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Verizon Cutting Access To Entire Alt.* Usenet Hierarchy

Posted by Soulskill on from the surgical-precision dept.

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."

11 of 579 comments (clear)

  1. Nanny Verizon by sciop101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will Verizon make sure all eat right, bathe occasionally, wipe their ass in the proper direction?

    --
    The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
    1. Re:Nanny Verizon by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Funny

      Bidet? Barbarians...

      Real men get a rimjob from their toilet slave.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  2. Competition? by getuid() · · Score: 5, Funny

    What happened, pissed off because alt.sex.fetish.piss-on-your-customers is already claimed by T-Com?...

  3. quick... by msauve · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone upload some child porn to the Verizon billing site.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:quick... by rubah · · Score: 5, Funny

      well, that's no problem, just log onto usenet and . . .uh never mind.

  4. Re:so what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think the issue for many people is more about being blocked from accessing the alt.binaries.* groups, of which Google Groups doesn't provide access (well, not to the actual binary files at least). HAH! Caught you red-handed, paedophile. It's a well-known fact that alt.binaries.* is a haven for sadists sharing in UNDERAGE EXECUTABLES. Binaries with creation dates less than 3 previous have been found distributed over this network of filth. Hang your head in shame.
  5. Actual Verizon Business Discussion: by WDot · · Score: 5, Funny

    Suit: So Cocks called.
    John: Cocks?
    Suit: Yeah, Cocks. The network for the ballsiest.
    Anyway, they want to be hooked up to our digital cable service. What's the capacity on our system right now?
    John: Well we still have 50% of our bandwidth av--
    Suit: Sweet Virgin Mary! Only 50%? Who's eating up all our bandwidth?
    John: Well it's mostly HD football channels, and then peer to peer, and then Usenet.
    Suit: Well, we sure as hell can't get rid of the football, and you were supposed to block peer to peer anyway! What in God's name is Usenet?
    John: It's a bulletin board system where people can share files.
    Suit: Well drop it! I'm not going to limit quality programming for some godless file sharing faggots.
    John: But how do we explain that we're arbitrarily dropping a significant portion of our service?
    Suit: What are you, stupid? Just say what we always say: we found child porn. Why do I pay you if I do all the thinking?

  6. Re:obviously thought through by mememe · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because there is obviously no other purpose for alt.*

    alt.verizon-sucks
    alt.verizon-sucks.dick
    alr.verizon-sucks.ass

    --
    -- Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
  7. Re:Wipe their ass in the proper direction? by D'Sphitz · · Score: 5, Funny

    I like to wipe back to front, it makes my balls smell nice.

  8. Re:alt.binaries.* by michrech · · Score: 5, Funny
    Next, we'll need a name.

    I have a few ideas..

    CompuServe
    AOL
    Prodigy

    What?

    Maybe we should change the internet, so that users can't communicate which each other directly.

    Content can be published by companies though. And instead of URLs, we will have a menu system provided with a desktop application.

    We could call this application "Information Manager", and lookup information using keywords.

    That'd rock! And it could be absolutely porn-free.
    --
    bork bork bork!
  9. Re:alt.binaries.* by mrogers · · Score: 5, Funny

    Looks like September is finally coming to an end...