How Google Saved USENET 280
Masem writes: "Salon has a well-written article article on the recent revival of much of the USENET archives from '81 to '90 by Google. It mentions that much of the recovery was thanks to years of work in transferring data off 140-some 10" magnetic tapes (~120megs of data) to a more conventional format in order to recover much of the early posts. Even a reference to the previous Slashdot story is made." Update: 01/07 23:52 GMT by T : btempleton adds: "O'Reilly Network asked me to do an article on similar themes and rememberances of USENET history." Thanks, Brad.
Just think... (Score:4, Funny)
--Chag
Re:Just think... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Just think... (Score:4, Funny)
I can't really imagine waiting until 1997 to see all nine parts of the Star Wars series.
I don't know what this "nine parts" jazz is, but that little 1997 blurb is about the funniest thing I've seen all day.
Re:Just think... (Score:3, Informative)
According to Lucas, SW was supposed to be a trilogy of trilogies (Lucas has since recanted and said that E3 will be the last). E5 was out 3 yr. after E4, E6 three years after that. You do the math. No one expected the long hiatus between E6 and E1. After Jar Jar, they wondered if Lucas had waited long enough...
Star Wars.... what was he thinking? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, LOTR may not have been perfect, but at least it was reasonably true to the book (hence a decent story) and showed what you can do with a good story. In this instance, we have Lucas busily destroying the mystique and the depth built up in the first SW trilogy (well, first in terms of release date).
I waited outside for a few hours to get tickets to EP1. I'll wait till a while after the premier to see this next film. If it is as disappointing, I'll wait for EP3 maybe longer than that. George, this is not the way to go about prying Imperial Credits from my wallet....
Re:Just think... (Score:2, Interesting)
They did leave out this first mention [google.com] in 1991 of a certain kernel, though, which Linus obviously remembered just a few months later in his own first. [google.com]
To quote another /. poster via the article about how embarrasing things like this are, "It's like having naked baby pictures of yourself stapled to your forehead when you walk around"...
Re:Just think... (Score:5, Informative)
"Ashton-Tate is once again pushing its case for a copyright on the programming language used in DBase. ".
And the numerous silly patents, such as
'Emacs is threatened by IBM patent number 4,674,040 which covers "cut and paste between files" in a text editor. Many Emacs features are threatened by patent number 4,458,311, which covers "text and numeric processing on same screen." Patent 4,398,249 covering the general spreadsheet technique known as "natural order recalc" stops us from using it in GNU '
Wow, similar story (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow, similar story (Score:2, Insightful)
Gee, the print media has a hierarchy: All editors read the NY Times, the LA Times, and the Wash Post to see what the consensus important stuff is. The editors of the LA Times and the Wash Post read the NY Times to see what the important stuff is. The editors of the NY Times decide what's important stuff to print. This is why all the newspapers look the same.
Title give an impression. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, google saved the historical record of the USENET, but it needed not to save the USENET from anything else. USENET is alive and well.
Re:Title give an impression. (Score:2)
Re:Title give an impression. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Title give an impression. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Title give an impression. (Score:2)
NewsOne [newsone.net]... When Deja went down, it was the only online usenet archive. Check it out, still alive and thriving
Blatant plug: NewsOne is hosted by netmar, where you can get linux webhosting w/ 100 megs and unlimited bandwidth for $8/mo. Also shared/dedicated solaris hosting
~z
Oooh 10" magnetic tapes! (Score:5, Informative)
I think I speak for everyone when I say "Thank you Google for arming me with the information contained in old USENet posts to bring up embarassing teenage posts to my friends!"
Re:Oooh 10" magnetic tapes! (Score:5, Informative)
Didn't search USENET as much before Google. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have to worry about getting and setting up a news client, and it's just one tab over from my default search engine.
Google did save USENET for me - though I never post, searching through all the linux and comp newsgroups is usually faster than looking up a HOWTO.
yes, you sum it up (Score:3, Insightful)
On Behalf of the USENET Preservation Society... (Score:3, Insightful)
As a regular USENET poster, I'm gratified that you've found our posts useful, but please, please do consider participating yourself!
