UUnet and Moderated Newsgroups
Fried Spam
Should we continue to report Spam to UU.NET re: their worst offenders? I,
too, am extremely fed up with the fact that they don't seem to do anything
about them!
Pat
--
To e-mail me, remove NOSPAM & FEDUP
i.e., pwd (at) homemail (dot) com
Help to rid the Internet of Spam
Join C.A.U.C.E at http://www.cauce.org/
Bill Stewart-Cole
In article <5rfp9v$k...@news-central.tiac.net>, Modemac
<mod...@shell1.tiac.net> wrote:
> UUnet has been entrusted with the responsibility of forwarding traffic to
> moderated newsgroups in the "Big Eight" heirarchy since the Great Renaming
> of 1987 (if I understand correctly). This responsibility has earned the
> administrators of UUnet a measure of respect, due to their policy of
> trying to be fair to everyone involved.
>
> Unfortunately, UUnet's *other* policy of blatantly ignoring all complaints
> about the flood of newsgroup spam coming from its news server, from a
> number of sources, is threatening to erode the trust and respect that it
> has earned over the years.
>
> As much as I am loath to this idea, it may be necessary to finally get
> UUnet to sit up and take notice. It may be necessary for system
> administrators to work on methods of going "on strike" against UUnet
> administration of moderated newsgroups, until the spam problem is
> acknowledged and dealt with.
>
> I am NOT calling for an all-out "rebellion" against UUnet, because we've
> heard that silly hue and cry from the net.kooks for the past few years.
>
> What I AM suggesting is a way of forcing UUnet to notice that they've got
> a serious problem on their hands, and they have got to take action
> IMMEDIATELY to fix it.
The problem is that UUNet is providing a free and very helpful service to
news admins everywhere and getting no benefit EXCEPT that measure of
respect and deference.
UUNet is an odd beast. Their service to the greater good of the net goes
beyond Usenet and goes back to their birth. Since their mergers, they have
been abandoning policies and practices that arguably helped crete the net
as it is today and are increasingly "just another provider" where they
arguably were somewhat special in the past. I have to wonder whether Rick
Adams is still paying any attention and whether he regrets the trading of
the formerly deep stock of goodwill for money. UUNet no longer provides a
way for midsize providers to play with the big boys, now their president is
talking about being one of the megaprovider survivors in a net where a few
giants provide all the real transit and everyone else buys access.
Henrietta Thomas
In news.groups on Sun, 27 Jul 1997 17:00:15 -0500, bi...@scconsult.com (Bill
Stewart-Cole) wrote:
[snip]....
>UUNet is an odd beast. Their service to the greater good of the net goes
>beyond Usenet and goes back to their birth. Since their mergers, they have
>been abandoning policies and practices that arguably helped crete the net
>as it is today and are increasingly "just another provider" where they
>arguably were somewhat special in the past. I have to wonder whether Rick
>Adams is still paying any attention and whether he regrets the trading of
>the formerly deep stock of goodwill for money. UUNet no longer provides a
>way for midsize providers to play with the big boys, now their president is
>talking about being one of the megaprovider survivors in a net where a few
>giants provide all the real transit and everyone else buys access.
What would happen if all the universities pulled out of the Usenet
system and stopped passing their stuff on to the big boys?
Henrietta Thomas
Chicago, Illinois
h...@wwa.com
======
UCE from IEMMC clogging up your mailbox? Use "forward" or "redirect"
to ship it back to them ---> ad...@iemmc.org
Russ Allbery
In news.groups, Henrietta Thomas <h...@wwa.com> writes:
> What would happen if all the universities pulled out of the Usenet
> system and stopped passing their stuff on to the big boys?
The universities wouldn't get much traffic.
--
Russ Allbery (r...@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
Louis RAPHAEL
On Sun, 27 Jul 1997, Bill Stewart-Cole wrote:
> UUNet is an odd beast. Their service to the greater good of the net goes
> beyond Usenet and goes back to their birth. Since their mergers, they have
> been abandoning policies and practices that arguably helped crete the net
> as it is today and are increasingly "just another provider" where they
> arguably were somewhat special in the past.
Indeed, it *is* a shame that UUnet, once one of the more respected sites,
properly run by people who thought beyond tomorrow, and with the
realization that UUnet's future was/is tied to the future of the 'net in
general, has gone the way of spam. It's unbelievable that UUnet, which
has an important historical role in USENET, is now working to destroy it.
I'd say that if MS.UU.net disappeared tomorrow, the spam problem would go
down quite a bit.
