R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 625
CorinneI writes "In a way inconceivable in today's marketplace, Usenet was where people once went to talk — in days before the profit-centric Internet we have today. The series of bulletin boards called 'newsgroups' shared by thousands of computers, which traded new messages several times a day, is now a thing of the past."
this was never about porn (Score:5, Interesting)
it was about alt.binaries.mp3s
nothing to see here, move along... (Score:1, Interesting)
Glory days (Score:5, Interesting)
Then Eternal Spetember [wikipedia.org] happened, and chased most of the decent discussion to quieter and more moderated email lists and web forums.
Usenet's current status as a haven for spam and pirated binar^H^H^H NOTHING ELSE is a far cry from what it used to mean to a lot of people.
Re:WHAT? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm speechless (Score:5, Interesting)
Mind boggling. USENET. Dead. It doesn't even need an explanation as to why it's retarded, at least not to someone who has interesting (technical) discussions there on a regular basis.
Re:this was never about porn (Score:2, Interesting)
If you can find out who's contributing to Andrew Cuomo's campaign so far, you'll be able to verify this. I have a feeling that you are right though.
Irksome summary (Score:5, Interesting)
As with all the other stories on this: Boo-hoo, ISPs aren't giving away free usenet. If you really want it, find a 3rd party usenet server. If my ISP took away email, I wouldn't notice because I use a different address. Verizon took away my usenet and I didn't notice, because I use a 3rd party usenet server.
And again if you haven't read it in the comments of previous postings on this story, a 3rd party usenet server is practically REQUIRED for anonymous viewing/posting of the illicit content they are trying to prevent. The pedos all sign up with offshore providers and pay for it with anonymously mailed money-orders, and access it through anonymizing proxies. The ones who don't are quickly and easily arrested with a single warrant to the ISP. The smart ones, who survive, and are thus the big-time posters, are not and can not be prevented in this manner.
alt.binaries.* isn't killed by ISPs, it's killed by spam and superior communication mechanisms.
Re:Premature (Score:4, Interesting)
Trolls were a part of usenet, just like they're a vital part of Slashdot (yes, I mean that). It's the whole Yin/Yang thing, a couple of trolls are good for comic relief and keeping things going. I'm not advocating turning EVERYTHING into 4chan, just a statement that trolls aren't so bad.
No, what killed usenet, at least for me, was spammers.
You didn't DARE use an email address you actually used anymore (being able to email individuals was sort of a feature back in the day). Every site got spammed by off topic spam, and yes, when you were looking in alt.titties.redheads there was always some jerk posting loads of homo's (beyond the reasonable troll that is).
Usenet was killed by the same thing that's currently killing email. Seriously, how bad is it when Facebook is a better way to communicate than a normal email address?
Film at 11 (Score:2, Interesting)
Usenet will never die until the last news server goes down; it'll just fade away.
Even "fading away" is a little pessimistic. Usenet still has too many benefits for real discussion - consistent interface, a wide variety of tools, killfiles, newsrcs, universal access through the flood-and-fill protocol, spam fighting, the wide variety of cultural forces that Usenet introduced - and the world is slowly coming around to accept them in other protocols. Even if another article were never transmitted via NNTP/UUCP, the lessons of Usenet will be taught to the next protocols - or, if not, then the lessons will be re-learned after they are poorly implemented a few more times.
Me, I hope that a smaller (read: binary-free) Usenet might lead to a resurgence of popularity, as people realize that they can easily pull down a full feed of the text groups to their private machines and share them to the world, just like any web server in the world. It's a *little* quixotic, sure, but not insanely so.
Re:It deserved to die (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bullcrap (Score:3, Interesting)
Is there even an organization which could officially cancel it? The whole point of the thing is that it's decentralized, after all.
e-mail and YouTube to follow (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the same thing is happening to e-mail, at least e-mail over public mail servers. With the advent of new communications methods, it's just getting less and less worth the energy required to cope with the parasites (spam and such). People can still exchange interesting stuff via YouTube, but I bet that gets destroyed by spam soon enough, too.
