USENET rises again?(theregister.com)
theregister.com
USENET rises again?
https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/30/usenet_revival/
232 comments
The spam is the biggest issue. We never solved it there, and it's only being controlled on usenet's imitators through tight control, which is not a feature of usenet.
One setup I could see working is a pubkey setup where anyone who posts, always encrypts with their private key, and anyone you want to hear from, you add their public key to your list of keys you decrypt to read.
Aggregators can occupy public keys as their "address" and any aggregator that gets obnoxious, you just trim it from your list, which only contains things you've either let in or accepted via slates or whitelists.
Then the spammers can do whatever they like, really.
I believe the main reason usenet faded so thoroughly was that it became a piracy distribution platform very early on (not sure which came first, the pirate booty or the porn booty, but I'm guessing porn), and very quickly there came a kind of unspoken "don't talk about usenet" code among those who already knew about it. At the time, Napster and bittorrent were the main targets of the authorities and IP trolls and usenet was just doing a Jim-From-The-Office-smirking-through-the-blinds.
One setup I could see working is a pubkey setup where anyone who posts, always encrypts with their private key, and anyone you want to hear from, you add their public key to your list of keys you decrypt to read.
Aggregators can occupy public keys as their "address" and any aggregator that gets obnoxious, you just trim it from your list, which only contains things you've either let in or accepted via slates or whitelists.
Then the spammers can do whatever they like, really.
I believe the main reason usenet faded so thoroughly was that it became a piracy distribution platform very early on (not sure which came first, the pirate booty or the porn booty, but I'm guessing porn), and very quickly there came a kind of unspoken "don't talk about usenet" code among those who already knew about it. At the time, Napster and bittorrent were the main targets of the authorities and IP trolls and usenet was just doing a Jim-From-The-Office-smirking-through-the-blinds.
> I believe the main reason usenet faded
I believe it was due to AOL and CompuServe forums, which were most importantly, new, novel, friendly and easy. Technical people were "above" AOL and so those Usenet communities survived a few more years, but ultimately succumbed to web forums which were superior to Usenet in almost every way.
Unfortunately, web forums were mostly hollowed out due to social media, and now that people are sick and tired of that, the simplicity and "innocence" of early 2000's forums, and even 90s Usenet, seems appealing (although tinted by rose-colored nostalgic glasses).
I believe it was due to AOL and CompuServe forums, which were most importantly, new, novel, friendly and easy. Technical people were "above" AOL and so those Usenet communities survived a few more years, but ultimately succumbed to web forums which were superior to Usenet in almost every way.
Unfortunately, web forums were mostly hollowed out due to social media, and now that people are sick and tired of that, the simplicity and "innocence" of early 2000's forums, and even 90s Usenet, seems appealing (although tinted by rose-colored nostalgic glasses).
Just my opinion but I can't think of a single way in which I found web forums of the early 2000s to be superior to usenet.
Discoverability? A novice could type something into Web Crawler and get a forum back as a search result. Then they could click the link and begin reading and participating immediately. Was Usenet ever that easy?
Even easier, no web search needed. All you needed to do was search the group list for relevant terms. All the Usenet clients supported searching the group list. Then you just tick the checkbox and the articles were downloaded.
Much much easier than using a search engine, scrolling through the results which were half ads even in those days, and trying out the 12 different forums you finally found which were even active...
Much much easier than using a search engine, scrolling through the results which were half ads even in those days, and trying out the 12 different forums you finally found which were even active...
> All you needed to do was search the group list for relevant terms. All the Usenet clients supported searching the group list
- Group list
- Usenet client
Most people had no clue what that stuff was.
- Group list
- Usenet client
Most people had no clue what that stuff was.
That’s another reason why Usenet was better. There was an IQ test to see if you were above 90 just to get going with it.
And Usenet died, to no small degree, because it was heavily populated by snobs.
It never died, it reach a low point of participation about a decade ago, and has slowly been gaining steam again ever since. Some portions of Usenet have always stayed active even through the tough times. As social media dies due to various reasons, people are coming back. Have been for years.
> It never died
interesting, given that all your references to it are in the past tense
interesting, given that all your references to it are in the past tense
GP of the reply chain was referring to how at a point in the past Usenet was allegedly more difficult to access. That's why some of my responses were in the past tense - I was disagreeing about how, back then, it was more difficult to access. Hence the use of the past tense. All in perfectly proper English.
Exactly. When I got access for the first time in the early 90s it took me a few days to wrap my mind around it but after that I never had trouble finding groups of interest. Tools like search, built in group name searches, etc made it easy
...and about 2% of the population thinks Linux is an awesome OS, easy to use, loves the command line, prefers "grep" to clicking on a search box. Fortunately using an OS doesn't really depend on the participation of others, but a discussion forum that is widely viewed as inferior to some other option quickly succumbs to Metcalfe's law and empties out.
Your opinion is, of course, valid, but you do recognize that it's shared by only a small minority, right?
Sure, but they made it as a statement of fact. As opposed to myself who pointed out it was an opinion.
Don’t know about superior but they were definitely an evolution of the concept and were more decentralized p
Yah no idea what they talking about me
>...always encrypts with their private key, and anyone you want to hear from, you add their public key to your list of keys you decrypt to read.
I think you mean that posters would sign with their private keys and you would have a list of public keys that you would verify the signature against.
That, incidentally, is also a valid approach to email spam...
I think you mean that posters would sign with their private keys and you would have a list of public keys that you would verify the signature against.
That, incidentally, is also a valid approach to email spam...
> One setup I could see working is a pubkey setup where anyone who posts, always encrypts with their private key, and anyone you want to hear from, you add their public key to your list of keys you decrypt to read.
The most important thing that web forums like this one enable is interaction between people who don't know each other.
The most important thing that web forums like this one enable is interaction between people who don't know each other.
People could auto-trust those who have been trusted by those they trust; this could have a user setting deciding how many degrees of separation they are willing to trust. Everybody's public key (ie. the ability to read their signed posts) is public, it's a question of which ones you choose to read.
There are many ways to skin this cat, but every one that's gonna work involves cooperation, rather than adversarial control.
There are many ways to skin this cat, but every one that's gonna work involves cooperation, rather than adversarial control.
It still does that.
Didn't a lot of servers just stop carrying the binaries newsgroups, or never bothered carrying them in the first place? Even without considering piracy, binaries tended to place a burden on the server provider since the messages tended to be much larger. (Even a small image/program in the 10's of kB would be larger than a heavily quoted message.
Yes, and so these days there are paid-subscription NNTP providers that sync the alt.binaries groups. Presumably all the pirates (both the uploaders, and the pure leechers) are using such providers.
shhhhh
Usenet faded because ISPs all conspired to drop it, en masse, in the early 2000's. Used to be every ISP from Comcast down to the mom and pops had Usenet. Now it's not just uncommon, it's nearly impossible to find any ISP that has their own Usenet feed. And yes the excuse given to drop it was piracy.
In Germany basically all ISPs never provided the binary groups, so piracy was never an issue. There also was no conspiracy to shut down the servers because of that.
And yet the German groups started a slow but steady decline after their peak in 2001: http://usenet.dex.de/de.ALL.html
I was active in the German Usenet back then and still remember that between around 2001 and 2005 the spammers and trolls took over and destoyed one group after another until they were completely unusable. I also mostly quit around maybe 2005.
So I highly doubt that Usenet would have continued to work if ISPs had just continued support it. Usenet only worked as long as everyboy was nice to each other, it would never work today without much better moderation protocols and tools.
And yet the German groups started a slow but steady decline after their peak in 2001: http://usenet.dex.de/de.ALL.html
I was active in the German Usenet back then and still remember that between around 2001 and 2005 the spammers and trolls took over and destoyed one group after another until they were completely unusable. I also mostly quit around maybe 2005.
So I highly doubt that Usenet would have continued to work if ISPs had just continued support it. Usenet only worked as long as everyboy was nice to each other, it would never work today without much better moderation protocols and tools.
It was expensive. I ran an ISP on the mid 90s, and it took up an expensive server and a disproportionate amount of my time to ensure we had good enough feeds for people to be happy, and so the moment demand was dropping it was very high on the list of things to get rid of.
Had peering been more on demand, rather than a firehouse, maybe people would have kept them longer.
I for a while worked on an aggressively caching NNTP server as an option because of the costs involved.
Had peering been more on demand, rather than a firehouse, maybe people would have kept them longer.
I for a while worked on an aggressively caching NNTP server as an option because of the costs involved.
Yeah, people forget just how expensive both bandwidth and storage were in the late 1990s.
YouTube appeared in 2005 and was losing VAST amounts of money before Google bought them out. So, even in 2005, Usenet probably was still too expensive.
YouTube appeared in 2005 and was losing VAST amounts of money before Google bought them out. So, even in 2005, Usenet probably was still too expensive.
Usenet faded because the UX was terrible. It was common in the early 90s because it predates the world wide web, and most people back then were highly technical and could deal with the warts.
Everything moved to the web, and Usenet clients were hit or miss. Neither Windows nor Mac came packaged with a client for it, so it certainly wasn't easily discoverable for people who joined the internet later. They probably never even knew it existed.
ISPs became client-less after broadband became widespread. ISPs didn't want to write or provide software, they just wanted to provide data over basic cable/DSL. Even AOL instant messenger eventually faded, as it never really adapted itself to a non desktop centric web.
Everything moved to the web, and Usenet clients were hit or miss. Neither Windows nor Mac came packaged with a client for it, so it certainly wasn't easily discoverable for people who joined the internet later. They probably never even knew it existed.
ISPs became client-less after broadband became widespread. ISPs didn't want to write or provide software, they just wanted to provide data over basic cable/DSL. Even AOL instant messenger eventually faded, as it never really adapted itself to a non desktop centric web.
Gnus was a joy to use. Never has an application fitted me better.
Spam was the issue – there were extensions and initiatives to combat it, but it was a losing battle. It was a major cultural loss – Reddit can at its best approach it, but not replace what existed in the early nineties.
Spam was the issue – there were extensions and initiatives to combat it, but it was a losing battle. It was a major cultural loss – Reddit can at its best approach it, but not replace what existed in the early nineties.
For years, Google Groups supported Usenet access.
Usenet faded because it wasn't monetizable, outside of subscription based binary providers (who were in large part turning around and pumping that money into the legal defense funds, because they were primarily servicing the swashbuckling community).
The platforms that are actively used are codependent. They demand you use them. They send you emails when you haven't logged in in awhile. They foment opposition just to keep you engaged, so you'll view their ads.
Usenet, on the other hand, lets you use it, if you feel like it, assuming you know where to look.
The only sort of people who would use Usenet would be those that make decisions for themselves, rather than doing what the marketers tell them. It never stood a chance against this sort of opposition.
Usenet faded because it wasn't monetizable, outside of subscription based binary providers (who were in large part turning around and pumping that money into the legal defense funds, because they were primarily servicing the swashbuckling community).
The platforms that are actively used are codependent. They demand you use them. They send you emails when you haven't logged in in awhile. They foment opposition just to keep you engaged, so you'll view their ads.
Usenet, on the other hand, lets you use it, if you feel like it, assuming you know where to look.
The only sort of people who would use Usenet would be those that make decisions for themselves, rather than doing what the marketers tell them. It never stood a chance against this sort of opposition.
I've never had an experience as smooth and easy as usenet on Free Agent as the gui client. Everything else, forums, socials, etc, contain a subset of the features in that setup.
Usenet doesn't have a UX by itself, it's a protocol. The user experience is entirely dictated by the software used to access it. And Outlook supported Usenet all the way from the word go. Macs didn't even come with any email clients back in those times, but popular ones supported Usenet and there were also Usenet-exclusive programs available.
I think it was Outlook Express rather than Outlook that supported NNTP. The early version of OE was even called "Internet Mail and News" or something like that.
I've been using Outlook since 1997 and this is the first time I heard that Outlook supported Usenet. This is what I mean, even if it was theoretically supported, it wasn't discoverable. If you knew what to connect to and how to wire up Outlook, sure, you could get it going.
But let's take something else from the same era and provide a comparison for the average user: yahoo.com. You typed it into the browser, and you were instantly presented with several hundred interesting links. No config necessary, just click and go. The UX needed to be that simple.
Actually discovering good channels on Usenet took time and investment. As opposed to Reddit, for example, which used upvotes and decay based algorithms (also, see HN) to make fresh subreddits discoverable on the main feed.
