alt.sys.pdp10 soon not available from Google Groups

[Lars Brinkhoff]

If you want to keep accessing this group, find another way.

https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538

[Antti Louko]

Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> If you want to keep accessing this group, find another way.
>
> https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538
>

For example:

https://www.eternal-september.org/

BR

/alo

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Antti Louko writes:
> Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
>> If you want to keep accessing this group, find another way.
>

> For example:
> https://www.eternal-september.org/

I'm using the Danish news.dotsrc.org, formerly sunsite.dk. It's free.

Maybe I should clarify alt.sys.pdp10 *should* remain a frozen archive on
Google Groups, but read-only and no new articles will come in from Usenet.

[Phil Budne]

On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 9:00:48 AM UTC-5, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> If you want to keep accessing this group, find another way.

Maybe just create a mailing list?

[Scott Lurndal]

Phil Budne <phil....@gmail.com> writes:
>On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 9:00:48=E2=80=AFAM UTC-5, Lars Brinkhoff wr=
>ote:
>> If you want to keep accessing this group, find another way.=20

>
>Maybe just create a mailing list?

No, thanks.

[pbi...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 7:42:42 AM UTC-5, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> I'm using the Danish news.dotsrc.org, formerly sunsite.dk. It's free.

Thanks for that server pointer. I was able to set up Pan (Win10) as my news reader using it without any problems. No fuss, no muss.

I notice that the list of available feeds is somewhat limited, e.g., no alt.folklore, alt.sys.alpha-micro, or alt.sys.perq. Oh well. Perhaps that's because these are relatively low-rate news groups?

[Raymond Wiker]

I just checked my feed (eternal-september), and it carries all three of
those. That said, alt.folklore had 123 messages, of which 122 were from
one person, alt.sys.alpha-micro had 1 message (spam), and alt.sys.perq
had a few messages (probably 1 or 2 messages per year).

It looks to me as eternal-september is making some effort to remove
spam; there's certainly less spam there than in the same groups on
groups.google.com.

[David Todd]

First: thanks, Lars, for the pointer to news.dotsrc.org and Antti for
the pointer to news.eternal-september.org. I really value the
alt.sys.pdp10 newsgroup exchanges, and I'd have been sad to have lost
them because Google dropped newsgroup support.

I've subscribed to both of them in Thunderbird on my Mac. Like Raymond,
I found that eternal-september seems to do some spam cleanup, but
there are still an overwhelming number. I'll watch a bit to make sure
that eternal-september doesn't accidentally filter out real messages,
then drop dotsrc if it continues to be effective at spam removal.

There was no spam on alt.sys.pdp10 until a few months ago, and now
it's making the feed almost unusable. Any suggestions on how to filter
out spam in the Tbird newsgroup reader? I haven't figured out a
filtering strategy with the tools I see available.

David

[Grant Taylor]

On 12/17/23 08:02, David Todd wrote:
> There was no spam on alt.sys.pdp10 until a few months ago, and now
> it's making the feed almost unusable.

For some reason the amount of spam emanating from Google was as if
someone opened the flood gates, almost as if they no longer prevented it
and / or the spammers found a new way to spam and Google didn't stop it.

> Any suggestions on how to filter out spam in the Tbird newsgroup
> reader? I haven't figured out a filtering strategy with the tools
> I see available.

Tools -> Message Filters -> New -> Custom from the Match all the
following drop down list -> Customize -> Enter "Path" -> select Path
from the drop down -> contains "Google" -> pick an action to do, delete
it locally or mark it as read per your preferences.



--
Grant. . . .

[David Todd]

Thanks, Grant. I tried this and it didn't make much difference. There
didn't seem to be any or many with "Google" in the path, and I tried both new.dotsrc and news.eternal-september. I tried some other filters based on "from", and they worked, but that would be a moving target as spammers vary the names.

But looking at what came in over the course of just one day, I noticed that while news.dotsrc had several hundred new spam messages, eternal-september had only one (!).

So I've deleted dotsrc as a newsgroup feed and kept just eternal-september.

I'll keep the filtering in mind in case this pops up again, though.

David

[David Todd]

[Grant Taylor]

On 12/18/23 09:30, David Todd wrote:
> Thanks, Grant.

> I tried this and it didn't make much difference. There didn't
> seem to be any or many with "Google" in the path, and I tried both
> new.dotsrc and news.eternal-september. I tried some other filters
> based on "from", and they worked, but that would be a moving target
> as spammers vary the names.

I'd be curious to see a couple of the Path: headers if you care to share
them.

I assumed that it was Google Groups Usenet gateway based on the thread
subject.

> But looking at what came in over the course of just one day, I noticed
> that while news.dotsrc had several hundred new spam messages,
> eternal-september had only one (!).
>
> So I've deleted dotsrc as a newsgroup feed and kept just eternal-september.

