Re: AT&T shutting down usenet service
Adam H. Kerman
>In a recent exchange on chi.general, I had mentioned to
>someone (Adam?) that AT&T still offered usenet service
>for their DSL customers. AT&T has decided to prove me wrong:
Wow. That sucks.
spamtr...@gmail.com
wrote:
> In a recent exchange on chi.general, I had mentioned to
> someone (Adam?) that AT&T still offered usenet service
> for their DSL customers. AT&T has decided to prove me wrong:
>
> Subject: AT&T Usenet Netnews Service Shutting Down
> From: <news-supp...@sbcglobal.net>
> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 23:40:00 GMT
> Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.rides,sbcglobal.disgard
>
> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> offering access to the Usenet netnews service. If you wish to continue
> reading Usenet newsgroups, access is available through third-party
> vendors.
>
> Posted only internally to AT&T Usenet Servers.
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> --
>
> Kristian Zoerhoff
> kristian.zoerh...@gmail.com
The charming and talented JC Dill posted this to the ba.food group:
There are many pay usenet servers such as:
giganews.com
newsguy.com
easynews.com
There are a lot of free usenet servers but most don't let you post,
just
read. They tend to be great virus vectors, use at your own risk.
There are also 2 fairly good text-only free usenet servers that let
you
read and post, nntp.aioe.org and news.motzarella.org. Both have
periodic service glitches, when one stops working well I switch to
the
other, and visa versa. You have to register with both sites to post
thru their servers.
You might find this page helpful
http://www.newsgroupservers.net/
jc
Wing Ding
<kristian...@gmail.com> said:
> In a recent exchange on chi.general, I had mentioned to
> someone (Adam?) that AT&T still offered usenet service
> for their DSL customers. AT&T has decided to prove me wrong:
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Subject: AT&T Usenet Netnews Service Shutting Down
> From: <news-s...@sbcglobal.net>
> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 23:40:00 GMT
> Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.rides,sbcglobal.disgard
>
>
> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> offering access to the Usenet netnews service. If you wish to continue
> reading Usenet newsgroups, access is available through third-party
> vendors.
>
> Posted only internally to AT&T Usenet Servers.
> -------------------------------------------------
... and no rate change! Aren't we lucky?
Eric
news:Pine.LNX.4.64.09...@sghcrg.sghcrg.pbz:
>
>
> On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Kristian M Zoerhoff wrote:
>
>> In a recent exchange on chi.general, I had mentioned to
>> someone (Adam?) that AT&T still offered usenet service
>> for their DSL customers. AT&T has decided to prove me wrong:
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> Subject: AT&T Usenet Netnews Service Shutting Down
>> From: <news-s...@sbcglobal.net>
>> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 23:40:00 GMT
>> Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.rides,sbcglobal.disgard
>>
>>
>> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
>> offering access to the Usenet netnews service. If you wish to
>> continue reading Usenet newsgroups, access is available through
>> third-party vendors.
>>
>> Posted only internally to AT&T Usenet Servers.
>> -------------------------------------------------
>>
>
> well that sucks, given that I was thinking of switching to the $19.99
> DSL service they offer...
As if you'd ever use the AT&T news server...
Bruce: How much for a newsgroup only account?
Matt Ferrari
"Kristian M Zoerhoff" <kristian...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:slrn4h2rdjb.64.k...@iceland.freeshell.org...
> In a recent exchange on chi.general, I had mentioned to
> someone (Adam?) that AT&T still offered usenet service
> for their DSL customers. AT&T has decided to prove me wrong:
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------
> Subject: AT&T Usenet Netnews Service Shutting Down
> From: <news-s...@sbcglobal.net>
> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 23:40:00 GMT
> Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.rides,sbcglobal.disgard
>
>
> Please note that on or around July 15, 2009, AT&T will no longer be
> offering access to the Usenet netnews service. If you wish to continue
> reading Usenet newsgroups, access is available through third-party
> vendors.
>
> Posted only internally to AT&T Usenet Servers.