But let's take something else from the same era and provide a comparison for the average user: yahoo.com. You typed it into the browser, and you were instantly presented with several hundred interesting links. No config necessary, just click and go. The UX needed to be that simple.
Actually discovering good channels on Usenet took time and investment. As opposed to Reddit, for example, which used upvotes and decay based algorithms (also, see HN) to make fresh subreddits discoverable on the main feed.
Outlook express supported Usenet, but Outlook did not.
That’s why I had to retire my company’s internal NNTP setup - because at some point, too many users were just using it through the web and email gateway that it was cumbersome and made no senses to keep it running.
That’s why I had to retire my company’s internal NNTP setup - because at some point, too many users were just using it through the web and email gateway that it was cumbersome and made no senses to keep it running.
Today, we could all run our own NNTP servers. The traffic on most newsgroups (excluding binaries) would be a trickle compared to the average broadband connection.
I ran my own news server in the 90's, receiving about a dozen groups over dialup with a UUCP feed.
I ran my own news server in the 90's, receiving about a dozen groups over dialup with a UUCP feed.
I assume they dropped it because they couldn't monetize it, i.e. spam you with personalized ads and the like. Probably the same reason why RSS News feeds were dropped.
I carried Usenet in 2000 and dropped soon after because the volume was huge amounts of binaries and nobody used it. No conspiracy necessary.
I have a few people in my killfile so that I don't see messages from them but don't get much spam in the comp.* groups that I read.
The threading and only seeing new messages is a lot better in my Usenet client than any web forum that I use, including this one.
The threading and only seeing new messages is a lot better in my Usenet client than any web forum that I use, including this one.
The threading and only seeing new messages is a lot better in my Usenet client than any web forum that I use, including this one.
Yep. The Usenet experience is nice. The only thing that really got me out of the habit of participating frequently was a combination of two factors:
1. My ISP quit providing NNTP access by default
2. So many other people moved off, that a lot of the groups became nothing but CfP's, spam, and maybe 1 actual interesting post per year.
But in the spirit of "be the change you want in the world" I guess I'll bit the bullet and sign up for a Usenet account somewhere, or stand up my own server and look into what it would take to get peering setup.
Yep. The Usenet experience is nice. The only thing that really got me out of the habit of participating frequently was a combination of two factors:
1. My ISP quit providing NNTP access by default
2. So many other people moved off, that a lot of the groups became nothing but CfP's, spam, and maybe 1 actual interesting post per year.
But in the spirit of "be the change you want in the world" I guess I'll bit the bullet and sign up for a Usenet account somewhere, or stand up my own server and look into what it would take to get peering setup.
> The threading and only seeing new messages is a lot better in my Usenet client than any web forum that I use, including this one.
Indeed! This is the other less-spoken flaw of walled-garden communication apps. Since they are proprietary, you're stuck with the very limited functionality the company has decided to implement (and it's always very limited).
With open protocols such as SMTP and NNTP, there's no limit to how feature rich the clients (plural, since there can be many clients attuned to different tastes) can be. And you can always pipe things to a shell for an infinitely extensible set of capabilities.
I find all the proprietary communication apps so frustrating, knowing that my email and usenet clients even back in the 80s had tons of more functionality and flexibility.
Indeed! This is the other less-spoken flaw of walled-garden communication apps. Since they are proprietary, you're stuck with the very limited functionality the company has decided to implement (and it's always very limited).
With open protocols such as SMTP and NNTP, there's no limit to how feature rich the clients (plural, since there can be many clients attuned to different tastes) can be. And you can always pipe things to a shell for an infinitely extensible set of capabilities.
I find all the proprietary communication apps so frustrating, knowing that my email and usenet clients even back in the 80s had tons of more functionality and flexibility.
"Including this one" is a good example, for how the rules of how content is selected for presentation define the medium. Even with exactly the same people, exactly the same dang occasionally nudging people this way or that way, this place would be an entirely different if the effective feed composition wasn't the one it is. So much of the identity of these online communities is an emergent consequence of the mechanisms employed.
i notice that a forum for a productive effort gets much less useful if there is a "general" sub form. It seems to ruin organization permanently.
One could in stead have a "i don't know where to put this" section that forces the mod to move or delete it.
One could in stead have a "i don't know where to put this" section that forces the mod to move or delete it.
Then on the other hand, I know of some off topic situations that I consider very valuable, because any forum set up specifically for the topic in question would draw a very different audience.
> sign up for a free Usenet provider
Sorry, but you make it sound like there are many. That allow posting, and free, I think I only know one.
Sorry, but you make it sound like there are many. That allow posting, and free, I think I only know one.
> Subject: Free News Servers Listing
Web interfaces:
https://www.rocksolidbbs.com/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=8...
https://www.novabbs.com/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=715&gr...
Check the alternative hierarchies and connection options while you're at it.
The difference, I suppose, is that Google Groups are run by autopilot with nobody in the cockpit, Eternal September doesn't ask the average user too many questions (it is as accepting as its name suggests), but those small server admins will ask you questions if you start posting crap, and will delete it, and ban the account.
Web interfaces:
https://www.rocksolidbbs.com/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=8...
https://www.novabbs.com/rocksolid/article-flat.php?id=715&gr...
Check the alternative hierarchies and connection options while you're at it.
The difference, I suppose, is that Google Groups are run by autopilot with nobody in the cockpit, Eternal September doesn't ask the average user too many questions (it is as accepting as its name suggests), but those small server admins will ask you questions if you start posting crap, and will delete it, and ban the account.
https://sdf.org/?faq?USENET?03
Not free, but a few dollars for ARPA membership for life is good.
Not free, but a few dollars for ARPA membership for life is good.
I'm on sdf-eu. Not sure SDF has external groups anymore, they may do. Just double check because the website has had outdated info before.
AFAIK the best options are https://www.eternal-september.org/ and https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com/ (read only though).
AFAIK the best options are https://www.eternal-september.org/ and https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com/ (read only though).
Sorry, but you make it sound like there are many. That allow posting, and free, I think I only know one.
It's been a while since I looked. I could have sworn there were at least a handful, but either A. I might be mis-remembering or B. the landscape might have changed since I checked last.
That said, there seem to be quite few who offer cheap if not actually free access. And by "cheap" I mean, on the order of $10.00 (USD) / month or less.
It's been a while since I looked. I could have sworn there were at least a handful, but either A. I might be mis-remembering or B. the landscape might have changed since I checked last.
That said, there seem to be quite few who offer cheap if not actually free access. And by "cheap" I mean, on the order of $10.00 (USD) / month or less.
I don't think 10USD/month for access to a forum is anywhere near cheap or even reasonable, no matter how big it is. I can't imagine anyone paying that for non-warez Usenet access.
That pricing is definitely targeted at users who use usenet to trade binary files.
If you do not care about binary files then use https://www.eternal-september.org, it's free.
If you do not care about binary files then use https://www.eternal-september.org, it's free.
Get a provider with a block account... 1GB will last forever on text-groups, and block accounts usually go for 10-1000GB for a few bucks
In the last few years some Usenet providers are closed their doors. Aioe.org was pretty popular and known, disappeared this year. One of few ISP-s still offering Usenet access for clients, Finnish Elisa, closed their usenet server 2021.
Russian neva.ru was sadly closed (probably forced by goverment) 2021 (I group it with free servers, because it had read-only access open for everyone and some point allowed posting). Albasani.net disappeared 2020.
Some free servers are still around, but don't offer public accounts. Few places give account, if you ask. Eternal September is strongest-biggest still running and free service. Mixmin allows anonymous posting, but sometimes restricts it to fight with abuse. Google still relays groups to Usenet, though they have their own thing going and some servers are blocking posts from google.
Some free servers are still around, but don't offer public accounts. Few places give account, if you ask. Eternal September is strongest-biggest still running and free service. Mixmin allows anonymous posting, but sometimes restricts it to fight with abuse. Google still relays groups to Usenet, though they have their own thing going and some servers are blocking posts from google.
That seems rather expensive given the service being provided, i.e. read-write access to a text-only discussion board. Where's all the cost going?
Most paid services have binary feeds.
Those few, who offer text-only groups don't have big enough client base to make service cheap.
The thing you want exists. It's called the Fediverse. Don't like the politics? You wouldn't have liked Usenet in its heyday either.
The thing you want exists. It's called the Fediverse.
For the most part, when people talk about "The Fediverse" they mean ActivityPub based sites. You could argue the point, since NNTP is "federated" as well, and one could certainly conceive of federating between the NNTP space and the ActivityPub space.
I'm a Fediverse user, fan, and advocate ([email protected]), but I specifically mentioned Usenet, because the "thing I want" in this context is, in fact, Usenet. Now if somebody wants to do the work to rebuild the Usenet hierarchy on top of the "wild west" that is the litany of servers on the Fediverse, build client support into Thunderbird, etc., then sure... that could probably turn into something interesting.
You wouldn't have liked Usenet in its heyday
Please don't presume to tell me what I would or wouldn't like. That's incredibly disrespectful. And in point of fact, I did like Usenet in its heyday.
For the most part, when people talk about "The Fediverse" they mean ActivityPub based sites. You could argue the point, since NNTP is "federated" as well, and one could certainly conceive of federating between the NNTP space and the ActivityPub space.
I'm a Fediverse user, fan, and advocate ([email protected]), but I specifically mentioned Usenet, because the "thing I want" in this context is, in fact, Usenet. Now if somebody wants to do the work to rebuild the Usenet hierarchy on top of the "wild west" that is the litany of servers on the Fediverse, build client support into Thunderbird, etc., then sure... that could probably turn into something interesting.
You wouldn't have liked Usenet in its heyday
Please don't presume to tell me what I would or wouldn't like. That's incredibly disrespectful. And in point of fact, I did like Usenet in its heyday.
It's been a while but I don't recall a ton of politics on the usenet groups I used to participate in (mostly tech subjects). Of course there were groups for politics, and sometimes a thread would go off on a tangent, but the nice thing about usenet is it was easy to killfile people or threads that you didn't want to read anymore.
When I used it it seemed like it was mostly real names (.edu accounts) at least on the groups I read, so maybe that kept people in check a bit. Though that would have been easy to spoof I'm sure.
My department also had some local groups that did not propagate. So it must be possible to stand up your own NNTP server and have groups for your local users that are at least in that sense "private"
When I used it it seemed like it was mostly real names (.edu accounts) at least on the groups I read, so maybe that kept people in check a bit. Though that would have been easy to spoof I'm sure.
My department also had some local groups that did not propagate. So it must be possible to stand up your own NNTP server and have groups for your local users that are at least in that sense "private"
Usenet was sorted by topic. Same people stick to the required topic in different forums.In the fediverse, you follow people, and therefore can't control very well what people post about. I follow some people because I am interested in technical topics, but I end muting some of those because some are very political, and I am not interested in some of these topics.
I don't think the Usenet model can be replicated on top of Fediverse. Not everyone sees instances as a topic thing (I host my own instance).
I don't think the Usenet model can be replicated on top of Fediverse. Not everyone sees instances as a topic thing (I host my own instance).
Lemmy is also built on ActivityPub as part of the Fediverse and is arranged into topics (called communities). E.g. you can follow [email protected] (or web interface https://lemmy.sdf.org/c/retrocomputing) and only see retrocomputing posts.
Since it's all ActivityPub, you can follow Lemmy communities from a Mastodon client but the UX in that case is pretty bad (e.g. Mastodon servers won't backfill posts so you won't see any history).
Since it's all ActivityPub, you can follow Lemmy communities from a Mastodon client but the UX in that case is pretty bad (e.g. Mastodon servers won't backfill posts so you won't see any history).
Hm. Wonder if any newsreaders could "follow" a person, regardless of the group he posted in. I don't recall that feature existing in rn or trn.
The user was talking about internal group politics/drama. Not national electoral politics.
I’ve been very happy on the Fediverse (mastodon) since I took the plunge a few months ago. This is what the “early” internet at its best must have felt like. Real humans, technical discussions, random finds (painting!), sorted by created at desc.
Same. It's a bit "random" though. Maybe because the Mastodon world has generally resisted having good global search. And even though certain instances have broad topics (like sigmoid.social for AI/ML, or fosstodon.org for F/OSS) a feed tends to quickly fill up with plenty of random stuff.
With Usenet, if you join, say, comp.ai, you know that (spam aside) you're just getting AI stuff. Same for comp.linux, comp.lang.c++, or whatever. There's something to be said for the topic hierarchy there.