It's probably some rule of evolutionary biology: if you create a pool of low entropy, a cloud of parasites will spontaneously arive, like maggots to meat, to eat it and destroy it. Then I guess you move on to the next thing, huh?
Pity we don't simply hunt down and destroy the parasites in our own midst, so that we can spend less time and cleverness keeping ahead of them.
Re:Don't bother reading the article... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:5, Interesting)
What's dying today isn't Usenet, at least not the network in operation back from 1980. It's a binaries distribution system, the one that took over from the mid-nineties onwards.
And frankly, I don't know about you, but I don't care about that one.
Frankly, that's the only one I care about. Sure, there is TONS of porn, but there are also respectable (non porn) files out there as well. When my wife missed an episode of "Dancing With the Stars" a while back, where did I find a copy? Newsgroups. When the latest Ubuntu was released and my ISP was slowing BitTorrent to a crawl, where did I turn? Newsgroups. When I wanted some ideas for how to set up my garden, where did I turn to? You guessed it, Newsgroups!
There are some things that no Web site can offer that you can only find on Usenet. That stupid Dancing with the Stars thing is an example. It was not available on any website because it is protected (even though there was absolutely no other way of retrieving it). With ISP's starting to block P2P, we should always be able to fall back on good ol' usenet.
Which brings me to the point you mentioned about spammers. Spammers are relatively easy to avoid on Usenet. The bigger problem is spyware, viruses and trojans. However, the beauty of Usenet is that someone can reply to a post with bad intent and say something like, "Do not download! VIRUS!!!" You can't do that on a non reputable or hijacked website. All you can do is hope that the file you downloaded really is the XP drivers for a new "Vista Only" system and not a virus that will zap your HDD.
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:5, Interesting)
That's actually quite doable. Making forum software that is feature-competitive with newsreaders is totally viable. That's not what concerns me.
A bigger problem (which web mail suffers from, as well) is that web forums are a way for a server operator to make decisions about the features you get (as well as how/if it is integrated with other content, whether for good (I won't go into that, here) or ill (ads)), rather than leaving those decisions to the client.
I really see it as technological step backwards.
As an exercise in absurdity, imagine if we applied the same trend to the web itself. In addition to "web mail" and "web forums", imagine "web web", where your browser window contains a widget consisting of code loaded from someone else's server, and that widget has features similar to a web browser. Oh wait, we have that: Flash and Silverlight.
It's only a start (Score:2, Interesting)
I have a sneaky suspicion that this is only the beginning of the truly free sectors of the net being shut down. With net neutrality in the dangerous position it is in right now, it feels as if a more controlled, monitored, and 'signed-off upon' internet is right around the corner.
My prediction:
Welcome to Comcast's service tier selection!
Core Net: $49.95/month
The core-net pack is the basic, introductory-level internet access, suitable for the less-experienced internet user. With this package, you will be able to access the core sites of the internet including:
Google.com
AOL.com
CNN.com
MSNBC.com
AP.org
etc.
Core Plus:$89.95/month
Core Plus is aimed at the more heavy internet user. With the core plus package you will have access to the more 'fringe' internet sites. Along with all of the core sites, you will also be able to access:
Slashdot.org
Ars-technica.org
xkcd.org
myspace.com
facebook.com
youtube.com
etc.
Questionable Content: $400/month
Stay away from this package. The questionable content package will allow un-restricted access to the whole of the internet, including the indecent, unpatriotic riff raff. This package includes everything not listed in the first to tiers of service.
--
And by squeezing the less affluent, the free net will be murdered.
So long everyone, and thanks for all the fish.
alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die (sorry Wil) (Score:5, Interesting)
a.e.w.d.d.d had lots of imaginative posts on how Wesley should be done in, plus plenty of flame wars when people started conflating Wesley the character (yuck) with Wil the actor (cool frood).
Bring out your dead (Score:3, Interesting)
The Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.
[a man puts a body on the cart]
ISPs: Here's one.
The Dead Collector: That'll be ninepence.
Usenet: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: What?