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> --
>
> Kristian Zoerhoff
> kristian...@gmail.com
Bruce Esquibel
> As if you'd ever use the AT&T news server...
> Bruce: How much for a newsgroup only account?
Well, sort of a tricky question to answer being there is a local text-only
server and an outsourced one to Giganews.
I have a handful of people paying $12 a year for access to the local one
only, so that probably answers your question. It's not on the menu, actually
didn't have an account for nntp only until Comcast axed their access and a
few requests started to come in.
So if anyone is interested in it, just email me about it.
To get access to both (local and giganews), you would need the shell account
($35/quarter) but don't really have to use the shell. Once the account is
active, you can use either server directly from your dsl or cable
connection.
One thing about giganews, I've been trying to dump the account with them
mostly because it's under utilized. Used to be popular, isn't any more.
Because of the contract, can't get rid of them until december. So it won't
be available through us after 12/15/09.
The local server will be around for some time to come.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
tert in seattle
Bruce Esquibel
> $35/quarter?
> how about $0.00
> http://www.freeshellisgay.org/index.cgi?faq?USENET
Why did you think it's called Ripco you idiot.
duh.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Adam H. Kerman
>>$35/quarter?
>>how about $0.00
>>http://www.freeshellisgay.org/index.cgi?faq?USENET
>duh.
>-bruce
>b...@ripco.com
You're not a surfer?
tert in seattle
> tert in seattle <te...@ftupet.com> wrote:
>
>> $35/quarter?
>
>> how about $0.00
>
>> http://www.freeshellisgay.org/index.cgi?faq?USENET
>
>
>
> duh.
>
> -bruce IS GAY
> b...@gayco.com
>
>
> p.s. I am GAY
duh
is there anyone named Bruce who is not gay?
do you have one of those gay moustaches?
Eric
news:slrnh2vvo...@ftupet.ftupet.com:
That's the coupon special. Type K E N J I in the offer code and your
account is free.
Matt Ferrari
dye
gotta love it, taking away something you are paying for and pocketing
the cash.
What really gets me is when they do the "go green, love your planet"
asking you to stop your postal mail statements. Yeah, green as
in YOUR cash they are pocketing...
--Ken
--
Ken R. Dye an optimist is a guy |
Chicago, Illinois that has never had |
www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Track/8746 much experience |
dye1146 at sbcglobal dot net archy |
Bruce Esquibel
> gotta love it, taking away something you are paying for and pocketing
> the cash.
I'd like to know what you think is the value of the cash they are pocketing.
I'm not defending them (at&t) but you might be surprised to know that usenet
is a really low, unused service based on "per subscriber" head counts. I
think you would be hard pressed to to find any "isp" where it comes out to
more than 1 in 100, if it's that low. Probably closer to 1 in 200.
I know based on tradition, it's considered a core service like email access
but these days that just is not the case. With a small handful of free sites
that you can get read/post access just for asking and worse case, just using
groups.google.com, I can't see how it can be justified anymore.
My point is, even if it was costing at&t $100,000 a year to maintain and
support internal usenet servers, what does that break down per subscriber, a
dollar or less over a year? Five to tens cents a month?
The hard part is for anyone saying if we spend the $100K a year that we will
be able to see a $100K + X return on the investment.
It's fairly easy to audit a usenet server and figure out how many people are
using it, how often and even what groups are being used the most. I think
except for the free popular ones, just about any of the others you would be
depressed at the numbers.
If you get really bored, check out http://nntp.ripco.com for yourself. The
stuff marked/labeled NNRP is the stats data for "readers".
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Geoff Gass
> If you get really bored, check out http://nntp.ripco.com for yourself. The
> stuff marked/labeled NNRP is the stats data for "readers".
Am I reading it correctly that you're taking in a G or so a day, but
only a couple M gets read?
Adam H. Kerman
>I'd like to know what you think is the value of the cash they are pocketing.
>I'm not defending them (at&t) but you might be surprised to know that usenet
>is a really low, unused service based on "per subscriber" head counts. I
>think you would be hard pressed to to find any "isp" where it comes out to
>more than 1 in 100, if it's that low. Probably closer to 1 in 200.
