say, let it die peacefully. The intelligent people left newsgroups a long time ago and the only remaining denizens are the pornographers and anarchists who don't deserve a voice in the first place.
Sort of a pity, realy, since NNTP is a protocal designed for distributed discussion groups. Now, instead, we're all stuck with web-based messaging systems, like this one, which, in a word, suck. Oh, some are better than others, but to my view, using a web browers for a discussion board is like using a hammer to drive screws.
Think about it: we're all stuck with the interface that the server has decided to implement. Whereas, with NNTP, we can each choose our own newsreader client, and yet still all communicate.
A pity that the Web Browser has become such the "killer ap" that now everybody uses it even when there are far better longstanding tools out there.
-Rob
... they just don't offer the service anymore. Please consider that offering the alt.binaries newsgroups costs a lot of money: it's a lot of data, which has to be stored, and there's a lot of possible legal implications, which costs a lot of money too, in the US of A.
As far as I see it, everybody is free to go to another news server, with all the binaries you could want. They're not about to block that. They just won't offer it anymore.
the pun is mightier than the sword
While cutting down on their news server costs considerably, this move could backfire on them. If a significant number of their customers actually like and use the alt.binaries groups on their news server, they'll go elsewhere for news service.
The problem with this is that since the news is no longer kept within their own network, that all that traffic is going to have to pass through their mian connection to the internet. They could end up having to spend quite a bit more on bigger pipes as a result of this.
Should be interesting to watch.
"No, no, no. Don't tug on that. You never know what it might be attached to."
They are not FILTERING anything. They are just not offering some high-resource-using binary newsgroups any more.
If they were really filtering alt.binaries.* newsgroups, you would not be able to access them from other 3rd party usenet providers.
"And like that
Heathen.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
Well, I'm glad you do. And when you can provide an airtight definition of what "the act of entering this site" means, and some explanation of how users can agree to something they haven't seen, then maybe I'll think about agreeing too... or not.
By the way, your reading this post constitutes your agreement to immediately pay $100 into the TomatoMan Gets A New G4 fund. Thank you for your contribution.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Though they have ulterior motives, I applaud the move. Anything that rids Usenet of the binaries is inherently good.
...)
A full newsfeed is 200 to 250 *GBytes* a day, of which only around 5% is text-based discussion. Just by dropping binaries and keeping the same amount of disk space, a news provider increases retention time for *real* discussions immensely. If I had to decide whether I want my ISP to serve incomplete binaries to alt.fan.britney-spears.blow-job or have six months retention for comp.lang.*, I'd prefer the latter (others might have different preferences, though
Get used to it: If you want binaries, pay for it. It's not that bad: 10 bucks a month, and you're in business. Go to Newsguy, Giganews, Supernews, uncensored-news.com, newsfeeds.com but don't expect your ISP to provide everything.
-Martin
SoftMaker Office for Windows|Linux|Android
I Agree!
Let's also trash out all the Xerox Copiers, since they can be used for Copyright Violation. Better yet, let's destroy all tape recorders since they can be used for Music piracy! Oh god! The VCRs! We almost forgot them! Let's destroy them too! Oh yes, no CDRs will be allowed of course...
This is just ludicrous...
The reall issue here is that they've offered a service, then gone out and reduced it, while not reducing their pricing. Basically it feels like they're violating my contract.
I would love to see the lameness ratio of USENET decrease due to lack of users that were using it primarily for binary transfer, and back to the state it was before the Endless September, and wish more ISPs took this route.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
The slashdot headline is misleading. They could not care less about what constitutes the traffic in these groups. They are simply saying the traffic is too high, so they are choosing not to carry these groups. I guess that the ones they will carry are those with a large readership.
When I contract with an ISP I want to be connected to the internet at the highest possible speed and reliability. If the ISP is spending time and money subsidizing usenet or free home pages it makes it even more difficult for them to provide me with the level of service I require. I want my ISP to focus their resources on the service I am paying for and that is connection.
At the same time, I subscribe to a commercial usenet service and I want them to focus their resources on article completion and retention. If my news service suddenly started offering connectivity to its subscribers without charging additional fees, the news service itself would suffer. Most people would find that unacceptable and yet they expect their ISP to offer commercial quality news service at no additional cost.
I realize their is a historical backdrop against which most ISPs offer email, home pages and news groups along with connectivity. But the internet market place is evolving and maturing into a more service oriented place. Some things are worth paying for and if you truely value usenet you will subsidize its existence by paying for a premium service.
On the other hand, if SBC is continuing to offer some binary newsgroups and not others than their move cannot be seen merely as a move to improve quality of service for their customers, but must be seen to some degree as censorship. After all, they had to use some criteria other than cost or quality of service to decide which groups to offer or not.
