You don't have to forward spam to that email address. Just posting that email address is enough to get it crawled by spammers. Every time I post, within two hours I see a large burst of spam. I'm not taking my email address off of here. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have some important business propositions and mortgage offers coming into my email shortly.
Hello Dougmc, sorry for the delay in responding. I'd imagine you have this on reply notify, and should see this.
There was a post from an "AC", mentioning Linux discussions, so I posted the link to the Linux listings.
I subscribe to several Internet Service Provider email lists and forums, and the general tone the past few years is that ISP's are not gung ho for Usenet anymore. So I'm partially basing my thoughts on several other unrelated pieces of information, not just the sorry state of affairs in Google Groups. When ISP's sign up new clients, for the most part they are pushing discussion/chat and IM, rather than Usenet.
I tend to think of what the casual Internet user is doing online, rather than those that have been around a while. The new users are not familiar with Usenet. As you said, they don't know how to configure NNTP. (listening to "Internet Help Desk" pretty much sums up the new user).
Thanks again, and apologies for not answering sooner, it's been pretty hectic the past few days around here.
Pete
I'm basing that on several factors. Checking the Alexa rankings over the past few months, Google Groups have gone from about 7% of all Google users down to 1% as of a few moments ago. Granted, Alexa is not the most accurate measurement of a site, but it does give some indications as to overall popularity.
Some of their own statistics show that most groups have low activity:
Group-Society
Activity
High (167)
Low (6712)
Medium (137)
All of the other groups show low activity as the largest numbers. They simply do not have the eyeballs hitting the groups.
They do not show Adsense ads in groups, at least none that I've found. It's all paid for by ad revenue from other Google areas.
The groups that are not moderated have degenerated into ad spam fests, driving off people interested in those groups topics.
I think that when Alexa shows less than 1% of users, Google will decide it's no longer worth keeping.
I do agree with you that Usenet can be useful for finding answers, I use a combination of Google search and Groups search. I still think Google will rethink Groups, either dumping it, or correcting the problems. (I'm leaning toward them dumping it).
There has been an ongoing "edit war" between the pro's and con's of the article,
Perverted-Justice.com. The owner of Perverted Justice has been editing out all the "cons" regarding his site, and this is getting to be a problem with persons opposed to the vigilante site as shown in the discussion section. The article needs to be locked in order for everyone to have their say, rather than the censoring by Eide, the owner of Perverted Justice. As an aside, Eide has in recent days put out a call to action for his supporters to email Google and get all of the sites and news stories questioning his site and their tactics delinked.
Which reminds me. I had so much fun going through the list of famous ham radio operators (last slashdot story), then going through my email inbox (this slashdot story), I forgot to get dinner, later all.
Here is one:
Gerson Strassberg. Inventor of the Pocket Protector. Without pocket protectors and everything that came after it, "Office Space" would just be a weird movie about a lost stapler.
"Inside my Zipcar, the key is hanging from a cord near the ignition -- which would appear to be an unwise place to leave a key in the city. But the ignition unlocks only after I presented my card, so nobody else can break in and start the car."
This is also offered in New York, where if you slow down, your car is stripped?
Thanks for posting that, my thoughts exactly. The people that answer spam, in particular for medications, are for the most part older folks that are on fixed incomes, and cannot afford the high price of pharmacy supplied drugs. They take a chance of saving money by buying the spam touted medications, and find that they have been robbed, either by not getting anything, getting a medication that is a placebo, or not up to quality. That's far worse a crime than simply downloading some music file.
The FDA has the power to go after these bogus medicine spammers, and they can enlist the help of the FBI in tracking down sellers of bogus medications. If they would, there would be far less spam. And just think of all the fun the IRS would have raking spammers over the financial coals.
About noctis, is it just me, or is the site difficult to navigate? (using ie and Firefox)It looks like something we'd add into our gamer listings. I like to preview sites before putting it into the add queue.
As far as their Usenet Beta, there are a lot of people disgusted with how Google changed the look. I think it compels people without a news reader to sign up for one, instead of going through Google Groups.
When I first saw that page a few days ago, it had several boxes for inputs, the site URL, code, and execute button. The page is now gone, and if someone speaks Spanish, please let us all know what the site is about.
It's fairly simple to track down spammers. Open a credit card account to purchase spammed products, then when the statement arrives, trace the money to whatever account received the money.
Slashdot Mirror
Checking the IP that panix.com is on shows several thousand domains, and all seem to have odd names.
That Las Vegas address used for panix.com is also similar to some used by spammers registering domains, and using a Nevada address in the whois.
Maybe a check of some of the blocklists will show the panix.com IP listed already. 142.46.200.72
You could try this link and see if the server is still up. (hint, slashdot effect)
It is available in Google Groups by searching for "chatmag arbitration".
I proposed arbitration of disputes between spammers and anti-spammers last year in a spam related Usenet group.