What about the inter-network bandwidth they save? Aren't all those
enormous binaries still a significant share of internetwork traffic?
That's what made Usenet expensive. The text groups were a drop in the
bucket.
Bruce Esquibel
> What about the inter-network bandwidth they save? Aren't all those
> enormous binaries still a significant share of internetwork traffic?
> That's what made Usenet expensive. The text groups were a drop in the
> bucket.
I don't think most major isp's (comcast, at&t, cox, whoever is left) carried
the alt.binaries in years.
Somewhere around 2003 it surpassed the 2TB a day mark and outsourcing became
the common thing to do. Most internal/private servers went text groups only
and left the headache of handling the binaries to systems like giganews,
supernews, usenet.com and the others.
I've had access to the ameritech news servers since 2002 and although some
binary groups were in the active list, early on not many had anything in
them except the spam, others did but no retention (oldest articles were
maybe 2-3 days old) and there wasn't many multi-parts that were complete.
Four or five months ago I looked around again and it looked like it was text
only across the board. So at some point they phased them out of the active
file.
I think the last numbers I saw on "full feed" was in excess of 22TB a day.
No private server/system is going to deal with that unless there is a fee to
use it.
Most systems haven't dealt with them in years.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Bruce Esquibel
> Am I reading it correctly that you're taking in a G or so a day, but
> only a couple M gets read?
More or less but the numbers for the last few days are off. At least one of
our feeds is leaking articles. Although they are rejected, they still add up
in the body count.
If you look at june, most days are in the 250-350 MB range which I think is
the norm these days for an incoming text-only feed.
But yeah, with people reading usenet, it's single digits.
It's not just Ripco, several of system we exchange feeds with told me the
same thing. One said his news box only sees reader connections from the
weekend warriors, during the week, zero.
If it wasn't so trivial to setup a box and run it, I doubt there would be as
many usenet servers around as there are now.
Look at it this way, even with what little news.ripco.com does, it's usually
around the 500 to 600 mark on that top1000.org list. Mid point.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
dye
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
>dye <d...@transam.sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> gotta love it, taking away something you are paying for and pocketing
>> the cash.
>
>I'd like to know what you think is the value of the cash they are pocketing.
>
>I'm not defending them (at&t) but you might be surprised to know that usenet
>is a really low, unused service based on "per subscriber" head counts. I
>think you would be hard pressed to to find any "isp" where it comes out to
>more than 1 in 100, if it's that low. Probably closer to 1 in 200.
OK, I get it...USENET is dead. Long live Google Groups.
I think my "go green" grip amounts to some significant cash though.
dye
Kristian M Zoerhoff <kristian...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 2009-06-10, Matt Ferrari <inv...@duetospamVirusHehaw.net> wrote:
>> those dickslaps now what my gonna do?!
>
>x-privat.org
The motzarella.org guys are now http://news.eternal-september.org
It took a little while to set-up since I use an ancient client, but
their server is actuall quicker than news.chi.sbcglobal.net
If you use trn, upgrade to tr4 if you use them...
Adam H. Kerman
>>What about the inter-network bandwidth they save? Aren't all those
>>enormous binaries still a significant share of internetwork traffic?
>>That's what made Usenet expensive. The text groups were a drop in the
>>bucket.
>I don't think most major isp's (comcast, at&t, cox, whoever is left) carried
>the alt.binaries in years.
>Somewhere around 2003 it surpassed the 2TB a day mark and outsourcing became
>the common thing to do. Most internal/private servers went text groups only
>and left the headache of handling the binaries to systems like giganews,
>supernews, usenet.com and the others.
I still confused about how the theory works that they save internetwork
bandwidth, if multiple users access the same enormous binaries. But I
blame the massive wastefulness on ISPs that refused to charge for
uploading, a cost model made no sense at all.
>I've had access to the ameritech news servers since 2002 and although some
>binary groups were in the active list, early on not many had anything in
>them except the spam, others did but no retention (oldest articles were
>maybe 2-3 days old) and there wasn't many multi-parts that were complete.