ISPs: Nothing. There's your ninepence.
Usenet: I'm not dead.
The Dead Collector: 'Ere, he says he's not dead.
ISPs: Yes he is.
Usenet: I'm not.
The Dead Collector: He isn't.
ISPs: Well, he will be soon, he's very ill.
Usenet: I'm getting better.
ISPs: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
The Dead Collector: Well, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.
Usenet: I don't want to go on the cart.
ISPs: Oh, don't be such a baby.
The Dead Collector: I can't take him.
Usenet: I feel fine.
ISPs: Oh, do me a favor.
The Dead Collector: I can't.
ISPs: Well, can you hang around for a couple of minutes? He won't be long.
The Dead Collector: I promised I'd be at the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.
ISPs: Well, when's your next round?
The Dead Collector: Thursday.
Usenet: I think I'll go for a walk.
ISPs: You're not fooling anyone, you know. Isn't there anything you could do?
Usenet: I feel happy. I feel happy.
[the Dead Collector glances up and down the street furtively, then silences Usenet with his a whack of his club]
ISPs: Ah, thank you very much.
The Dead Collector: Not at all. See you on Thursday.
ISPs: Right.
It's not dead (Score:5, Interesting)
It's resting (sorry, had to).
But more seriously, where's the #1 forum to discuss C programming? comp.lang.c. Where's the #1 forum to discuss DSP? comp.dsp, so much that other DSP "forums" only provide an interface to it. Where's the #1 spot to tell people your new theory as to how FTL travel is possible using hidden dimensions in the aether? sci.physics.
So you see, it's not dead, or even resting, some of its branches died, some others are still thriving.
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:3, Interesting)
The /. forum comes close with it's freak and friend filtering. But then it's got this big ugly "reply to this" button.
I've been trying to think of how I might write a web 2.0 forum that is easy to use and yet still contains what made usenet nice. The problem I have with most web forums is just that they're near impossible to keep track of what's new to read. So I find they tend to just have a bunch of AOL smiley icons, and stupid fark pictures and not much real content.
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:4, Interesting)
comp.sys.apple2 and rec.humor.funny, how I've missed you.
Re:Pffft, been dying for years. (Score:3, Interesting)
IMHO a decent newsreader has a far superior interface.
Not really, most newsreader are pretty crap. This is especially an issue when you have multiple people with different newsreader participating in the same thread. Some readers will break the encoding, other the threading structure, yet some others will wreak the quoting, some will just post with incorrect message-id and a lot of other annoying issues. Resulting in quite a bit of mess and discussion on how this an that issue can be fixed. Forums are by no means perfect either, but at least they are consistent and they also happen to have ways to post pictures, change font style, notify the user on replies, a search function and other stuff that the user expects and that is often either problematic or impossible with Usenet. Forums also have the huge advantage of being freely accessible via the web, which Usenet isn't. A news reader is worth nothing without a Usenet provider, while a webbrowser can visit any forum you like.
Now given, I haven't checked Usenet seriously in a while, but those where big issues back in the day when Usenet was slowly dying and web forums gained dominance.
Re:Google Groups (Score:5, Interesting)
The demise of Usenet was a long time ago, and coincided with the introduction of the web-based forum.
And this is the single most damaging thing to the availability of information to happen to the Internet, at least until the Wiki came along (which hasn't necessarily solved the problem in question). When there was Usenet, there was one (okay, maybe two) places to find an answer to a question on a given topic of expertise. Now, with the move to isolated independent web-based forums, of which there may be at least a dozen or more possible places to find information (not to mention a multitude of competing general question sites like Yahoo Answers et al), the odds of finding an answer on the Internet to a question have gone down, because the probability that the person with the answer to your question visits or has visited the web fora you visit has gone down.
In short: Used to be everyone would use one or two Usenet groups both to ask and answer questions, now everyone uses any given number of the much larger set of web fora on the same topic. It actually has become less likely to find a good answer to a question these days.
(And at least on Usenet even if no one could answer your question, you'd be certain to get lots of entertaining snark from regulars.)