ACK

> I'll keep the filtering in mind in case this pops up again, though.

:-)

[Chris Hanson]

Just use a newsreader like Thunderbird. Or set up a news-to-mail gateway
that forwards you the messages. Or set up an IMAP/NNTP translator so you
can use your everyday mail client via the translator.

-- Chris

[David Griffith]

Here's what I got:

Path: frotz.eternal-september.org!!eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september
.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!weretis.net!feeder6.ne
ws.weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!feeder1.feed.usenet.farm!feed.usenet.fa
rm!peer02.ams4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!peer01.ams
1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!fx07.ams1.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: olivia...@gmail.com
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word,soc.culture.punjab,microsoft.publi
c.platformsdk.security,comp.lang.lisp,comp.compression,alt.sys.pdp10,microsoft.
public.platformsdk.security
Subject: cookies dispensary las vegas
Message-ID: <oasvnid63apen2o7g...@4ax.com>
User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272 trialware
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Lines: 32
X-Complaints-To: ab...@usenetserver.com
NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2023 07:23:09 UTC
Organization: UsenetServer - www.usenetserver.com
Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2023 08:23:10 +0100
X-Received-Bytes: 1727
Xref: frotz.eternal-september.org soc.culture.punjab:78338 comp.lang.lisp:71656
comp.compression:9690 alt.sys.pdp10:9112



--
David Griffith
da...@661.org

[Grant Taylor]

On 1/2/24 20:40, David Griffith wrote:
> Here's what I got:

This message appears to have originated from xlned.

> Path: frotz.eternal-september.org!!eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!weretis.net!feeder6.news.weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!feeder1.feed.usenet.farm!feed.usenet.farm!peer02.ams4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!peer01.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!fx07.ams1.POSTED!not-for-mail

> From: olivia...@gmail.com

It's possible to use just about any from address you want.

> X-Complaints-To: ab...@usenetserver.com

I'm not sure what the relationship is between xlned and usenetservers.

I've seen a number of messages like these. They are quickly floating to
the top of the list to filter out now that I filter Google Groups.

[David Griffith]

My point is that at least lned is allowing people to spam Usenet.

I'll walk back my previous suggestion to restart Usenet from scratch in
favor of some reforms/fixes. Here are some ideas, some of which might
require alteringthe NNTP protocol or not even be desirable:

1) Usenet servers need to get very aggressive about policing for spam
and shun servers that refuse to get rid of their problem users.

2) Come up with a means to detect and thwart spam. For instance, posts
could be analyzed for similarity to other posts. Servers would share
their results. Posts determined to be spam could then be deleted.

3) Come up with a means to add or remove moderation on a group as well
as reassigning moderation duties.

4) Put a brake on users who post more than X articles per unit of time.

5) Come up with a means for users to identify and deal with censorious
or otherwise abusing news admins. Not sure what thi

6) Put new users on a probation to ensure that they are real people and
not likely to cause problems.

7) Produce new software for moderators.

--
David Griffith
da...@661.org

[Grant Taylor]

On 1/4/24 02:34, David Griffith wrote:
> My point is that at least lned is allowing people to spam Usenet.

Are they /allowing/ spam? Do you have proof that they are both aware of
it and allowing it? My bet is that they are ignorant of it or focusing
efforts on other larger problems.

> 1) Usenet servers need to get very aggressive about policing for spam
> and shun servers that refuse to get rid of their problem users.

Each server administer has the freedom to do whatever filtering they want.

There are multiple tools that they can use to filter. Not all tools
catch all spam. Not all spam can be detected easily.

> 2) Come up with a means to detect and thwart spam. For instance, posts
> could be analyzed for similarity to other posts. Servers would share
> their results. Posts determined to be spam could then be deleted.

I believe that has existed for many years.

> 3) Come up with a means to add or remove moderation on a group as
> well as reassigning moderation duties.

Moderation does exist in Usenet. It's not fool proof. There are ways
around it.

> 4) Put a brake on users who post more than X articles per unit of time.

I believe this capability has existed for quite a while.

> 5) Come up with a means for users to identify and deal with censorious
> or otherwise abusing news admins. Not sure what thi

All most Usenet consumers can see is the purported news server that the
message originated from.

Only the news masters of said originating / posting server has any
visibility into who the actual poster was, if even then.

> 6) Put new users on a probation to ensure that they are real people
> and not likely to cause problems.

Many news servers have done exactly that.

> 7) Produce new software for moderators.

I'm not aware of problems with existing software for moderators.

Nothing you've said even hints at needing to alter the NNTP protocol.

I believe everything you have suggested already exists in one form or
another.