Hm. I didn't know.
>I think the last numbers I saw on "full feed" was in excess of 22TB a day.
That's frightening. It would be cheaper to offer people free movie
tickets and free popcorn.
Adam H. Kerman
>If you use trn, upgrade to tr4 if you use them...
How do you set up ssl support? I've yet to figure it out.
Adam H. Kerman
>Look at it this way, even with what little news.ripco.com does, it's usually
>around the 500 to 600 mark on that top1000.org list. Mid point.
So, it's back to where you were in the old days.
dye
eternal-september doesn't require it, and since the password
I use with it is random (and not used by me anywhere else) I
really don't care if it passed in the clear.
If you were a sysadm, you could tell your news client to
connect to localhost, then configure an "stunnel" daemon
to listen on that port locally and forward traffic to
whatever SSL/NNTP server you wanted to...
Kenneth P. Stox
> Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
>> I think the last numbers I saw on "full feed" was in excess of 22TB a day.
Wow! I used to run a full feed on a 1200 baud modem from ihnp4. Of
course, that was over 20 years ago.
Adam H. Kerman
>Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
>>dye <dy...@adsl-76-223-77-76.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>If you use trn, upgrade to tr4 if you use them...
>>How do you set up ssl support? I've yet to figure it out.
>eternal-september doesn't require it, and since the password
>I use with it is random (and not used by me anywhere else) I
>really don't care if it passed in the clear.
>If you were a sysadm, you could tell your news client to
>connect to localhost, then configure an "stunnel" daemon
>to listen on that port locally and forward traffic to
>whatever SSL/NNTP server you wanted to...
This is the bit I never looked up how to do. Any idea what I'd put in my
access file to get it to connect in the proper way, which isn't self
documented on this point? It would probably be a good idea not to send
my credentials unencrypted.
Adam H. Kerman
Hehehe. That might take a while to send via UUCP at that speed. Several
lifetimes, perhaps.
dye
I think the only change would be changing the line
NNTP Server = my.old.NNTP.server.com
to
NNTP Server = localhost
Most of the hard part will be the config of stunnel.
--Ken.
dye
Ok, spill the beans time...
Who here used to have an ihnp4!..... email address?
--Ken "ihnp4!unm-cs!ncs-med!sx1100!dye" Dye
Bruce Esquibel
> I still confused about how the theory works that they save internetwork
> bandwidth, if multiple users access the same enormous binaries. But I
> blame the massive wastefulness on ISPs that refused to charge for
> uploading, a cost model made no sense at all.
With the first part, if there was such a thing as "the same enormous
binaries" a lot of people were downloading, yes it would make sense to
provide it internally off a local news server.
I don't think there is though.
I actually question if most binaries are ever downloaded at all during their
lifespan on usenet. Ignoring the legal issues, yeah, if something like "Star
Wars 7 workprint" was posted, you probably would see (if it was possible)
that one group of articles being requested over and over again by
newsreaders, but most stuff being posted today, I'd be surprised if more
than one or two people worldwide was the average per post.
I think the text only servers and newgroups fall into the same fate. Like
Geoff pointed out (although slightly off because of a bad incoming feed), on
Ripco, we take in far more every 24 hours than is being read. It's around
1/100th on average I'd guess. For every 100mb of articles we take in, only
1mb of that is really being read.
This is where it doesn't surprise me that the bean counters at at&t, comcast
and whoever else is "dropping usenet" is telling the powers that be that the
service can't be justified anymore. It's costing them something to supply
the service, if few are using it, there just isn't any point to keeping it
running.
With the other comment about uploading, it's what provides the content. Most
pay news servers, where you pay x amount for y amount of gigs per month
simply don't count uploading as part of the usage.
If they did, no one would provide content.
No content, no readership. If everyone switch to that model, it likely would
kill everything off overnight.
> That's frightening. It would be cheaper to offer people free movie
> tickets and free popcorn.
