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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."

25 of 498 comments (clear)

  1. What if... by sprouty76 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm looking for invitations to unspeakable sexual acts?

    --

    No, I don't want a free iPod

    1. Re:What if... by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Funny
      "...is like slumming along in the tenderloin district during the plague..."

      What the hell is this? They have steak districts in places?

      "I'm looking for invitations to unspeakable sexual acts?",

      Sex with a steak apparently?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:What if... by fimion · · Score: 2, Funny

      See hot girl on girl action no-... oh wait, wrong window sorry!

    3. Re:What if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Is everyone expected to be familiar with the names of US slums?

      They're called towns and cities you insensitive clod!

  2. They just don't get their custommers by Scrameustache · · Score: 4, Funny

    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...

  3. Re:REALLY Old News by daniil · · Score: 3, Funny
    Why, that's the sound of spadefuls of dirt hitting Slashdot's coffin.

    Indeed, Slashdot seems to be losing its positions in the dupe posting market fast...

    --
    Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
  4. Re:REALLY Old News by falzer · · Score: 5, Funny

    > Already posted on digg three times now.

    Woah! Digg already duped this article twice! That's it Slashdot, I'm switching!

  5. Re:Oh come on by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Funny
    Sadly, the crank content on the sci.* groups is rather large.

    In other news today, the Atlantic ocean is rather wet, the Great Attractor is rather far away, and the Pope is rather religious.

    I thought the creationist mob were blockheaded... then I went to sci.physics and met the relativity deniers. Wow.

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  6. First rule of usenet.... by sosume · · Score: 3, Funny

    Don't talk about usenet!

  7. alt.regrettable.step.is.is.is by kahei · · Score: 5, Funny


    alt.fading.usenet.dwindles.declines.ain't-what-it- was
    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.
  8. Re:Sorry to hear this. by Fhqwhgadss · · Score: 5, Funny
    It probably means I'll have less pirated movies^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H stimulating late-night conversations.

    What exactly are "pirate stimulating late-night conversations?" and why would I want to have them?

    --
    How does a 7-person democracy cut a pie? Into 4 pieces.
  9. Re:Oh come on by gowen · · Score: 3, Funny
    I thought the creationist mob were blockheaded... then I went to sci.physics and met the relativity deniers. Wow.
    But these loonies aren't unique to Usenet. Wikipedia has had its share of physics trolls and Fark is full of fundie creationists, many of whom believe Christians are a persecuted minority in America.

    / Summon Bevets.
    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  10. Re:So... by corbettw · · Score: 5, Funny

    1337/IM $p3k wair u h4a 2 d3c!p3r wh47 1$ $4!d

    There are times when I think "I'm not that much of a geek." Then I read something like that with ease and realize, yes, yes I am.

    --
    God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  11. Re:Sorry to hear this. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Funny
    What exactly are "pirate stimulating late-night conversations?"

    I suppose like, "Yarrr, matey, before we go sleep it off in our racks, pass me that bottle of rum and I'll tell ye o' the time we caught this fat merchant freighter off the coast, yarr..."

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  12. Re:Bull by lostboy2 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Me too. ;-)

  13. Re:Sorry to hear this. by PhoenixPath · · Score: 2, Funny

    roflmao.

    God, that hurts.

    Thank you for ruining my lunch. Coke shot form the nose and mixed with Beef Stroganoff is just not at all pleasant-looking.

  14. Re:Why lower prices? by crabpeople · · Score: 2, Funny

    "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."

    bwahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha

    ok ok im good now its just that- AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    hahahahahahahahahahahaha
    oh mercy.. that was a good one.

    "I'm not sure anyone I know still uses it."
    with this statement i can discern the following facts:
    1) you have n00b friends
    2) you are also probaly a n00b
    3) you dislike porn, warez, high quality hdtv rips, etc... all at 7meg down ( or whatever is the fastest download possible from your isp )

    "they'll spend it on service quality improvements "
    ahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha hahahahahahaha ahahaahhahaahhahhaa.. seriously.. why isnt he modded +5funny?

