Major US ISP's To "Block" Usenet

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Verizon__Time_Warner_Cable__and_Sprint_To_Block_Usenet' target='_blank'>http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Veriz...To_Block_Usenet</a><br /><br /></div><em>&quot;New York&rsquo;s Attorney General has just launched a blacklist-based initiative to quell undesirable Internet content. Child pornography is the target, although like all blacklists there will be a large number of blocked innocents and civilian casualties. An undercover investigation by the Attorney General&rsquo;s office uncovered a major source of online child pornography known as &ldquo;Newsgroups,&rdquo; an online service not associated with websites. The Newsgroups act as online public bulletin boards where users can upload and download files. Users access Newsgroups through their Internet Service Providers. According to a report by Declan McCullagh, Sprint will be blocking the entire alt. hierarchy of Usenet, while good old Time Warner Cable has no time for such fussiness and will just stop offering all Usenet access. Verizon, the third participating ISP, has not yet announced its blocking plans.&quot;</em><br /><br />If this were the late '90s, I'd be up in arms about this - me being Canadian not withstanding - but I haven't used Usenet in years...at least, not a mirrored version of Usenet since my ISP (Shaw) stopped offering a direct feed a while back. I use Microsoft's newsgroups now and then, and definitely prefer NNTP as a method of accessing some other groups I'm involved with, but the &quot;real&quot; Usenet? Not so much. That's the catch with this story you see: the ISPs aren't really <em>blocking</em> Usenet access, some of them are simply not going to offer it directly any more (some are going to block portions of Usenet but keep offering the rest). If the customer wants Usenet, they can purchase service via a third party (such as <a href="http://www.giganews.com/" target="_blank">Giganews</a>). It's been so long since I've been truly active on Usenet I don't have a sense of how this will impact users. Is Usenet just a haven for child porn and content piracy? Or are real people using it to exchange information the way they were in the '90s? Share your thoughts.

[whydidnt]

I haven't used Usenet for years, but I used to use it extensively. Prior to sites such as PPCT and their user forums it was the best place for geeks to to talk tech. When I was building PC's, it was the first place to go when needing technical help with a specific motherboard, video card, etc. I actually bought my first laptop off of someone on Usenet, pre-eBay days. Talk about having to trust a stranger!

I'm sure the usage of these bulletin boards has changed over time, but I think it's a very slippery slope when you start allowing Government Agencies to tell ISPs to block specific sites or areas of the Internet. How about these agencies tracking down those people that are actually performing illegal acts? Today, it's Usenet, but perhaps tomorrow it's a website that supports the AG's political foes. It's easy to say that there is a difference, but when the government gives the ISP a long list of sites to block, who decides what's illegal and what isn't, and what's to stop them from "accidentally" blocking legitimate/opposing sites?

[txa1265]

I wish I knew ... I was late to the web forum party because I was an early adopter and late leaver of USENET. Heck, that is where I know many of the names here from! But it has probably been 4 or so years since I made the switch completely. I checked back a year or so ago and we still have access, but the groups are full of spammers and not much else.

[flooder]

I'll admit I still use Usenet. But I will also admit that I doubt it servers any real legitimate service anymore. On the text side, forums and blogs have all that information in an easier to read form.

I haven't had my nym email account running in a long time and doubt I could get working anymore, although I still have a couple pgp keys laying around somewhere.

On the bin side, I am sure that nothing is legal. I have limited my use to mainly TV shows that we missed or the DVR messed up on, or stuff we want from the BBC and are too impatient to wait for the shows to reach the US Market.

[txa1265]

On the text side, forums and blogs have all that information in an easier to read form.

I disagree - and that was what took me so long to leave USENET. I mean, I have interests in statistics, computer games, PDA's, music, and so on. On usenet I could have a single reader pull the articles for a couple of dozen groups and be happy. On the web, I have nearly a couple dozen forums I hit on at least a weekly basis - each of which with several sub-forums ... it is a much larger time sink. Then there is RSS ... I think it is all much less efficient, really. (actually, RSS reading is a boon compared to having to visit main pages for so many sites on a regular basis.

[paschott]

I have to admit that I still use USENET for quite a bit. I keep track of several hobbies this way and some "mailing lists" are mirrored or have gateways linking to USENET groups. Those are much easier for me to track than trying to keep up with individual e-mails that don't matter much to me or digests where I need to parse information. They don't have a web site for the details and the USENET archives for the portion I track is pretty extensive on most servers (text only).

I switched most of my reading to a paid service, though. Just more reliable.

As for whether it's a haven for kiddie files, I really couldn't say. I think that shutting down one avenue like this just opens others and I really think this is just a financial move on their parts.

[jeffd]

I use newsgroups alot for binary means. I used to live by it many years ago before BT as my main source of anime fansubs. It was usually the main way as it was the only form of distributed file sharing back then. With the decline of GOOD ISP (ie free) newsgroups however, its accessibility to the common man has dropped significantly. Also now that creating message boards are the easiest thing you can do, there is less of a desire to even create specialty news servers that carry specific chat groups that are open to the public. I also have to admit that when ive wanted to find information on something, or reviews on games or hardware, Newsgroups rarly turned up any help.

That said, I am signed up to a premium service called easynews. for $10 a month I get 20 rollover gigs of download. They definitely specialize in the binary (movies, music, ::coughgamescough::) side of usenet (newsgroups) as its main attraction is its web based interface where you can SEARCH and download all the files on usenet without the hastle of decoding it yourself. Considering all the image, movie, and music news groups (There are full thumbnails for both pics and movies), its actually by far the best way today to download this type of material. Saddly if easynews even tried and itunes like venture, it would fail because the riaa and mpaa are the biggest bunch of retards in the world.

Anyways, easynews is on of the more expensive premium services, but they offer excellent download speeds, a fantastic web only interface, and hold files from 50-100 days (most ISP news servers only hold for 2 days). The only thing I really wish they would implement is a way to read and post to discussion groups (the ones you actually chat in, vs the binary ones) through the web interface. You still need to use a newsreader to access those, and frankly newsreader development has all but ceased.

To get back to the article, I can understand where the flack is coming from. I think a couple years ago, easynews REMOVED a couple newsgroups that were indeed used to traffic child porn. It was actually a big issue because easynews prides itself on not censoring any newsgroups. However their policies have actually been against CP, although they clearly don't have the man power to manually filter it. What was actually ironic, when they removed the newsgroups from their system the FBI actually requested they bring them back as apparently they had success in tracking people down in it, although it didn't happen.

well this post is to long, but yea currently newsgroups are still being used heavily, although much like Bittorrent, not always for "legit" things. ;)

[follick]

If you want to take a peek at the current state of Usenet you can use a rather exotic :rolleyes: website called "google"

specifically at http://groups.google.com/