Slashdot Mirror
Requiem for Usenet
xoip writes "Jack Kapica at The Globe and Mail reports that '[Canadian ISP] Rogers is removing [Usenet] service without changing its rates, suggesting subscribers turn to portal technology controlled by Rogers/Yahoo, or to subscribe to an outside Usenet service -- at extra cost.'" From the article: "Aside from being based on the written word, which many game-playing kids would rather not make the effort to compose, Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals. Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place."
Already posted on digg three times now.
What's that sound? Why, that's the sound of spadefuls of dirt hitting Slashdot's coffin.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
I'm looking for invitations to unspeakable sexual acts?
No, I don't want a free iPod
It probably means I'll have less pirated movies^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H stimulating late-night conversations.
Deja is my mainstay as a coding resource. I never feel like I am slumming when I search there. Did I miss something?
Please sign petition to restore sanity to our banking system!!!
http://financialpetition.org/
your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
Most of the time when I'm using usenet, I'm not looking for something. I am looking to get hit with random content like what other people think is good or interesting. Its fun to explore the mp3 newsgroups and just download some random mp3s and learn about new music.
your chances of catching [...] a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
;- )
I think they're missing on what people are looking for on usenet in the first place
You can't take the sky from me...
So...in other words, Usenet is like the rest of the internet where there is good, valuable information as well as bad, useless (to some at least) information?
I've been hanging out in various usenet groups for years and yet to have picked up a virus that infected my system and wasn't picked up my Norton AV. I've received more viruses via e-mail then I've found in Usenet, so does that mean we should also get rid of e-mail?
Why don't we just call Roger's actions what they really are, a cost saving measure. They aren't doing it to protect the children, they are doing it to save a few cents per customer.
your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
What happens if those are the things you were looking for?
But...what if that's /why/ I'm on usenet?
Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
Isn't that the *point*? I like usenet just the way it is, TYVM.
Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place."
It's all bull. I've used Usenet for over ten years, and I have never "caught" any viruses or gotten any invitations to unspeakable sexual acts (maybe I hang out in the wrong groups...). Usenet is not as big as it was, but it's still a great resource for information.
Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals.
How is this different from the rest of the internet?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Maybe in your in the alt.* hierarchy or something, but I read sci.* and comp.* groups and the virus and spam content is almost nil. (Sadly, the crank content on the sci.* groups is rather large.) The virus/spam content in my daily inbox is many orders of magnitude larger.
ISP serviced Usenet is a waste of money (as is, IMO, ISP serviced web hosting). Just because they're not lowering their prices doesn't mean the user is losing out.
Usenet requires tons of bandwidth and storage, and serving it needs decent server hardware. I'm not sure anyone I know still uses it.
What will the ISP do with thr money saved? Because of competition, they'll spend it on service quality improvements for services their customers do use. If they pocketed it, they'd lose business.
Being an ISP today means giving the user the most bandwidth, the least downtime and the cheapest cost. Value added services such as e-mail accounts, web home, Usenet and even security utilities is better served by third parties.
Competition in pricing requires some minority features to go bu-bye.
"your chances of catching... ...a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place."
But that's what I WAS looking for in the first place!
Can anybody tell me what do I need to set up a newsserver?
As a recent "joe-job" victim [google for my gmail address in google groups] I totally agree. There just isn't sufficient guarantee that usenet posts are authentic. It's too easy to joe-job people.
...
I've received phone calls, letter mail and calls from the police [the last joe-job against me had kiddie porn in it]. While it hasn't been seriously traumatic it is enough of a nusiance.
However, the ideal solution would be a usenet like service where your headers aren't arbitrary [e.g. IPs are listed in the headers ALWAYS]. Have other providers throwaway untrustworthy [or forged] messages, etc. How hard would it be to say "no valid IP or trace data? deleted." to each received email?
Maybe also a good idea to integrate GPG into the thinking of users? E.g. make them want to [and learn to] use GPG or PGP. Not trust unsigned messages, etc.
It's sad that people can't just play nice and that we have to do things like sign all our posts
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
They've never had their news servers work properly anyway.
I watch the local forsale groups, but I can't post because they never set up the moderation properly.
That and I can't be bothered to read all the information available. I've switched to IRC and mailing lists.
"Aside from being based on the written word, which many game-playing kids would rather not make the effort to compose, Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals. Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place."
Sounds like the entire Internet anyways. But I see their point in not keeping it around. I've never used a lot of the old features of the net. I don't have to have my tires re-vulcanized either, so it really doesn't affect me.
Damn, you beat me to it :-).
I mean, really. Everyone at /. has known this for some time that USENET has degenerated into a steaming pile. Hell, if you go to Google Groups and browse around Buddhist newsgroups, you'll find lovely spam for things involving "Clitoral Mound Orgasming Chemicals."
If you want to lament the passing of net tech, pick something geeky sexy like Gopher! It's been a long time since anybody cared about USENET, especially since the advent of web forums and competent WWW searching. Rest in peace, USENET. We'd miss you, except you have no use anymore, and we've hardly noticed you've gone.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
But wait... that is what I was after in the first place
Kiteboarding Gear Mention slashdot and get 10% off!
maybe the author should keep out of the alt.sex.* groups? there are still many,
many useful usenet groups with reasonable signal and not much spam.
And yet it's still easier to find informed technical help on many subjects, or to compare notes with peers, via Usenet than via any of the wannabe web forums full of people with too many letters on their CV and too many buzzwords in their brain. It's also one of the best places to find interesting discussion on many hobbies. Contrary to apparent popular opinion, not all of Usenet is binaries groups where people can rip material illegally if P2P is too hard for them to understand. Also contrary to apparent popular opinion, it is possible not to read all the virus/spyware/whatever posts!
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
To me, usenet represents the safe, traditionalistic, slow-moving side of the internet. It's mostly populated by older people who know each other.
Find free books.
I remember (long, long ago etc) when AOL users were let lose on USENET with the alphabetical listing of all the news groups and the buggy interface software that posted articles multiple times.
I look forward to the time when USENET is the preserve of knowledgeable tekkies!
I shall now run and hide (or duck and cover)!
mmm, tenderloin and unspeakable sex acts. I wish I lived in the plague years.
People have been predicting this for years!
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
Jehovah fucking Yahweh, I curse you in the name of Satan the Almighty...
How do I rate This one? It matches Flamebait, Insightful, Funny, Offtopic and Troll all at the same time!
Since when did ISPs become their customer's voice on such issues?
Rogers. I used them for a few years until my neighborhood's cable network started getting too much traffic. Once my speeds were down to half what I used to get, I switched to Bell and subscribed to Astraweb.
I found when I was using usenet I was swamped with child porn and, well, just porn. Perhaps if they had a somewhat moderated system, at LEAST with subject lines, things could change alot. I'd help.
"You won't eat our meat, but you'll glue with our feet.." --Some cow
While Usenet's population is way down from the 'glory days', especially compared to the more popular web forums (compare alt.games.warcraft to the Blizzard boards, for instance), I still find plenty of good, useful, forums for debate and discussion. Maybe my news service (Newsguy) does better spam filtering or maybe I'm not hanging out in alt.sez.weasels-in-drag.
:)
IAE, a Usenet replacement is needed. Usenet is the only decentralized threaded topic-based message forum I know of. Communities based on web boards are vulnerable to servers being seized, hard drives being wiped, or domain names being hijacked. A new, distributed, model is needed, a way in which 'web boards' or 'forums' or what-not can be multiply hosted across hundreds or thousands of servers, with messages propagating across them. Take down any one server, and the community -- and the content -- remains. This seems like an obvius application for P2P technology -- call it a P2P Web Forum. Add some kind of cataloging/hierarchy method to organize boards, and, presto -- new Usenet. (Build in some sort of anti-spam/anti-identity theft protocol while you're at it...)
I'm sure the k00l open-source d00dz who hang out at slashdot could code up a prototype in an hour.
On the other hand, they can't really advertise Usenet as a feature to users who aren't familiar with it. It's too complicated, and too much of a sewer nowadays.
Spammers just suck. They showed up in this environment (that admittedly was already buckling under the load of new users), left it a smoking ruin and moved on. How much money could they even have made?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
And besides : suppose I want help with a particular facet of the Fortran standard. Where can I go and get an answer from the steering committee who drafted it? Well, either comp.lang.fortran or
Having said that, more articles like this please. The last thing Usenet needs is another influx of rude, clueless newbies like the September-that-never-ended.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I'm old enough to have been around for telnet MUDing, and other such joys, but USEnet was always something I was going to get around to trying eventually. (Google Groups really doesn't count.) Twelve years later, I finally downloaded a real client and started swimming around in there. My God . . . I can't believe I didn't do it sooner. I used to think that the WWW was a den of thieves and villainy, but this is ridiculous. I downloaded a demo for Gish, painstakingly glued it back together (thankfully without the use of parity files), and thanked the makers for such wonderful software like Bittorent and Direct Connect. Charter Pipeline still offers a free connection to USEnet, so I'm not out of the loop quite yet. Please just give me a little more time to relish in USEnet trolling before its unceremoniously dumped?
only one everything
But the same can be said about the internet in general. There is no reason to single out Usenet.
your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
Maybe if you are using Outlook Express, but those who read newsgroups tend to use more advanced software with better search capability and doesn't run arbitrary code with administrator priveledges?
Most who actually read newsgroups do so because they know how to configure their client to do so, and if you know that much, you can already set up a program different from OE and use that.
Seems to me when all is considered, phishing and worms are much bigger problems. Are they just trying to gain positive press by saying they are removing Usenet services by protecting users from a potential threat?
