Usenet being phased out
Macuser
discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I used to
read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems
to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
Internet.
Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
"Thrift is sexy." ;)
Dave
"Macuser" <spamisa...@meat.com> wrote in message
news:Noz4l.998$Es4...@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
>A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP, has
>discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I used to
>read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems
>to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
>Internet.
>
> Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
>
It's not a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
Internet (I assume you mean the world wide web).
The stated excuse was to combat the distribution of kiddie porn in binary
groups. I personally think it is an attack on free speech. I mean, to stop
distribution of kiddie porn, you don't need to axe all the TEXT-ONLY
groups!!!
It is oh so ironic that a Internet protocol which should be text only got
killed because of illegal activity in binary groups which shouldn't even
EXIST on usenet in the first place!
Again, a better approach would have been to stop peering all binary groups.
I know most usenet users would never miss the binary groups, nor even NOTICE
that they are gone. -Dave
krw
says...
>
> "Macuser" <spamisa...@meat.com> wrote in message
> news:Noz4l.998$Es4...@nwrddc01.gnilink.net...
> >A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP, has
> >discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I used to
> >read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems
> >to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
> >Internet.
> >
> > Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
> >
>
>
> news.motzarella.org
www.individual.net is about $15/year. Very good but text only.
There are several others, cheap.
> It's not a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
> Internet (I assume you mean the world wide web).
>
> The stated excuse was to combat the distribution of kiddie porn in binary
> groups. I personally think it is an attack on free speech. I mean, to stop
> distribution of kiddie porn, you don't need to axe all the TEXT-ONLY
> groups!!!
Nonsense. It's a cost cutting measure. Kiddie porn is a convenient
goat.
> It is oh so ironic that a Internet protocol which should be text only got
> killed because of illegal activity in binary groups which shouldn't even
> EXIST on usenet in the first place!
>
> Again, a better approach would have been to stop peering all binary groups.
> I know most usenet users would never miss the binary groups, nor even NOTICE
> that they are gone. -Dave
That wasn't the "solution" because you have the wrong "problem".
--
Keith
Luke
news:Noz4l.998$Es4...@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:
> A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast,
> his ISP, has discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that
> several newsgroups I used to read, or want to read, have been
> discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems to me like a
> conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
> Internet.
>
> Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
alt.free.newsservers
Rich Greenberg
Macuser <spamisa...@meat.com> wrote:
>A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP, has
>discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I used to
>read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems
>to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
>Internet.
>
>Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
Sign up for a shell account with panix.com. $10/month, $100/yr.
Great news feed and email with optional spam filtering.
You still need your comcast/verizontal/?? account to connect, then air
your newsreader at panix and go. Get email via IMAP. Or even log onto
the shell and do it that way.
--
Rich Greenberg N Ft Myers, FL, USA richgr atsign panix.com + 1 239 543 1353
Eastern time. N6LRT I speak for myself & my dogs only. VM'er since CP-67
Canines:Val, Red, Shasta & Casey (RIP), Red & Zero, Siberians Owner:Chinook-L
Retired at the beach Asst Owner:Sibernet-L
ulti...@gmail.com
> A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP, has
> discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I used to
> read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems
> to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
> Internet.
>
It's kind of strange that they are eliminating Usenet , which was THE
place for discussions on the internet, which is hosted on thousands
upon thousands of mirrored servers for the BALKANIZED world of web
message boards, where the boards may be hosted on just a single
server, which entities like the feds could easily shut down.
JR Weiss
>
> It's kind of strange that they are eliminating Usenet , which was THE
> place for discussions on the internet, which is hosted on thousands
> upon thousands of mirrored servers for the BALKANIZED world of web
> message boards, where the boards may be hosted on just a single
> server, which entities like the feds could easily shut down.
Usenet is NOT being eliminated!