I see a place for both ActivityPub and Usenet, personally. Although, again, acknowledging that somebody could probably in principle build the Usenet style experience on top of ActivityPub. But as far as I know, that part doesn't exist today. If it does, somebody please let me know.
With Usenet, if you join, say, comp.ai, you know that (spam aside) you're just getting AI stuff. Same for comp.linux, comp.lang.c++, or whatever. There's something to be said for the topic hierarchy there.
I see a place for both ActivityPub and Usenet, personally. Although, again, acknowledging that somebody could probably in principle build the Usenet style experience on top of ActivityPub. But as far as I know, that part doesn't exist today. If it does, somebody please let me know.
For forums over ActivityPub, there's Lemmy.
It's not really like usenet, if only because of the character limits. This really changes the nature of the discussion.
Yes, having images available within mastodon is nice - that was always clunky with usenet.
Yes, having images available within mastodon is nice - that was always clunky with usenet.
I’m on infosec.exchange, our limit is 11000 chars. That’s more than enough.
My understanding is that "typical" Mastodon/ActivityPub instances limit you to on the order of 500. Certainly true for Fosstodon.
> sorted by created at desc
Interestingly, this seems to be amongst the most controversial aspects; some people _hate_ it.
Personally, I was only quite dimly aware that Twitter had an algorithm now, like a common Facebook; until Musk ruined it I generally only really used Twitter via Tweetbot, so was getting a time-based feed anyway. So Mastodon was just what I was used to anyway. But more people than I expected actually liked the Twitter algorithm, and couldn't cope with Mastodon's lack of magic ML stuff at all.
Interestingly, this seems to be amongst the most controversial aspects; some people _hate_ it.
Personally, I was only quite dimly aware that Twitter had an algorithm now, like a common Facebook; until Musk ruined it I generally only really used Twitter via Tweetbot, so was getting a time-based feed anyway. So Mastodon was just what I was used to anyway. But more people than I expected actually liked the Twitter algorithm, and couldn't cope with Mastodon's lack of magic ML stuff at all.
Literally perplexed at that statement. That was the only place for solid community, damn good information, and endless free file downloads in it's heyday. The barriers that made people drop it actually make it more attractive these days since the masses will never show up.
I think you're coating your memory with a thick blanket of woke. I was also around in its heyday and the trolls were in full effect, and had already learned how to make women's lives hell.
There's a newsgroup still extant which is named after a woman who spoke up about the CSAM problem on our local university's server (I stumbled across it myself once, there was some nasty fucking shit going through there). The users of these groups did not take kindly to people messing with their access to pictures of children being sexually abused. Not naming her or the newsgroup because I'm sure she's long since gotten it in her rear view mirror.
There's a newsgroup still extant which is named after a woman who spoke up about the CSAM problem on our local university's server (I stumbled across it myself once, there was some nasty fucking shit going through there). The users of these groups did not take kindly to people messing with their access to pictures of children being sexually abused. Not naming her or the newsgroup because I'm sure she's long since gotten it in her rear view mirror.
The organization of Fediverse is different, and availability of historical discussions is spotty.
Also, some quirky usenet groups aren't available elsewhere, such as alt.binaries.*
Also, some quirky usenet groups aren't available elsewhere, such as alt.binaries.*
Most Usenet servers had strict retention limits; there was no expectation of availability of historical discussions.
> Don't like the politics? You wouldn't have liked Usenet in its heyday either.
Or just join an instance that is not explicitly political. You don't have to be on beehaw or hachyderm.
Or just join an instance that is not explicitly political. You don't have to be on beehaw or hachyderm.
sign up for a free Usenet provider
Any suggestions?
Any suggestions?
Just a warning: Eternal September's administrator doesn't give a damn about trolls and spammers posting through that server; every single complaint I filed went 100% ignored.
It's worse than that. They won't even take action against harassment of moderators, including their users that repeatedly submit obviously rejectable articles to moderated newsgroups, then reply with verbal abuse and profanity when rejected. The eternal-september admins tell moderation teams that it is their responsibility to deal with these users, not them. Our moderated newsgroup dealt with one of their users (lawfully, of course). No surprise that the individual had an anonymous identity that was a synonym for the devil.
The registration system seems to be borked. Any others?
It worked for me, but I had to disable adblockers.
The free "10 GB" trial accounts available from usenet binaries providers can serve as a text only read/posting account for years. Like with usenet.farm
The free account on usenet.farm does not allow posting.
Ah geez. You're right. Thanks. I set up one for a back-up for when eternal-september is down but never tried actually posting on it.
> since I'm not sure what the state of spam being sent to the various Usenet groups is
Isn't this why some groups were moderated?
Isn't this why some groups were moderated?
Is there a free provider you’d recommend?
Eternal September, mentioned in the article, is good.
Another that I know of is https://solani.org/ .
No, see above: it's been a while since I looked at the usenet landscape. TBH, I'm tempted to set up my own, but I'm not sure I have the time/energy/money to deal with the peering stuff. But never say never...
I'm surprised nobody made fun of you with the typical ageist-conformist fashion nonsense that permeates tech discussion these days
Am I missing the "rises again like a Phoenix" part? This article is just a brief description of what Usenet is, for people under 45 years of age. There's nothing in here about Usenet usage being on the rise, or anything like that.
This article talks about Google Groups in the present tense, even though its Usenet hosting permanently ceased around 8 years ago.
This article talks about Google Groups in the present tense, even though its Usenet hosting permanently ceased around 8 years ago.
The Big-8 Board was re-established, or if you like, it rose from the ashes like a Phoenix. (The Phoenix story is about one bird coming back to life; there's nothing about an increase in the size of some group.)
Where is that hosted?
Some parts of Google's bi-directional gateway are still up. These look current relative to the NNTP Usenet:
https://groups.google.com/g/de.soc.recht.steuern+buchfuehrun... https://groups.google.com/g/de.soc.recht.misc
(The second group even has some recent spam in it, which is rare nowadays.)
https://groups.google.com/g/de.soc.recht.steuern+buchfuehrun... https://groups.google.com/g/de.soc.recht.misc
(The second group even has some recent spam in it, which is rare nowadays.)
The board is active again and new newsgroups have been created for the first time in years (decades?).
That's the rising again part.
That's the rising again part.
> "and now that there's an active board again, it has been busy."
Clickbait from that site? No couldn’t be…
I know tons and tons of nerds with extreme technical hobbies. None of them have ever talked to me about still using Usenet. The only place I hear about it is for Seedbox stuff.
I know tons and tons of nerds with extreme technical hobbies. None of them have ever talked to me about still using Usenet. The only place I hear about it is for Seedbox stuff.
I wrote the article. (I did not write the headline.)
The crux of the article is that the Big-8 board has reconvened and is active again; I spent a paragraph or two on that. That's what is back, and that is what the headline is about.
Google Groups is still current and comparing a couple of groups to my Eternal September feeds, they are in sync, so I call [[citation needed]] on that. If you can't back it up, I think it's disinformation you've picked up somewhere.
The crux of the article is that the Big-8 board has reconvened and is active again; I spent a paragraph or two on that. That's what is back, and that is what the headline is about.
Google Groups is still current and comparing a couple of groups to my Eternal September feeds, they are in sync, so I call [[citation needed]] on that. If you can't back it up, I think it's disinformation you've picked up somewhere.
As a programmer of over 30 years I still have never used Usenet and the reason is the barrier to entry. There is way too much friction.
You need a paid (!) subscription to a provider, potentially a subscription to an indexer, plus client software. All of this to access what is essentially a pure text forum.
Frankly I am not interested in jumping through hoops to access something which an "average person" would have no hope in hell of figuring out. Maybe that's part of the attraction, that only dedicated geeks will use it?
You need a paid (!) subscription to a provider, potentially a subscription to an indexer, plus client software. All of this to access what is essentially a pure text forum.
Frankly I am not interested in jumping through hoops to access something which an "average person" would have no hope in hell of figuring out. Maybe that's part of the attraction, that only dedicated geeks will use it?
The article links to a free Usenet provider. I'm sure there are others also.
The purpose for a PAID Usenet provider is for hosting binaries (i.e. piracy). You're paying someone for the bandwidth, and ignore or deal with the DMCA takedown notices. There is little to no reason to have a paid Usenet account just to read or post on pure text forums, and NOT download porn or other pirated content.
That was really one of the two things that killed Usenet in the 2000's. One was the rise of phpBB forums, and then Reddit. The other was the seediness of the Usenet binaries scene. As the "legit" users migrated to web-based forums, the pirates made up a larger and larger portion of those staying behind, and eventually the network effort flowed in reverse until critical mass was lost.
I deeply miss that old Usenet culture of the 1990's. In comparison to HN and especially Reddit, Usenet was far less reverent, frumpy, and up-its-own-ass politically and socially. At the same time, it's impossible to try to recreate that on a forum today, without it breaking down into nothing but alt-right hate speech. The 1990's was a fun and quirky little period of Internet sanity, made possible only by how small and outside the mainstream the Internet still was.
The purpose for a PAID Usenet provider is for hosting binaries (i.e. piracy). You're paying someone for the bandwidth, and ignore or deal with the DMCA takedown notices. There is little to no reason to have a paid Usenet account just to read or post on pure text forums, and NOT download porn or other pirated content.
That was really one of the two things that killed Usenet in the 2000's. One was the rise of phpBB forums, and then Reddit. The other was the seediness of the Usenet binaries scene. As the "legit" users migrated to web-based forums, the pirates made up a larger and larger portion of those staying behind, and eventually the network effort flowed in reverse until critical mass was lost.
I deeply miss that old Usenet culture of the 1990's. In comparison to HN and especially Reddit, Usenet was far less reverent, frumpy, and up-its-own-ass politically and socially. At the same time, it's impossible to try to recreate that on a forum today, without it breaking down into nothing but alt-right hate speech. The 1990's was a fun and quirky little period of Internet sanity, made possible only by how small and outside the mainstream the Internet still was.
> The purpose for a PAID Usenet provider is for hosting binaries (i.e. piracy). You're paying someone for the bandwidth, and ignore or deal with the DMCA takedown notices. There is little to no reason to have a paid Usenet account just to read or post on pure text forums, and NOT download porn or other pirated content.
This may reflect the state today, but back in the late 90's and early 00's, it was not. Even for the pure text forums, you had to pay someone. In the earlier days it was included in the ISP package, so you wouldn't see the costs. Or via your university. But I distinctly remember when my university dropped USENET lots of people complained because they couldn't get free access elsewhere.
For me: I used BBS's before I used USENET. BBS groups ("conferences") were much more civil, and had much better discourse. The moderation was very effective. When I moved to USENET, it was quite chaotic by comparison. And then with the onset of spam, I went elsewhere.
This may reflect the state today, but back in the late 90's and early 00's, it was not. Even for the pure text forums, you had to pay someone. In the earlier days it was included in the ISP package, so you wouldn't see the costs. Or via your university. But I distinctly remember when my university dropped USENET lots of people complained because they couldn't get free access elsewhere.
For me: I used BBS's before I used USENET. BBS groups ("conferences") were much more civil, and had much better discourse. The moderation was very effective. When I moved to USENET, it was quite chaotic by comparison. And then with the onset of spam, I went elsewhere.
> But I distinctly remember when my university dropped USENET lots of people complained because they couldn't get free access elsewhere.
Unless they dropped it _really_ early, there was dejanews/google groups, surely?
Unless they dropped it _really_ early, there was dejanews/google groups, surely?
If you want to live those good old BBS days again - https://www.telnet.org/htm/places.htm
I played a few games of Tradewars on one of these a while ago. It sure brought back the days of being a sysop of my local BBS growing up.
I played a few games of Tradewars on one of these a while ago. It sure brought back the days of being a sysop of my local BBS growing up.
telnet cavebbs.homeip.net
Everyone is playing LORD (Legend Of the Red Dragon) there.
Everyone is playing LORD (Legend Of the Red Dragon) there.
Binaries also forced the centralization of Usenet, so that regional ISPs had no incentive to do anything but outsource it. It was unbelievably annoying to host a full-feed Usenet server in the late 1990s, and if you hosted anything less than one, people would arrange boycotts; better not to host Usenet at all.
Reddit is, I think, a better version of Usenet culture than the original.
Reddit is, I think, a better version of Usenet culture than the original.
> Reddit is, I think, a better version of Usenet culture than the original.
Reddit is slow, censored, and for-profit. How could that possibly be better than what we used to have? You still get spam, bots, and flame wars, but you also have a needless popularity contest with votes and mods.