"But I don't know anything worth posting!" , I hear you cry. Well, for a start, since when has that stopped anyone on USENET, myself included! Besides, I'm sure everyone knows something about something, even if it's "only" mexican cooking (alt.food.mexican-cooking) and Italian manga (alt.italian.anime-manga).
Take the trouble to subscribe to a few groups and get involved. Keep them as lively discussion fora, not dusty historical archives and a spam collection!
I discovered USENET in 1992, and I've rarely gone away. It's definitely the most consistently interesting and useful part of the Internet, IMHO.
--
Re:Let us POST! (Score:3, Informative)
groups.google.com always has the answers... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:groups.google.com always has the answers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I tell them: it is a decade's worth of learning, and then some, but not from books. It is all from USENET. I became a competent C programmer who writes more efficient code and makes fewer fundamental mistakes thanks to usenet. I learned to use BSD and then to use Linux as fast and furious as I can type and to get myself out of any system problem, save my data from nearly any corruption thanks to usenet. I am able to network these odd things, build these robots, and have this "cool stuff" that you like so much that works so well thanks to usenet. I can make nearly any computer go, now matter how old or wierd or what media or operating system it uses (a feat which makes you a legend in your own department) thanks to usenet.
It's not my knowledge... I humbly picked it up in the mid and late '80s and early '90s and still constantly refer to it, first through Deja and now through Google. It is our knowledge, collective and stretching backward in time. To ever lose the news archive would be a tragedy -- the amount of searchable data on everything from chemistry and biology to computing and electronics to literature and politics is truly stunning. With the news archive, you can learn to hotwire together any two things so long as they have *wires* to do something useful; you can learn to brew just about anything including some of the best beer ever; you can learn just what the HELL James Joyce is talking about at times in Ulysses. Every question has been answered before you even asked.
The only sad thing has been the degree to which the groups have been turned into a boulevard of endlessly flashing neon porn signs in the last few years, almost to the degree that anything else is drowned out by the brightness.
Study USENET. Use USENET. Live and learn. Amen.
I've really got to wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
Groups.google.com seems like the kind of thing they're doing just becuase they can, though. I can't imagine there is much money to be made off the technology, because it's all text - the same search tech applies. So, as far as I can tell, there is no business reason to be doing this. it's a drain on resources with little to no return, except for (geek) community goodwill.
The conclusion I draw, then, is Google is in this just for the fun, challenge, or doing something for the community - maybe all three. Philantropy at its best. =)
Re:I've really got to wonder... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you build it, they will come...
The old USENET posts are an information archaeologist's garbage heap. If information has any intrinsic value at all, this is the place to find treasures. Just because some folks see dirt doesn't mean there isn't gold to be mined.
So they said about About.com, TheGlobe, etc. (Score:2)
Oh please, the "dollars follow eyeballs" fantasy hasn't been mouthed by anyone worth their weight in salt in over two years. 99% of the posts Google is archiving have absoluately zilch, nada value, to anyone, including the original posters.
My guess is that Google will realize that 95% of the searches pertain to posts from the last twelve months and will send the rest back to the tape locker.
Re:I've really got to wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a lot of companies right now that should be punished for doing stupid things, but Google is the complete opposite; I'd like to see Microsoft, the RIAA, and the MPAA have to donate 20% of their money to google
Re:I've really got to wonder... (Score:2, Informative)
Googles DOES have ads, just not the obtrusive, annoying kind. I.e., look up "car tires" and the first thing you see is a "sponsored link" by Tire Rack.
Re:I've really got to wonder... (Score:2)
I would think that market share would play a large role in this. If you are licensing your technology and you become the de facto standard, there's a lot of bucks to be made in that.
If google can capture geek market share, guess who usually makes the IT decisions at a company? By having some goodwill out there today, they will try to bank on it in the future. (Hey, remember us? We saved your flame war from '89!) Buy our stuff!
Besides, since it IS all text, it probably doesn't take up THAT much space. There are probably pr0n sites that create more memory usage in one day than USENET did in one year.
Re:I've really got to wonder... (Score:3, Informative)
While I'm not sure of the legalities, Google will probably add the same text based ads located on its web search to its newsgroup search. This will mean when you search for "tivo upgrade", you could see a text based ad pointing offering hard drive upgrade kits next to the news posts. Unobtrusive, yet effective.