I'm setting up a new and faster server, and won't give the URL out till I see how it responds. Please give me about an hour or so. Thanks, Pete
You don't have to forward spam to that email address. Just posting that email address is enough to get it crawled by spammers. Every time I post, within two hours I see a large burst of spam. I'm not taking my email address off of here. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have some important business propositions and mortgage offers coming into my email shortly.
Hello Dougmc, sorry for the delay in responding. I'd imagine you have this on reply notify, and should see this.
There was a post from an "AC", mentioning Linux discussions, so I posted the link to the Linux listings.
I subscribe to several Internet Service Provider email lists and forums, and the general tone the past few years is that ISP's are not gung ho for Usenet anymore. So I'm partially basing my thoughts on several other unrelated pieces of information, not just the sorry state of affairs in Google Groups. When ISP's sign up new clients, for the most part they are pushing discussion/chat and IM, rather than Usenet.
I tend to think of what the casual Internet user is doing online, rather than those that have been around a while. The new users are not familiar with Usenet. As you said, they don't know how to configure NNTP. (listening to "Internet Help Desk" pretty much sums up the new user).
Thanks again, and apologies for not answering sooner, it's been pretty hectic the past few days around here. Pete
Most Linux groups are either in IRC or discussion forums.
Linux discussion groups
I'm basing that on several factors. Checking the Alexa rankings over the past few months, Google Groups have gone from about 7% of all Google users down to 1% as of a few moments ago. Granted, Alexa is not the most accurate measurement of a site, but it does give some indications as to overall popularity.
Some of their own statistics show that most groups have low activity: Group-Society Activity High (167) Low (6712) Medium (137)
All of the other groups show low activity as the largest numbers. They simply do not have the eyeballs hitting the groups.
They do not show Adsense ads in groups, at least none that I've found. It's all paid for by ad revenue from other Google areas.
The groups that are not moderated have degenerated into ad spam fests, driving off people interested in those groups topics.
I think that when Alexa shows less than 1% of users, Google will decide it's no longer worth keeping.
I do agree with you that Usenet can be useful for finding answers, I use a combination of Google search and Groups search. I still think Google will rethink Groups, either dumping it, or correcting the problems. (I'm leaning toward them dumping it).
Reference the last story about predictions.
Google drops Usenet.
F13, that was quick :)
In his own words
There has been an ongoing "edit war" between the pro's and con's of the article, Perverted-Justice.com. The owner of Perverted Justice has been editing out all the "cons" regarding his site, and this is getting to be a problem with persons opposed to the vigilante site as shown in the discussion section. The article needs to be locked in order for everyone to have their say, rather than the censoring by Eide, the owner of Perverted Justice. As an aside, Eide has in recent days put out a call to action for his supporters to email Google and get all of the sites and news stories questioning his site and their tactics delinked.
Which reminds me. I had so much fun going through the list of famous ham radio operators (last slashdot story), then going through my email inbox (this slashdot story), I forgot to get dinner, later all.
Here is one: Gerson Strassberg. Inventor of the Pocket Protector. Without pocket protectors and everything that came after it, "Office Space" would just be a weird movie about a lost stapler.
Here is a list of some famous hams
"Inside my Zipcar, the key is hanging from a cord near the ignition -- which would appear to be an unwise place to leave a key in the city. But the ignition unlocks only after I presented my card, so nobody else can break in and start the car."
This is also offered in New York, where if you slow down, your car is stripped?
Thanks for posting that, my thoughts exactly. The people that answer spam, in particular for medications, are for the most part older folks that are on fixed incomes, and cannot afford the high price of pharmacy supplied drugs. They take a chance of saving money by buying the spam touted medications, and find that they have been robbed, either by not getting anything, getting a medication that is a placebo, or not up to quality. That's far worse a crime than simply downloading some music file.
The FDA has the power to go after these bogus medicine spammers, and they can enlist the help of the FBI in tracking down sellers of bogus medications. If they would, there would be far less spam. And just think of all the fun the IRS would have raking spammers over the financial coals.
1000's of spammers caught in sting.
About noctis, is it just me, or is the site difficult to navigate? (using ie and Firefox)It looks like something we'd add into our gamer listings. I like to preview sites before putting it into the add queue.
Moogle: Refined Zoogle search, concentrating on cows and related bovine topics.
As far as their Usenet Beta, there are a lot of people disgusted with how Google changed the look. I think it compels people without a news reader to sign up for one, instead of going through Google Groups.
Netscape doesnt work to get in, IE does. Firefox works. This is really strange happenings tonight.
The wayback shows a different page, check the keywords at the bottom (site in spanish for the most part) Internet Wayback machine
I suspect this is the gang that is doing some of the exploits, they had tried to hit us and we've already upgraded, before this attack.
http://www.hackgeneral.net/phpbb_exploit.php
When I first saw that page a few days ago, it had several boxes for inputs, the site URL, code, and execute button. The page is now gone, and if someone speaks Spanish, please let us all know what the site is about.
It wants retirement benefits.
It's fairly simple to track down spammers. Open a credit card account to purchase spammed products, then when the statement arrives, trace the money to whatever account received the money.