Reddit is slow, censored, and for-profit. How could that possibly be better than what we used to have? You still get spam, bots, and flame wars, but you also have a needless popularity contest with votes and mods.
Usenet was also censored. Like Reddit, much of it was a free-for-all, but not all of it.
But also: message boards don't exist on a simple spectrum of "free" to "censored". There are lots of other considerations. I gave one downthread to someone who suggested newsreaders had a better UX than Reddit: that's taking for granted really basic things, like search, that were space alien tech on Usenet.
Another thing people who never used Usenet but idealize it are missing as a feature is "all the messages showing up for everybody", which is not nearly as straightforward a feature as Reddit and HN make it seem. This is something Mastodon users are discovering right now, and however annoying it is to run a single-user Mastodon server and deal with message threading, it was 10x worse on Usenet.
But also: message boards don't exist on a simple spectrum of "free" to "censored". There are lots of other considerations. I gave one downthread to someone who suggested newsreaders had a better UX than Reddit: that's taking for granted really basic things, like search, that were space alien tech on Usenet.
Another thing people who never used Usenet but idealize it are missing as a feature is "all the messages showing up for everybody", which is not nearly as straightforward a feature as Reddit and HN make it seem. This is something Mastodon users are discovering right now, and however annoying it is to run a single-user Mastodon server and deal with message threading, it was 10x worse on Usenet.
Usenet was definitely slow (very, very slow, even), in the sense that posts made in the US might take up to 18 hours (or whenever dial-up got "cheap") to show up in the rest of the world, or vice versa. Even posts between locally-adjacent sites might take a few hours to propagate. This may, incidentally, help to explain why discourse on Usenet was generally considered to be superior to that, say, on Twitter. But YMMV.
Also, Usenet was very much censored, in the sense that most sites would not even think about carrying most groups. In particular, alt.* and *.binaries.* would be unavailable pretty much anywhere that had "cost of bandwidth" or "reputation" concerns.
And if you repeatedly posted abusive content to any Usenet group, you can bet that your account and/or entire site would be "cancelled" from the network pretty quickly by the infamous "Usenet cabal" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backbone_cabal). Not to mention that Usenet was the entire origin for the concept of the "killfile".
Finally, the most popular Usenet hubs (say, UUnet) were very much for-profit...
Also, Usenet was very much censored, in the sense that most sites would not even think about carrying most groups. In particular, alt.* and *.binaries.* would be unavailable pretty much anywhere that had "cost of bandwidth" or "reputation" concerns.
And if you repeatedly posted abusive content to any Usenet group, you can bet that your account and/or entire site would be "cancelled" from the network pretty quickly by the infamous "Usenet cabal" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backbone_cabal). Not to mention that Usenet was the entire origin for the concept of the "killfile".
Finally, the most popular Usenet hubs (say, UUnet) were very much for-profit...
When Australia joined Usenet in 1983, connections were via airmailed data tapes, updated weekly:
<http://article.olduse.net/[email protected]>
This would mean that part of the bang path for Bob Kummerfeld's email address was in fact a 747: "!sdchema!sydney!bob"
<http://article.olduse.net/[email protected]>
This would mean that part of the bang path for Bob Kummerfeld's email address was in fact a 747: "!sdchema!sydney!bob"
> (or whenever dial-up got "cheap")
Right, but that was not due to nntp, it was due to the bandwidth economics of the times. I ran a small site that only connected once a day when the phone call was cheaper. But if you have a permanent connection largely unconstrained on bandwidth, it'll be faster.
> This may, incidentally, help to explain why discourse on Usenet was generally considered to be superior to that, say, on Twitter.
But yes, that as well. When a response takes at least 2 days, there is an incentive to write well and thoroughly. The instant response chat-type forums of today encourage meaningless ping-pong responses.
> Also, Usenet was very much censored, in the sense that most sites would not even think about carrying most groups
This is a very fundamental difference between a distributed ecosystem like usenet and a centralized walled garden. A specific usenet site, as you say, might choose to not carry certain newsgroups. That is local control, not usenet censorship. Usenet as a whole still distributes it. If you want access you can just switch to a different usenet provider. You can also run your own provider! That's what makes it so wonderful. You are in control, not some single central site. There is no central site.
Right, but that was not due to nntp, it was due to the bandwidth economics of the times. I ran a small site that only connected once a day when the phone call was cheaper. But if you have a permanent connection largely unconstrained on bandwidth, it'll be faster.
> This may, incidentally, help to explain why discourse on Usenet was generally considered to be superior to that, say, on Twitter.
But yes, that as well. When a response takes at least 2 days, there is an incentive to write well and thoroughly. The instant response chat-type forums of today encourage meaningless ping-pong responses.
> Also, Usenet was very much censored, in the sense that most sites would not even think about carrying most groups
This is a very fundamental difference between a distributed ecosystem like usenet and a centralized walled garden. A specific usenet site, as you say, might choose to not carry certain newsgroups. That is local control, not usenet censorship. Usenet as a whole still distributes it. If you want access you can just switch to a different usenet provider. You can also run your own provider! That's what makes it so wonderful. You are in control, not some single central site. There is no central site.
> Right, but that was not due to nntp
No, but that's mostly because NNTP yet had to be invented (RFC977 is from 1986, a good 6 years after Usenet started, and was mostly used for client access, not backbone propagation, which was usually 'whatever cnews does' over UUCP).
> This is a very fundamental difference between a distributed ecosystem like usenet and a centralized walled garden.
Yet much closer to 'censorship' than whatever goes on at your typical walled garden today. The whole idea that Usenet was some sort of egalitarian free-for-all is just wrong: if you stepped out of line, you would lose your soapbox fast, often by an entire group/hierarchy/site being cut off.
But even if it did not get that far, the last response you would ever get on a group being plonk (the sound of being added to a killfile, often side-wide) was common. Besides that, *.moderated groups were also a thing, where messages would only be published upon manual approval from the group owners.
No, but that's mostly because NNTP yet had to be invented (RFC977 is from 1986, a good 6 years after Usenet started, and was mostly used for client access, not backbone propagation, which was usually 'whatever cnews does' over UUCP).
> This is a very fundamental difference between a distributed ecosystem like usenet and a centralized walled garden.
Yet much closer to 'censorship' than whatever goes on at your typical walled garden today. The whole idea that Usenet was some sort of egalitarian free-for-all is just wrong: if you stepped out of line, you would lose your soapbox fast, often by an entire group/hierarchy/site being cut off.
But even if it did not get that far, the last response you would ever get on a group being plonk (the sound of being added to a killfile, often side-wide) was common. Besides that, *.moderated groups were also a thing, where messages would only be published upon manual approval from the group owners.
> No, but that's mostly because NNTP yet had to be invented (RFC977 is from 1986
I started on usenet in the late 80s, so my worldview always had NNTP.
> Yet much closer to 'censorship' than whatever goes on at your typical walled garden today.
This is not true at any level. Again, in a walled garden there is only one master, it's in or out, you are in or out.
Usenet is completely distributed, there is no center. Each site and each person can choose to not distribute or see certain things, but that has no influence outside their sphere of control. My site might no carry a given group, but many others do so I have choices. I might plonk you, but everyone else in the world sees your posts.
I started on usenet in the late 80s, so my worldview always had NNTP.
> Yet much closer to 'censorship' than whatever goes on at your typical walled garden today.
This is not true at any level. Again, in a walled garden there is only one master, it's in or out, you are in or out.
Usenet is completely distributed, there is no center. Each site and each person can choose to not distribute or see certain things, but that has no influence outside their sphere of control. My site might no carry a given group, but many others do so I have choices. I might plonk you, but everyone else in the world sees your posts.
The internet used to have a barrier to entry. That barrier is what helped ensure quality.
If the only people who can join are those who are passionate enough to read a lot of documentation and jump through a lot of hoops, yeah, the quality of discourse will be better.
Heck even /. Had better trolls in the day than what reddit has now.
If the only people who can join are those who are passionate enough to read a lot of documentation and jump through a lot of hoops, yeah, the quality of discourse will be better.
Heck even /. Had better trolls in the day than what reddit has now.
A paid subscription is not required for the pure text aspect of Usenet. [1] It is required however to make use of the binary groups which makes sense as those servers use a tremendous amount of bandwidth even by today's standards.
[1] - https://www.eternal-september.org/
[1] - https://www.eternal-september.org/
> There is way too much friction
A lot of the early ISPs, 1993-early 2000s, had free nntp/usenet services. The "friction" of using usenet was not any greater that the friction of launching an email client, an ftp or gopher session, or launching Mosaic.
At the time there were many easy-to-use featureful nntp clients across most computing platforms. I remember liking MT-Newswatcher quite a bit as well as Nuntius. The UI of Newswatcher was not too different from an email client or perhaps directory browser.
Screenshots from MT-Newswatcher
A lot of the early ISPs, 1993-early 2000s, had free nntp/usenet services. The "friction" of using usenet was not any greater that the friction of launching an email client, an ftp or gopher session, or launching Mosaic.
At the time there were many easy-to-use featureful nntp clients across most computing platforms. I remember liking MT-Newswatcher quite a bit as well as Nuntius. The UI of Newswatcher was not too different from an email client or perhaps directory browser.
Screenshots from MT-Newswatcher
https://smfr.org/mtnw/screenshots.htmlIt's arguable that today the "friction" might be a feature.
The "high" barrier to entry does act as a filter today, but I should add that in the 1990s, it was considered relatively easy, not so different from using email; it's only with the existence of modern social networks that the access steps seem relatively difficult.
P.S. For many Usenet groups, you don't need to pay anything to get access.
P.S. For many Usenet groups, you don't need to pay anything to get access.
It's still as easy as setting up email. You have a username, a password, and a hostname for the server. Then you're off to the races.
Having been in the IT industry since 1992 - I did use a free Usenet server, probably provided by my ISP.
Used the "comp.*" heirarchy mostly, discussing technical topics and answering questions - in 1996, a publisher (Wiley!) sent me a box of books - apparently I had helped one of their authors and they wanted to thank me.
On-one-hand, I would like to try it again - OTOH, I think spam and/or bots would overwhelm it to the point of uselessness.
Used the "comp.*" heirarchy mostly, discussing technical topics and answering questions - in 1996, a publisher (Wiley!) sent me a box of books - apparently I had helped one of their authors and they wanted to thank me.
On-one-hand, I would like to try it again - OTOH, I think spam and/or bots would overwhelm it to the point of uselessness.
As a 51 year old programmer, you really missed out on some cool discussion back in the day. But yes, honestly, I haven't done anything Usenet in years save for the occasional Google result that lands on a Google Groups URL.
Honestly it might be worth resurrecting the protocol to run your own Usenet web UI just for weekend funsies.
Honestly it might be worth resurrecting the protocol to run your own Usenet web UI just for weekend funsies.
As someone who's spent many thousands of hours on Usenet (in the 1990s), my advice is not to waste your time.
> As a programmer of over 30 years I still have never used Usenet and the reason is the barrier to entry. There is way too much friction.
Really? I'm old enough to remember when Google bought Deja, and with it suddenly came the ability to search the entire Usenet archive going back to its inception, through the Google Groups interface. Being able to search the archives of comp.lang.whatever was a great educational and productivity booster, like Stackoverflow before SO.
Really? I'm old enough to remember when Google bought Deja, and with it suddenly came the ability to search the entire Usenet archive going back to its inception, through the Google Groups interface. Being able to search the archives of comp.lang.whatever was a great educational and productivity booster, like Stackoverflow before SO.
You need a paid (!) subscription to a provider, potentially a subscription to an indexer, plus client software.
When Usenet was big, you didn't need a paid subscription. Almost every ISP included it for free.
I never heard of an indexer.
Client software came with your operating system, or it was built in to your e-mail client, or you could download for free.
As for today — yes, how awful that you might have to pay for something. Completely terrible. It might even be half the price of a cup of coffee. Completely unacceptable to have to give someone money for something of value. Terrible.
Much better to lock oneself inside the mink-lined, free, censored, AI-curated cages of the big data corps. Not thinking is always so much easier and more comfortable than thinking.
When Usenet was big, you didn't need a paid subscription. Almost every ISP included it for free.
I never heard of an indexer.
Client software came with your operating system, or it was built in to your e-mail client, or you could download for free.
As for today — yes, how awful that you might have to pay for something. Completely terrible. It might even be half the price of a cup of coffee. Completely unacceptable to have to give someone money for something of value. Terrible.