Not really bait and switch, but they're getting everyone hooked on the system now, and'll work on ads later. (just like they did for the web search)
Again, I don't blame them. Everyone has to make a buck, and Google's doing it in the best possible way.
Archaic Technology (Score:5, Interesting)
An interesting thing about these tapes: They stretch over time and can sometimes become unreadable because of that. There are times when, to extract the information on the tape, I would put a number of them in my freezer for an hour or so, then try again. Nine times out of ten that would actually work.
Another note about the article: I can still remember discussions with others who had modems about 1200 baud being just "too fast". The reasoning was that the average person couldn't read much faster than 300 baud. :)
Re:Archaic Technology (Score:2)
Re:Archaic Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Clever businesses transferred their 9-track archives to Exabyte about a decade ago. The problem is people with only a few tapes, not clueful people with lots of them.
As an example, the VLA (Very Large Array, a radio telescope in New Mexico) had its entire archive on 9 track. When Exabytes finally became cheap, they just copied their entire data archive (everything observed since it started taking data in 1978, thousands of tapes) to Exabyte tapes. The expense wasn't that large compared to their overall operations expense.
Nasa (Score:2)
Re:Archaic Technology (Score:3)
Those must be really nasty tapes (Score:3, Funny)
That means at least one person spent several DAYS PER TAPE???
Even punch tape 'd faster than that.
What kind of backup is used now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What kind of backup is used now? (Score:2)
Wasn't it Linus who said something like "real man don't use backups, they post their stuff on a public ftp server and let the rest of the world make copies"?
An interesting trip down memory lane (Score:2)
I ran a search under my name...found some old posts...also found some wild stuff, like an old Slashdot quote I had that someone had pulled out, snipped, and posted along with a bunch of other quotes on an alt.atheist posting.
Kinda of like a community Napster for the brain...Hope they never go away.
Google getting involved (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason this history exists... (Score:2)
I recently tried to track down the milestone changes for Mozilla, and got a link to the original newsgroup posting. I thought I'd dig around through the responses and see what everyone else thought -- 550 message headers later, I realized that even the Mozilla servers were utterly spammed with "me and my friends, naked & FREE!" For some reason (probably just bad memory) it didn't seem like we had these types of problems back at Berkeley...
Repeat I know, but a great read (Score:5, Interesting)
===
From: spaf@cs.purdue.edu
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.misc,news.admin.misc,
Subject: That's all, folks
Followup-To: poster
Date: 29 Apr 1993 19:01:12 -0500
Message-ID:
[ I originally was going to post nothing on this topic. I'm burned
out, and I don't want my fatigue to appear like I'm posting
self-indulgent garbage. However, several people have argued with
me, and convinced me that maybe I should make a statement to "end an
era," and as a piece of net "history." At the least, even if it is
perceived as self-indulgent garbage, it will fit right in with the
rest of the net. ]
There is a Zen adage about how anything one cannot bear to give up is
not owned, but is in fact the owner. What follows relates how I am
owned by one less thing....
About a dozen years ago, when I was still a grad student at Georgia
Tech, we got our first Usenet connection (to allegra, then being run
by Peter Honeyman, I believe). I'd been using a few dial-in BBS
systems for a while, so it wasn't a huge transition for me. I quickly
got "hooked": I can claim to be someone who once read every newsgroup
on Usenet for weeks at a time!
After several months, I realized that it was difficult for a newcomer
to tell what newsgroups were available and what they covered. I made
a pass at putting together some information, combined it with a
similar list compiled by another netter, and began posting it for
others to use. Eventually, the list was joined by other documents
describing net history and information.
In April of 1982 (I believe it was -- I saved no record of the year,
but I know it was April), I began posting those lists regularly,
sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly; the longest break was for 4
months a few years ago when I was recovering from pneumonia and poor
personal time management. (Tellingly, only a few people noticed the
lack of postings, and almost all the mail was "When will they come
out?" rather than "Did something happen?") As time went on, people
began to attach far more significance to the posts than I really
intended. It was flattering for a very short time, and a burden for
most of the rest; there is no telling how much time I have devoted
over the last decade to answering questions, editing the postings, and
debating the role of newsgroup naming, to cite a few topics. I really
tired of being a "semi-definitive" voice.