Unfortunately, the large ISPs have decided it is not profitable enough to
continue carrying free Usenet servers, so they are forcing their customers to
find INDEPENDENT Usenet servers that are still accessible via the Internet. So,
while the move might inconvenience you a bit, it may actually be a blessing in
disguise!
motzarella.org is a fine FREE Usenet host for non-binary newsgroups.
news.astraweb.com is a fine Usenet host for binaries, with several options for
heavy or light users of the binary newsgroups. Their "pay by download" plan is
great for light users; $25 will likely last 5+ years!
axiom
> A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP,
> has discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I
> used to read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP.
> This seems to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in
> favor of the Internet.
>
> Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
ISP Usenet services usually suck anyway. If you're a heavy Usenet user,
try a commercial news provider like Supernews for a few weeks and you'll
never go back.
Odd Bob
news:giuugu$iqe$1...@news.motzarella.org:
You can even subscribe to Giganews if you really want to--that's who's been
providing Comcast's free news service for the last few years. It's all
still there, you just have to pay for it, now. Nothing has been
eliminated.
Personally I went with Astraweb. Not as much retention as Giganews but wow
is it faster! And at 110gb for $25 (Now they're offering 120 for that
price) I won't have to worry about paying another monthly bill or have
service cut off if I forget about it. Should take me a couple years at
least before I have to worry about buying more...
-- Bob
Rod Speed
> A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP, has discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed
> that several newsgroups I used to read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems to me
> like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the Internet.
> Man, I'm peeved.
No need to be.
> What can be done?
Use a decent commercial news server separate from your ISP.
That can cost peanuts with for example news.individual.net
Bob F
"krw" <k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message
news:MPG.23bc96ef8...@news.individual.net...
You've got that right.
The Real Bev
> <ulti...@gmail.com> wrote...
>>
>> It's kind of strange that they are eliminating Usenet , which was THE
>> place for discussions on the internet, which is hosted on thousands
>> upon thousands of mirrored servers for the BALKANIZED world of web
>> message boards, where the boards may be hosted on just a single
>> server, which entities like the feds could easily shut down.
>
> Usenet is NOT being eliminated!
>
> Unfortunately, the large ISPs have decided it is not profitable enough to
> continue carrying free Usenet servers, so they are forcing their customers to
> find INDEPENDENT Usenet servers that are still accessible via the Internet. So,
> while the move might inconvenience you a bit, it may actually be a blessing in
> disguise!
>
> motzarella.org is a fine FREE Usenet host for non-binary newsgroups.
Excellent newsserver. Good speed and retention. Sign up at the website
for a free account and then use your favorite newsreader software. I
use it when I can't connect to my ISP's newsserver or when it's down.
> news.astraweb.com is a fine Usenet host for binaries, with several options for
> heavy or light users of the binary newsgroups. Their "pay by download" plan is
> great for light users; $25 will likely last 5+ years!
--
Cheers,
Bev
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is.
Michael Black
> I work in the IT department of a university; one of the top ten in the
> United States by student population. We stopped offering our user
> community free Usenet service about six years ago. Actually, we did that
> as a result of a problem on our Linux-based news server. The server
> stopped receiving incoming news traffic. I spent a good deal of time
> trying to troubleshoot the problem without success. I discussed the
> situation with my boss and we decided to simply leave it alone. We
> decided that because the reports we received on read requests to the
> server had been hovering near zero for the better part of a year, we
> were curious if anyone would notice.
>
ANd you've just explained why the big ISPs have dropped Usenet. No
worry of legal problems, they've decided that not enough people are
using it, so it's not worth the bother.
The legal issue is an excuse, so they can point to someone else
as the reasoning.
When AOL dropped newsgroups, they said the same thing, time had moved
on and people weren't using them.
When my previous ISP dropped the newsgroups about 2003, they were moving
the servers and announced suddenly that the newsgroups would be gone
temporarily. Four months later, they finally admitted that they'd
not be back, since they were paying for them elsewhere they could no
longer justify the cost. The way I read it, they found few complained
so they realized they could cut the cost without any fuss, so they did.