Much better to lock oneself inside the mink-lined, free, censored, AI-curated cages of the big data corps. Not thinking is always so much easier and more comfortable than thinking.
The article pointed out that Eternal September offers free subscriptions.
I'm not sure what an "indexer" is, such that you'd need to subscribe to it; is that some kind of online service like Deja News? I used to just download everything that appeared on the handful of groups that interested me, and store it locally. Then I could do local searches.
That "store locally" capability wasn't some bag of bash scripts I cobbled together; I thought all newsreaders could do that natively.
I'm not sure what an "indexer" is, such that you'd need to subscribe to it; is that some kind of online service like Deja News? I used to just download everything that appeared on the handful of groups that interested me, and store it locally. Then I could do local searches.
That "store locally" capability wasn't some bag of bash scripts I cobbled together; I thought all newsreaders could do that natively.
I haven't looked in a long time, but the last time I did look, there were any number of places you could connect to gratis, but which do not carry binaries groups. A non-binary usenet server is lightweight enough to run on the 80s Internet so the costs of operation without all that storage and retention is pretty minimal.
Back In The Day, the barrier to entry was low. Most Unix boxes had the "rn" or "trn" newsreaders installed, and VMS also had one (though I don't recall its name). It was as easy to get into as email.
The article notes you can get a free read/write subscription at https://www.eternal-september.org/.
~30 years ago, the barrier to entry was minimal. There were many free news servers out there, and it was common for your ISP to offer one. Good client software was easy to find (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort%C3%A9_Agent)
And yeah, the best part about usenet was that there were fewer "average people" on there. The Internet was great before AoL connected everybody else to it ;)
And yeah, the best part about usenet was that there were fewer "average people" on there. The Internet was great before AoL connected everybody else to it ;)
Life was good when Unison was still being maintained
https://blog.panic.com/unison-2/ https://panic.com/blog/the-future-of-unison/
https://www.astraweb.com is the best provider I know
https://blog.panic.com/unison-2/ https://panic.com/blog/the-future-of-unison/
https://www.astraweb.com is the best provider I know
> As a programmer of over 30 years...
> You need a paid (!) subscription
30 years ago (and I'd say even 20 years ago) every ISP had their own usenet feed just like they had their own email server. It's only fairly recently this has become a bit of a barrier (although as many have noted in this discussion, free ones exist so not much of a barrier). My ISP discontinued their usenet server in 2016, fairly recently.
Installing a client is one package-install command away, not exactly a barrier.
> You need a paid (!) subscription
30 years ago (and I'd say even 20 years ago) every ISP had their own usenet feed just like they had their own email server. It's only fairly recently this has become a bit of a barrier (although as many have noted in this discussion, free ones exist so not much of a barrier). My ISP discontinued their usenet server in 2016, fairly recently.
Installing a client is one package-install command away, not exactly a barrier.
I remember that setting up a server was not too much of a big deal in the late 80s /early 90s. We did it for our university. I can't remember how we federated (the word was different back then). We definitely didn't have to pay anything to the server (or servers?) we were getting news from and sending our messages to.
Anyway, this is probably an even higher hoop to jump through.
Anyway, this is probably an even higher hoop to jump through.
Sounds like you’re misinformed.
Text-only newsgroup servers are free. You only need to use/pay for indexers if you’re scouring many groups for specific keywords.
If you’re subscribing to specific text groups you don’t need to search an index for the whole net. You can just scroll to the top and read what you missed since last session
The barrier of entry is learning how to use a piece of software like Thunderbird. It’s no larger than email. If you figured that one out, you can figure out newsgroups too.
I remember when everyone was deriding “the internet” and “email” as being too cumbersome for an “average person” to figure out, having too many “hoops” to jump through to use it.
Thanks for the nostalgia, wackget
Text-only newsgroup servers are free. You only need to use/pay for indexers if you’re scouring many groups for specific keywords.
If you’re subscribing to specific text groups you don’t need to search an index for the whole net. You can just scroll to the top and read what you missed since last session
The barrier of entry is learning how to use a piece of software like Thunderbird. It’s no larger than email. If you figured that one out, you can figure out newsgroups too.
I remember when everyone was deriding “the internet” and “email” as being too cumbersome for an “average person” to figure out, having too many “hoops” to jump through to use it.
Thanks for the nostalgia, wackget
In the olden times your ISP usually included it like they did with email, the instructions for my old isp still exists though I doubt the news server does
http://www.uswest.net/help/newsgroups.html
http://www.uswest.net/help/newsgroups.html
> You need a paid (!) subscription to a provider
Tell us that you didn't RTFA without saying that you didn't RTFA.
By the way, I wrote the article.
If you've been around since before Google as you claim, you should know to RTFM and RTFA.
Tell us that you didn't RTFA without saying that you didn't RTFA.
By the way, I wrote the article.
If you've been around since before Google as you claim, you should know to RTFM and RTFA.
Simple moderation of a newsgroup on Usenet approximated running a mail list: known users (like list subscribers) could post anything to the newsgroup, while messages from unknown users would be diverted into something like a mail spool,
and, if approved by a moderator, would be posted to the newsgroup. A moderator
could add or remove users (email addresses) from the known users list. Complaints about known user posting behavior could be directed to a moderator,
who might or might not take action. Multiple moderators are possible, see the "STUMP" software mentioned in the Reg article.
Attempts to "retro-moderate" previously posted messages by using the NNTP cancel mechanism were only widely effective in the very early 1980s, and rapidly became problematic due to disagreements, forgery, and vandalism.
source: Hosted a moderated newsgroups FAQ for decades, helped convert news.newusers.questions to a moderated group - which may have been a case of "we had to destroy the village to save it" :-(
Attempts to "retro-moderate" previously posted messages by using the NNTP cancel mechanism were only widely effective in the very early 1980s, and rapidly became problematic due to disagreements, forgery, and vandalism.
source: Hosted a moderated newsgroups FAQ for decades, helped convert news.newusers.questions to a moderated group - which may have been a case of "we had to destroy the village to save it" :-(
If you want to read more about USENET through a criticism written while it was still used, I suggest to you the wonderfully anachronistic Unix Haters Handbook (https://web.mit.edu/~simsong/www/ugh.pdf), it starts to talk about USENET at page 131
page 131 of the pdf, but page 93 of the book itself in case anyone else ends up at the wrong place
I'm through the first preface and this looks like a fantastic read. Thank you!
The news here is that a board oversees the "big 8" Usenet hierarchies has been re-established and is actively adding/removing groups.
"Rises like a phoenix" is a bit hyperbolic.
"Rises like a phoenix" is a bit hyperbolic.
A good read, but I'm pretty sure that there was usenet spam before then.
I was looking through my archives of old text files a decade ago, and noticed that, to my horror, in 1982, I had spammed Punternet for water filters I was trying to sell as a teenager. Punternet was like Fidonet, but for C64 Punter BBS systems.
And I'm sure someone spammed before me.
Amusingly, I received a reply from someone on Texas, which blew my mind in 82, in Canada.
I was looking through my archives of old text files a decade ago, and noticed that, to my horror, in 1982, I had spammed Punternet for water filters I was trying to sell as a teenager. Punternet was like Fidonet, but for C64 Punter BBS systems.
And I'm sure someone spammed before me.
Amusingly, I received a reply from someone on Texas, which blew my mind in 82, in Canada.
> "Rises like a phoenix" is a bit hyperbolic.
If it weren't hyperbolic and a tad over the top, it wouldn't be The Register.
If it weren't hyperbolic and a tad over the top, it wouldn't be The Register.
Hey.
I wrote the article.
Note, generally (not always) the editors and subeditors write the headlines, not the authors. They have a pretty good idea of what brings the clicks in, far better than me.
I wrote the article.
Note, generally (not always) the editors and subeditors write the headlines, not the authors. They have a pretty good idea of what brings the clicks in, far better than me.
The "fediverse" failed to learn from usenet and is doomed to repeat it.
Usenet's downfall came from no management of resource usage or abuse-management costs (both of the spam and the "that message is illegal" sort).
Sites dealt with mounting costs by outsourcing to specialists, which lost a lot of usenet's distributed advantages (e.g. local copies providing for ultra low latency access, availability during outages, traffic sharing when many users were using the same groups, only having to appeal to your choice of local authorities to carry something rather than distant ones that didn't get a crap about you, etc).
Due to overhead costs it's cheaper for fewer providers to support more users, this along with acquisitions caused the centralization onto a few and then essentially one usenet provider who then implemented policy (monetization schemes, walled gardens, censorship) that eliminated the residual benefits of usenet over alternatives. The alternatives were more flexible, and had less baggage (particularly the quasi-monopoly provider), and with no reason left to use usenet over them eventually they took over.
Usenet's downfall came from no management of resource usage or abuse-management costs (both of the spam and the "that message is illegal" sort).
Sites dealt with mounting costs by outsourcing to specialists, which lost a lot of usenet's distributed advantages (e.g. local copies providing for ultra low latency access, availability during outages, traffic sharing when many users were using the same groups, only having to appeal to your choice of local authorities to carry something rather than distant ones that didn't get a crap about you, etc).
Due to overhead costs it's cheaper for fewer providers to support more users, this along with acquisitions caused the centralization onto a few and then essentially one usenet provider who then implemented policy (monetization schemes, walled gardens, censorship) that eliminated the residual benefits of usenet over alternatives. The alternatives were more flexible, and had less baggage (particularly the quasi-monopoly provider), and with no reason left to use usenet over them eventually they took over.
I just recently started reading Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge and it's fascinating that he thought Usenet (or something VERY similar) would be how civilizations communicate with each other across the galaxy.
(Granted, it was written in the early 90s but feels very apropos to see a post about it here on HN)
(Granted, it was written in the early 90s but feels very apropos to see a post about it here on HN)
Given the time lag - even with FTL! - it still seems much more reasonable than Star Trek's flawless, synchronous video with automatic translation that works flawlessly and is never remarked upon (Unless the plot requires it).
Totally!
The parts where the organization is notifying its users:
"Sorry, a giant AI is using all of our bandwidth" reminded me of several conversations I've had with networking teams over the years.
The parts where the organization is notifying its users:
"Sorry, a giant AI is using all of our bandwidth" reminded me of several conversations I've had with networking teams over the years.
I miss Usenet a lot, but the current state of play for "newsgroups" (sites like this, and Reddit) is way, way better than Usenet was. It's hard to see a real reason to bring it back.
I agree, the alternatives are mostly better...except for the interface. I'm not saying that Usenet was great, but damn Reddit is such an ugly site. I actually can't bear to look at it. Hackernews is pretty nicely designed though.
Every web-based message board has a better interface than the Usenet newsreaders did, if only because web message boards have more affordances for features than newsreaders do.
> Every web-based message board has a better interface than the Usenet newsreaders did
This is a fascinatingly different opinion I can't wrap my head around.
To me it seems self-evident that every web-based or proprietary app message board interface is immensely worse than even the most primitive usenet reader of the 80s.
This is a fascinatingly different opinion I can't wrap my head around.
To me it seems self-evident that every web-based or proprietary app message board interface is immensely worse than even the most primitive usenet reader of the 80s.
I'm with you. I really despise web based apps and I really loved having a native app experience with usenet. Google groups was a UX regression and I really would just love to have a native news reader again.
When I read comments like this, I assume the person writing it didn't spend much time in conversations on Usenet. It sucked. Replies would randomly go missing. They'd take hours to arrive. Nothing was searchable or findable. Replies would expire out in some arbitrary amount of time --- every server did this differently. There was no meaningful formatting. Because there was often no moderation at all, groups would get crudded up with spam. There was no sorting of messages; you just had to build an intuition for whose responses were worth reading, and scan threads for them. Every message had to stand alone, like an email, so things were often top/bottom quoted, and you had to pick through all the chaff to find morsels of new content.
Imagine Hacker News, if instead of Hacker News, you had only Gmail's interface and Gmail threading. That's what we put up with.
I spent a lot of time on Usenet. I miss it a lot, in the same way I miss, like, trip-hop. It was a thing of its time. I don't so much want to engage with it now.
It was great, at the time, because there was nothing else like it. But there's no Usenet group I can think of that doesn't have a message board equivalent today that blows it completely out of the water. I think a lot of people are nostalgic for Usenet because they miss the feeling of discovering worldwide communities; today, they're a dime a dozen.
Imagine Hacker News, if instead of Hacker News, you had only Gmail's interface and Gmail threading. That's what we put up with.
I spent a lot of time on Usenet. I miss it a lot, in the same way I miss, like, trip-hop. It was a thing of its time. I don't so much want to engage with it now.