Under these circumstances I think that their motive should not be applauded even though it will almost certainly allow them to increase service levels.
On a closing note, I used to use SCB/PacBell and their service is horrible anyway.
Heh :)
In my world, inside my head, I thought 90% cutoff was a good thing because I was sure they talked about filtering useless spam in the newsgroups, I've rolled on the floor with joy like stimpy in an episode which I don't remember...
Then someone outside my world came in and explained to me that the 90% figure was in VOLUME not in # of posts... everything around me turned to grey, as I understood that this would filter the best content (p0rn) and leave only the spamming...everything around me faded, in a dark dark grey...
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
I'm telling you -- and the moderators will think I'm just blowing smoke -- that the future of ISPs is that we will make our own.
After seeing this info about how to lay your own DSL line, and noticing this (clearly inflammatory but still interesting) piece about wireless grids, it's becoming obvious to me that we are going to end up building some of the network ourselves. Maybe it'll just be the last mile, or maybe we'll be building a nice, humble network to replace the original internet -- a net on which we are not beholden to corporate and government evil.
I, for one, welcome our new Antichrist overlord.
I'm an sbc internet subscriber and for the most part very happy with my DSL line. I was shocked, though, when I switched to the new news server and saw that almost all the alt.binaries groups were gone. The email was very misleading about just how extensive this was going to be. I'm not really angry about the situation - once upon a time I worked in a small ISP that became part of a large ISP and then got bought out by an even larger Japanese Telecom giant. I fully understand the decision from an operations standpoint -providing full access USENET service is expensive, time consuming, and hard, from a legal standpoint - you can claim common carrier all you want but the DMCA opens the door to all sorts of problems from Entertainment industry lawyers, and from a business standpoint - hardly any of your customers care about news groups, much less binary groups so why bother to offer an expensive service when your customers will be just as happy with a cheap one. Hey, if your an SBC customer and not interested in binary groups you ought to be happy that they made this choice. By all rights, the news service should be better now than ever before. The only thing that really bothers me is the censorship angle because despite all of my business experience and appreciation for anyone, including mega corporations, wanting to make a buck, I still think there are some things more important than money. Or maybe I just want my porn, who knows. In any event, I'll by subscribing to a dedicated USENET provider not only because I want my porn, because I do want my porn, but because it's important to support companies who provide full access to all Internet resources.
Nah, you're a loser.
Let me break it down for you:
Once upon a time the internet did not have mainstream businesses and clueless children on it.
Then, to the benefit of everyone, those groups arrived. With their arrival came competition, and accountability and responsibility. As a result, some pervert's easy access to porn and warez got turned off.
Awww. Well, if you want your porn or warez, find another way, and don't complain about the rest of society catering to their own values.
And guess what? If you can't figure out how to get what you want then you don't deserve it.
Too lazy to look for warez somewhere else? Natural response is to blame all the keywords (big-business, lobbying, lawyers, etc) for your own problems.
Take this personaility test.
FYI, this isn't limited to Pac Bell. I got a notice on July 27 that SW Bell is also doing this. The exact same message, in fact.
Which brings me to a question. How is it that I submitted this info on that date (7/27), and it was rejected for posting as an article here, but it gets posted today, over a month later. I realize Slashdot gets a lot of submissions, but still. If whether something gets accepted or rejected is based on chance, as it appears to be, what's the point in submitting?
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
You know, in a way, this defeats the
purpose of the alt.binaries groups, which
exist mainly to keep the stuff that floods
the alt.* groups from flooding the more
mainstream news hierarchies instead .
This will perform the marvellous feat
of getting the copyrighted material out of
the alt. groups and into rec.arts where they
really, really aren't wanted. Thank
you, Pacbell.
(currently testing something about signatures here)
...they HAVE to do this, folks.
You should be bitching at the legislature that created the DMCA and passed it, and the courts that are ruling that the ISP's can be sued for the copyright violations.
And even then, you're sucking wind, because the alt.binaries newsgroups alone require something like two T1s worth of bandwidth alone to provide, and don't make a *DIME* of income for the ISPs.
So which choice should they make:
1) Start charging for Usenet access.
2) Stop providing Usenet access at all.
3) Drop alt.binaries in whole or in part, so that the rest of Usenet can be kept for a reasonable retention period at a reasonable cost.
They're not blocking outbound access on port 119, they're just declining to devote 3Mb/S of bandwidth and (150GB * number of days retention) to providing a service that 99% of their users don't even use, and a large number of the remaining 1% don't get from them anyway.