Michael
donsgal
>
> "Thrift is sexy." ;)
You can thank the spammers for it. The usenet has gotten to be a vast
wasteland of spam messages and little else.
clams_casino
>
>
>You can thank the spammers for it. The usenet has gotten to be a vast
>wasteland of spam messages and little else.
>
>
and almost all from or via China. Blocking all newsgroup messages from
China would eliminate at least half the traffic / 90+% of the spam.
JR Weiss
A few minutes a day with your blacklist/filter, and the spam can be reduced
considerably. There is still a LOT of good info available on usenet, and it's a
LOT more convenient than going to 15 separate private forums.
Dave Garland
> You can thank the spammers for it. The usenet has gotten to be a vast
> wasteland of spam messages and little else.
And that's different from e-mail how? Isn't e-mail something like 90%
spam?
Dave
Rod Speed
> donsgal wrote
Mine isnt.
The Real Bev
> On Thu, 25 Dec 2008, Shawn Hirn wrote:
>
>> I work in the IT department of a university; one of the top ten in the
>> United States by student population. We stopped offering our user
>> community free Usenet service about six years ago. Actually, we did that
>> as a result of a problem on our Linux-based news server. The server
>> stopped receiving incoming news traffic. I spent a good deal of time
>> trying to troubleshoot the problem without success. I discussed the
>> situation with my boss and we decided to simply leave it alone. We
>> decided that because the reports we received on read requests to the
>> server had been hovering near zero for the better part of a year, we
>> were curious if anyone would notice.
>>
> ANd you've just explained why the big ISPs have dropped Usenet. No
> worry of legal problems, they've decided that not enough people are
> using it, so it's not worth the bother.
There were problems with Earthlink back when they were my ISP, and a guy
who was one of the news admins said they were getting constant flack
from upstairs because of the expense and the small number of users.
1 out of 60,000 is disgusting. Just how much time can you spend
grooming your MySpace site?
> When my previous ISP dropped the newsgroups about 2003, they were moving
> the servers and announced suddenly that the newsgroups would be gone
> temporarily. Four months later, they finally admitted that they'd
> not be back, since they were paying for them elsewhere they could no
> longer justify the cost. The way I read it, they found few complained
> so they realized they could cut the cost without any fuss, so they did.
When I call Charter because some service is down, the first-level person
doesn't even know what usenet or nntp is. I had to argue with the last
one before she kicked me upstairs. It's pitiful. If the 'forums'
weren't so ugly and difficult to read it might not be as awful as it is,
but I wonder just how long the free servers will be able to keep it up.
--
Cheers,
Bev
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
"If you put the government in charge of the desert, there would
be a sand shortage within ten years." -- M. Friedman (?)
JR Weiss
>
>> Isn't e-mail something like 90% spam?
>
> Mine isnt.
It is on the outbound side...
Rod Speed
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Isn't e-mail something like 90% spam?
>> Mine isnt.
> It is on the outbound side...
You have absolutely no idea what the outbound side consists of, fuckwit.
tarkania...@spamgourmet.com
browser
nada
> A friend would like to read here and contribute, but Comcast, his ISP,
> has discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I
> used to read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP.
> This seems to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in
> favor of the Internet.
>
> Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
>
free speech or anything free. They can minimize or eliminate opposition
speech and open up opportunity for more profits for them. The perverted
game continues.
Make Lobbying, especially, for foreign interests illegal. Get Lobbyists
and their Masters out of the Halls of Government and Congress.
Public financing, of political campaigns. Independent prosecution of
violations of Constitutional oath, of office.
Until we stop Government of, by and for Big Business we are trapped in
what we have now.
We are not being represented. The Ownership Society/Supplier Side
Government/Economics does not defend or recognize the Constitution our
Republic or sovereignty. To the Globalist is is just a g d piece of
paper. It is a return to Feudalism but on a global scale.
Capitalism? Marxist China has Capitalism.
rick++
It has some shortcomings, but is usable and free.