It was great, at the time, because there was nothing else like it. But there's no Usenet group I can think of that doesn't have a message board equivalent today that blows it completely out of the water. I think a lot of people are nostalgic for Usenet because they miss the feeling of discovering worldwide communities; today, they're a dime a dozen.
> When I read comments like this, I assume the person writing it didn't spend much time in conversations on Usenet.
You should not assume, does not lead to good conversation.
I've been nonstop on usenet since the late 80s, still am. I used to run a site for my university. I was a heavy poster and reader through the 90s. My usage volume has decreased, but still sometimes post. Read daily. Usenet rocks. Wish it had more participation, as it used to have. It is so much better than anything else we've come up with.
> you had only Gmail's interface and Gmail threading
Ugh, no, gmail threading is abysmally terrible. Something like trn is far superior.
Tell me how you can do any of these things in a so-called modern forum/chat app:
- Say I want to killfile tptacek? Ok, some apps allow blocking people, HN doesn't.
- Say I want to upscore posts from tptacek that mention crypto but downscore anything that doesn't. Impossible on any "modern" app that I know of.
- Say I want to pipe every post through my custom bayesian scoring filter. Impossible on any "modern" app that I know of.
- Say I want to pipe every post through a custom app that scans for key phrases I want to be alerted on, send those to my email.
I could go on and on. The sites and apps we are forced to use today are lacking 99% of the functionality that was trivially possible back in the 90s.
You should not assume, does not lead to good conversation.
I've been nonstop on usenet since the late 80s, still am. I used to run a site for my university. I was a heavy poster and reader through the 90s. My usage volume has decreased, but still sometimes post. Read daily. Usenet rocks. Wish it had more participation, as it used to have. It is so much better than anything else we've come up with.
> you had only Gmail's interface and Gmail threading
Ugh, no, gmail threading is abysmally terrible. Something like trn is far superior.
Tell me how you can do any of these things in a so-called modern forum/chat app:
- Say I want to killfile tptacek? Ok, some apps allow blocking people, HN doesn't.
- Say I want to upscore posts from tptacek that mention crypto but downscore anything that doesn't. Impossible on any "modern" app that I know of.
- Say I want to pipe every post through my custom bayesian scoring filter. Impossible on any "modern" app that I know of.
- Say I want to pipe every post through a custom app that scans for key phrases I want to be alerted on, send those to my email.
I could go on and on. The sites and apps we are forced to use today are lacking 99% of the functionality that was trivially possible back in the 90s.
These are all things you can do with HN, which has one of the simplest and most limited interfaces of all the Internet message boards. Just like with NNTP, you have to write software to do it, but it's straightforwardly doable. People have done several of them!
I disagree that you can do these things in HN.
I guess you're thinking that one could curl down the text and then process it locally as much as one wishes, feed it to some custom reader and consume it that way. Which you're right, is possible, but not exactly within HN at that point.
And HN is the simplest use case. Tell me how I do any of the above things with messages people insist on sending via whatsapp or facebook or any such walled gardens that go out of their way to prevent interoperability?
Give me SMTP and NNTP, open standards with infinite flexibility where I own and control the experience.
I guess you're thinking that one could curl down the text and then process it locally as much as one wishes, feed it to some custom reader and consume it that way. Which you're right, is possible, but not exactly within HN at that point.
And HN is the simplest use case. Tell me how I do any of the above things with messages people insist on sending via whatsapp or facebook or any such walled gardens that go out of their way to prevent interoperability?
Give me SMTP and NNTP, open standards with infinite flexibility where I own and control the experience.
I disagree. I've never yet seen a forum environment which was more usable than GNUS was for me 20-mumble years ago.
I think you're taking for granted things like forum archive search that are table stakes now, but were space alien technology during Peak Usenet.
we just ran `grep` on the news spool directories
Usenet with full access to a big server was fun. With just NNTP access, it was diminished. 3 to 6 hops out in UUCP/WWIV/FIDOnet land it was a different animal. Still of use but high friction.
Usenet with full access to a big server was fun. With just NNTP access, it was diminished. 3 to 6 hops out in UUCP/WWIV/FIDOnet land it was a different animal. Still of use but high friction.
I assume you were taking something less than full feeds, because on a full feed reader server, just keeping up with the inode demands for all the messages was a challenge; grepping would have taken for-fucking-ever.
remember to use `nice` :)
it wouldn't be polite to scan the whole spool, just the groups that might bear results.
kibo was an anomaly
i had a shell on a big server for a while; i fed the hinterlands with selective feeds.
it wouldn't be polite to scan the whole spool, just the groups that might bear results.
kibo was an anomaly
i had a shell on a big server for a while; i fed the hinterlands with selective feeds.
Agree, except with Pine (now Alpine) as the aggregator. Very high signal-to-noise ratio.
I still am on USENET since the 90s. Although I love it for its simplicity, its protocol was conceived when the Internet was almost exclusively populated by educated people. As a result, it has no antibodies against trolls and spammers and can be exploited very easily. I believe we'd have no other choice than to extend the NNTP protocol with some form of protection against that, otherwise as soon as a group attracts a number of people, it will immediately be targeted by spammers, scammers and trolls.
I use Usenet with Eternal September, and a NNTP client software I wrote by myself. I also have my own NNTP server for discussions of my own projects, although currently nobody else uses it than myself. (Both my own server software and client software support 63-bit article numbers.)
I think that NNTP is better than much of the newer too complicated and messy protocols. I also think is better than using mailing lists, too. NNTP also you can (like mailing lists, but unlike web forums) compose drafts on your computer and read messages that have already been downloaded, even if the internet connection (or the NNTP server) is currently not working, and then you can send/receive once it does work.
I think that NNTP is better than much of the newer too complicated and messy protocols. I also think is better than using mailing lists, too. NNTP also you can (like mailing lists, but unlike web forums) compose drafts on your computer and read messages that have already been downloaded, even if the internet connection (or the NNTP server) is currently not working, and then you can send/receive once it does work.
Usenet is why I stared my ISP in '93. I loved it -- but as many people have commented here, the spam got pretty nutty for while. In fact, THIS happened on my watch.
https://www.wired.com/1999/04/the-spam-that-started-it-all/
https://www.wired.com/1999/04/the-spam-that-started-it-all/
Usenet is and remains, if not entirely dead, at best a zombie. Killed by spammers first, AOL second and the people that would subsequently ruin BitTorrent, like, forever.
Technology choices inspired by nostalgia are not always the best bet, but if you're going all the way, I suggest a return to FidoNet Echomail.
http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0004.001 should get you started, and I'm sure you'll figure out a way to make node assignments decentralized.
2:285/11.2 signing off. But I still have some bad C code implementing an Echomail processor, if you need it...
Technology choices inspired by nostalgia are not always the best bet, but if you're going all the way, I suggest a return to FidoNet Echomail.
http://ftsc.org/docs/fts-0004.001 should get you started, and I'm sure you'll figure out a way to make node assignments decentralized.
2:285/11.2 signing off. But I still have some bad C code implementing an Echomail processor, if you need it...
Would you mind expanding on what you meant about BitTorrent? It seems like it's one of the few decentralized technologies that hasn't been ruined.
Is this a good-faith question, or are you truly not aware of the extreme scale of the copyright infringement that BitTorrent is used for? (And by that, I mean, that any BitTorrent use is automatically associated with excessive bandwidth usage and incoming legal threats, unlike, say, a usable P2P technology)
The fact that copyright infringement works in spite of attempts to kill it seems to be proof that BitTorrent is well-designed, rather than evidence it's broken. What else would it be associated with? People do use it to distribute large datasets, but even those have fallen into the infringement category.
And of course; good faith is all that we have here.
And of course; good faith is all that we have here.
Whatever your feelings are about copyright infringement, the fact is that it killed Usenet, by making it intractable for independents to run full-feed Usenet servers (it was simply too expensive, and the work to keep up with the binaries drastically reduced the quality of service for the text posts). The result was a system that really only served copyright infringement, because those were the users anyone seriously investing in Usenet infrastructure were serving.
If people wanted to use Usenet for text then a service that didn’t offer binary groups should not have been a problem for people, right?
It seems rather that the value of the text groups was not high enough to get people to pay ~ anything as we scaled the internet and other text forums became widely available.
Text is ~ free. People typing at 180wpm only generate ~120bps of uncompressed text. A song is 2000x that, a video 10-100k x that. It seems like a model w paid barriers to entry to text forums is just not viable compared to free-to-the-user forums, or at least weren’t competitive when that ad-based model began.
I think it would be good for an open standard for text existed and was widely used, and didn’t rely on ads. But I don’t really see how logically one can blame the binaries for killing the text side of usenet. If people wanted to pay for text, they would have kept doing it. But as we’ve seen over the last 20 years, that business model has not generally worked.
It seems rather that the value of the text groups was not high enough to get people to pay ~ anything as we scaled the internet and other text forums became widely available.
Text is ~ free. People typing at 180wpm only generate ~120bps of uncompressed text. A song is 2000x that, a video 10-100k x that. It seems like a model w paid barriers to entry to text forums is just not viable compared to free-to-the-user forums, or at least weren’t competitive when that ad-based model began.
I think it would be good for an open standard for text existed and was widely used, and didn’t rely on ads. But I don’t really see how logically one can blame the binaries for killing the text side of usenet. If people wanted to pay for text, they would have kept doing it. But as we’ve seen over the last 20 years, that business model has not generally worked.
It was a problem for everybody. You don't have to wonder about it: Usenet did consolidate down to a couple providers. People really did organize against providers that didn't carry binary feeds.
Ah, OK, you're one of those people.
So, to rephrase things: because of you, Usenet is dead. And BitTorrent is dead. And any future technology anything like it will be dead-on-arrival, because you simply don't grok how the world works.
And I'm very well aware that "the way the world works" is in direct conflict with "the way you think the world should be working", but that's the exact issue here.
You are Eternal September, personified. Good luck with that!
So, to rephrase things: because of you, Usenet is dead. And BitTorrent is dead. And any future technology anything like it will be dead-on-arrival, because you simply don't grok how the world works.
And I'm very well aware that "the way the world works" is in direct conflict with "the way you think the world should be working", but that's the exact issue here.
You are Eternal September, personified. Good luck with that!
If you'd care to point out exactly what you mean, I might avoid those traits. But as it stands I have no idea what you're talking about, though I'm familiar with Eternal September.
My question was, how did you envision BitTorrent working?
My question was, how did you envision BitTorrent working?
Cleanfeed needs some updating and google groups is a major source of spam that needs to be depeered!
Cleanfeed needs some tweaks and Google groups needs to be depeered as it is a major source of spam!
I never really understood how usenet works. There are usenet servers, and you post to usenet via these, right? Given there are O(100s) of servers (at least), I assume that the protocol between these servers is not full mesh, and there's some kind of small set of servers that participate in a mesh, and then followers that synchronize from them.
How does this synchronization protocol work? How does one join the mesh? I've read the wikipedia article, and it kinda talks to the topology and such, but not in great detail.
How does this synchronization protocol work? How does one join the mesh? I've read the wikipedia article, and it kinda talks to the topology and such, but not in great detail.
NNTP descends from UUCP, the Unix to Unix Copy Protocol. Used to be that some businesses and universities configured their Unix machines to call other machines on their modems overnight (the rates were cheaper) and synchronize files. Think of it like a very slow, ancient version of rsync. You would post on your school's Usenet server, which would then sync with one or more servers overnight. And eventually (hopefully) your message would spread across the whole network. This could take days.
Some of the big timesharing services (think Telenet and Tymnet, eventually even AOL) out there ran their own servers, which a lot of smaller services dialed into.
How do you join the mesh? You met someone at Usenix or a similar conference and said "I'm sitting on a whopping 800mb of storage and a T1 line at my university. I'm tired of waiting a week to get the new comp.lang.c hotness. Think I could hook up to your machine for Usenet?" and they'd be like "Cool! Yeah, here's the dialup number. Try to call after 11pm so my boss doesn't know about it."
NNTP took this concept of syncing files and made it Internet native and specific to Usenet. But the architecture remained largely the same.
Some of the big timesharing services (think Telenet and Tymnet, eventually even AOL) out there ran their own servers, which a lot of smaller services dialed into.
How do you join the mesh? You met someone at Usenix or a similar conference and said "I'm sitting on a whopping 800mb of storage and a T1 line at my university. I'm tired of waiting a week to get the new comp.lang.c hotness. Think I could hook up to your machine for Usenet?" and they'd be like "Cool! Yeah, here's the dialup number. Try to call after 11pm so my boss doesn't know about it."