Anyone else would have been UDP'ed by now, IMHO. UUnet still has that
reserve of goodwill, but for me, it has drawn to an end. I'm in favour of
UDP'ing MS.UU.net (not *.UU.net yet, though). Those incessant "Sex
Password" spams really did it for me. The aliasing out that many have
done is a step in the right direction, IMHO.
> I have to wonder whether Rick
> Adams is still paying any attention and whether he regrets the trading of
> the formerly deep stock of goodwill for money. UUNet no longer provides a
> way for midsize providers to play with the big boys, now their president is
> talking about being one of the megaprovider survivors in a net where a few
> giants provide all the real transit and everyone else buys access.
One wonders. The problem is, if they (and other NAPs) don't do anything
about the spam problem, many people will drop off the Internet/USENET. In
fact, I'll be that that's already dropping... look at all the people that
*don't* post to USENET because of the spam. All those hours of online
time that they could have been paying for... But short-sighted thinking
doesn't see that. \rantmode{off}
I'd like to know what you guys think of a UDP for MS.UU.net.
Louis
(remove the not-so-obvious to reply)
[About that spam-block thing... most of my e-mail spam these days comes
from PSI.net, another bunch that used to be "good guys" in the past. Now,
*all* mail with a Received: "pub-ip.psi.net" coming to my account goes
directly to the plonkfile, no other questions asked. For me, they don't
exist any more...]
Joel Ehrlich
In article <33dee5c9...@news.wwa.com>, on Wed, 30 Jul 1997 08:55:33 GMT
h...@wwa.com says...
>
>In news.groups on Sun, 27 Jul 1997 17:00:15 -0500, bi...@scconsult.com (Bill
>Stewart-Cole) wrote:
>
>[snip]....
>
>>beyond Usenet and goes back to their birth. Since their mergers, they have
>>been abandoning policies and practices that arguably helped crete the net
>>as it is today and are increasingly "just another provider" where they
>>Adams is still paying any attention and whether he regrets the trading of
>>the formerly deep stock of goodwill for money. UUNet no longer provides a
>>way for midsize providers to play with the big boys, now their president is
>>talking about being one of the megaprovider survivors in a net where a few
>>giants provide all the real transit and everyone else buys access.
>
>system and stopped passing their stuff on to the big boys?
>
other run by the commercial ISPs. Each would probably run in grand and
unconcerned isolation, neither communicating with the other.
The university-based system would look a bit like the Usenet of old. The
commercially-based system would look a lot like the Usenet of today.
In the end nothing will have been accomplished save forcing a lot of people
to have multiple accounts. But then many of us have them even now.
Joel
Jon Bell
Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>In article <33dee5c9...@news.wwa.com>, on Wed, 30 Jul 1997 08:55:33 GMT
>h...@wwa.com says...
>>
>other run by the commercial ISPs. Each would probably run in grand and
>unconcerned isolation, neither communicating with the other.
>
>The university-based system would look a bit like the Usenet of old. The
>commercially-based system would look a lot like the Usenet of today.
I can't imagine *all* the major academic news servers acting in concert
on something like this. There would surely be some "leakage" back and forth.
Academic deans have a saying: "Managing university faculty is like
herding cats." Trying to get news server admins to act together on
something is similar. :-)
--
Jon Bell <jtb...@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA
[for beginner's Usenet info, see http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/usenet/ ]
Rahul Dhesi
In <Pine.SUN.3.91.970730...@willy.cs.mcgill.ca> Louis
RAPHAEL <rap...@spammy.cs.mcgill.ca> writes:
>I'd say that if MS.UU.net disappeared tomorrow, the spam problem would go
>down quite a bit.
I aliased out 'uunet' recently, and indeed, most of the spam on
Usenet is now gone from here.
>I'd like to know what you guys think of a UDP for MS.UU.net.
What are you waiting for?
--
Rahul Dhesi <dh...@spams.r.us.com>
a2i communications, a quality ISP with sophisticated anti-junkmail features
** message body scan immune to fake headers *** see http://www.rahul.net/
Seth Breidbart
In article <5rntbt$9fv$1...@usenet88.supernews.com>,
Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>There would soon be two "Usenets". One run by the university system and the
>other run by the commercial ISPs. Each would probably run in grand and
>unconcerned isolation, neither communicating with the other.
>
>The university-based system would look a bit like the Usenet of old. The
>commercially-based system would look a lot like the Usenet of today.
Then some companies (not ISPs) would join the university-based
system. Then some clueful ISPs would join it as well. Then we'd have
Usenet-2.
Seth
Joel Ehrlich
In article <33e015b6...@news.wwa.com>, on Thu, 31 Jul 1997 05:09:56 GMT
h...@wwa.com says...