Evelyn
>discontinued newsgroups. I also noticed that several newsgroups I used to
>read, or want to read, have been discontinued byVerizon, my ISP. This seems
>to me like a conscious effort to rid the world of Usenet, in favor of the
>Internet.
>
> Man, I'm peeved. What can be done?
>
Sign up with Motzarella.com. Free usenet groups.
Or of course, you could use Google groups.
My ISP dropped usenet as well.
--
--
Best Regards,
Evelyn
Rest in a sky-like mind.
Sit like a mountain floating on the earth.
Breathe like the wind circling the world
John Doe
> Personally I went with Astraweb. Not as much retention as
> Giganews but wow is it faster! And at 110gb for $25 (Now they're
> offering 120 for that price) I won't have to worry about paying
> another monthly bill
Is Astraweb the only metered (pay by download) binary USENET
service? Apparently they are making money, they have been doing it for
years.
--
Land Skis (rough terrain skates). The first rollerblades with a big
front wheel and small trailing wheels, to help roll over obstacles
while maintaining a low stance.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27532210@N04/3056505603
ulti...@gmail.com
> In Comcast's case, their decision to stop offering free Usenet service
> had little to do with service cost, it was legal issues that motivated
> Comcast to stop offering free Usenet service. New York State's attorney
> general launched litigation against ISPs to get rid of child porn on
> their servers. Since Usenet is largely uncontrollable in its content,
> ISP's such as Time Warner and Comcast decided that since Usenet usage
> was declining and its mostly spam, it wasn't worth the effort for them
> to monitor and defend in court. A Google search will yield tons of
> information on this issue.
>
Kiddie porn was just a pretext for the ISPs to do what they always
wanted to do: shut down their usenet servers. If they didn't want to
do that, they would have told that dork in New York to go
----------------- and continue to offer Usenet. If some book worm in
New York really did have this much power, then this country is really
screwed.
ulti...@gmail.com
> had little to do with service cost, it was legal issues that motivated
> Comcast to stop offering free Usenet service. New York State's attorney
> general launched litigation against ISPs to get rid of child porn on
> their servers. Since Usenet is largely uncontrollable in its content,
> ISP's such as Time Warner and Comcast decided that since Usenet usage
> was declining and its mostly spam, it wasn't worth the effort for them
> to monitor and defend in court. A Google search will yield tons of
> information on this issue.
Kiddie porn was just a pretext for the ISPs to do what they always
wanted to do: shut down their usenet servers. If they didn't want to
do that, they would have told that dork in New York to go
----------------- and continue to offer Usenet. If some book worm in
New York really does have this much power, then this country is really
screwed.
John Doe
> Kiddie porn was just a pretext for the ISPs to do what they always
> wanted to do: shut down their usenet servers.
We still have text servers here on AT&T USENET. I haven't been using
my ISP's binary USENET servers in years, so it makes almost no
difference to me.
Yes of course they used child pornography as an excuse to shut down
binary servers.
If they had given users a line to make suggestions and report
violations, individual servers probably could have easily shut down
child pornography on USENET.
Whatever. Makes no difference to AT&T Prodigy users, yet. Those who
lose access can spend a few dollars a year for a text server if you
can't afford a premium server.
Tomes
Free and none of the Google Groups shortcomings (for one being that many
Usenetters block all GG posts because this is where a large portion of the
spam comes from).
Tomes
Bert Hyman
news:d8e47180-3a59-4b67...@r37g2000prr.googlegroups.com
"rick++" <ric...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> groups.google.com
>
> It has some shortcomings,
Some? You're too kind.
> but is usable
Hardly.
> and free.
Many people are now killfiling all posts from googlgroupers.
Most of the people who post to Usenet via the clunky Google
Groups web interface are lusers or lamers.
--
Bert Hyman St. Paul, MN be...@iphouse.com
Bert Hyman
wrote:
> "rick++" ...