Twinstiq, game news
Comcast has done something similar with outsourcing Usenet access. As a side effect, there is a monthly free download quota (1GB?), beyond which you have to pay. Lucky for me that doesn't affect me much, since my main use of Usenet is as a programming reference, for which Google Groups is almost perfect (though their search syntax could certainly be more powerful). But that's just me, and it certainly sucks that Usenet is being deprecated in such subversive ways. Its main strength from my point of view is that it concentrates so much information in one seamless repository. Once it's gone, you have to rely on a disparate collection of forums and hope that Google can search them all equally efficiently, which is currently certainly not the case.
This was the best thing I have read in sometime! Kudos to spicy cum!
In China, only old people use USENET.
errr....wait. nobody in China is allowed to use USENET.
In Soviet Russia, the NET uses you!!!
or:
1. Get lots of subscribers
2. Remove USENET services
3. ????
4. Profit!
IF they really remove USENET acces, where are people supposed to go get their Natalie Portman hot petrified grits?
???
I mean Godzilla, PurlGurl, and all it's other names. That whole Abigail thingy.
USENET rocks like Gilbralter.
Besides where else can you download the entire Howard Stern Show without commercials?
This
Wrong again. Nobody ever reads Wierd.
[it's full of thugs, imbeciles, etc...] "All this is true mostly of the Alt newsgroups, which were designed to have few inhibitions. Other groups, such as Comp, Sci, Soc and Humanities, fare much better, largely because they can be moderated. They contain lots of valuable stuff.
But the rise in the signal-to-noise ratio among the Alt groups has made combing through the chatter a tedious process. So useless has Usenet's reputation become..." [blah, blah, blah]
Is he talking about alt. groups or not? Why make a distinction and then act like usenet is nothing but alt.* ? Does he think it's like an ocean and you have to wade through all the alt groups to get to the moderated ones?
I read usenet groups pretty much every day. I've never gotten a virus from usenet but then I don't download binaries, either.
For instance: I like reading alt.horror for the goofy posts and pointers to movies I've never heard of. There are hundreds of posts there every day. Now I am a fan of Takashi Miike and Dario Argento, two great directors I'd never have heard of otherwise.
When I'm stumped on a technical problem, whether computer or automobile related, and web searching doesn't help, often I can find the problem already solved on usenet. Or I can find a group to post to and get help.
I thought the article was describing IRC, where these "many game-playing kids" hang out a lot, and where they are even more likely to be explicitly propositioned.
"your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place"
- only if you are an idiot who doesn't read up on how to use Usenet properly in the first place! With NZB, Usenet is a dream.
So that's why your ip address keeps showing up on my 'bot list.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I'm a Shaw Canada subscriber. Usenet used to be a decent place to get binaries, comprable or better than bittorrent. In the last 6 months or so, somehow there seem to be just enough posts missing from every file that it's impossible to recover the file, even with parity files. I often wondered if it was a conspiracy at the ISP level, or if alt.binaries... group quality was being sacrificed at some other level. Other large volume groups (can't recall which at the moment) didn't seem to have the same problem.
I had considered going to a 3rd party Usenet solution, even though Shaw's Usenet servers have been pretty decent in the past.
I used to love Usenet. It was a great place to find answers to computer problems and to help others with their problems. What killed Usenet for me were the newbs. Those morons who wanted answers but refused to do any work to solve the problems themselves. E.g., "My computer won't start, what's the problem?" Or, "I want to buy a video card, which is the best?"
It got to the point where it simply wasn't fun because as the more experienced people were pushed away the groups were left with arrogant people without a clue.
It makes you feel good to help others. But it makes you feel used to help others who can't be bothered to help themselves.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
In Corporate Canada you can always remove a service if you please. In Soviet Russia The Service removes you no matter how much you please!
Don't talk about usenet!
...and villainy, a horrid mob of pre-civilized thugs - slumming through the tenderloin district in pursuit of unspeakable acts.
I must admit I laughed at his description of a sullied usenet:
"Usenet eventually gained a reputation as a refuge for pre-civilized thugs with a penchant for imbecile grammar and vicious talk. The antics of juveniles and troubled people started scaring off others..."
Sounds like the state of most chat rooms today.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
Uhh. yeah. Why do you think it's so popular?
the word "porn" only appears three times on this page, including this one.
Not like the web supported internet at all right? Web pages offer defenses against virus, spammers, criminals, cheats, liars and swindlers! All web pages offer clear and concise information! You can never catch a virus from the web! And the web is chalk full of explicit stuff?
Err...wait, what are they complaining about again that they want to get rid of Web..er..I mean Usenet? It seems to me both are different implementations that exhibit the same problems. If one wants to complain that offering Usenet is an expensive service they can no longer offer at cost that is one thing. It is something silly to suggest that Usenet has to be sacked because it offers the same problems the Internet in general features.
Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
They do have a point here. Usenet is, and always has been, the bargain basement of the Internet. But there are lots of really useful newsgroups that are mostly spam free. Perhaps if they stopped supporting the binary groups...
If I was still a Rogers client, losing access to my comp.lang newsgroups would really piss me off. If Videotron goes the same way I'll be quite peeved.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
I'm supposed to take the author's opinion seriously when he can't even get his techspeak right??
"But the rise in the signal-to-noise ratio among the Alt groups has made combing through the chatter a tedious process."
If there is a RISE in the signal to noise ratio, that means the SIGNAL is getting STRONGER compared to the noise.
~sigh~
The Digital Sorceress
alt.fading.usenet.dwindles.declines.ain't-what-it
alt.remote.past.!dead.!gone.!forgotten
alt.sacred.format.preserve.continue.cherish
alt.noble.cry.resound.ring.echo:
"alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb.verb!"
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
At the rate Usenet is dying, I might be out of a job in 100 years.
> your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual
:-(
> acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
<annoyed rambling>
I've been reading some usenet groups for a few years, and my experience is that the above
clearly FUD. Some newsgroups are, just like some sites on the internet, rather worthless,
but there are enough gems to make usenet worthwhile (especially for those of us who have
medical conditions most doctors don't know a lot about).
So perhaps their point is more likely cost (and perhaps people abusing binary groups,
although I can't imagine them serving binary groups if cancelling this service can go without
price reduction).
Perhaps somebody should promote usenet the way, say, Firefox is promoted. Usenet is an
excellent resource of information.
</annoyed rambling>
Let's hope other providers don't follow their example...
Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals. Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
While that's close to the case when it comes to some unmoderated newsgroups, some newsgroups are moderated, meaning that every single post to that group has to be approved by one of the group's official moderators before it becomes public. Moderated newsgroups therefore do not have any spam, and although it's possible for moderators to abuse their power, I haven't seen this to be the case. Moderating a newsgroup probably takes a lot of time and responsibility.
Even unmoderated newsgroups can be a useful resource. I make a habit of searching Usenet for an error message before wasting someone's time asking what it means and how to avoid it, as you're guaranteed to find at least one person who has asked the same question previously.
Couldn't have said it better myself....
2 cents,
Queen B
PS: Mods, please mod the parent up!
HDGary secures my bank
I use UseNet (via deja.com) as much as I use Google. For me, it's a totally invaluable tool.
I first used USENET in 1985 and I was frankly astounded. It was like having a club, but instead of being local it was world-wide. The topics were so numerous and the opinions so wide-ranging. I began to think it would be the start of some kind of global democracy, where everybody got to have a say.
But even then the signs were there. My first introduction to a flame-war was quite unintentional for a neophyte, but I quickly learned this was more like the Wild West than High Tech. You could have your fair share on intelligent discourse but there were many traps for the unwary and pretty soon you were being bombarded from all sides. It wasn't spam back then, but it was the idea. You learned to give out minimal information and never gave out your email address to anyone you didn't think you could trust.
The came the Web and suddenly everyone and his uncle who could afford an Internet connection could join in and USENET lost its quiet charm. Anyone who used it for a while got annoyed at the same questions being asked 1000's of times and the FAQs became a joke because no newbie would bother reading them. Sanity only seemed to be maintained in the moderated groups, but it was lawless fun in the alt.* groups. Pretty soon they were being overrun by the first generation of spammers and at that point I got out.
They say you can't go home again. True, but it seems the spirit of USENET lives on anyway, in places like Slashdot, and the Internet as a whole. When you think about, blogging is nothing more than having your own moderated newsgroup, and any website can become a focal point for discussion and dissemination of information to the like-minded. USENET is far from dead, but its legacy is well established, and a few of us hope that its spirit never truly dies.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
I'm a Rogers user and I already have issues with their recent blocking of the SMTP port (they did that without warning, or reducing the service fee also), and their TOS regarding putting up web or FTP servers. I've only stayed with Rogers because they had a reasonably reliable newsfeed. Most DSL vendors here are significantly cheaper, but they usually don't provide reliable usenet. Now that I have to pay extra to get reliable usenet, regardless of choice, I may as well switch to a DSL ISP, improve my connectivity, and pocket the difference. Hmmm, methinks it would also be a good time to review the alternatives for TV ...
Oh well. So much for monopoly cable. At least DSL has competition.
Usenet is a discussion forum free of direct corporate control. In the comp.databases.*yourdatabase* group, critical messages don't disappear. Often the folks who wrote key parts of a system will answer technical questions. There are no flash ads, no shockwave, and no popups blocking your view of the content.
Bandwidth is not an issue for a large ISP. Having a local server reduces the need for bandwidth, if your users use the local server. Of course if you don't inform new users anything about the service, much less provide client software or a web client, of course average folks will never find out about it.
This is about control, not cost. Yahoo forums are controlled by Yahoo and generate Yahoo ad revenue. Yahoo posts won't be in Google groups. This is about Yahoo, the other comments are excuses.
"People have been predicting this for years!"
And yet this is evidence that it's actually happening.