>
>In news.groups on 30 Jul 1997 20:07:53 -0400, se...@panix.com (Seth
>are the backbone of the Usenet. Had it not been for them, the commercial
>people would have nothing to exploit. My own ISP could not say, "I will
>get the newsgroups for you, Henrietta." So the universities _do_ have the
>power to construct Usenet-2 and leave the rest of us dangling out in
>cyberspace.
>
Possible but very unlikely. Your comments are based on outdated information
about the manner in which the net operates. The university-based systems are
no longer the backbone of the net. For example, in the U.S. the backbone is
now run by several commercial telecommunication companies which have set up
regional distribution sites in several key locations across the continent.
These sites are connected to one another using dedicated high speed lines
which have nothing to do with university-based systems.
Not that I intend to denigrate the debt we all owe those university-based
interconnected systems. They were, after all, the ancestor of that which we
have today. So too we owe a great debt to the Department of Defense.
After all, Usenet is descended from DARPA/ARPAnet.
But it is no longer part of the DoD and it is no longer dependent on
university systems. In the very unlikely event that all of the
university-based systems were to drop off Usenet, it is probable that the
effect on Usenet would be undetectable. It is unlikely that such an event
would cause any great ripples anywhere in the net.
Now as to whether a new, separate, stand-alone network (call it Usenet-2 or
what ever you wish) could be formed by re-establishing the old
university-based system, that too is most unlikely. The government funding
which formerly made it possible just isn't likely to be made available. And
the software, hardware and methods which we used in the "good old days" are
no where near fast enough to handle the kind of volume we see on the net
today.
We can wish, but time moves forward relentlessly. What we have is what we
have and what we did in the past is history.
Joel
Henrietta Thomas
>In article <5rntbt$9fv$1...@usenet88.supernews.com>,
>Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>
>>There would soon be two "Usenets". One run by the university system and the
>>other run by the commercial ISPs. Each would probably run in grand and
>>unconcerned isolation, neither communicating with the other.
>>
>>The university-based system would look a bit like the Usenet of old. The
>>commercially-based system would look a lot like the Usenet of today.
>
>Then some companies (not ISPs) would join the university-based
>system. Then some clueful ISPs would join it as well. Then we'd have
>Usenet-2.
You got it, Mr. Breidbart. Exactly what I was thinking. The universities
are the backbone of the Usenet. Had it not been for them, the commercial
people would have nothing to exploit. My own ISP could not say, "I will
get the newsgroups for you, Henrietta." So the universities _do_ have the
power to construct Usenet-2 and leave the rest of us dangling out in
cyberspace.
But Jon Bell says they would never find a way to agree. :-(
Henrietta
====
I <heart> Junk Detector -- http://members.aol.com/junkdtectr
Jeremy
Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>Possible but very unlikely. Your comments are based on outdated information
>about the manner in which the net operates. The university-based systems are
>no longer the backbone of the net. For example, in the U.S. the backbone is
>now run by several commercial telecommunication companies which have set up
>regional distribution sites in several key locations across the continent.
>These sites are connected to one another using dedicated high speed lines
>which have nothing to do with university-based systems.
I think you missed that this is about Usenet, not the Internet. :)
--
Jeremy | jer...@exit109.com
The customer is always right, until he tries to say something.
Seth Breidbart
In article <5rqkgg$eq7$1...@marge.eaglequest.com>,
Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>After all, Usenet is descended from DARPA/ARPAnet.
No, it isn't.
>Now as to whether a new, separate, stand-alone network (call it Usenet-2 or
>what ever you wish) could be formed
YM "has been formed". HTH
> by re-establishing the old
>university-based system, that too is most unlikely. The government funding
>which formerly made it possible just isn't likely to be made available.
Government funding didn't make Usenet possible. Usenet was built by
people because they wanted to. It just grew.
> And
>the software, hardware and methods which we used in the "good old days" are
>no where near fast enough to handle the kind of volume we see on the net
>today.
We can, and do, use the latest software and hardware for Usenet-2.
>We can wish, but time moves forward relentlessly. What we have is what we
>have and what we did in the past is history.
What we have isn't what we want, and what we _will_ have is the
future.
Seth
Joel Ehrlich
In article <5rqna9$qk7$2...@news1.exit109.com>, on 31 Jul 1997 18:59:21 GMT
jer...@exit109.com says...
>
>Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>
>>Possible but very unlikely. Your comments are based on outdated information
>>about the manner in which the net operates. The university-based systems
are
>>no longer the backbone of the net. For example, in the U.S. the backbone is
>>now run by several commercial telecommunication companies which have set up
>>regional distribution sites in several key locations across the continent.