NNTP took this concept of syncing files and made it Internet native and specific to Usenet. But the architecture remained largely the same.
> Used to be that some businesses and universities configured their Unix machines to call other machines on their modems overnight
I used to work in London, for Olivetti, which was partnered with AT&T. Olivetti's office was in Finsbury, just north of The City. AT&T were south of the river, near Vauxhall. I believe our Usenet feed (and our internet email) was couriered-over from Vauxhall on mag tape.
In those days, most ordinary businesses didn't have fixed-line internet access, and maintaining a Usenet feed over dial-up was expensive, even text-only.
I used to work in London, for Olivetti, which was partnered with AT&T. Olivetti's office was in Finsbury, just north of The City. AT&T were south of the river, near Vauxhall. I believe our Usenet feed (and our internet email) was couriered-over from Vauxhall on mag tape.
In those days, most ordinary businesses didn't have fixed-line internet access, and maintaining a Usenet feed over dial-up was expensive, even text-only.
These days, you join the Usenet by posting in news.peering and saying "I want to peer with somebody", or just emailing the Eternal September folks: http://www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=peering
You configure both configure your servers to exchange messages and then... they exchange messages :)
It's good practice to have a couple peers, in case one goes offline or doesn't carry the groups you're interested in -- or filters things you might want. I run NoCeM on-spool and have stricter-than-normal CleanFeed rules, which translated from Usenet admin speak means my server drops a lot of spam and garbage posts, and if you want those you'll have to get them from another peer.
You configure both configure your servers to exchange messages and then... they exchange messages :)
It's good practice to have a couple peers, in case one goes offline or doesn't carry the groups you're interested in -- or filters things you might want. I run NoCeM on-spool and have stricter-than-normal CleanFeed rules, which translated from Usenet admin speak means my server drops a lot of spam and garbage posts, and if you want those you'll have to get them from another peer.
It's a manually configured topology. An ordinary server would get a feed from somewhere else (probably their upstream ISP). A transit server would take dozens of feeds. The operation of each of those links is the same, though: `IHAVE <articleid>` and `SENDME <articleid>`.
There is no “synchronization” because there is no defined state for servers to reach. Protocol simply allows to exchange messages in formatted text files between two nodes. What happens to them next is not defined (and may vary greatly).
A server might decide to exchange messages in groups A, B, C… with peers X, Y, Z. Choice of peers depends on their capacity, working hours, geographic location, network position, personal connections, access to dedicated lines… Choice of groups depends on popularity, space requirements, personal preferences, user requests… Some of them allow messages to spread step-by-step to all or almost all of the network, those are global groups. Some of them are only shared by a couple of servers or exist on a single server, those are local. Nothing prevents you from making a “boobble.shmoobble.goobble” group and stating that it's the central most important point of all Usenet. You only need to make all the rest believe it. Then there are additional complexities and tools to deal with batch transfers, figuring out which messages have not yet been seen by a peer since the previous interchange (you don't want X to send lots of updates to Z, then Y to take the same long time sending mostly the same updates to Z), choice of best next hop (routing, manual load balancing), and so on.
Of course, when synchronization is needed — say, for group moderator to be able to delete spam message from many servers holding that group instead of each admin doing that on each server independently, and to prevent reintroduction and further spread of the message, — it results in hairy ball of hacks on top of original architecture, and ad-hoc external trust channels, like with signatures. Understandably, Usenet appeared in a hierarchical and controlled professional environment (users were bound by formal and informal rules), then it was re-purposed for free for all operation.
A server might decide to exchange messages in groups A, B, C… with peers X, Y, Z. Choice of peers depends on their capacity, working hours, geographic location, network position, personal connections, access to dedicated lines… Choice of groups depends on popularity, space requirements, personal preferences, user requests… Some of them allow messages to spread step-by-step to all or almost all of the network, those are global groups. Some of them are only shared by a couple of servers or exist on a single server, those are local. Nothing prevents you from making a “boobble.shmoobble.goobble” group and stating that it's the central most important point of all Usenet. You only need to make all the rest believe it. Then there are additional complexities and tools to deal with batch transfers, figuring out which messages have not yet been seen by a peer since the previous interchange (you don't want X to send lots of updates to Z, then Y to take the same long time sending mostly the same updates to Z), choice of best next hop (routing, manual load balancing), and so on.
Of course, when synchronization is needed — say, for group moderator to be able to delete spam message from many servers holding that group instead of each admin doing that on each server independently, and to prevent reintroduction and further spread of the message, — it results in hairy ball of hacks on top of original architecture, and ad-hoc external trust channels, like with signatures. Understandably, Usenet appeared in a hierarchical and controlled professional environment (users were bound by formal and informal rules), then it was re-purposed for free for all operation.
One significant obstacle to a widespread return to Usenet is that the Internet has grown up, and has to behave more like the larger world around it. It's no longer a genteel, academic environment mostly shielded from harm from, and harm to, the general public. The following Techdirt article is an excellent condensed summary of how the world will eventually intrude on any ambitious effort to create, or re-create, an "uncensored" forum:
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...
Yes, the example is about a monolithic service like Twitter, versus something distributed like Usenet. But distributed services have to be hosted somewhere, and two contradictory themes from this discussion are:
- Usenet was more widely used when it was universally available (i.e., commercial ISP's ran news servers)
- Commercial ISP's no longer wish to run news servers due to legal liability and pressure from U.S. states attorneys general
Mom-and-pop server operators won't be as universal, and won't be able to afford expensive staff and lawyers to deal with legal issues.
https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-elon-let-me-help-you...
Yes, the example is about a monolithic service like Twitter, versus something distributed like Usenet. But distributed services have to be hosted somewhere, and two contradictory themes from this discussion are:
- Usenet was more widely used when it was universally available (i.e., commercial ISP's ran news servers)
- Commercial ISP's no longer wish to run news servers due to legal liability and pressure from U.S. states attorneys general
Mom-and-pop server operators won't be as universal, and won't be able to afford expensive staff and lawyers to deal with legal issues.
I offer USENET over VPN for C$10 a month
Sounds like a fun weekend project would be to implement the Usenet client/server protocol in your language of choice, and maybe start your own federated Usenet server(s).
It will take more than a weekend. This reminds me of that old joke about X-Windows:
"X Protocol is extensible!"
"So is a bucket of molten pig-iron."
There is definitely a lot of "intentionality" required to access newsgroups, let alone do more complicated stuff like moderate a newsgroup, when the answer to how to set it up in many environments is like that other old joke about a hotel where you have to make your own bed:
"Here's a hammer and saw, good night!"
"X Protocol is extensible!"
"So is a bucket of molten pig-iron."
There is definitely a lot of "intentionality" required to access newsgroups, let alone do more complicated stuff like moderate a newsgroup, when the answer to how to set it up in many environments is like that other old joke about a hotel where you have to make your own bed:
"Here's a hammer and saw, good night!"
My impression is that USENET is particularly censorship resistant. I suppose that's an advantage-- until someone starts to spam it.
It depends on who's cancel messages you honor.
You'll likely want to honor the anti-spam ones as they're deleting spam. Most sites limit the sources of cancel messages they honor (and have checks to make sure that its you who are deleting your own messages).
Back in the day, censorship was an issue because everyone would honor everyone's cancel messages and, well, talking about a contentious political topic would likely have people attempting to forge cancel messages.
You'll likely want to honor the anti-spam ones as they're deleting spam. Most sites limit the sources of cancel messages they honor (and have checks to make sure that its you who are deleting your own messages).
Back in the day, censorship was an issue because everyone would honor everyone's cancel messages and, well, talking about a contentious political topic would likely have people attempting to forge cancel messages.
For stumbling upon interesting old Usenet posts like
https://yarchive.net/mil/bomber_duel.html
recommending Usenet Archives collected by Norman Yarvin
https://yarchive.net/home.html
https://yarchive.net/mil/bomber_duel.html
recommending Usenet Archives collected by Norman Yarvin
https://yarchive.net/home.html
Nostr is the new usenet.
Back to basics with volunteer-relays and zero servers. Carry your own texts anywhere without censorship. Share files, share tweets (xeets), just share anything with anonymity.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed usenet and IRC. I still enjoy BBS today, the only thing that really replaced the 90s feeling of the usenet is truly Nostr.
Back to basics with volunteer-relays and zero servers. Carry your own texts anywhere without censorship. Share files, share tweets (xeets), just share anything with anonymity.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed usenet and IRC. I still enjoy BBS today, the only thing that really replaced the 90s feeling of the usenet is truly Nostr.
I was on Usenet a lot up until the late 90s! I just did a quick search for Mac Usenet apps, and most of them seem oriented around file downloads.
Does anyone have a recommendation for an actually good native Mac Usenet app tailored for, like, normal discussion?
Does anyone have a recommendation for an actually good native Mac Usenet app tailored for, like, normal discussion?
There are a lot of people saying that Usenet is no longer appropriate given today's social landscape. But it's interesting that Satoshi started Bittorrent by posting to the crypto mailing list. That was 2008, a decade and a half ago. But Usenet had died long before that, and long after Usenet-style newsgroups had gone out of fashion.
Text is timeless, and it's worth keeping an open mind that it can work. Maybe specific niche interests are the key; crypto is a big topic now, but back then only a few enthusiasts cared.
Text is timeless, and it's worth keeping an open mind that it can work. Maybe specific niche interests are the key; crypto is a big topic now, but back then only a few enthusiasts cared.
[deleted]
For some of us usenet never died. Use cases might have changed though. Iykyk.
I don't have any affiliation with any provider but I contribute or maintain most of the Usenet clients for Gentoo. As others have stated the majority of Usenet subscribers now use it for binary groups, not text groups. I use it for both. Rather than talk about whether it should or shouldn't come back I'm just going to give a starting point to view text groups. There's enough information on handling binary groups. (/r/usenet is probably a good starting point for info, SABnzbd is the binary client you'd probably want)
To get access: If you're looking to get into it and browse around, it's unlikely that your ISP provides free NNTP server access. Mine did when I first got into it in the mid-2000's but they don't anymore. https://news.gmane.io/ provides a free NNTP interface to just mailing lists if you're looking to test clients without paying money. If you want cheap access to all of it from a provider that has fully working headers, $2 will get you a 2GB non-expiring account at https://usenet-news.net/index1.php?url=home that should last a very long time for text groups.
As for clients, on mobile there's nothing available for android last I've checked. On iOS there's NewsTap, it's not the best app but it works. Main complaints I have is it fetches using single connection so it's slow to update large newsgroups and it doesn't appear to have a normal killfile support so you can't filter very well. This is honestly the main client I use for the few groups I subscribe to since it's convenient.
Thunderbird I'm told some people like. I can't recommend it at all, it has non-working TLS support for NNTP which seems like a joke but I assure you it is not. Going on 16+ years of ignoring RFC4642: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420262 The only way to workaround it beside using unencrypted NNTP servers is to run a local TLS proxy on your system or just use unencrypted NNTP connections.
Pan is an ok GUI alternative on Linux, it had fallen into severe coderot and at least Gentoo had dropped it but is actively maintained again: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pan My main complaint is it crashes from time to time. But it has working TLS so there's that. I've picked up maintaining it in the GURU repo as I don't feel it's stable enough to re-add to the main package repo yet.
Tin is probably the best CLI client. If you can get it started and connected to your provider it just works without fuss. Main gripe is the startup flags and having to manually write config file, it pretty much requires reading manpage. By default it'll connect to gmane though so you can mess around with that.
On Windows I've only really used Newsleecher briefly. It has a neat feature of having its own header index. This was useful because my main Usenet provider switched upstream providers and broke headers for most of my text groups. I could fetch articles from the server but without working headers I wouldn't know the articles were there in the first place. This is a side effect of most providers focusing on binary subscribers.
Spam is still an issue but it's less an issue than what it was. Most is easy to filter and there's only a few major spammers (like the dude ranting in allcaps Italian about politicians). The main 'spam' is clueless Google Groups users responding to 25 year old dead threads that it is unlikely your Usenet provider still carries. The biggest hurdle a new user will have is finding active groups. Some I'm in only get a few posts per year but are technically active (like the Thinkpad related ones). There's a few that get tons of posts daily.