Just because predictions sometimes start becoming reality doesn't mean that the actual events aren't news, or of interest.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Cheers,
Ian
Its still probably the best place to get and share serious computer info. It'll be too bad if more of these yahoo's try to jump ship.
Quack, quack.
Transmitting binaries through Usenet is what make Usenet such a bandwidth and storage hog. The actual text conversations are pretty small, compared to the rest. Moving a binary file through Usenet requires a hack on top of a kludge, forcing a system to do something it wasn't intended for, nor designed to do. We now have far better ways to do that - HTTP, FTP, P2P - pick an acronym.
However, rather than dumping the entire system, let it do what it was designed to do. Prevent posting binaries, and Usenet will become manageable again.
Funny, despite being an artical described wasteland for looking for something useful.
.. from 1K messages up to 500meg attachements for videos and the like.
.. large amounts of inbound and outbound port 80 traffic is another (tunnelled bittorrent).
It has demonstrated itself as a highly scalable, robust and redundency capable system that is completely content neutral
It's required redundency at all levels, from technical to social, but it works.
Just as an admission, I have administered a large scale ISP usenet installation and currently subscribe to a commercial usenet server. Between roadrunner, usenetserver.com and a smaller fills server, I very rarely don't have enough to reconstitute whatever I am downloading. This acts as a great alternative to bittorrent for downloading fansubbed anime. (for people who can't download filesharing apps of any kind (large amounts of port 80 traffic inbound is one thing
No story about Usenet Is Dying would be complete without Russ Allbery's excellent rant. An excerpt:
Sure, I've been involved in Usenet politics for years now, involved in
newsgroup creation, and I enjoy that sort of thing. If I didn't, I
wouldn't be doing it. But I've walked through the countryside of Maine in
the snow and seen branches bent to the ground under the weight of it
because of Usenet, I've been in a room with fifty people screaming the
chorus of "March of Cambreadth" at a Heather Alexander concert in Seattle
because of Usenet, I've written some of the best damn stuff I've ever
written in my life because of Usenet, I *started* writing because of
Usenet, I understand my life and my purpose and my center because of
Usenet, and you know 80% of what Usenet has given me has fuck all to do
with computers and everything to do with people. Because none of that was
in a post. I didn't read any of that in a newsgroup. And yet it all came
out of posts, and the people behind them, and the interaction with them,
and the conversations that came later, and the plane trips across the
country to meet people I otherwise never would have known existed.
That's what this is all about. That's why I do what I do.
People.
Do you know what it's like to see something that you've put your heart and
soul into creating grow and flourish and *become* one of those
communities? What it feels like to give back to someone, someone just
discovering the Internet, those same feelings of wonder and awe and warmth
and community and friendship that you found? To receive, not the welcome
random bit of thanks here and there, but the far deeper and more wonderful
knowledge that you've built and maintained something that people are
*using* and using to do things and see things and think things that they
otherwise would never be able to do or would have no outlet for?
Do you know what it's like to have a friend of yours randomly on a whim
decide something in a newsgroup you created is interesting and engaging
enough to post to Usenet for the first time? And then to experience the
horrible, sinking knowledge that with that post he's likely to get his
mailbox flooded with spam? Or the raw fear that he'll then never post
again, scared away, when this place that has given you so much could give
that to him as well, and that he could give the same to other people? And
that, damn it all, he's one of the cool people in this world, and you
don't know what these groups are all for, in the end, but if they're for
anything at all, they should be for people like him?
Do you know what it feels like to know that your news server, despite the
fact that it's some of the best hardware you can get with your available
resources for an application that most people just don't care about, is
running a backlog? That you're dropping incoming articles? That
somewhere, *somewhere* there are things being posted which you are not
receiving? They could be junk, they could be beautiful, well-expressed
pieces of someone's soul, and you DON'T KNOW, you CAN'T KNOW, because
legions of fucking vandals are throwing so much *CRAP* at your news server
that it's running flat out trying to process it and delete it and just
can't go any faster?
Let me tell you this: there's a rage in that. There is a cold rage that
you feel at that because, God damn it, it is not acceptable, it is NOT
FUCKING ACCEPTABLE for a *single* post that is from a *person* talking to
other *people* to be deleted, to be dropped on the uncaring floor to make
room for machine generated spew.
Period.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I left Rogers a few years ago because their routing was horrible and I had problems connecting to specific sites/servers all the time. However, their usenet service was amazing. I had a friend who worked at rogers and he did a lot of service work on the usenet system. 2TB retention. Huge Pipe. Fast SCSI raid arrays keeping it all running. It was the best Usenet service I have ever used. Combined with a good usenet reader like MicroPlanet Gravity and you were set. I still miss it to this day. Sad to see it go even though I'm not on Rogers anymore.
--- tracer.ca
NNTP is great for in-house discussion groups and projects. We use internal newsgroups to maintain a history of our projects. New project members can more quickly get up-to-speed by reading the newsgroup history of the project. Discussions can be restricted to certain users as required. Attachments can be included easily.
NNTP isn't limited to technical work: you can use it for any group project: critical police investigations, history of medical stays in the hospital, history of a court case, etc.
Some users are unfamiliar with newsreader software. But once they see how similar NNTP is to e-mail most problems disappear.
Hint, Rogers: Usenet != alt.binaries.*.
First the troglodytes gave us Eternal September. Now in Canada they've upped the ante---eternal added fees for something that used to be standard.
I would be very dissapointed if my ISP did not provide Usenet service.
I do not care what brain dead kids who cannot type proper English think of it.
I do not care that complete idiots have difficulty avoiding viruses and spam on Usenet.
I still enjoy Usenet on a regular basis. I still use tin. Just leave me alone!
....is seeing the low user IDs of the posters that are brought out on this topic. Nothing like some Usenet news to bring the elders out into the light. (Not that I'm any young buck myself.) But as another poster said, it was really the spammers that ruined Usenet. They stomped through like a swarm of lotu, locus....er, bugs..and then left it in ruins.
This space intentionally left blank.
Sounds like someone's been trolling "alt." again. On the other hand, offtopic crap is less than one posting in 50 on the groups I subscribe, like comp.os.cpm
In fact, many usenet groups are the diametric opposite of /.: topical, current, interesting, relatively troll-free, and almost completely dupeless. The groups in question are often populated by 'net old-timers, not the cl00less n00bies (i.e., anyone who discovered teh Intarweb after about 1990) that give most of the rest of the net its unsavory character.
Sad, really sad. The ISP featured in TFA is just cheap and afraid of *AA.
You wanna get rid of viruses and invitations to unspeakable acts of sexual depravity? Shut down the mail servers.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
1. Insults to my question
2. Useful answers
Additionally, I read a few of the SF Bay Area ba.* groups. There's some spamming, trolling, and flaming, but not so much that I cannot find and track the useful conversations.
What a bunch of bull.
I'll drive
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
This was about the only advantage Rogers had over Bell (our major DSL provider). They both have about the same speed at any given price point (although Bell has twice the upload speed for regular high speed), but Bell acts more like a full duplex line (u/l speed does not affect d/l's while on Rogers u/l'ing at 50KB/s can limit your d/l's to single digits) and while Rogers is capped (60GB for regular and now 100GB for 'Extreme') Bell is unlimited.
The fact that Rogers still has newsgroup (although they've limited dl speeds to 30KB/s) was about the only reason I was thinking about moving back. Bells groups have retention times that can be measured in minutes, not days and it almost impossible to get a full post on a Bell server even if it's only text, let alone a binary.
Since this will most likely only really upset heavy downloaders (which Rogers is more than happy to get rid of anyway) the average user who is paying $50/month to check their email will be almost completely unaffected. Probably a good business decision for Rogers but that still doesn't mean we have to like it.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
this isn't evidence that usenet's death is happening; only that ISPs -more specifically ONE ISP- doesn't want to include the cost of maintaining the massive servers in their fixed price... Bell Canada's Sympatico internet service hasn't had binaries in their usenet for years (says MacGyver)
...and if it is in fact only used by a small number of their customer then this makes sense... .... from what I've read of late, traffic is UP on usenet, not down, and that tells me that the rumours of usenet's death are greatly exagerated.
the fact that there are dozens of large companies (I believe giganews is the biggest, and giganews was the company rogers was paying for their usenet feed) offering this service tells me that there is in fact a demand for usenet
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
"Its democratic dream "...
A socalist majority , Some (granted not as much as elsewhere) limits on freedom and speech.
so Its democratic dream , how does this apply to Canada ? Where a person has to go to the SUPREME COUT JUST TO BE ABLE TO RPOVIDE HIMSELF MEDICAL CARE ??!?!?!?!?
I don't buy "...invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place." at all. But really it depends. I'm a dane, and the danish newsgroups are very stable and governed by a "management group" which is backed by the largest ISP in Denmark. The result is that you have to debate about creating a new newsgroup, deleting an existing if it dies and so on.
The signal to noise ratio (measured on spam) is exceedingly low, maybe one or two spam messages gets through each week, as they are quickly removed.
Outside of dk.* I sneak around in comp.* and rec.sport.* and there doesn't seem to be any problems there, which are unique, or destructive, compared to the usual internets.
Like anywhere else in the world, if you actively seek the "unspeakable sexual acts", you'll find it, and thus, Usenet actually does what it's supposed to do, bring content to the user.
Lastly, what the real power of Usenet is that it is a structure, that enables me to quickly find topics which does not have anything in common, in the same place. That is Usenet provides me insigtful posts on SQL Server, and enables me to chat football (the sport where you actually use the foot consistently), all in the same place.
Oh look, USENET found Slashdot...
...film now.
I use SBC's Usenet service. I get tons of ebooks from there, I get tons of babe pictures from there, I get tons of tech info from there (less so recently due to time pressures).
