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Great points in Usenet history
no_nicks_available writes "An article on The Register points to some of the highlights of Usenet history. "
First mention of Microsoft, GNU, Madonna, the Compact Disc, and more. It's worth a look
if only to read the first kibo post to alt.religion.kibology.
Of course, this is the same google announcement linked to not long ago when google announced that now they have the last 20 years of usenet archived.
Yay for Slashdot!
Didn't we just do this a day or two ago? Like here?
The scary part is that many people (including myself) have posted many, MANY messages to USENET, not realizing that 20 years later those same messages would be staring us back in the face.
Many tech employers do a web search of candidates they are considering hiring... in many cases, it tells you a lot more about the person than the person is willing to reveal in the formal interview process. At least on a web page of your own creation you have the ability to tear it down and recreate it as you see fit. Newsgroups are forever. If you posted strong opinions to a political forum or to a religious forum under your own name (probably before you realized there were spambots or USENET archives), then those messages will very heavily influence that HR person's opinion of you.
Similarly, there are many support groups on USENET. People with medical problems have posted to medical support groups in good faith. Granted, you already know that you are posting private information in a public forum, but probably nobody who does expects to see it archived for all eternity and for the curious to be able to pull it up decades later.
I did a little vanity surfing on Google's USENET archives, and it was both amusing and frightening. Amusing because it was a voice from the past reminding me exactly of who I was at the time. Frightening because there are many posts where I express a strong point-of-view.
Bear in mind, also, that the logistics of maintaining a recent 6 month archive of newsgroups back in 1995 was daunting for any ISP; I never dreamed that the entire USENET would be archived from 1981 because the storage costs were enormous. Now we've reached a point where storage costs are trivial.
OTOH, I can imagine what a tremendous resource this will be for future generations doing geneological research... but only partially so. Much of the internet community has wised up and now only post under psuedonyms.
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...some things just don't seem to ever change.
From Linus's first Linux post:
"This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for
their own needs."
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
The first use of the not-word "teh":
...conference at teh Hyatt Los ... , from the fa.space group.
Mr. Spey
Cover your butt. Bernard is watching.
Alice's NNTP Server first posted from its anonymous author, with help from a regular of alt.tasteless and alt.peeves.