Starting several years ago, at about the time people started pushing
for group names designed to offend or annoy others, or with a lack of
concern about the possible effects it might have on the net as a whole
(e.g., rec.drugs and comp.protocols.tcp-ip.eniac) I began to question
why I was doing the postings. I have had a growing sense of futility:
people on the net can't possibly find the postings useful, because
most of the advice in them is completely ignored. People don't seem
to think before posting, they are purposely rude, they blatantly
violate copyrights, they crosspost everywhere, use 20 line signature
files, and do basically every other thing the postings (and common
sense and common courtesy) advise not to. Regularly, there are postings
of questions that can be answered by the newusers articles, clearly
indicating that they aren't being read. "Sendsys" bombs and forgeries
abound. People rail about their "rights" without understanding that
every right carries responsibilities that need to be observed too, not
least of which is to respect others' rights as you would have them
respect your own. Reason, etiquette, accountability, and compromise
are strangers in far too many newsgroups these days.
I have finally concluded that my view of how things should be is too
far out-of-step with the users of the Usenet, and that my efforts are
not valued by enough people for me to invest any more of my energy in
the process. I am tired of the effort involved, and the meager --
nay, nonexistent -- return on my volunteer efforts.
This hasn't happened all at once, but it has happened. Rather than
bemoan it, I am acting on it: the set of "periodic postings" posted
earlier this week was my last. After 11 years, I'm hanging it up.
David Lawrence and Mark Moraes have generously (naively?) agreed to
take over the postings, for whatever good they may still do. David
will do the checkgroups, and lists of newsgroups and moderators
(news.lists), and Mark will handle the other informational postings
(news.announce.newusers).
I'm not predicting the death of the Usenet -- it will continue without
me, with nary a hiccup, and six months from now most users will have
forgotten that I did the postings...those few who even know now, that
is. That is as it should be, I suspect. Nor am I leaving the
Usenet entirely. There are still a half-dozen groups that I read
sometimes (a few moderated and comp.* groups), and I will continue to
read them. That's about it, though. I've gone from reading all the
groups to reading less than ten. Funny, though, the total volume of
what I read has stayed almost constant over the years.
My sincere thanks to everyone who has ever said a "thank you" or
contributed a suggestion for the postings. You few kept me going at
this longer than most sane people would consider wise. Please lend
your support to Mark and David if you believe their efforts are
valuable. Eventually they too will burn out, just as the Usenet has
consumed nearly everyone who has made significant contributions to its
history, but you can help make their burden seem worthwhile in
between.
In closing, I'd like to repost my 3 axioms of Usenet. I originally
posted these in 1987 and 1988. In my opinion as a semi-pro
curmudgeon, I think they've aged well:
Axiom #1:
"The Usenet is not the real world. The Usenet usually does not even
resemble the real world."
Corollary #1:
"Attempts to change the real world by altering the structure
of the Usenet is an attempt to work sympathetic magic -- electronic
voodoo."
Corollary #2:
"Arguing about the significance of newsgroup names and their
relation to the way people really think is equivalent to arguing
whether it is better to read tea leaves or chicken entrails to
divine the future."
Axiom #2:
"Ability to type on a computer terminal is no guarantee of sanity,
intelligence, or common sense."
Corollary #3:
"An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of keyboards
could produce something like Usenet."
Corollary #4:
"They could do a better job of it."
Axiom #3:
"Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap) applies to Usenet."
Corollary #5:
"In an unmoderated newsgroup, no one can agree on what constitutes
the 10%."
Corollary #6:
"Nothing guarantees that the 10% isn't crap, too."
Which of course ties in to the recent:
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea --
massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a
source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect
it." --spaf (1992)
"Don't sweat it -- it's not real life. It's only ones and zeroes."
-- spaf (1988?)
--
Gene Spafford, COAST Project Director
Software Engineering Research Center & Dept. of Computer Sciences
Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398
Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu phone: (317) 494-7825
===
We don't compare. (Score:5, Funny)
Ye Gods!
The modern slashdot nerd trembles in the presence of those ancient USENET nerds of old
A 300 pound slashdot weakling is easily flung aside by the 500 pound USENET god. Who at slashdot keeps taped archives of every post for the nerds of future generations? Truly those were nerds.
i dont know how i feel about this (Score:5, Funny)
Re:i dont know how i feel about this (Score:5, Funny)
k.