The only problem with Usenet is that unless the newsgroup is a niche group like alt.comp.freeware or a thoroughly technical group, or a moderated newsgroup, it will be inundated with porn and other spam shortly. But even some of the babe newsgroups are easily usable. If somebody bothered to put a spam filter on newsgroups, most of the spam could be eliminated, but that'll never happen.
Viruses? Never seen one in three years. I've seen a handful of posts from people who have said, "Don't download this, it's a virus." That's it.
Other problems? Same as in real life - morons are everywhere. Deal with it (we Transhumans are going to in due time.)
The ISP is simply lying and trying to save a couple bucks. I would expect SBC to follow suit, since their Usenet service is crappy to begin with - their retention sucks. I'm convinced they deliberately damage the binary newsgroups because their completion rate is hideous in almost all of them - virtually NO multipart binary - at least if it's an MP3 or other media - gets through. Fortunately a lot of ebooks do get through. I've been meaning to get a subscription to a real Usenet service for some time.
In short, there's nothing seriously wrong with Usenet that a spam filter wouldn't solve, but using your ISP to access it is not the best idea.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Enough to make it worth-while.
Quack, quack.
On the other hand, my ISP (Manitoba Telecom) just announced that they're holding non-binary content for much longer than before. Usenet is full of seedy content, primarily if you go to the groups created for spreading seedy content. Caveat emptor, and all that.
... overrrated?
*shrug*
I've always used my real e-mail address when posting to USENET, and I've only had one issue in the past ten years (some idiot tossed out various forged postings using other people's e-mail addresses including mine, and which resulted his ISP eventually cancelling his account).
:-)
BTW, USENET has nothing to do with the web except where it interfaces with places like Google Groups. And real USENET news clients are text-based.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
invitations to unspeakable sexual acts
Who else is gonna keep the small furry farm critters from getting lonely?
Baaah... Clone Me....
It's easy to see why usenet is dying. Barely anyone has access to it anymore. Google Groups doesn't give you half of the stuff that's out there. Few ISPs and college still have a server that they allow you to get on, and even those don't list all the groups out there. Any other usenet service I've seen isn't free.
So because there is no easy and free interface to get into usenet, or to even learn about its existence, "normal" peopel aren't going to use it.
To make it worse, geeks like me wont use it (despite knowledge and desire to do so) because there is no free, easy and open server to connect to. Not to mention the fact that all the newsgroup readers suck big time.
The worst part is this, I might be wrong. There might be a free server somewhere I just don't know about. But if I don't know about it, it's hidden or secret. You can't complain something is dying if you keep it a secret.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
One word: killfiles. The anarchic structure of usenet makes self-help and self-protection against trolls both possible and downright enjoyable. Don't like what joe@bloggs.net is posting on alt.foo.bar? add him to your killfile, and you'll never have to hear from him again. Thread topic annoy you? Killfile it.
In contrast, on most web fora, you are at the mercy of the moderators. There are never enough moderators, and you have no way of selectively filtering only those topics you want to read about. You are forever wading through the same arguments offered by the same trolls...with no way to avoid them. It's tiresome. Likewise, accessing usenet over the web via googlegroups deprives you of similar killfile protection, making usenet seem even less useful for the casual visitor.
Once you've gotten your newsreader's scorefile set up more or less the way you want it, usenet is a stunningly efficient way to communicate.
I've been using GoogleGroups quite extensively for my (albeit read only) access for some time. (While I used to used DejaNews, that was mostly for the archives. I think that Google killed off a lot of the usefullness of the archives, but it's still nice that it's searchable.)
I guess I have used some private NNTP services, now that I think on it. But in general, the above holds true.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
I've left off most of my Usenet usage, basically because websites/forums/blogs give me most of what I was looking for information-wise, and Slashdot gives me all the geek twaddle I need. I have horded a few megs of more amusing Usenet archives (alt.sysadmin.recovery and the works of Kibo spring instantly to mind), just to save for reminiscence when I'm in the old geek's home. But Usenet has definitely waned in usefulness compared to other internet resources, and it *is* crawling with spam, anyway. (That virus business is bogus; Usenet's safer than IRC. And as for obscene sexual propositions...it's the net. What do expect, a cathedral?)
I will say this, I still turn to Usenet if I can't find information on a subject *anywhere* else: it'll be there.
Sorry, should have written "evidence that it may be happening."
"from what I've read of late, traffic is UP on usenet, not down"
Good point, but I wonder how much current usenet traffic is valid. Seems to me that bots and spammers account for a ton of the traffic, dunno if it is more, or how much more, than in the past.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
it now means they can legitimately turn round to their customers and TOS them for downloading illegal material which they themselves are no longer carrying on their own servers... bit difficult to do it when the customer has downloaded it from the ISPs own server isn't it... plus it makes them **AA proof
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
The author must be using Windows in the "Stupid Mode", without engaging his brain. Apparently he has never heard of "Kill files" and other blocking techniques to eliminate the trash from the UseNet data stream. One would get the impression that when he gets into his car he finds it impossible to avoid the "tenderloin" of San Francisco because he doesn't know how to steer away from that area. He probably stops for every "Why lie, I need money for booze" bum standing at the entrances to Walmart.
Just like using email, one learns that messages from unknown senders, which get by spam blockers, are never opened. And when one is curiously impulsed to open an suspecious email they always have their anti-virus program engaged to scan it first. Duh!
Because I program for a living I use UseNet at work via my W2K box to access other coders using the tools I'm using, and I've never had a problem. I never open msgs that offer "enhancement" products, pharms, or rollex watches, either. For the last eight years I've used Linux, dual booting at work and solely at home. When running Linux I've NEVER encountered any malware which was effective. I've installed Linux anti-virus programs, like f-prot, to scan my NTFS filesystem while running Linux just to be sure there aren't bugs which Norton hasn't found.
What really burns me is that the author is just like the idiots who passed the "Patriot" Act. This guy thinks that curtailing freedom is the only way to guarantee safety. If there is no safety behind prison bars what makes him think that walling off society with "politically correct" bars will work any better?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
Usenet was really cool back in the 80s; I forget which year it was that I could no longer read the whole thing, but probably ~1984-1985. By the mid-90s, there was a lot less of the interesting technical discussions that used to be the mainstay of Usenet, though there was a bit worth reading before The September That Never Ended. Once in a while I'll check Google's DejaNews to read some technical threads, but it's pretty much all drowned.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Too many users have never heard of USENET or think it's the same thing as Google Groups.
With a proper newsreader, many of the "issues" that folks have with the medium are solved, and it doesn't take a terribly complex score file to do it (depending on the specific kooks being filtered, of course).
For me, USENET is still the first place I go to find answers to technical questions, and it's still one of the fastest and most interesting ways to converse on the modern internet.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
You obviously do not understand monopolies. What Rogers has is a natural monopoly. It occurs because of economies of scale. The cost of entry becomes too great for any real competition to enter the market. Hence whoever managed to lay the most cable (ie. Rogers) captured the market. The government of Canada did not grant them a monopoly in any way, as you incorrectly suggest.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
If you haven't been to the tenderloin district lately, it's still the plague years.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Google Groups is free and accessible from web browsers.
The interface is a little kludgey.
It limits 20 posts per six hour period. A Google post embeds your IP number so it is not truly anonymous.
When I first got cable internet back in 2000 it was a dream. Since that time rogers has taken away almost every feature that you would expect from an ISP.
Speeds were cut down, personal webspace was cancelled, monthly bandwidth caps were implemented. Newsgroups were originally hosted by rogers themselves, speeds were great with about 3 day retention. Then they outsourced to giganews and speeds were cut down to 60KB/s but with 45 day retention- a fair tradeoff. Worked well enough but now that's about to be killed off.
Maybe we were just spoiled but it still sucks, especially when the price has done nothing but go up.
Shit! If it's already on digg for two weeks then it's probably all over the net. It really looked like a hot release and I was hoping to trade it. I could really use a boost in the rankings. I remember the days when slashdot had all the 0-day newz first, it's now just fakes and dupes. I think the scene is dying and slashdot is just the first to go down.
And I'm pissed off!
I use newsgroups on the regular and this is very shitty for me. Access through GigaNews is an additional $15 a month and this would be a big different if added to the $40CDN high speed internet.
Yes I'm talking about binaries. Yes I download binaries. What's the point of high speed internet if all you're going to check is your fucking email, do some online banking, and post on slashdot? I've done it using "links" on the Gentoo installation CD.
I download a lot of music off of alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.* (particularly electronic) and often times find new music I would have otherwise never heard before. I've even purchased some CDs because of this! Not to mention the club here or there or concert that has those artists come.
Anyway, I'm going to write a letter requesting a reduction in my internet account. Here's the address to those that wish to do the same: (their Toronto head office)
Customer Relations Executive Response Centre
855 York Mills Road
Don Mills, ON
M3B 1Z1
...head on over to the Dump Rogers Day blog. It was setup in response to this action.
DataSquid.net, a little about me.
Usenet is yesterday's forum medium. Notice how we are having this conversation on slashdot.org instead of comp.blah.blah.moderated
I see content control as the trend for new killer features in Internet software. People get shit they don't want and the love software that helps make it go away. Look at pop-up control and adblocker in Firefox as an example.
In this regard usenet( or good usenet clients ) still has one good thing which belongs to the future: good filtering/killfiles.
With a good usenet client you can make someone you don't like disappear as if they never existed.
The filtering that comes with most web board software, if it has filtering at all, usually sucks.
If a web board is healthy it usually gets a few persistant irritating people and I think most people would love to have the ability to make them diappear, completely, from their view.
I think most admins would like this too. Users would stop bothering them about the content if they could control what they see.