One stat I sort of find interesting is with a newsgroup called
alt.binaries.boneless, I guess it's some sort of dumping ground for some
european systems, or maybe it isn't, never was sure on that.
Currently Giganews is showing almost 479,000,000 posts in it, I'm not sure
of the retention times, I think they were at 300 days or recently went up to
a year, but if it is a year, that comes out to 1,300,000 posts a day, just
to that one group.
Some other groups are close, alt.binaries.hdtv.x264 is near 235,000,000 or
about 640,000 a day.
I'm just saying, with the english based, non-binary groups COMBINED adding
up to 100,000 a day these days and going down year-by-year, the future of it
just doesn't seem too rosey.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Kenneth P. Stox
> In article <h3bqh2$jnc$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
> Kenneth P. Stox <st...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
>>>> I think the last numbers I saw on "full feed" was in excess of 22TB a day.
>> Wow! I used to run a full feed on a 1200 baud modem from ihnp4. Of
>> course, that was over 20 years ago.
>
> Ok, spill the beans time...
>
> Who here used to have an ihnp4!..... email address?
>
> --Ken "ihnp4!unm-cs!ncs-med!sx1100!dye" Dye
>
ihnp4!stox!ken
Adam H. Kerman
>Who here used to have an ihnp4!..... email address?
That was at University of Chicago?
Adam H. Kerman
>>I still confused about how the theory works that they save internetwork
>>bandwidth, if multiple users access the same enormous binaries. But I
>>blame the massive wastefulness on ISPs that refused to charge for
>>uploading, a cost model made no sense at all.
>With the first part, if there was such a thing as "the same enormous
>binaries" a lot of people were downloading, yes it would make sense to
>provide it internally off a local news server.
>I don't think there is though.
>I actually question if most binaries are ever downloaded at all during their
>lifespan on usenet.
Waitaminit. Are you suggesting that uploaders were uploading terabytes
worth of crap without considering whether there was an audience for the
material? Who would do an evil thing like that?
>With the other comment about uploading, it's what provides the content. Most
>pay news servers, where you pay x amount for y amount of gigs per month
>simply don't count uploading as part of the usage.
>If they did, no one would provide content.
>No content, no readership. If everyone switch to that model, it likely would
>kill everything off overnight.
We're not talking about readership but those uploading those massive
binaries that account for absurb levels of internetwork traffic that you
theorize are hardly being downloaded at all. Given that Usenet is the
least efficient method of distribution of huge binaries ever invented,
it was only being done because the subsidies were out of whack.
>>That's frightening. It would be cheaper to offer people free movie
>>tickets and free popcorn.
>One stat I sort of find interesting is with a newsgroup called
>alt.binaries.boneless, I guess it's some sort of dumping ground for some
>european systems, or maybe it isn't, never was sure on that.
>Currently Giganews is showing almost 479,000,000 posts in it, I'm not sure
>of the retention times, I think they were at 300 days or recently went up to
>a year, but if it is a year, that comes out to 1,300,000 posts a day, just
>to that one group.
How many unique files is that? Of course people repost the same thing
over and over again, but I have no idea how many parts the files end up in.
>Some other groups are close, alt.binaries.hdtv.x264 is near 235,000,000 or
>about 640,000 a day.
>I'm just saying, with the english based, non-binary groups COMBINED adding
>up to 100,000 a day these days and going down year-by-year, the future of it
>just doesn't seem too rosey.
People are dumping the entire contents of hard drives to Usenet with
cron jobs.
Adam H. Kerman
>I think the only change would be changing the line
>NNTP Server = my.old.NNTP.server.com
>to
>NNTP Server = localhost
>Most of the hard part will be the config of stunnel.
I'll try it. Thanks.
Brent
> I actually question if most binaries are ever downloaded at all during their
> lifespan on usenet. Ignoring the legal issues, yeah, if something like "Star
> Wars 7 workprint" was posted, you probably would see (if it was possible)
> that one group of articles being requested over and over again by
> newsreaders, but most stuff being posted today, I'd be surprised if more
> than one or two people worldwide was the average per post.
