Attn: comp.cad.pro-engineer
jusford
http://www.dailytech.com/Verizon+Sprint+to+Cut+Entire+Alt+Usenet+Hierarchy+More/article12102.htm
Per a recent child-porn blocking agreement with the New York Attorney
General’s Office, Verizon announced Thursday that it will block
subscriber access to a large number of decades-old Usenet structures,
including the entire alt.* hierarchy.
According to a CNET report, Verizon subscribers will lose access to
all newsgroups that don’t fall under the “Big 8” family of officially-
sanctioned Usenet hierarchies, including important-but-unofficial
newsgroups such as microsoft.windows, us.military, and
symantec.customerservice.general.
The “Big 8” hierarchies include comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*,
soc.*, talk.*, and humanities.*. alt.*, short for “alternative,” was
created in rebellion of its more orderly counterparts.
Lehnsherr
...
> Per a recent child-porn blocking agreement with the New York Attorney
> General’s Office, Verizon announced Thursday that it will block
> subscriber access to a large number of decades-old Usenet structures,
> including the entire alt.* hierarchy.
This *is* pretty appalling. Baby-with-the-bathwater stuff, or just
using "porn" as an excuse to shut off people's ability to talk to each
other? Kind of looks like the Chinese internet to me.
Janes
> Thought this may be of interest:
> http://www.dailytech.com/Verizon+Sprint+to+Cut+Entire+Alt+Usenet+Hierarchy+More/article12102.htm
Ignore the "service" of cable, dsl, cell provider usenet. Go to a dedicated distributor:
http://www.usenetplus.com/usenet-providers/north-american-usenet-providers/
The New York AG is more likely taking a back door route to go after ATT by smearing them on "child porn". Notice it didn't even take a formal charge to get them to comply. Why, you'd wonder? Usenet isn't a big part of any ISP's business and probably a drain with little reward, not even any advertising revenue. I'm sure they all want to dump it. So, my bet is that Verizon welcomes the excuse to start whittling away at an unwanted and unwelcomed appendage. My guess is that the AG is getting the PR out of this that he wants and Verizon is getting to streamline its business.
David Janes
graminator
> > "jusford" <jusf...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > Thought this may be of interest:
>
> Ignore the "service" of cable, dsl, cell provider usenet. Go to a dedicated distributor:http://www.usenetplus.com/usenet-providers/north-american-usenet-prov...
>
> The New York AG is more likely taking a back door route to go after ATT by smearing them on "child porn". Notice it didn't even take a formal charge to get them to comply. Why, you'd wonder? Usenet isn't a big part of any ISP's business and probably a drain with little reward, not even any advertising revenue. I'm sure they all want to dump it. So, my bet is that Verizon welcomes the excuse to start whittling away at an unwanted and unwelcomed appendage. My guess is that the AG is getting the PR out of this that he wants and Verizon is getting to streamline its business.
>
> David Janes
I'm curious to know how many people use newsreaders to read this
group? In the days of high-speed connections they seem a little out of
date. I remember when I used to dial up, download all the new
messages, disconnect, read and answer messages, (clicking on "send
later") then dial up again and send the messages off.