Usenet is a highly practical solution, if you can set up a private or intranet server that excludes the great unwashed from signing up to it. In these circumstances, usenet is fast to the point of almost instaneous and there is no need to worry about the bad guys. Careful organization of your newsgroups and hierarchy means that users won't have to look far to find what they want - easier, perhaps, than sifting through the average, cluttered MS Outlook inbox. There is life in the old dog yet, I'd guess, especially in parts of the world where bandwidth and powerful PCs are scarce resources.
I guess webforums are sweeping all before them, but with some losses too. They can be slow, eat up bandwidth and computing power even on the client and are constantly turning up vulnerabilities in their php. OTOH, they are a good way of building up support if you're an enterprise. I suspect part of the success of Ubuntu Linux is down to the canny way they have set up their webforums and encouraged a community to flourish there. This would never have been possible with usenet.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
It is anarchy. Big difference. If it were democratic, it would work--and it wouldn't be on the verge of extinction (relevance has long past).
Democracy is not the lack of controls, it merely placed power, collectively, in the hands of the members of a society, rather than in the hands of an elite.
Usenet is not a democracy.
Flout 'em and scout 'em,
and scout 'em and flout 'em;
Thought is free. - Shakespeare [The Tempest]
What a load of crap. Not the "demise of Usenet", but the stupid reasons projected by Jack Kapica in his report for its declining popularity. Usenet was a bunch of technologies, including a user interface. That UI is nowhere as useful as the Web's, especially compared to searching with, say, Google, or linking to fragments from websites. And Usenet's (nominal) hierarchical organization and larger admin requirements aren't as appropriate for most people as the Web. It's Usenet/Web portals that have shrunk Usenet's popularity. If it's not popular, big consumer ISPs shouldn't carry it, charging all users for the usage of a few. Real Usenet users will still share feeds, even if "Usenet" itself dies - the tech is available to anyone who wants in on such a protocol/content network, just like a good Internet tech.
Kapica might sympathize with ADD illiterates. Maybe he hasn't heard about Usenet since alt.tasteless invaded rec.pets.cats over 10 years ago, because he got the story wrong: it didn't kill r.p.c - it got the crossposting a.t flamer booted. Death with dignity, or even semiretirement, for Usenet, is hindered by the clueless ramblings of posers like Kapica. I wish Kibo were here to whip him with a cluestick.
--
make install -not war
A company says a service is useless and in the same comments says customers can pay a third party to acquire said service. Now, if a service is useless, why would multiple third parties provide it? I mean, I would think you provide a service because there is a demand (in most cases at least). If demand exists, then it is implied there is a use for the service.
Now, the company also talks about what a seedy environment this service presents and how they are taking this measure to protect people. Again, they refer users to a third party. So....how are they protecting people if they encourage them to pay for the service elsewhere? I mean, if protection were the goal, wouldn't they block the service completely?
For quite some time Ive been on usenet finding all sorts of wonderful content. Often the quality beats out anything I find on a p2p, and at much more efficient and reliable speeds. As far as finding specific items I go to binsearch.info which does a great job of finding what I want when I want.
The negative portrayal of usenet that you use in your post is not by any means based in factbut is rather a narrow opinion of someone who it would appear to me has little knowledge of how to use the technology.
As far as viruses, and such stay away from the "see britney spears naked" & "young college coeds" post and you should be safe.
I can see only one viable (i.e. pathetic) reason that an ISP would remove it's USENET service. More than likely they (and other ISP's) have begun to feel pressure from music/movie/game industry regarding illegal downloading. The easiest way out for them, is to place the responsibility on private USENET services & the customer. In terms of liability, its the best decision for them.
Contrary to apparent popular opinion, not all of Usenet is binaries groups where people can rip material illegally if P2P is too hard for them to understand.
USENET has seen a huge influx of downloaders in the past 2 years. Crack downs on P2P have driven savvy downloaders there. But just because YOU are a seasoned USENET pro, don't think that its "easy". I am one of the offenders. I switched to downloading from USENET about 1 and a half years ago cause I couldn't find the TV shows I wanted on P2P and I found IRC time consuming and controlled by too many people who don't want to help you if you are a "noob". I had a hard time figuring out how to "use" USENET and I still don't fully understand it. All I know is how to download .nzb files to get those RAR's and PAR's. However, I do know there is a wealth of information out there available on USENET that I would love to tap into. But it would take setting aside some time to read about how to do it (for me at least).
All I'm saying is, I plan to keep on learning, but don't assume that people are downloading from USENET because its an easy alternative to P2P, cause its not. There are way too many steps involved for the average Joe Schmuckatelli to deal with just to get the file you want to use, including finding, downloading, error correcting, decompressing, etc...
Don't ya hate it when the correct spelling of your favorite screen name is taken?
from TFA: Its democratic dream offers . . .
It's a democratic reality.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Ah, yes, the good ol' days....
:(
Too bad he died.
Get AOL to foll Rogers' lead, and maybe September will finally come to an end!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Well, this is interesting since Rogers actually sub-contracted their Usenet to Giganews last year. That must have cost them quite a bit, and there will be no recompense back to users? Hrmm...
While Giganews was nice for grabbing alt.bin* type stuff (57 day binary retention), they nicely capped the connection to 2 connections at 256kbits each. Not exactly flying down the pipe if you're on the extreme 5000kbit end of their service offering.
I expect out of the article's reported 3% of users that did use Usenet, only 3% of those actually use it for non-binary/legitimate type discussions. The noise level these guys are making is not going to make a dent in Rogers' bottom line.
Ahh well, I've been using Usenet for quite sometime. I will probably miss it in a sentimental way, but I really don't find it as useful as mailing lists for the type of discussions it used to be famous/useful for.
Farewell my Usenet... I shall miss thee.
Film at 11.
Sheesh. Didn't we do this like five years ago?
Okay, you've done it. I didn't do it with Katz, but you made it. PLONK.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
bcrowell, is that really you?! We really missed you over at alt.hackers.geriatric. It's been a real long time, my friend. How's the hip replacement?
As far as viruses, only if you are idiot enough to download and execute "attachments" there. No protection for people who insist on doing the stupid. Gee, I can drink mercury and wail about its hazards too!
Give me a break.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
The daft thing is that people like Microsoft are inventing sharepoint discussions. Lotus Notes had it a few years ago. Neither was as good as USENET because neither had the open access to decent clients. Sharepoint's web interface sucks, and it's locked in to Windows. I've not looked a Notes recently. There are a lot of good USENET clients out there with decent threading support.
Usenet could easily be made "Pointy Haired Boss friendly" by requiring authentication and preventing address spoofing - yet Microsoft and others choose to replace it with something much worse.
That's silly - the same thing could be said about email. I don't know about you, but I'm currently getting around 800 spam messages a day - and while most of it is caught by the filter, that's still an awful lot. Viri and invitations to "unspeakable" sexual acts (exactly what is "unspeakable", anyway? I know a lot of people who'd consider anything except missionary-style after-marriage with-the-intent-to-procreate sex to be "unspeakable", and some who'd view even *that* as unspeakable - a necessary evil) are certainly common, as are offers for cheap medication, body part enlargement and cheap M$ software, phishing, and all the other crap that gets spammed.
Would any ISP use this as an excuse to turn off email for all customers? Of course not; the thought alone is ridiculous, and I think that shows that they're just looking for a convenient scapegoat. I'm not sure what the real reason could be, but it's probably money, in one way or another - turning off news servers means less bandwidth consumption, less hardware needed at the ISP, less administration overhead (i.e., less administrators), and so on.
Given that, and also given that most people don't use seem to Usenet anymore (at least not in the traditional form, especially since web-based services like Google Groups became available), I can understand their decision to stop offering Usenet, but I wish they'd at least be honest about why they're doing so.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
I've had no problems with the comp.os.linux.* newsgroups.
Sure, you see more problems in the alt.* groups, but you can run across goatse and other trolls on Slashdot too.
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass
I've been proclaiming the death of Usenet on alt.rumors for years now. But does anyone listen? I said does anyone listen? Hello? Is this thing on?
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
Rummaging about in Usenet is like slumming through the tenderloin district during the plague years -- your chances of catching a computer virus or a handful of invitations to unspeakable sexual acts is much greater than finding what you were looking for in the first place.
And apparently, that's why Rogers should make sure that its users never have that option. Because you know, personal responsibility just leads to all kinds of problems, and if you just listened to your parents, you'd be better off. No use protesting that you're an adult: if you really were adult, you wouldn't be using USENET.
Socialist tripe, really, but quite the common belief. In reality, the likelihood is that Rogers didn't want to keep spending the money on disk space for a service relatively few people use these days.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Rogers has shut down BitTorrent traffic at most major cities in the last month. The only way around it is to encrypt the packets. Fortunately, BitComet can do this.
I signed up for 2 years extreme high speed and within 3 months, they (tried) to stop torrents and are dropping newsgroups. What good is a 8/800 cable modem now?
While it is expensive to get the infrastructure in place, you also need to convince people to switch over. In the case of areas serviced by Rogers, that may not be easy. My relatives in Ontario who use Rogers for their Internet do so only because they can also get discounts on their cable and mobile phone services as part of a bundle. You may not be able to price your cable service low enough to compete with such bundles.
Not only that, but you have to obtain content to transmit over the cables you just ran, to the subscribers you just convinced to switch over.
It's not just putting your own cables in place that leads to massive entry costs.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
I've used rogers. For 7 years for internet.
In the beginneing it was good. 5 meg up, 5 meg down. $38 a month. Fixed ip, no cost. This was 7 years back kids. Long before DSL...
Then slowly, the suck came. First the limited outbound like most. Then The dropped speeds.
Then the users came, outages, the @HOME nightmare came and went...and its just sucked more.