Linky Links: History of USENET (Score:2)
Archive for the History of Usenet Mailing List [ucsd.edu]
Usenet Readers and Clients [wicip.org]
History of Usenet - Development, people involved [about.com]
(Yeah sure, anyone could look these up but isn't it easier to just point and click? There is more to USENET history than Google. Also, if you think I'm a karma whore, that's fine. I've got karma to burn.)
My father was a Computer Scientist (Score:5, Funny)
soul and follow his foot steps.
And now, thanks to google, I find myself battling
the flame wars he started.
Better go back and do him and VI and honor
Save the posts (Score:5, Insightful)
To those who feel like "they are walking around with their baby picture stapled to their forehead", we all mature. What I thought at 20, 30, and 40 show how I grew. What other archive in human history can provide the transitional opinions, discussions, and outright imbecilic flames wars?
While we would hate to have someone pull out our post in support of the flat earth theory, to act as though we all believed the earth was round is rewriting history. Convenient for us, but misleading to the future.
The question now becomes, what happens after Google and Slashdot, when the archive is tera-bytes large? Will it take 100 years for the next conversion?
Re:Save the posts (Score:2)
Re:Save the posts (Score:2)
"Usenet is essentially Letters to the Editor without the editor. Editors don't appreciate this, for some reason."
Re:Who owns the posts (Score:4, Interesting)
You posted your messages on an international network of servers that store messages and provide anyone with access to them. It's a little late to consider them secret. Why does it offend you that someone's storing them and providing anyone with access to them?
Google Groups is simply a very large and fancy news server that doesn't expire articles, and you implicitly granted permission for your articles to be stored on news servers by posting them in the first place.
My question is how Google determines whether someone is the real poster of a message. Can just anyone demand the removal of any message they don't like?
But they're still missing the important stuff... (Score:2, Interesting)
Since he's immortalized in the Net Legends [uncommon-sense.net] FAQ, it's a shame there are few examples of his jokes, other than in our memories.
And now, the Minas'ized version of this post:
Friend says to me, "See Google because they have many funny posts." I search for my name and find out I am being a kook. Friend says "Legendary!"
Me, too!!! (Score:5, Funny)
google rocks for doing it, but don't think... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.unisys.com sells 10" SCSI readers for thier A-series system. You can buy it seperately without a A-series service contract, and it works like any other
I worked for a company that distributed bank software on them as late as... well... now. And yes, it is cobol software.
Major Kudos to google for bringing back old usenet posts. Besides the knowledgebase provided, they are fun to read! Lots of stuff tasteful geek humor. I recommend checking it out.
The One Engine (Score:5, Funny)
Seven for alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork
Nine for comp.sci compiling late
One for Google's engine dark
In their Linux cluser where the shadows lie.
One engine to search them all, one engine to bind them
One engine to index them all and in the darkness find them
In Google's cluster where the shadows lie.
Cool it with the damn poem parodies (Score:2, Informative)
The next story (Score:5, Funny)
How Slashdot Saved Salon
Re:The next story (Score:2)
Salon's main source of revenue is now subscriptions.
The page hits just get you to the line that says
"Want to read more? Subscribe now", ideally just
when it starts to get interesting.
Strange New Google Service (Score:4, Interesting)
It's so retrofuture weird! Like what someone on a C=64 in the 1980s might think a future of online shopping would look like...
Re:Strange New Google Service (Score:2)
USENET -- works in practice, but not in theory (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet, as it scales up to more and more messages, it actually is becoming less distributed. A good lesson for all the futurists forcasting the rise of distributed systems...
Oh man I can't resist! (Score:2)
March 11th 1981 - It'll be 21 years old soon, wild!
Re:Oh man I can't resist! (Score:2)
=P
most successful troll (Score:2, Funny)
O'Reilly Network article on the same theme (Score:4, Informative)
You can read the article I wrote on the O'Reilly site [oreillynet.com]
Google/Deja has killed USENET, not saved it (Score:2, Insightful)
This was probably an unavoidable turn of events. Nevertheless, whether it is Google or some other company, I consider it wrong for them to republish this stuff, in particular as part of a commercial venture. It's the equivalent of digging out old security surveillance tapes and broadcasting them for the amusement of the masses. It's wrong, and the fact that people find some sort of voyeuristic delight in it doesn't change that. The backup tapes that Google used should have been destroyed.