I have nostalgia for the good old days too (Score:3, Interesting)
My first usenet post was in 1984. The company I worked for had usenet access, and yes I have nostalgic memories of those days. Some of it was just the novelty, the sense of discovery. I understand and sympathize with a lot of what the article is talking about.
But things changed, as they always do. To me the change became noticeable as more dreck, noise and flaming one had to filter out to get to the interesting posts, and I started to disengage. Then my provider became more difficult to work with. I can remember not too long ago, after a long absence, going on sci.physics with a question. A physicist answered it, but the thread was full of crazy talk from various people with wacko theories. That kind of thing always happened to some extent, but I was a bit shocked by the sheer volume this time and wondered how that serious physicist could bring himself to devote time to perusing sci.physics for legitimate questions.
In the past, there was no other place to go for the kind of things usenet provided. Now, there are other places to go and I get the feeling that usenet is being left more and more to the loonies. Granted, sci.physics is probably more of a target than most groups. Something like comp.sci.c++ would probably have a better signal to noise ratio (if it exists, I haven't checked). The last group that I used to regularly engage was sci.econ, and by engage I mean I'd lock horns in arguments with others that were not just flamefests. I remember sci.bio.evolution was heavily moderated for obvious reasons, creationists were always trying to infiltrate with their own ideas.
Actually, slashdot has a bit of the old flavor. Sure there's lots of noise on the channel, but good stuff as well. However, slashdot doesn't have the breadth of usenet and it's up to the higher authorities to decide what topics get selected.
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:4, Interesting)
You know..I've got extra boxes laying around, and with disk space getting so cheap...I was thinking about setting up a news server out there for free use, but, I'm wondering what MY liabilities legal or financial might be in doing so? If you run a server like that...in the US, would you be like the ISP's that run them...and not be liable for what runs through them?
Re:USENET will be around for a long time to come (Score:2, Interesting)
You all probably know a lot more about this than I do, but I found it interesting that the alt hierarchy contains "Controversial or unusual topics; not carried by all sites".
So what's the big deal that some alt sections are being removed by some providers?
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet here we are, on a web forum, and not on USENET.
But this isn't a universal forum. USENET encompassed any topic and was the most widely read set of forums. If you wanted an answer to a complicated technical question, it was the best place to go. If you wanted to discuss obscure music theory, it was the place to go. If you just wanted to sell your old sofa to local people, it was the place to go. It was frequented by geeks and non-geeks.
Web forums don't do that. They're all specialized and there are too many of them. Slashdot only covers topical news of interest to geeks. Web forums have always been complex to use, almost always requiring registration to write, sometimes even requiring registration to read. You'll find tens of forums all devoted to the same topic. One newsreader would keep track of all your news groups you were interested in, and you could add and remove them as you wish; what keeps tracks of the hundreds of forums I may be interested in and provides the same interface to them?
The problem with USENET dying is that there is no replacement for it! This isn't the case of horse and buggy being usurped by the automobile. It's more like playgrounds being replaced by televisions.
I think USENET started going downhill when the spammers and advertisement took over. There's still activity on USENET, it's just been declining steadily.
Personally, I never liked the Google/Dejanews twist to archive postings for eternity. In the old days (get off my lawn!) it was a place just for discussion, not to get your words down for posterity. Once I learned things were being archived and searchable, I definately felt I had to ask less stupid questions...
Re:Google Groups (Score:5, Interesting)
MTV is basically just HSN without an 800 number.
You can buy cheap 18-year-old sluts on HSN now?
Re:Hmm...Giganews and other services are still the (Score:4, Interesting)
Some Usenet providers will grant free access or for a very low cost with the caveat that you won't be able to download binaries. So no alt.food for pics of sandwiches.
Search for free Usenet servers.
Web 2.0 not an archive (Score:4, Interesting)
Also downloading for offline reading & permanent storage is a lot easier with Usenet. Thunderbird is a bit wanky, but does it.