To get access: If you're looking to get into it and browse around, it's unlikely that your ISP provides free NNTP server access. Mine did when I first got into it in the mid-2000's but they don't anymore. https://news.gmane.io/ provides a free NNTP interface to just mailing lists if you're looking to test clients without paying money. If you want cheap access to all of it from a provider that has fully working headers, $2 will get you a 2GB non-expiring account at https://usenet-news.net/index1.php?url=home that should last a very long time for text groups.
As for clients, on mobile there's nothing available for android last I've checked. On iOS there's NewsTap, it's not the best app but it works. Main complaints I have is it fetches using single connection so it's slow to update large newsgroups and it doesn't appear to have a normal killfile support so you can't filter very well. This is honestly the main client I use for the few groups I subscribe to since it's convenient.
Thunderbird I'm told some people like. I can't recommend it at all, it has non-working TLS support for NNTP which seems like a joke but I assure you it is not. Going on 16+ years of ignoring RFC4642: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=420262 The only way to workaround it beside using unencrypted NNTP servers is to run a local TLS proxy on your system or just use unencrypted NNTP connections.
Pan is an ok GUI alternative on Linux, it had fallen into severe coderot and at least Gentoo had dropped it but is actively maintained again: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pan My main complaint is it crashes from time to time. But it has working TLS so there's that. I've picked up maintaining it in the GURU repo as I don't feel it's stable enough to re-add to the main package repo yet.
Tin is probably the best CLI client. If you can get it started and connected to your provider it just works without fuss. Main gripe is the startup flags and having to manually write config file, it pretty much requires reading manpage. By default it'll connect to gmane though so you can mess around with that.
On Windows I've only really used Newsleecher briefly. It has a neat feature of having its own header index. This was useful because my main Usenet provider switched upstream providers and broke headers for most of my text groups. I could fetch articles from the server but without working headers I wouldn't know the articles were there in the first place. This is a side effect of most providers focusing on binary subscribers.
Spam is still an issue but it's less an issue than what it was. Most is easy to filter and there's only a few major spammers (like the dude ranting in allcaps Italian about politicians). The main 'spam' is clueless Google Groups users responding to 25 year old dead threads that it is unlikely your Usenet provider still carries. The biggest hurdle a new user will have is finding active groups. Some I'm in only get a few posts per year but are technically active (like the Thinkpad related ones). There's a few that get tons of posts daily.
"As for clients, on mobile there's nothing available for android last I've checked."
There's PhoNews, but it wasn't very good the last time I tried the free version. It ran slowly, or sometimes not at all, trying to follow a small number of newsgroups off of an NNTP server run by my ISP (that otherwise worked well with other non-mobile newsreaders).
There's PhoNews, but it wasn't very good the last time I tried the free version. It ran slowly, or sometimes not at all, trying to follow a small number of newsgroups off of an NNTP server run by my ISP (that otherwise worked well with other non-mobile newsreaders).
Toxic (of Toxcore) conferences seem like a great start, in some cases.
I first posted on Usenet in 1995.. I am OG
No, you're not even close.
a couple years after AOL came online and... well changed it quite a bit.
I wouldn't consider Usenet a social network.
I never liked Usenet, but when I was a teenager I posted some embarrassing, angsty, awkward messages in the alt.* space, so I was glad for many reasons when it rightly died off. If it rises, phoenix-like, I probably still won't use it. And if those messages (which I have searched for since) are recovered, I'll blame it on that one guy in Florida who has my same name.
I never liked Usenet, but when I was a teenager I posted some embarrassing, angsty, awkward messages in the alt.* space, so I was glad for many reasons when it rightly died off. If it rises, phoenix-like, I probably still won't use it. And if those messages (which I have searched for since) are recovered, I'll blame it on that one guy in Florida who has my same name.
Can you articulate the ways in which it seems not-a-social-network to you?
Comparison with reddit might be useful.
The only fundamental distinction I can draw is that there's no unified source of identity in usenet. All the rest of the differences come down to moderation policies.
Comparison with reddit might be useful.
The only fundamental distinction I can draw is that there's no unified source of identity in usenet. All the rest of the differences come down to moderation policies.
I consider something a social network when it is designed to create and make use of a graph of relationships between people. This is distinct from social media, though we use the two interchangeably a lot of the time. The "network" part is about the graph of relationships, the "social" part is about people (and not servers, as I suppose is the case with Usenet).
I'm not sure about Reddit, I don't use it often, but if you can only follow forums and not people, I would not call it a social network either.
I'm not sure about Reddit, I don't use it often, but if you can only follow forums and not people, I would not call it a social network either.
"Social media" to me refers only to services owned and controlled by a corporation (or maybe a non-profit organization similar to how the Guardian newpaper is owned by a non-profit) and targeted at average consumers, not just techies. Although there have been corporations (e.g., ISPs, Clarinet, Deja News) involved with Usenet, no one (corporation, organization, person) has ever owned or controlled Usenet. "The Big-8 board is the closest thing it has to a central governing authority," says the OP, but it has only a tiny fraction of the level of control over Usenet that, e.g., Reddit, Inc, has over Reddit.
Before the rise of the web, Usenet definitely was the front page of the internet, though--to a greater degree than Reddit ever was.
Part of the nostalgia for Usenet I think is nostalgia for a time when corporations had very little influence on the internet. Although most of the people running Usenet (and maintaining Usenet software) in the 1980s and early 1990s were involved with software and the Internet as part of their job, running Usenet was not part of their job description.
IRC and the first massively-multiplayer online games (which were text-only and called MUDs) were the same way.
Till the early 1990s the US government paid most of the bills for running the internet, but used its influence very sparingly: there was a rule against commercial activity (which I think was motivated by appeasing commercial interests worried that the internet would compete with their services) and there were attempts made to make it less likely that the internet would get criticized by Congresspersons and journalists as an expensive waste of money: e.g., Jerry Pournelle's getting kicked off MIT's terminal servers circa 1985 out of fear that he would be careless in how he would write about the internet. And that is the extent of the rules imposed by the US gov that I know about.
Before the rise of the web, Usenet definitely was the front page of the internet, though--to a greater degree than Reddit ever was.
Part of the nostalgia for Usenet I think is nostalgia for a time when corporations had very little influence on the internet. Although most of the people running Usenet (and maintaining Usenet software) in the 1980s and early 1990s were involved with software and the Internet as part of their job, running Usenet was not part of their job description.
IRC and the first massively-multiplayer online games (which were text-only and called MUDs) were the same way.
Till the early 1990s the US government paid most of the bills for running the internet, but used its influence very sparingly: there was a rule against commercial activity (which I think was motivated by appeasing commercial interests worried that the internet would compete with their services) and there were attempts made to make it less likely that the internet would get criticized by Congresspersons and journalists as an expensive waste of money: e.g., Jerry Pournelle's getting kicked off MIT's terminal servers circa 1985 out of fear that he would be careless in how he would write about the internet. And that is the extent of the rules imposed by the US gov that I know about.
I think early on, there was no front page of the internet. It would have been your university's telnet or gopher server or something. But really there wasn't one. I don't think it was Usenet, certainly. With the early web, Yahoo might have been the closest thing. I don't think there could be anything like centralization or aggregation (I mean: a single place people went to by default) until the browser became ubiquitous, which in my personal history marks the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the middle phase of the internet. I agree that many people spent a lot of time on Usenet, but I think many more people couldn't be bothered.
I learned basic scripting by writing rooms and content for MUDs, I love them and sometimes wistfully think about starting one up.
I learned basic scripting by writing rooms and content for MUDs, I love them and sometimes wistfully think about starting one up.
Why do you find central corporate control to be a defining feature? I am drawn much more to the technical features of the system.
I think of IRC, Mastadon, and Jabber as social networks; If you rule out Jabber it seems to me you must also rule out AIM.
Perhaps we're fumbling for a new vocabulary term, and "Social network" is too vague to be effective.
I think of IRC, Mastadon, and Jabber as social networks; If you rule out Jabber it seems to me you must also rule out AIM.
Perhaps we're fumbling for a new vocabulary term, and "Social network" is too vague to be effective.
>Perhaps . . . "Social network" is too vague to be effective.
I was talking about the term "social media".
I was talking about the term "social media".
I agree:
> designed to create and make use of a graph of relationships between people.
I assert that a universe of people maintaining killfiles is exactly this. It is the default-trust map of social network, in which one imagines that the exceptional cases are those whom one wishes to shun.
I think a requirement that one be able to "follow a person", that is to say watch all the things that individual says, is excessive. We're getting down into the weeds here, but I think following topics and threads are much more useful than following humans.
> designed to create and make use of a graph of relationships between people.
I assert that a universe of people maintaining killfiles is exactly this. It is the default-trust map of social network, in which one imagines that the exceptional cases are those whom one wishes to shun.
I think a requirement that one be able to "follow a person", that is to say watch all the things that individual says, is excessive. We're getting down into the weeds here, but I think following topics and threads are much more useful than following humans.
What was more useful wasn't the question. Social network and social media emerged 20 years ago when people needed a name for following humans.
Usenet was not designed for kill files. Kill files were designed for Usenet. You could construct a very limited social graph from everyone's kill files. But no one had everyone's kill files. And you could construct a limited social graph from everyone's tax records also. Are taxes a social network?
Usenet was not designed for kill files. Kill files were designed for Usenet. You could construct a very limited social graph from everyone's kill files. But no one had everyone's kill files. And you could construct a limited social graph from everyone's tax records also. Are taxes a social network?
Moderation policies matter a lot. The tech behind Usenet makes moderation much more costly than it is on anything commonly called a social network (and the people running Usenet are opposed to moderation of anything other than outright spam or so that's how it always was when I stopped paying attention about 15 years ago).
I agree that moderation policies are important. But I think it's missing a point to decide that "A social network with bad moderation policies" is therefore not a social network.
Easy comparison: Mastadon has distributed identity, and localized management of moderation. Is this sufficient that we should deem it "not a social network"? I think not.
I think there was no real consensus in USENET towards the appropriate degree of moderation, rather several standing waves of opinion. All the species of technically simple moderation patterns were present there: A species of subscriber, or every message approved (basically only a radically small set of approved posters) and so on. Since some of the newsgroups are functionally archives of mailing lists, there's a whole additional universe of moderation techniques applied "upstream".
Easy comparison: Mastadon has distributed identity, and localized management of moderation. Is this sufficient that we should deem it "not a social network"? I think not.
I think there was no real consensus in USENET towards the appropriate degree of moderation, rather several standing waves of opinion. All the species of technically simple moderation patterns were present there: A species of subscriber, or every message approved (basically only a radically small set of approved posters) and so on. Since some of the newsgroups are functionally archives of mailing lists, there's a whole additional universe of moderation techniques applied "upstream".
>All the species of technically simple moderation patterns were present there
I consider voting (allowing readers to upvote and downvote, which is extremely quick and easy compared to writing a comment) an important technically simple moderation pattern, and I'd be very surprised to learn the voting on Usenet articles was ever possible.
I consider voting (allowing readers to upvote and downvote, which is extremely quick and easy compared to writing a comment) an important technically simple moderation pattern, and I'd be very surprised to learn the voting on Usenet articles was ever possible.
>Mastadon has distributed identity, and localized management of moderation. Is this sufficient that we should deem it "not a social network"? I think not.
Good point. Something created for the explicit purpose of competing with (in the sense of taking users away from) a social network should be called a social network.
Good point. Something created for the explicit purpose of competing with (in the sense of taking users away from) a social network should be called a social network.
So I just hopped on Usenet via eternal-september for the first time and checked some of the can.* boards to check in with my fellow countrymen.
Wow, it's like I'm reading a collection of everyone's spam folder with some flares of racism for good measure.
Is there _any_ moderation on Usenet? How do I get it?
For now I think I'll stick to Mastodon (Canadians, join cosocial.ca co-op!)
Wow, it's like I'm reading a collection of everyone's spam folder with some flares of racism for good measure.
Is there _any_ moderation on Usenet? How do I get it?
For now I think I'll stick to Mastodon (Canadians, join cosocial.ca co-op!)
Yes, there are moderated groups. I even know of a moderated group without a moderator (alt.hackers) which is the point.
I'd like to tell people "install Thunderbird, sign up for a free Usenet provider, and join comp.ai, comp.misc, etc and have fun." But I'm a bit leery of encouraging people to do that since I'm not sure what the state of spam being sent to the various Usenet groups is, or how providers are handling spam filtering (if at all).
That said, there's definitely a place for NNTP / Usenet. It might take some work to fix up some issues, but it would be great to see vibrant / fruitful discussions via Usenet again.