Does Comcast have access to usenet binary newsgroups ?

[Steve Mc]

I've been a longtime SBC/U-Verse user, but am considering moving to
Comcast.

U-Verse does not have usenet binary newsgroup access, so I have to have a
separate provider ( Newshosting) for that.

Does Comcast have usenet binary newsgroup access, or would I still have to
keep my newshosting account ?

Much thanks,


--



Steve Mc

DNA to SBC to respond

[Frank]

On 1/16/2013 3:25 PM, Steve Mc wrote:
> I've been a longtime SBC/U-Verse user, but am considering moving to
> Comcast.
>
> U-Verse does not have usenet binary newsgroup access, so I have to have a
> separate provider ( Newshosting) for that.
>
> Does Comcast have usenet binary newsgroup access, or would I still have to
> keep my newshosting account ?
>
> Much thanks,
>
>

No, they gave it up a few years ago.
I use news.eternal-september.org and news.aioe.org which are free but
have very limited access to binaries.

[VanguardLH]

"Steve Mc" wrote:

> I've been a longtime SBC/U-Verse user, but am considering moving to
> Comcast.
>
> U-Verse does not have usenet binary newsgroup access, so I have to have a
> separate provider ( Newshosting) for that.
>
> Does Comcast have usenet binary newsgroup access, or would I still have to
> keep my newshosting account ?

Discontinued 25-OCT-2008. As I recall, this was about the time NY
attorney general Andrew Cuomo decided to attack (well, threaten) ISPs
that provided Usenet service under the claim that ISPs were abetting the
proliferation of kiddie porn found in some newsgroups. The ISPs feared
they'd be in court defending their position that they only provide the
channel or pipe and not the content. No one sues the plumber that was
subcontracted when your home was built when the water delivered through
the pipes from the city is tainted but that's the attitude towards ISPs
and their pipe that brings you Internet content. ISPs are a tangible
attack vector whereas content is often hard to track, quash, or regulate
since it comes outside the jurisdiction of one attacking or regulating
the content. Note that Cuomo did not attack Usenet providers, like
Giganews, but instead just ISPs. Guess he figured ISPs (in the USA)
would be more pliant plus many NNTP providers were outside the USA.

Here is Cuomo's threat to Comcast:
http://politechbot.com/docs/cuomo.ny.ag.letter.to.comcast.072208.pdf

The excuse that Comcast gave was that it was a little-used service and
would harm few of their customers (despite that Comcast wasn't expending
any of their own resources to maintain the Comcast-administered by
Giganews-managed NNTP servers). They obviously steered cleared on how
Giganews could remain a viable business on perceived diminishing
revenues. Customers knew Comcast was lying and simply lathering a
generic and unsubstantiated excuse regarding their decision. With the
kiddie porn scare and threats of lawsuits from state attorneys, and with
the service generating no revenue (that could be delineated on the books
or annual report), it made sense to avert any legal entanglements and
simply drop the service. Some users threatened to leave Comcast (yeah,
right, like that happened, sure) but Comcast could care less about such
a miniscule decrease in revenue compared with any legal costs to
represent themselves in court trying to define their position that they
are a pipe and not a content provider.

It wasn't a particularly difficult choice by Comcast to drop Usenet
service (cease its contract with Giganews). They had someone biting
their heels to get rid of Usenet service. This service afforded no
revenue to Comcast and instead was a financial liability for what
resources were required to manage the Giganews-owned servers. Users
that wanted more than the meager 2GB monthly quota had to open an
account at Giganews (or elsewhere) so Comcast still didn't generate any
revenue on that service. The numbers of their customers using Usenet
was so small as to be nearly insignificant, especially when compared to
any legal costs by Comcast to fight content censorship for a service
that they didn't actually provide but contacted for at their expense
from a 3rd party (Giganews). The kiddie porn scare was a convenient
excuse for Comcast to get rid of something they didn't want to manage.
If Comcast was managing their own servers then they could've removed the
worst offending kiddie porn newsgroups; however, Comcast contracted
their Usenet service from Giganews so it was Giganews' choice as to what
groups were carried on Giganews' servers. I never heard of Cuomo ever
bothering to go after Giganews or any other commercial Usenet provider
which is where this content was sourced (after first allowing its
deposit from posters or by peering these newsgroups).

When Comcast had Usenet service (contracted through Giganews), it had a
2GB/month bandwidth cap. Yanking binaries would quickly consume that
quota. The quota was to grant you Usenet access but mostly for
participating in text-only newsgroups. You could buy a better plan at
Giganews (or go elsewhere for cheaper) if you wanted to yank binaries.
Comcast themselves did not offer higher service level plans.

I'm double entendre-ing the term "yank" because, well, after all, we all
know what's the primary use of binary newsgroups. Which binary
newsgroups consume the most disk space on the NNTP server? Yep, that'd
be porn. I had a buddy that operated an NNTP server and at first
carried all groups (that he peered with other NNTP servers). He kept
adding more and more hard disks to accommodate the swell in consumption
by the binary groups. It was outstriping his pocketbook. I took at
look and noted the huge disparity in disk space requirements for the
binary versus text groups, especially for those that were obviously
named for use as porn storage. About a week later he decided to drop
all the binary groups. With all the disk space he recovered, I don't
remember him ever saying he had to get more hard disks. What disks he
had bought to encompass all those binary groups and which got recovered
after dropping the binary groups was more than sufficient in size to
handle all the text groups whose articles expired long before his 2-year
retention. He didn't downsize his server but I never thereafter heard
that he had to upsize it, either.