Usenet can also be adapted for use as a company forum. One big webhosting company uses an NNTP hierchary instead of a user forum, with a universal password to access it. There are pluses & minuses, but it sure is simple. The features are client-side. The downside is you have to have the archives to search for answers.
Re:Web 2.0 ftw (Score:4, Interesting)
I take it you want to be sent an email when your posts are replied to? Or you want a popup to appear when you log into Usenet and your post has been responded to?
It's a simple matter to get an agent of some sort to scan Usenet groups for this sort of post and inform you about it. Your news reader may also offer this functionality -- it's pretty easy to make trn flag any posts in reply to your posts for reading, for example.
But Usenet wasn't designed as a `post and forget' sort of thing. It's meant for having discussions -- you post, and your post is sent out to the world, they post, sent to the world, etc. The server is pretty simple -- most of the fancy stuff happens in your client, and it's up to your client (or another client) to look for things that interest you, like replies to your post.
Besides, perhaps even older than the `Read the FAQ!' rule of Usenet, and certainly older than the oft-repeated `The first rule of Usenet is you don't talk about Usenet' mantra (but that's about binaries, not text groups) is `read the group before you post.' And the corollary is `if you can't be bothered to read the group, don't post to it.'.
Hopefully the web forums will catch up, eventually. So far, it doesn't look promising ... :)
Re:Hmm...Giganews and other services are still the (Score:5, Interesting)
there is a way though it takes some preparation. On the other hand it may earn you some extra geek points.
1. get yourself a IPv6 tunnel [sixxs.net] and get it configured ...
2. after you saw the logo jump at ipv6.google.com, check IPv6 Newsservers [sixxs.net]
3.
4. free usenet!!! (incl. alt.*)
where the ... probably involves testing which of the servers actually work, not all of them did when I tried it, and adding one or more of them in pan. Not an ultra fast download but still an excellent reason to start with ipv6.
Re:Google Groups (Score:4, Interesting)
Usenet's slow decline was inevitable with the invention of the webforum. The main newsgroup I used to inhabit (not the above, btw) was freewheeling and ubiquitous: nobody posted somewhere else because they didn't like some other poster, because there was nowhere else. I eventually moved off elsewhere after a few determined individuals trashed the group. Now it's just a dumping ground.
Re:Google Groups (Score:3, Interesting)
FWIW, I'd guess Google Groups has accounted for well over 90% of the spam in the assorted groups I follow since their captcha system was compromised, particularly in the groups outside the Big 8 (e.g., there are a handful of groups relating to the city where I live). A couple of the regular posters mentioned trying to contact the abuse address in the headers of GG posts and apparently being redirected to /dev/nul, but I can't say I ever tried myself.
Re:Google Groups (Score:2, Interesting)
Pop in alt.config and ask. Things are so slow they sometimes forget to insult the proponents.
If your wanting a Big-8 group you may be pleasantly surprised to find there is no longer a formal voting procedure. news.groups has moved next door to the moderated news.groups.proposals where a tiny bit of grovelling may get you a group in as little as a few weeks.
Meanwhile the alt-configers who read (but seldom post to) n.g.p hang around in n.g mocking the few remaining news groupies. Seriously, if you have been away for a few years things are quite different!
Re:Hmm...Giganews and other services are still the (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I was going to ask how much bandwidth is USENET daily? Because everyone seems to have quite a bit of extra disk space, why not do your own USENET server? If EVERYONE did (like everyone used to), then it would be cool again. Other than USENET, there's no good forum syndication. Sure you have RSS and stuff, but it doesn't lend itself to multi-hop groups. Maybe a modern version of NNTP could be built on HTTP/XML? I know there are web-based newsreaders and stuff, but it seems like the problem is actually getting a feed, for free.
Re:Dark Usenet? (Score:3, Interesting)
Such a system still exists today, complete with 2400bps modems (though with 386s instead of Amigas), network configuration usually following social networks of people participating, etc. It's called FidoNet. It's still going in ex-USSR countries (but on decline there too), but not that much elsewhere - everyone has just moved on to the Internet. Still, you can set up your own IP node if you want to participate.