>>These sites are connected to one another using dedicated high speed lines
>>which have nothing to do with university-based systems.
>
>I think you missed that this is about Usenet, not the Internet. :)
>
>--
communication medium for the news. We use the old point-to-point system only
to the point that the data flow gets to a regional center. Thereafter we use
the same high-speed links as the web and everything else.
Look at the bang paths of a few articles. They are nothing like what they
once were.
We might talk about our news being sent to all the systems to which our
system is connected and then being passed along in similar fashion to other
inter-connected systems. That's what it once was. That ain't what is is any
longer.
If we were still doing things the old way, with today's volume of traffic,
news propagation would be measured in days rather than hours.
I know, even with our modern network, it sometimes still is...
Joel
Joel Ehrlich
In article <5rr7um$3...@panix3.panix.com>, on 31 Jul 1997 19:43:18 -0400
se...@panix.com says...
>
>What we have isn't what we want, and what we _will_ have is the
>future.
>
I'm still skeptical -- but supportive.
Joel
Bill Stewart-Cole
In article <5rqkgg$eq7$1...@marge.eaglequest.com>, jo...@tminet.com (Joel
Ehrlich) wrote:
>In article <33e015b6...@news.wwa.com>, on Thu, 31 Jul 1997 05:09:56 GMT
>h...@wwa.com says...
>>
>>In news.groups on 30 Jul 1997 20:07:53 -0400, se...@panix.com (Seth
>>Breidbart) wrote:
>>
>>>In article <5rntbt$9fv$1...@usenet88.supernews.com>,
>>>Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>There would soon be two "Usenets". One run by the university system and
>the
>>>>other run by the commercial ISPs. Each would probably run in grand and
>>>>unconcerned isolation, neither communicating with the other.
>>>>
>>>>The university-based system would look a bit like the Usenet of old. The
>>>>commercially-based system would look a lot like the Usenet of today.
>>>
>>>Then some companies (not ISPs) would join the university-based
>>>system. Then some clueful ISPs would join it as well. Then we'd have
>>>Usenet-2.
>>
>>You got it, Mr. Breidbart. Exactly what I was thinking. The universities
>>are the backbone of the Usenet. Had it not been for them, the commercial
>>people would have nothing to exploit. My own ISP could not say, "I will
>>get the newsgroups for you, Henrietta." So the universities _do_ have the
>>power to construct Usenet-2 and leave the rest of us dangling out in
>>cyberspace.
>>
>Possible but very unlikely. Your comments are based on outdated information
>about the manner in which the net operates. The university-based systems are
>no longer the backbone of the net. For example, in the U.S. the backbone is
>now run by several commercial telecommunication companies which have set up
>regional distribution sites in several key locations across the continent.
>These sites are connected to one another using dedicated high speed lines
>which have nothing to do with university-based systems.
You are confusing the Internet with Usenet.
Grossly put, the Internet is the wires, and Usenet is one sort of traffic
carried mostly (but not exclusively) on the Internet.
>Not that I intend to denigrate the debt we all owe those university-based
>interconnected systems. They were, after all, the ancestor of that which we
>have today. So too we owe a great debt to the Department of Defense.
>After all, Usenet is descended from DARPA/ARPAnet.
No, Usenet originated *independently* of ARPANet. Usenet existed before
ARPANet-originated discussion groups were added to it (the old 'fa.*'
hierarchy) and it was many years after that cross-pollination before Usenet
started to be carried over the DARPA Internet.
>But it is no longer part of the DoD and it is no longer dependent on
>university systems. In the very unlikely event that all of the
>university-based systems were to drop off Usenet, it is probable that the
>effect on Usenet would be undetectable. It is unlikely that such an event
>would cause any great ripples anywhere in the net.
I don't think you understand how Usenet works or how influential the .edu
sites remain in its operation.
(hint: your message got to my server by way of a college site. As far as I
can see, EVERY message posted at the same first server as yours passes
through that same site to make it here, even though there are 8 news
servers within 2 hops of me and hundreds if not thousands within 3 hops. )
>Now as to whether a new, separate, stand-alone network (call it Usenet-2 or
>what ever you wish) could be formed by re-establishing the old
>university-based system, that too is most unlikely. The government funding
>which formerly made it possible just isn't likely to be made available. And
>the software, hardware and methods which we used in the "good old days" are
>no where near fast enough to handle the kind of volume we see on the net
>today.
You DEFINITELY are confusing Usenet and the Internet. The above is
absolutely true if it refers to the basic TCP/IP connectivity, but it is a
completely false view of history in reference to Usenet.
