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Verizon Cutting Access To Entire Alt.* Usenet Hierarchy
modemac writes
"Verizon has declared it will no longer offer access to the entire alt.* hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups to its customers. This stems from last week's agreement for major ISPs to cut off access to 'newsgroups and Web sites' that make child pornography available. The story notes, 'No law requires Verizon to do this. Instead, the company (and, to varying extents, Time Warner Cable and Sprint) agreed to restrictions on Usenet in response to political strong-arming by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups — out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist.' In response, Verizon will cut its customers off from a large portion of Usenet, as it will only carry newsgroups in the Big 8."
Because there is obviously no other purpose for alt.* on usenet other than kiddie porn.
I agree that it's overkill to do away with hosting the whole alt hierarchy, but there isn't much political speech going on in a newsgroup specifically dedicated to underage porn or warez binaries. I'm surprised they've gotten hosted for this long.
My prediction is that the media companies and/or government agencies will start harassing usenet users next. Now that many major ISPs are discontinuing this kind of binary newsgroup access, it'll push those so inclined to seek out third party newsgroup providers. If the relevant government agencies can get user records from those companies, they'll have ip logs and credit card data and be able to catch their prey dead-to-rights.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
I'm a pretty tech-y person, and I haven't touched Usenet since 2001 or so. I don't miss it. Might as well criticize Verizon for not keeping their Gopher site in order, or offering Telnet access to email... let's move on already.
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Or if you're really just reading text groups, why not access them via Google Groups? That has worked fine for me in the absence of Usenet in the past.