I've stayed this long because...I have a cell, no need for a land line, we can't get naked DSL as far as I know in canada.
Finally, rogers has started capping bandwidth, in a bingo hall style manner....and now, the final straw for me. They baited me to upgrade to the 6 meg service. Wonderfully fast. Minus one problem. They traffic shape p2p and Bit torrent. Fine in itself, keep it under control yes. NOPE, they killed it. Dead. I have not seen anything as bad as their QoS effects, and we're talknig DEEP packet inspection.
These guys killed it dead and right when I swapped modems and went from the 24.x.x.x network trunks to the 69.x.x.x stuff.
So after months of asking for an honest answer, I gave up. Got a DSL connection (Bell). Ran two boxess be side, wtih the linksys router, without. Same. The bell connection at 3 meg in REAL WORLD use killed the rogers. Pathetic.
SO Now a day after I rage with them on the phone I learn they are killing news groups. yet another perk to leave.
Reminder to all rogers users, you have to give 30 days advanced notice. Oh they'll take the modem back early, still charge for its rental...but you have to give 30 days. Argh.
Never again.
Removing all usenet access seems rather extreme.
If the problem was MPAA, RIAA or some other bunch of powerful assholes bringing down the pressure, why not just remove the alt.binaries.* hierarchy (like other ISPS have done in the past)
Disk space and bandwidth are immediately freed up, but the service is still there for subscribers to use the text groups.
It also solves the problem of cost, it would cost an ISP (almost) nothing to offer the text groups to subscribers.
In fact after reading my point its obvious that there was more to it than just access to mp3s, games and movies. Perhaps they want to provide an ultra squeaky clean service where everything can be moderated and controlled. Welcome to the future of the internet.
That would seem to accurately describe a nursing home or a hospice, as well.
Usenet is attracting few new real users, which is a shame. The problem is that most users don't even know usenet is there.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Clearly this is a corallary move to what the Edward Whiteacre, CEO of SBC is doing.g azine/content/05_45/b3958092.htm
See the interview here:
http://www.businessweek.com/@@n34h*IUQu7KtOwgA/ma
Quote:
How concerned are you about Internet upstarts like Google (GOOG), MSN, Vonage, and others?
How do you think they're going to get to customers? Through a broadband pipe. Cable companies have them. We have them. Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?
Ultimately, Rogers will be charging people extra to download "Content" like music, video clips etc. You know - the things they used to get from Usenet for free.
How the heck do you get a virus from usenet?
...) .exe extension)
Simple. 1) You go to the appropriate grousp (*.comp.virus, *.comp.anti-virus,
2) You post your request for a virus (don't forget to give enough info)
3) Someone will answer your request, often accurately
4) You uudecode the included data
5) You save it
6) You chmod it (or you set the
7) You run it as root (or admin)
If you follow all these steps, chances are you will be successfull. Thanks to Usenet.
Million Dollar Screenshot
You too can make usenet posts fast! And larger posts as well!!! Wouldn't YOU like to have a large AND fast usenet post?
eat shiat and bark at the moon
This is not really a big deal. As Rogers news services are currently configured they are completely useless now. Maximum of 2 concurrent connections, ~30k transfer speed cap. Rogers software is Windows only so if you are using a Mac or Linux you are paying for stuff you cannot use. That is not to say that basic services such as mail and surfing are unavailable, but the added value crap such as the launchcast internet radio, anti-virus, child-proofing, etc.
Check here to see rogers statement.
Here is my letter to rogers..
I checked your FAQ and do not agree with your reasonings. We deserve a discount. Because I'll need to pay CAD$26.5 more to get back the same service.
If I get the same service from giganews, it costs US$25 or ~CAD$30, the yahoo service you offered doesn't cover that value.
Here are the comments to your reason why 'I shouldn't get a discount':
We paid for it obviously, nothing is free.
The unlimited storage is free for everyone, not just RY subscribers.
It costs $2.99(USD) per month or $3.5(CAD)
Available free using FireFox and Opera
Available free from yahoo geocity. RY's version are getting the same ADs embedded on webpages hosted on geocity.
Free blogs are everywhere..
It is also reasonable to expect that old services stay because we use it.
You just decreased it by taking out USENET
The cost for getting a usenet service from giganews is $30CAD minus the cost for launchcast $3.5CAD is 26.5CAD.
I demand a $26.5CAD discount
A.C.
Rogers customer
I followed a few of the programming-related groups for a while, and they were a very good resource, frequented by very knowledgeable professionals. I feel this is being slowly supplanted by web based 'articles' where they often barely even scratch the surface of a given subject.
I'm a Netware Administrator and newsgroups are the single most valuable resource I have ever found for troubleshooting problems with NW. Usually I can find all the information I need in less than an hour of searching newsgroups. Sometimes that is someone who experienced the exact same problem I have or sometimes it can be a link to a TID that addresses a problem that may be causing symptoms that my servers have. Without newsgroups, I would be severely handicapped - they are that valuable to how I do my job. I think at some point all NW admins have gone to a box and seen the dreaded multiple abends rainbow screen. So you do a reboot and you go to your abend log. There amount of knowledge in newsgroups just for abends boggles my mind. I have never been unable to resolve an abend issue simply by consulting newsgroups.
For example, I use Arcserve to backup my NW boxes (yes, I know I know its unfortunate). One thing any NW admin who has dealt with Arcserve will tell you is that you dont just go apply a patch to Arcserve. You see that the patch is released and you let is sit. And sit some more. And, if possible, you wait just a little bit more after that. The reason for this is that patching arcserve on netware (and patching netware in general) is a bit of a tricky proposition. Generally, the release quality of patches from Novell is good and there is nothing wrong with their patches - its the other vendors with apps on your NW box that you have to worry about. For example, on Netware 5 with ArcserveIT there is a very specific combination of patches I had to apply to Arcserve for everything to be happy. You couldnt just apply the pacthes CA said to apply as bad things start to happen...such as the SCSI board driver slamming the system bus with SCSI resets pretty much anytime you looked at it funny. So it is a very much a hit or miss proposition when you patch. In general, unless there is a specific reason to patch something (security patch, a patch addressing a bug you are experiencing) you dont necessarily want to. I dont think I would have been able to address this issue with the help of newsgroups (it turned out to be an specific issue relating to my tape autoloader and a device support update).
So, to summarize, newsgroups are an extremely important resouce to alot of people. I think, at times, those who it is most valuable to are not the most vocal group. I looked through this article wondering if a fellow NW admin would post something similiar... I didnt see anything so I felt that someone needed to say it.
I'll admit that I haven't looked at Usenet in quite a while, despite founding talk.politics.libertarian nearly 12 years ago, yet when I look at the newsgroup today, it still looks like it has useful information.
For a while I worked at a company that delivered a full Usenet feed over satellite, but they went out of business. I suspect you can't even do a full feed with a single transponder at QPSK 3/4 today. Does anyone still deliver Usenet feeds over satellite?
Now when they users can't download from alt.binaries, I guess torrent will eat they pipes insteed..
that hasn't been wrong with it for years.
I use usenet on an almost daily basis. For programming related help, it's about the best source. In various newsgroups I can post questions and often get answers within an hour. That's far better than customer support with most software vendors, and I get it for a very low fixed monthly cost.
I know there are lots of newsgroups infested with junk, but there are also a great number of very useful groups. It doesn't take a lot of effort to separate the wheat from the chaffe and the value of the content, at least for what I'm looking for, is far above the price I pay.
Granted, not everyone will find what they want in usenet, but for some things, it's about the best source on the net.
Netcraft doesn't confirm it, but Usenet is dead. Usenet is dead. Let me take that back. Usenet has become a fire sharing network; Usenet as a discussion medium is dead. Not that I miss it too much.
Usenet, in a lot of ways, was a big clique. There was a lot of useful information there, but there was also a lot of attacking of newbies and people with different opinions in a lot of forums. I remember a 1994 article (back when Usenet was the internet) about Usenet, comparing the behavior of members to the rites of street gangs. The whole "anti-AOL" and the resulting attitude which resulted in jokes like "Eternal September" (as I recall, AOL didn't have Usenet until mid-1994) was just one symptom of this cliqueish. IRC was another big clique; the pre-dot-com internet was very cliquey (actually; let me take that back. The Free Chess servers always had nice people; people could express their agression by kicking my butt at Chess instead of being a cliquey snob).
There are some things I miss about Usenet. I miss being able to use Leafnode to download a few Usenet newsgroups to my laptop over a modem, taking my laptop to the library and reading and posting to Usenet while studying; I would have my posted articles uploaded to Usenet that evening when I was online again. Usenet did not need a continuous online connection to be usable. Then again, more and more libraries have wireless internet access.
One of the positive benefits of the dot-com revolution, besides making it so that a given hot girl you see at the pool now has a web page, is that the internet is not the clique it was.
They're just worried about the poor economics of their network as more and more people learn to use post-Napster file sharing. BitTorrent is a pretty heavy load. I think they should just distinguish their service levels by bandwidth, and forget about killing specific services.
Big whoop. If you don't like it, you're free to switch to another ISP. That's what I did when Bell quietly started blocking port 25 a couple of years ago, which was a lot more harmful to me.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
Rogers already had severely crippled usenet access as it is. They had farmed it out to Giganews, and cut the speeds down to something like 32 or 64 k/s. I've been using Google Groups for my usenet access ever since they bought out Deja.
One very telling peice of film was of a bunch of fundamentalists disrupting an Easter parade in St Petersburg, Russia and yelling out "turn to Jesus". You really would think they should be able to work out who the guy on the cross in so many of the images in the parade was, and why the priests were carrying crosses or had them on their hats.