I worked with a guy who just used all the bandwidth he could get
downloading stuff from usenet. Usually various television shows and
movies. Even with modern newsreaders it's just too much work to pick out
the good stuff from the trash and then hope all the parts are there. For
some reason he loved it. Just seemed like way too much work for too
little gain to me.
> With the other comment about uploading, it's what provides the content. Most
> pay news servers, where you pay x amount for y amount of gigs per month
> simply don't count uploading as part of the usage.
>
> If they did, no one would provide content.
>
> No content, no readership. If everyone switch to that model, it likely would
> kill everything off overnight.
If the crusades against file sharing ended I think a lot of binary
usenet traffic would go away. It's just easier to find stuff by other
means. Usenet has some advantages but over all something like
bit-torrent is a lot easier.
Brent
> theorize are hardly being downloaded at all. Given that Usenet is the
> least efficient method of distribution of huge binaries ever invented,
> it was only being done because the subsidies were out of whack.
The charging model isn't what is behind it. Most people who are
uploading already have unlimited bandwidth and could just as well use a
file sharing system of some sort.
Usenet is being done because there's nobody out there to stomp on people
providing the content. Usenet is basically off the radar screen for RIAA
and others. The uploaders could more easily use various file sharing
methods, but they can be detected and traced much easier that way.
Usenet is fire and forget.
dye
Chicago Bell Labs... Indian Hills Network Processor 4
I was at Minneapolis at the time (Sperry) and they were
our news/mail feed...
--Ken
dye
stunnel is pretty simple, just think of it as a 2-way pipe to
translate clear text into encrypted data. You'll probably
need the openssl package to generate certificates, though...
--Ken
Bruce Esquibel
> Waitaminit. Are you suggesting that uploaders were uploading terabytes
> worth of crap without considering whether there was an audience for the
> material? Who would do an evil thing like that?
I don't see why you think there needs to be an explanation for it, thingz
jest bees that way.
I'm not sure even if you got a six digit federal grant to research why
things like that go on everyday you'll be able to figure out an answer.
In my opinion, the main reason it's stronger than ever and seems to be
growing is due to the pay systems like Giganews and the others like them,
along with the search systems that index nbz and or simple usenet search
engines like binsearch.info.
I have to disagree with a later statement you made, "least efficient method
of distribution of huge binaries".
That is a traditionalist point of view. Actually these days usenet is so
stable and efficient, I can almost call it the reason there are terabytes of
utter crap being uploaded that few others are downloading. If anything it's
becoming a library of sorts for movies, music, pictures, at least going back
to the past year. Then it seems once it's expired, it all gets put back as
new again, maybe just for the hell of it, I don't know.
Going back to systems like Giganews as being the cause, it's just part of
the usenet wars and the after effects.
When Ripco started, one of the big questions was simply if the news server
should carry alt.* or stick with what was "the big 7" in those days. After
little discussion in favor of carrying it the groups wars began. We maybe
started with 3500 total groups available on the server, Interaccess or
someone else starts with advertising 5000, we figure out whats missing, pull
more feeds, add in other crap they don't have (like relcom.*), kicks us to
8000, someone else does 10,000.
Was just constant upmanship.
Eventually retention comes into the picture. We held articles for 7 days,
someone else does 10, we go to 14, another does 21 days. Same thing all over
again.
The binaries always got into the way. As those increased in quantity,
everything else (text groups) would suffer. Even if you spilt spools and
expire times, there wasn't much chance of keeping up. Eventually bandwidth
comes into the picture even if storage policy didn't. I think it around the
pre-bubble-burst (late 1990's) where unless you had a dedicated 45mb pipe
coming in just for news, you were not going to get "a full feed" no matter
how bad you wanted it.
Thus outsourcing was born.
It took the pressure off the ISP to keep up with the jones. Rather than
spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a regular basis to increase
usenet capacity, just give the headache to someone else who specialized in
it.