    --
    I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
  15. Re:Sorry to hear this. by Agrippa · · Score: 4, Funny

    According to this article you could post a picture of that to Usenet and probably satisfy somebody's sexual food fetish.

    .agrippa.

  16. Re:Bull by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    At least get it right. That should be...


    Me too

    >Not to fall into a "things were better
    >in the old days" mode

    >>Things have gotten worse. We took a network full of
    >>college students (geeky college students at that), and
    >>opened
    >>it up to grandmothers, pre-teens, and (the source of
    >>all spam:) businesspeople. Usenet got
    >>a lot more noise and very little more signal.*
    >>* I'm not saying that we shouldn't have
    >>opened-up the Internet, just that that decision
    >>had some negative
    >>consequences in addition to its positive
    >>consequences.

  17. Re:The way by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    >Its fun to explore the mp3 newsgroups and just download some random mp3s and learn about new music.

    Its fun to explore the sex newsgroups and just download some random sex and learn about new sex.

  18. Re:The same thing could be said about e-mail by UncleFluffy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Viri and invitations to "unspeakable" sexual acts (exactly what is "unspeakable", anyway?

    Anything that makes speech impossible while doing it?

    --

    What would Lemmy do?

  19. Re:Bull by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    > At least get it right. That should be...

    >Me too

    >>Not to fall into a "things were better
    >>in the old days" mode

    >>>Things have gotten worse. We took a network full of
    >>>college students (geeky college students at that), and
    >>>opened
    >>>it up to grandmothers, pre-teens, and (the source of
    >>>all spam:) businesspeople. Usenet got
    >>>a lot more noise and very little more signal.*
    >>>* I'm not saying that we shouldn't have
    >>>opened-up the Internet, just that that decision
    >>>had some negative
    >>>consequences in addition to its positive
    >>>consequences.

    no, thats not right!
    You write BELOW the quote so they have to scroll down

    with kind regards
    cowards anonymous

  20. Re:Sorry to hear this. by BobStikigreen · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm a SysAd at a small (5000 subscriber) ISP in California for about 5 months. We recently stopped offering Usenet after I did an audit on the NNTP server. I found we only had 2 separate IPs in the logs using NNTP and the server was downloading 2-6Gb a day. So I took the files in the spool and filtered for names of Usenet groups. What did I find? Mostly foot pr0n. Were were paying I don't know how much for how long so 1 or 2 users could feed their foot pr0n habbit. I had seen enough, it was going down. We got 1 call to complian and that user left us (quite angry too, don't mess with a man's foot pr0n habbit =). On the plus side we made money since the useage on our OC3 has gone down 30% since I offed the server. I still have the output of my filter. We keep it on one of the file servers here for amusement.

  21. Re:Sorry to hear this. by Zarquil · · Score: 4, Funny

    And there is the difference between USENET and Slashdot right there..

    On USENET, there is absolutely zero chance that someone would have failed to quote "Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash." This, of course, would be followed with an off topic conversation twenty threads long about whether Churchill ever said such a thing or not, finally ended when the entire thread degenerates to a discussion of Nazi's.

    On Slashdot, someone will backhandedly mention rum, sodomy and lashes, and from there we'll just drift off-topic three threads deep, moderators slamming us with "Offtopic" all the way while we slowly degenerate to a fascinating treatease on totalitarian regimes circa 1940.

    Frankly, I'm much more proud of my Slashdot contributions. If it weren't for bad karma, I'd have no karma at all!

        - Zarq

  22. Re:Sorry to hear this. by LiquidCoooled · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm surprised that either of the users didn't sue you.

    As an ISP, your company should lose its common carrier status by probing the datastream in the manner you did.

    There is a difference between checking out the bandwidth utilisation and probing inside somebodies data.

    Besides, I wanna download the rest of my footporn, can you zip it up and sent it to me, you already know my ip.

    --
    liqbase :: faster than paper