>> groups.google.com
>>
>> It has some shortcomings, but is usable and free.
>
> news.motsarella.org
Even better would be news.motzarella.org.
Sign up at http://www.motzarella.org/
axiom
> In news:gj6str$qpi$1...@news.motzarella.org "Tomes" <ask...@here.net>
> wrote:
>
>> "rick++" ...
>>> groups.google.com
>>>
>>> It has some shortcomings, but is usable and free.
>>
>> news.motsarella.org
>
> Even better would be news.motzarella.org.
>
> Sign up at http://www.motzarella.org/
Motzarella's getting to be almost as bad as Google Groups for trolls and
and general PITA idiots. A lot of people are filtering on it now, even
though it usually means taking out a few legit posters in the group.
Bert Hyman
<ax...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
> On Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:04:59 +0000, Bert Hyman wrote:
>
>> In news:gj6str$qpi$1...@news.motzarella.org "Tomes" <ask...@here.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> "rick++" ...
>>>> groups.google.com
>>>>
>>>> It has some shortcomings, but is usable and free.
>>>
>>> news.motsarella.org
>>
>> Even better would be news.motzarella.org.
>>
>> Sign up at http://www.motzarella.org/
>
> Motzarella's getting to be almost as bad as Google Groups for trolls
> and and general PITA idiots.
Any free service will suffer from that, but unlike Google, the guy who
runs motzarella actually reads, responds to and acts on complaints.
> A lot of people are filtering on it now, even though it usually means
> taking out a few legit posters in the group.
It's not anywhere close to the cesspool that is AIOE.ORG; maybe you've
confused the two (although AIOE.ORG seems to have been shut down
sometime in the past couple of weeks; maybe it's their refugees you're
running into).
Tomes
> Bert Hyman wrote:
>> "Tomes":
>>> "rick++" ...
>>>> groups.google.com
>>>> It has some shortcomings, but is usable and free.
>>>
>>> news.motsarella.org
>>
>> Even better would be news.motzarella.org.
>>
>> Sign up at http://www.motzarella.org/
>
> Motzarella's getting to be almost as bad as Google Groups for trolls and
> and general PITA idiots. A lot of people are filtering on it now, even
> though it usually means taking out a few legit posters in the group.
Thanks for the spelling fix there Bert... tough to find something that is
misspelled on the net.
I have not seen the major influx of trolls in motzarella; a check of my
killfile shows only one.
Tomes
Dr. Curmudgon Gee
>"rick++" ...
>> groups.google.com
>
>
>Free and none of the Google Groups shortcomings (for one being that many
>Usenetters block all GG posts because this is where a large portion of the
>spam comes from).
also the google usenet interface sucks big time.
regards,
Pam's Ode to Spammers & Telemarketers
May all spammers & telemarketers die an agonizing death; have no
burial places; their souls be chased by demons in Gehenna from one
room to another for 1000 years.
Strider
news:d8e47180-3a59-4b67...@r37g2000prr.googlegroups.com...
I recently found "teranews.com". If you just do text groups their free
service is great. Just a one-time $3.95 setup fee. They also have monthly
rates for high-intensity users. Totally compatible with Windows Mail and
Outlook Express.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
AllEmailDeletedImmediately
"Shawn Hirn" <sr...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:srhi-DBB17D.0...@93-136-209-74.adsl.net.t-com.hr...
> I work in the IT department of a university; one of the top ten in the
> United States by student population. We stopped offering our user
> community free Usenet service about six years ago. Actually, we did that
> as a result of a problem on our Linux-based news server. The server
> stopped receiving incoming news traffic. I spent a good deal of time
> trying to troubleshoot the problem without success. I discussed the
> situation with my boss and we decided to simply leave it alone. We
> decided that because the reports we received on read requests to the
> server had been hovering near zero for the better part of a year, we
> were curious if anyone would notice.
shawn, you'd be amazed at how much porn is being hosted on university
servers.
seriously. unless it's changed in the last yr. google is your friend.