I've been using Comcast as my ISP for over five years, since it was called @Home. When the switch from @Home to Comcast took place, they dropped usenet access entirely. I guess enough of us complained because Comcast later contracted with Giganews for 1GB of downloads per month with no increase in our rates (which were/are outrageous). Earlier this year the monthly limit went up to 2GB, and downloading headers no longer counts against your monthly limit. I sure hope that Comcast doesn't follow Roger's example...
Look at all the happy creatures dancing on the lawn...
Seriously now, you just posted this on the web - and as someone will no doubt point out - on /. Holding "noise" against USENET is absurd.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
RTA one more time, but this time turn on your "Freshly-served bullshit from the PR department"-o-meter.
--
comp.lang.c 4 life.
----
tsia
I used to subscribe to Rogers. Never again will I pay the bastards a cent.
At first I was happily subscribed to Shaw@Home cable internet service. Uptime was good and I achieved 4.0Mb off of peak hours. I was paying $40\mo
Then Rogers bought Shaw and took over their territory. They called their new service "Rogers@Home Unlimited High Speed Internet". They reduced my service to 1.5Mb. They increased tech support hold times from 5 minutes to 45 or more. The service was so unstable that I was unable to stream an 11khz mono shoutcast UDP signal to one person (about 3Kb\s). They didn't lower their rates even though I was recieving a fraction of the service Shaw offered.
To top it all off, they called me 2 years ago, saying that I was downloading too much and was reducing the enjoyment of other Rogers internet subscribers. I dug up some pamphlets and the original documentation they provided me which clearly stated "unlimited internet access", but the CSR told me that "unlimited" means I can be connected at all times, not downloading unlimited amounts (aka "limited" in my dictionary). I'll omit my unpleasant response to this. I then told them that their equipment was inadequate for my area, which was the real cause of the lack of service. They seemed to think otherwise. I told Rogers to get stuffed.
Rogers is THE single most heartless, money grubbing, bait-and-switch gyp joint you can possibly surrender your earnings to. If you want a decent ISP with no caps and Usenet access, I highly recommend researching www.canadianisp.com to find one of the highly competetive ma and pa ADSL ISP's (there are over 100 in Toronto alone). Or do what I did and get the best one in the Toronto area - Cybernet (though they cap Usenet to 300MB/day).
There is NO REASON to subscribe to Rogers internet service. Their support is notoriously terrible, residential areas per shared hub are huge which makes throughput slow as molasses every evening, the price is relatively high, and you are forced to rent a modem from them monthly. Give your money to hard working independent ISPs who will work their butts off to make you happy. Buy your own modem (about $60) and save yourself $10\month for the same max speeds (3.0Mb slowest) with no slowdown at peak times. All these statements are corroborated by residential internet users like you at www.canadianisp.com
P.s., my girlfriend just told me that Rogers has reduced her evenings and weekends "unlimited" cellular times from 6pm-6am to 9pm-6am, and it will only cost her 100% of her previous price! What a deal!
you will never find a more reched hive of scum and villany.
If it's dead, you killed it.
As a Rogers customer for over 5 years and an @Home customer before that, I've given Rogers a lot of business over the years. I'm also a mid to heavy Usenet user, ever since University.
Well, I have to admit that Rogers Usenet service has been virtually untouchable in the Toronto area. They carry well over 100,000 Usenet groups and have a good thread availability ratio in the groups from what I've seen.
And this is the ONLY thing that has kept me dealing with Rogers for these years. On Dec 15, that loyalty is OVER.
Now I WILL shop my ISP services around to the best rate since Rogers doesn't have a strongly demanded service available anymore. I can also immediately drop my premium high-speed EXTREME account since I won't be needing that anymore. Yes, that would be Usenet. The Globe&Mail article author is wrong. In the IT world, Usenet is probably one of the top services needed. Putting all the dumbasses and pornographers aside, the Usenet service is invaluable as a place of discussion and reference, and arguably the last source of (un?)moderated democracy in the free world.
This is just more of my discretionary spending money that will now flow south of the border. Rogers must be hiring some really bright people these days, like the kind of people that cancel TV shows like Firefly and Dead Like Me, and (cough) work in Microsoft marketing. Or is that Rogers marketing? I can't tell the difference sometimes. Rogers has my cell phone service and TV service too. Rogers business competitors please call me...
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
My ISP let the license to their commercial Usenet server expire a few years ago. I worked out a quick trade with them: in exchange for giving me a small static netblock, I'd host their Usenet service out of my house.
That was nearly four years ago, and my little Leafnode2 server and its set of users is still quietly chugging along. I filter all the binary groups by default (but permit exceptions by request) and Cricket tells me that it's not using enough bandwidth to fret about. Granted, the FreeBSD jail it lives inside takes a couple percent of my hard drive, but again, it's not enough to actually care about.
A raw, unfiltered Usenet feed can be very expensive. A small, on-demand feed can be darn near free. Since the cost of providing the service is essentialy nil, why not offer it? Unless, of course, you like having a customer pool with a smaller-than-average number of hardcore geeks that never require human tech support...
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I actually hopped on Usenet yesterday looking for old-time radio shows, stuff like Fibber Mcgee & Molly and The Shadow. The copyrights on these shows have long since expired and my only other options to get comprehensive lists are to pay for the mp3s to be burned to CD by somebody that has access to the same resources I have. No thanks, I'd rather just grab them myself.
... tell that to google groups
chances are, if you're using usenet, you know how to use it. and you know what your looking for....binaries :)
I wonder how much of this has to do with people downloading binaries from usenet? I doubt the debate about how people speak and having groups ruined by flamers is the real issue here. If it was, why would so many other forums on the internet be full of posts? People can post on usenet and an online forum just as easy. No, they're doing it to stop people from downloading binaries and using a lame excuse to do it.
I like USENET because of the efficiency of it: text-based, easy and fast to search/reply/organize. Web interfaces are paltry compared to programs designed to work with threaded discussions. Fancy graphics and web ads suck. Also, it's nice to have an entire range of subjects accessible via a standard protocol rather than all over the net under many different web interfaces: just point the news reader to the news server you're interested in and you're set.
Get premium newshosting and download at 900k/s. Forget about ISPs retaining headers anymore
Rodney Quills Dinkins | Communications Specialist | GNAA Corporate HQ
"They're not censoring free speech, they're just introducing NewSpeak."
Am cancelling my rogers account and going with DSL within two weeks because of this. Tech support is denying everything and customer service us just as much in the dark. See http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rogers for more info
But this wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that a lot of software trading can be done through newsgroups, right? I mean, P2P is neat and all, but to get something fast in the "underworld", one would turn to the "newz"... of course, since someone has to upload it, it's a bit slow to actually get a large piece of software up there, but once is there... theoretically anyone in the world can download it from their ISP servers and in the worst case scenario, "just" anyone in your ISP can get it. Maybe this is taxing the ISPs in terms of bandwith or something, or caught the atention of the "big boys", but my guess is that all this talk about getting rid of the usenet servers is a bit paralel with baning P2P, it's just not admited openly.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
It should be obvious to any pharmacist that they will be required to provide contraceptives of various varieties. If they don't wish to provide same, they shouldn't take the job. Or, they should start their own "Christian pharmacy" where they can pick and choose as they like.
If my boss suddently started asking me to do things that conflicted with my beliefs (yeah, right, please describe a REAL example), I would refuse. If he fired me, I'd collect unemployment while looking for another job.
Is it just "Tough crap, shut up and do your damn job, you ass-backwards neanderthal!" ?
That is entirely correct, minus the ad hominem.
What's next, vegetarian waitresses who won't serve meat? Radical environmentalists at an AM/PM who refuse to sell gas because it's bad for the environment?
Get real, if you don't want to do the job, don't take it.
/.: why the hell am I here?
Usenet is the last true piece of the original Internet. Im glad ISP's are dropping it because it keeps it away from the mainstream and the distortion, commercialization and sanitizing that brings. I like it the way it is; dirty, geeky, slightly flawed, a little dangerous and below the mainstream radar.
Since it's dead, does this mean that I have to cancel my giganews account? Or will they do that automatically for me?
About 7 or so years ago, I was using an ISP named Telerama. They upgraded their Usenet servers and for a week I was unable to access them. I called to complain and wanted to be compensated for the lack of functionality. The "customer service" rep on the other end said words to the effect of "Well, most of our customers don't even use our Usenet servers and we don't think that this is much of an inconvienence." To which my response was "I don't care about what most of your customers need. I want usenet access when I sign up with an ISP, I have been without it for a quarter of this billing cycle. I don't want the whole month for free, but I will not pay for service that I never got to use." I ended up getting a $6.00 or so credit on my next bill.
Usenet IS important and I'mm be damned if I pay an ISP full price for service that doesn't include it.
Lord Kano-
Too lazy to log in.
I was interested at first in that individual.net thing since I'm paying $15 a month right now for my ngs. But unforunately it doesn't have binaries:
alt.* Alternate Hierarchy
Groups are added on user request only
(no alt.binaries.*, alt.mag.*, alt.sex, alt.sex.*)
But if you just want to chat, I guess its pretty decent.
Unfortunately the oldest reference I could find on google was only from 1989, but it'll have to do. The fact that it's sigged should be a clue that the fearmongering was already a meme then.
I don't spend a lot of time on Usenet, but it's still highly useful for some things. The various alt.binaries.** groups are good for picking up music, MAME ROMs, cartoons. . . things that are hard to find on WWW. Have you ever tried to get MAME ROMs from web sites? It's like stumbling through a maze filled with traps.
Aside from file sharing, I can get into comp.sys.mac.programmer.help and get answers to tough questions quickly. . . and without the various hassles of going through ADC and their mailing lists. Mailing lists are just a pain in the neck, while web-based discussion forums are worse. The useful discussion groups on Usenet are the moderated ones (like rec.guns) and the ones that are specialized and don't pick up a lot of spam.