(Hint 2: Alternate news nets which may eventually be seen as Usenet-2 run
on top of the same Internet as Usenet itself, and even in many cases on the
same servers. )
>We can wish, but time moves forward relentlessly. What we have is what we
>have and what we did in the past is history.
True enough, but it does not mean that a Usenet-2 which can regain some of
the positive social elements which have been vanishing from Usenet with new
modes of operation (essentially just a new mandatory and explicit agreement
required to get a bidirectional feed and standard config tweaks for
servers).
The best-established 'proto-Usenet-2' is BOFHNet. It is a proof of the
concept. Sites which are formally in BOFHNet see essentially spam-free
groups. The fringe of sites to which bofh.* is leaked may see spotty,
somewhat spam-ridden, and disjointed traffic, but that is irrelevant
because they really shouldn't be getting ANY bofh.* and they don't get any
bofh.* traffic to sites which are 'inside.'
The other proto-Usenet-2 is net.*. Usenet old-timers who remember before
the Great Renaming will hopefully be fooled into coming back there and
behaving just like old times (and accepting large painful LART's when they
do not).
--
Bill Stewart-Cole bi...@scconsult.com
I'm not spam-blocked because I like playing the hardass net-fascist.
Cruelty to the clueless on Usenet is my way of dealing with stress.
Bill Stewart-Cole
In article <5rra7r$pds$1...@usenet88.supernews.com>, jo...@tminet.com (Joel
Ehrlich) wrote:
>In article <5rqna9$qk7$2...@news1.exit109.com>, on 31 Jul 1997 18:59:21 GMT
>jer...@exit109.com says...
>>
>>Joel Ehrlich <jo...@tminet.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Possible but very unlikely. Your comments are based on outdated information
>>>about the manner in which the net operates. The university-based systems
>are
>>>no longer the backbone of the net. For example, in the U.S. the backbone is
>>>now run by several commercial telecommunication companies which have set up
>>>regional distribution sites in several key locations across the continent.
>>>These sites are connected to one another using dedicated high speed lines
>>>which have nothing to do with university-based systems.
>>
>>I think you missed that this is about Usenet, not the Internet. :)
>>
>>--
>I think you missed the point. This is Usenet but we use the Internet as our
>communication medium for the news. We use the old point-to-point system only
>to the point that the data flow gets to a regional center. Thereafter we use
>the same high-speed links as the web and everything else.
I get a nagging feeling that you don't have a strong grasp of how news works.
Clue: Usenet is *entirely* made up of point-to-point links. A map of Usenet
would be a map of those links and they DO NOT correlate well to the map of
the Internet on which they run. Regionality no longer means anything
because two sites a thousand miles apart may have better communication
'closeness' than two machines a mile apart, and the underlying layers are
no longer (mostly) circuit-switched distance-sensitive lines. Until the
death of the Radio Praha News Empire, the best feed into my micro-server
running across a flaky dialup in St. Louis MO was coming from central
Europe.
>Look at the bang paths of a few articles. They are nothing like what they
>once were.
True, but that is mostly increased diversity, not the exit of traditional
sites. There are now a few hundred ways to get between sites that used to
have 2 or three possible paths between them. That's good only because feeds
have become so routinely flaky under the current load that you need that
sort of path diversity.
>We might talk about our news being sent to all the systems to which our
>system is connected and then being passed along in similar fashion to other
>inter-connected systems. That's what it once was. That ain't what is is any
>longer.
Yes it is. Those connections are much more diverse today than in the
pre-NNTP days, but every newsfeed is still a pair of sites talking to each
other.
>If we were still doing things the old way, with today's volume of traffic,
>news propagation would be measured in days rather than hours.
>
>I know, even with our modern network, it sometimes still is...
No one is suggesting that Usenet-2 be made up of direct-dial connections
running UUCP (although there are strong arguments vocally propounded for
UUCP over TCP/IP). THAT 'old way' indeed would make propagation speed match
the old propagation speed.
Keep in mind as well that NO ONE is talking about wholesale shifting of the
current Usenet (i.e. Big8+alt) volume to Usenet-2. The volume is involved
with the problems that make Usenet-2 necessary. Simply put, there is no
reasonable excuse in 1997 to have any *.binaries.* newsgroups. So Usenet-2
doesn't. There is also no reason that Usenet-2 has to operate under the
same 'no rules' social arrangement that has been the source of Usenet's
decline. So it doesn't.
Caveat: I dropped out (due to time problems) of a discussion group last
year which was on the verge of implementing Usenet-2, and I am assuming
from who is talking about it (and from the leakage I see) that what is now
being referred to as usenet-2 is an outgrowth of those years of discussion
of how to build usenet-2. If I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will correct me.