And that comes to my point about all of this, with systems like Giganews who
keep expanding, it also the reason people keep posting more and more. I
think if they and the others had drawn a line in the sand somewhere, calling
retention at a week or so for the alt.binaries, you probably wouldn't see
much activity anymore. People wouldn't waste days uploading terabytes of
stuff if they knew in a few more days it would go into the ozone.
But hell, knowing you can dump your entire mp3 collection on usenet and
finding it a year later, intact, safe and sound is just stroking the beast
for more and more of the same.
> How many unique files is that? Of course people repost the same thing
> over and over again, but I have no idea how many parts the files end up in.
No idea either, probably on dvd rips it's tens of thousands.
That part of the process is painless these days. So many of the "windowed
based" newsreaders are fully automatic with binary posts, one never really
sees what is underneath anymore.
One I've screwed around with on the Mac, Unison is like that. Point it to a
group like alt.binaries.multimedia, after it reads in the headers you more
or less get a list of file names rather than articles.
Missed last weeks episode of Top Gear Russia? No problem, highlight it, hit
download and 20-30 minutes later, depending on your network connection, you
have a ready to watch avi file.
No selecting articles, no messing around assembling the rar segments, auto
correction with the par files, decoding, even cleans up after itself by
deleting all the crap needed to make it. Just point and click.
Heh, thinking about it, maybe there is more crap downloaded that I think
there is. Off hand I can see a one click download might make something like
"Golf Highlights from West Africa" a possibility over having to
tag/mark/decode it manually, wouldn't be worth the effort otherwise.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Bruce Esquibel
> If the crusades against file sharing ended I think a lot of binary
> usenet traffic would go away. It's just easier to find stuff by other
> means. Usenet has some advantages but over all something like
> bit-torrent is a lot easier.
Maybe easier but has more significant drawbacks, if I understand how all it
really works.
I think "getting caught" is the major one.
With usenet, once the post is in existance, except for logs that may or may
not exist at the news server, no one really knows what you did or when.
The problem I see with bittorent, you kind of become part of the
distribution network and aren't really invisible. Again without fully
understanding the ins and outs, access to the "better trackers" is by
invitation only, and even if you get on, unless you have some ratio of
giving vs. receiving that meet the requirements, you might get banned or
whatever.
Plus you have some these bittorrent sites like Pirate Bay who get nailed
hard all the while saying they aren't doing anything wrong up until the time
the judgement comes down.
Bittorrent looks easier to get going but seems harder to maintain over the
long run. Dealing with usenet is harder to start getting into to, but once
learned is more or less the same in 6 months or a year as it is today.
Don't assume usenet is immune from people like the MPAA and RIAA, recently
usenet.com got into major trouble and I guess is pending being shutdown or
heavy fines. From what I read it was mostly stupidity, they were getting
people to subscribe to the service by telling people about all these great
movies and music that were available on their service. They even had like
search areas to look for stuff and get with one click (probably nbz files).
Point is, they were offering themselves as a gateway to piracy, all for a
few bucks in exchange.
-bruce
b...@ripco.com
Robert Bonomi
dye <dy...@adsl-76-223-77-76.dsl.chcgil.sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>Who here used to have an ihnp4!..... email address?
>
/me Waves hand
But my primary was cbosgd!....
Adam H. Kerman
>Don't assume usenet is immune from people like the MPAA and RIAA, recently
>usenet.com got into major trouble and I guess is pending being shutdown or
>heavy fines. From what I read it was mostly stupidity, they were getting
>people to subscribe to the service by telling people about all these great
>movies and music that were available on their service. They even had like
>search areas to look for stuff and get with one click (probably nbz files).
>Point is, they were offering themselves as a gateway to piracy, all for a
>few bucks in exchange.
It was their business model so there's no way they could claim they
didn't know.
Mr. Kenji
Bruce Esquibel <b...@ripco.com> wrote:
> With usenet, once the post is in existance, except for logs that may or may
> not exist at the news server, no one really knows what you did or when.
when I used to jerk off to one armed midgets with hearing aids peeing on
each other I always felt just a little pang of guilt thinking YOU knew I
just pulled down a 45MB avi file and pulled my pud.
I now feel better that you don't actually know.