Re:Google/Deja has killed USENET, not saved it (Score:4, Insightful)
The information is preserved for posterity, not for making money or other commercial exploits.
I can't really believe you think we'd be better off destroying information instead of preserving it!
Re:Google/Deja has killed USENET, not saved it (Score:2)
The information is preserved for posterity, not for making money or other commercial exploits.
Oh? When did Google become a non-profit foundation for the preservation of historical electronic information? And what does historical preservation have to do with publishing a searchable database to the web?
I can't really believe you think we'd be better off destroying information instead of preserving it!
Well, we can preserve a lot more information. For example, we can install video recorders all around your house. I'm sure people around the world would find it amusing, and 200 years from now, historians will love those sorts of documents.
Re:Google/Deja has killed USENET, not saved it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Google/Deja has killed USENET, not saved it (Score:2)
Google's indexing system might be different than Deja's indexing system.
Re:Google/Deja has killed USENET, not saved it (Score:2)
The appearance of Deja/Google archives killed USENET because it has shown that there are no guarantees: only a fool would now engage in any kind of controversial discussion on USENET under their own name.
Henry Spencer... (Score:4, Interesting)
While also saving the Usenet archives (public and widely dispersed information)..!
Holy Cow.... (Score:2, Funny)
That little? (Score:4, Interesting)
You sure those 10-inch magnetic tapes weren't 1200MB or 120GB or something? Hell, a converted VCR using VHS as a backup medium can store like 100GB (saw one somewhere, I forget the link.)
Re:That little? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:That little? (Score:4, Informative)
Binaries groups showed up a bit later, mostly after the great renaming, mostly for IBM PC Shareware and freeware binaries. No Warez or photos, not until a lot later.
VCR Backups.. (Score:2)
Ah the memories today...
Napkin calculation: VHS as a backup medium (Score:3, Informative)
Hell, a converted VCR using VHS as a backup medium can store like 100GB (saw one somewhere, I forget the link.)
Assuming 9 Mbps of raw data (half the data rate of HDTV, because garden-variety VHS is nowhere near broadcast-quality), and assuming some heavy-duty error correction reducing effective data rate to 6 Mbps, VHS's SP mode records for 7200 seconds, giving 5 gigabytes on a tape at a bare minimum. (For comparison, a single-layer DVD holds about 4 1/2 GB.) If we go to EP mode, increase the bandwidth to S-VHS levels, and apply 3:1 text compression (common with deflation [gzip.org] of large Latin-alphabet texts, especially containing quoted material), we may be able to store even more data per tape.
Message forums (Slash) are killing off Google. (Score:5, Insightful)
With these message forums and mailing lists not linked to a usenet group, there is a lot of wasted knowledge that is not shared. I would love to see a slash-mod or some type of mailing list enhancement that posts a overview or some kind of daily message post to usenet.
The whole idea of usenet was knowledge sharing, not binaries and spam ads. Glad google has saved usenet, but some effort needs start using it again.
Humm, Maybe Slashdot should enhance a usenet forum? Thou 5-20,000 posting a day on a usenet might be a little much. Maybe only 2+ posts make a moderated usenet group.
Re:Message forums (Slash) are killing off Usenet. (Score:2)
Message forums (Slash) are killing off Usenet.
this is why Canter'nSiegel should be a curse word (Score:4, Funny)
Looking at the history, [google.com] the first big Usenet spams came at exactly the wrong time- and it badly twisted the subsequent development of the Web.
Spam hurt Usenet by ruining it as a tourist destination right as mass tourism to the Web began. Long-time Usenet users couldn't recommend it to new Internet users ( "Really its a great place, just ignore the trash and the noise and don't give your name because you'll get a zillion ugly mails afterward" doesn't work as tourist advice). And for existing users, reading Usenet meant wading through muck, and then with address harvesting starting, a muck filled mailbox. Between this and the constant interruption of irrelevant ads, people were driven out, the extra traffic made Usenet a burden to ISPs, old users went elsewhere, new users never came. While the rest of the web exploded, Usenet started its long fade.