My ISP contract out their Usenet access to a third party. The service has been excellent. . . And if I had to guess, I'd suspect they aren't paying too much for it, as I assume the majority of customers don't even know what Usenet is.
One point I would make is that most Usenet client programs are much harder to use than they should be. They can be very hard to configure and use. I avoided Usenet for several years, or accessed it only through Google Groups, because I couldn't find a decent newsreader. I finally found Unison, and I've been tremendously happy with it.
My advice to this first rate doofus is..
a) Don't download WAREZ if you're worried about viruses
b) Don't read alt.sex newsgroups if you're worried about sexual content
c) really really go find something to learn about instead of bitching on
topics you are obviously clueless about...
Usenet is deeply flawed. Its democratic dream offers no defence against viruses, spammers, criminals, hucksters or deranged individuals.
Yeah, seriously guys, it's time to stop living in the '90s and adopt a safer, more secure technology like email.
This has nothing to do with the number of people using the service but rather it is all about money. There has been an ongoing battle over the last few years against bandwith abusers who cost money to the big Ontario ISPs in Canada. They argue that even though when you group everyone in the profit per person is extremely large they believe that no one should use 'unlimited' to the extent that they get there moneys worth (and I can kind of see their argument - though I disagree that this is the way to do it). A couple of years ago Bell (the DSL competitor to rogers) introduced user limits of around 5 gigs per month. This led to massive subscriber loss as everyone bailed to Rogers. Rogers secretly introduced this in a few years later and now this to lower costs as the usenet users are usually high bandwith users. They'd much rather them use google forums which are file-less. Bell has since got rid of its bandwith limits but its usenet service has 0% completion on binaries so they can subtully prevent mass bandwith usage as well.
I'm an IT pro, and use the Slackware, Hylafax and a handful of other newgroups daily. For many niche topics this may be the only viable source of current information. This service cut is a pain for me, but I'll just have to pay a 3rd party for the service and pass the cost along to customers.
More importantly though, this action removes the default abilitiy of hundreds of thousands of subscribers to POST to the groups. It's those questions and comments that keep the groups alive. For example, if I've got a stupid Windows EventID I can't track down, I'll turn to the groups for clues. Or if I'm spec'ing out new hardware I'll check out relevant newsgroups for anecdotes. C'mon, everyone seems to be deriding the groups, but after your web search turns up squat don't you click on the Google Groups link to see what's there? Aren't you often helped tremendously? (I'll often post a follow-up answer to my own question just so I can find it in the future if need be.)
Google Groups, et al, are a great interface for mining pre-existing data in the groups, but if nobody is posting new content then they'll just become a window into a static history. And that would be a shame - even for the Rogers' help desk flunkie who wondered what my "Usernet" complaint was about - beacuse we all need _unfiltered_ access to information.
I've called the "Office of the President" of Rogers Communications to voice my complaint. I urge other subscribers to do so - frequently! If Sony can get their ass handed to them, then just maybe we can prompt Rogers to reconsider.
Rogers outsourced their Usenet services to Giganews about a year or so ago, limited their customers to a maximum of 2 simultaneous connections to the NNTP server, and capped the speed. They also outsourced their customers' webhosting to GeoShitties. The service has been going steadily downhill for the past year. Time for me to jump ship.
Anyone know if any good DSL or cable providers in the Durham Region (southern Ontario) area?
It's this oft-repeated bit of nonsense, sometimes used by ISPs justifying why they're cutting their Usenet feed, and sometimes by people who, for some odd reason, think that web forums are superior.
I always considered unlimited Usenet access just part of an ISP's package. Until I switched to Comcast and discovered their 2GB/mo or-pay-for-more system. Bleh. Data metering sucks. I figure that if all the masses care about is being able to run a web browser and maybe an email client if they aren't using webmail, we'll get more of this (God, BitTorrent needs to get popular for legitimate uses as fast as possible.)
I poked around at a number of Usenet providers, and finally decided on newshosting.com. I just wanted to throw the name out there for anyone else who might be looking around. Their retention is lower than some other providers, but they have an unlimited plan for $15/mo. It lacks a couple of (from my point of view, not interesting) perks that the non-unlimited plans have, but I'd say that they're definitely worth looking at. Their main disadvantage, IMHO, is the lack of an SSL-tunneled connection.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The masses have the money. Geeks are not the masses, and not every person that signs up for Internet access any more is doing so because of a geek recommendation.
Frankly, I'm still amazed that home cable/DSL users are still getting their own IP address... I figured long ago, they would have put everyone on a private network and used NAT and/or WWW proxies for access
I figured that this would have happened a while ago as well. My hope is that increased mainstream use of P2P will produce enough demand for open ports and upstream bandwidth to keep ISPs usable for us geeks.
Basically, the Internet as useful for geeks -- peer-to-peer where any machine can run any services, each machine is admined by a competent user, multiple static IP addresses for each machines -- simply does not match up with the Internet demanded by Average Joe, who needs Web access and maybe, if he doesn't use webmail, IMAP/POP service. He also wants a good chunk of his payment going towards paying for some human to read off a flowchart over the phone, because he feels uncomfortable doing his own troubleshooting.
The problem is that the sort of network that a geek would like is very unfortunately the sort of network that a *business* would like, and thus prices on the sort of network that would keep a geek happy are rising...
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11.
I use the $15/mo newshosting unlimited service. Their retention is not as good as some limited services provided, and I have seen newshosting go down before, but they are comparatively inexpensive for as much data as you can suck down. They have excellent completion (though this is pretty much par for the course for commercial Usenet providers).
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
...or better yet, it never should have been implemented at all.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Usenet exists solely as an online (toxic, dysfunctional) replacement for the conventional mental health system. It is a haven for Scientologists past and present, sexual deviants, and the barking, gibbering nutcases that inhabit the talk.* and alt.* heirarchies. It does not serve any other purpose whatsoever than as a virtual padded cell...a holding pen for the chronically mentally ill, or the type of people who in ages past would have lived under bridges, and who in a physical sense quite possibly do.
IMHO, a special commission of psychiatrists from the WHO should be deployed to determine the specific nature of the various mental diseases of its inhabitants and to learn their real world locations so that they can then be placed in a legitimate offline mental health facilit(y,ies), and the protocol itself should then be retired from use, as even from a technical standpoint it is now genuinely vestigial and redundant.
Seconded. newshosting.com is a solid, inexpensive, professional USENET provider.
Not surprisingly, a couple months ago Adelphia pulled the same USENET bait-and-switch
as Comcast and this Canadian ISP. It seems to be an industry trend. American internet service
is a lot like paying $75/mo to suck tar through a soda straw, alas that's a rant for another day.
Hence Usenet's heretofore popularity, and guarantee of future longevity. Long live kinky reproductive behavior! Huzah!
It died long ago, when the gates of AOHell were opened.
Usenet has been unreadable since the demise of NSFNet.
Dis clients of the ISP had free traffic to his nntp server ? Did they not paid for time spent on downloading and posting articles on ISP's nntp-server ?
:)
Or would that ISP now charge extra money for access to any site with nntp port ?
I agree, usenet overflooded with spam and i for years do not use it. Instead i use nntp servers of communities i'm interested to talk and listen to.
And sometimes i use gmane.org - and i'm sure while usenet might die - NNTP will live. So, personally, i already lost usenet, but would not use effective way top use forums
I have been predicting for years that most major ISPs would get rid of binary Usenet groups. However, it is surprising that Rogers would kill all Usenet access.
The binary Usenet has such a huge potential liability for ISPs because of the risky content, primarily child porn and illegal file sharing. Under Canadian law, possession of child porn is sufficient for a conviction. It is guaranteed that at this very second, and at all times, there are child porn images and/or video in some binary Usenet group, which may be hosted by an ISP. That means that the file is stored on the ISP's computers and that they are in a position to be convicted of possession of child porn.
Another downside for ISPs are costs associated with binary Usenet traffic and storage. While less than 3% (30,000) of their (Roger's) customers made use of Usenet, it likely constitutes up to 25% of their total network traffic. When I was a Roger's broadband customer I was regularly bumping against their traffic limit and I received friendly emails asking me to stay within the limits.
In the end, if Rogers was to have killed only access to the binary Usenet, the loss to consumers would not have been terribly consequential because Google Groups now not only archives Usenet but allows posting to them through a web interface. Therefore, that 3% of Usenet users could have ready access to Usenet for non-binary posting/reading.
However, it is the binary Usenet users that are left in a lurch. Their only access to binary Usenet will be through a third party binary Usenet access provider. However, they will still be stuck with their ISPs traffic limits. Interesting that this is effectively an indirect control on file sharing.
I predict that all major North American ISPs will soon follow suit and eliminate access to, at a minimum the binary Usenet groups, if not all of the Usenet.
The big issue then becomes, is this a reduction of service and what constitutes a fair payment for the reduced service?
The CanadianAlien
www.CanadianAlien.com
The binary Usenet tutorial
Sounds like it's just an excuse to drop a marginally used item. Or they could be noticing an increase in the binaries usage (particularly alt.binaries.dvd.*, alt.binaries.multimedia.*, alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.*) and perhaps be afraid of ramifications from MPAA or RIAA? I'm surprised that alot of these binaries groups are still active (and getting more so). In fact, alt.binaries.tv replaces a need for a dvr and pay-tv (HBO). Every sunday, ROME is posted at about the time it broadcasts on the west coast. If the RIAA or MPAA wanted to clamp down on binaries groups, it should be MUCH easier than trying to stamp out p2ps.
Wait, who are you?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Where are you looking? Everything you've described is equally available just about anywhere else you care to look online, if your looking for that sort of thing.