Arguing alternate history here, but if mass Spam had hit much earlier or later, the damage wouldn't have been as bad, both to Usenet or to the Web overall. Had it been much earlier, perhaps the cancelbots and other technology responses to spam would've been well developed by the time the mass tourism started. "let's ignore the problem and go somewhere else" isn't a solution when there is no 'else' to go to. Had it been much later, higher adoption rates for Usenet (as a % of all Web demand) would mean companies would need to take the Usenet model into account: people might've expected/demanded better spam solutions, more cross-website communications, and less walled-gardens. People would've been less likely to accept 'the only protection you'll get is to stop posting and come to our walled-garden web discussion group' as a solution. Ditto with the loss of shell accounts and open relays.
God how foolish people look (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing like looking through the archive to see an old post from a skilled sysadmin friend asking a basic question in the wrong group years ago.
Nothing like seeing delusional inane posts you wrote while in high school making you look like an utter twit.
Nothing like seeing old usenet posts from friends who have died years ago. This is just too creepy for words.
David Wiseman is cool :) (Score:3, Interesting)
I had looked over the courses they ran in Computer Science there, and saw one called "Unix and C". Being a bit of a geek and having used unix a *tiny* bit in my high school days, I thought it was be a cool one to take. David was the lecturer for this course. He had a lot of knowledge and passion for the subject, which is unsurprising considering his experiance with all manners of unicies. His classes for CS175a taught me a lot about Unix (and a little about C). I got 92% overall for the unit, an A+ and the highest mark I've ever got for any unit. The next semester I was at Western, I taught myself Perl, using an account on the CS Department servers and on the Reznet linux box a friend had
It was a unit for non comp-sci majors. CS Majors were expected to learn this stuff in a bunch of different classes.
Sadly, Western no longer offers CS175a - Unix and C. I feel it is a loss to the community as a whole, but at the same time, I understand that a one semester course in Unix and C probably isn't seen as too acedemic by many. Which I think is a shame. Too many universities turn out gimps fluent in one langauge, and one language only - Windows *shudder*. I think it sad that units to teach people how to click mice and use Word can get you acedemic credit, but Unix and C courses don't seem worthy enough to run.
When my time was up in Canada, I came back to Australia and while I finished my degree, I made money on the side doing CGI scripts in Perl. Then, when my degree was finished, I applied for a job as a System Admin at a department at The University of Western.. Australia. It was the first job I applied for and I got a callback the morning after I had a 70 minute panel interview. Due, in large part, to the stuff I had learnt in David's class, I passed the interview quite well.
Today, I am 22, earn over AU$40k, I get to play with lots of cool computing and network hardware, and I think it would be safe to say that if I hadn't taken that course with David, I wouldn't be where I am today. I suspect I would have been working as a security guard, making minimum wage, since my degree wasn't actually in Computer Science, but Security Studies. Thinking back, I'm pretty damn glad I did take it
David's homepage is here [csd.uwo.ca]
I would KILL for this archive... (Score:4, Interesting)
All that info would be incredibly useful!
What format do you think it would be in? Threaded text or database format or what? How would you read it or search it?
Also, what do they do with the attachments? Imagine THAT archive. Heh heh heh.
Seven Wonders of the Digital World ... (Score:2)
I was just musing the other day about what would be the 7 wonders of the digital world
Sure, GNU/Linux could be nominated but I'm a little ambivient about it as the impact is mainly social (due to GPL and the contributors' belief in libre software). As a technical piece of work, is it on the same relative scale as the ancient wonders were in their heyday? We are talking global uniqueness, recognised by a wide population segment, and something difficult to duplicate here.
LL
buy the archive? (Score:2)
I'd buy it. There's a ton of knowlege in usenet that I would love to grep.
Blast from the past! (Score:4, Funny)
I appologize to the whole slashdot community for my teen cockiness in the mid 90's. I didn't mean what I said the way I said it...at least looking back.
One good way to find your old posts is to search for your (old?) email address.
-Pete
:+) (Score:2)
services like Deja/Google killed USENET (Score:2, Flamebait)
I have been using USENET for 20 years, so I am affected by this, and I have seen USENET slowly fall apart. USENET was always a bit rough and had a lot of noise, but people did get to know each other personally and professionally. Today, USENET is nearly completely useless for any kind of social functions, and the huge expansion of people posting, anonymous/pseudonymous postings, and the need to post anonymously because of searchable archives is largely responsible. There is no forum like USENET was 20 years ago anymore.
great for digging dirt? (Score:3, Insightful)
OK: how long before a presidential candidate's Usenet postings will be dragged out for the whole world (US) to see ?
Re:great for digging dirt? (Score:3, Funny)
Back when usenet was where the action was, (before http), all the future politicians were in law school. And the law school students were way off on the other side of the campus, and thought the compsci
And now, the only people that still post on Usenet are...
Personally, I gave up on Usenet in the early 90's, after following the Clipper Chip debate on comp.org.eff.talk all summer.
The more things change... (Score:2, Funny)
5. Making the source code generally available is perhaps *the* best way to prod the vendors into fixing *lots* of holes in their systems, not just the ones exploited by the worm.
Face it, we all know how vendors behave -- everyone does the least work possible, subject to the vocalness of their customers' demands. Several people have already stated that they knew of the hole in sendmail for many years and they just chalked it up to the net being composed of benign people. Since it wasn't generally known (I didn't know about it, for example) there was no general cry to fix it, and it lay open long enough for Morris to come along and exploit it.
6. I found it ironic to read that the elder Morris recently submitted a paper on UNIX security for publication, but his employer squelched it. Who knows what was in that paper? Perhaps, just perhaps, maybe it contained a description of the hole in sendmail, among other things. Perhaps, just perhaps, Robert Jr., learned of this hole from his dad. Perhaps if that paper had been published, people would have taken steps to protect themselves before the younger Morris had unleashed his worm.
In sum: SECURITY THROUGH OBSCURITY JUST DOESN'T WORK!
spam-research (Score:2)
Because I have. The search I did was something like:
"this is totally legal" dollar [my home town]
I found 20 or so people's names and addresses and looked up their names in the phone book. Of those 20, I only found 2 people who's names and street addresses matched what was in the spam.
So... I called them. I asked if anybody had sent them money and if there had been any consequences. Neither one of them had any idea what I was talking about. They denied ever posting the spam. I even got the impression that they didn't know what usenet was.
So, what do you make of that?
SAIL recovery (Score:3, Interesting)
The original SAIL users were contacted, one by one, and offered CD-ROM copies of their files. Where the original users permit, their files will be made publicly available. The permission process is still going on, but the result will be an archive of the early days of AI.
The Usenet archive is not saved yet (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens to the archive when they're bought by someone else, or end up in bankruptcy court? Will it go the away of the online digital photo storing sites, vanishing one day without a trace, taking irreplaceable data -- data of immense academic historical interest -- with it?
Google should promise to donate the archive to the Library of Congress, do the transfer now, and make a social contract with the net community to turn over the reigns on this project if they're acquired or go out of business.
Re:Embarrassing posts archived (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Embarrassing posts archived (Score:2)
> storing every message on USENET and making them
> available years later did not occur to me.
Well, it is a NEWS machine which is really a type of Chronicle or Journal.
Someone once said (not verbatim), "Never say in public what you wouldn't like brought out in court."
Hindsight though... I made many mistakes too.
Re:Embarrassing posts archived (Score:2, Insightful)
Nah, sorry. I sure don't mean to be inconsiderate to your concern, but the whole essence of USENET is that it is not private, and that the USENET reading public will read what you have posted. Would you have posted something in the first place unless, at the time, you had wanted someone to read it?
Consider your embarrassment an experience to recognize your growth! How about it?
Also, though my opinion holds no more weight than the next man's, I think it's somehow "wrong" to remove your posts from Google's archive as the poster right above me mentioned you could do. If it's true that doing this would actually permanently remove one's postings from the archive, is it one person's right to delete a piece of history?
Anyway, I think what Google has done is extraordinary. Dejanews before them provided a wonderful service, but it's great to see Google bring back the entire archive!
Thank you for your time, folks!
Copyright? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Embarrassing posts archived (Score:2)
As to that.. a prospective employer who is going to come down on you for something you said when you were 14.. well, you probably don't want to work for.
They did find it (Score:2, Funny)
Hi! How are you?
I send you this file in order to have your advice.
See you later! Thanks