FYI: Verizon are jerks.... eliminating the .alt groups

John Lewis wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:43:50 -0400, Folk wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:37:34 -0400, "Mr.E Solved!"
wrote:

Folk wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:45:34 GMT, (John Lewis)
wrote:

Verizon provides me a near fault-free service with no bandwidth caps
or erratic upload bandwidth, so I have no real inclination to change
ISP providers [...] So, I say farewell to a couple of my favorite alt. groups..
I never understood people who based their ISP decisions on the quality
of their Usenet service. Most folks long ago wised up and went with a
third-party email service so that changing ISP's or crappy ISP related
mail service wasn't a big issue, so why don't they do the same with
Usenet? If all you're interested in is text based groups, then there
are scores of independent Usenet providers who can hook you up for
next to nothing. Even premium Usenet provider who offer all the
groups and no download limits (or at least reasonable download limits)
can be had for around $10/month.

By your logic ISPs should not even offer email, nor should anyone pick
an ISP based on their email service.. since you can get email at any
third party provider.

Regardless of the breach of contract by cutting out an enumerated
service, regardless of the same old witch-hunt war-cry of child-sex
vagaries, this is an attack on the free exchange of information.

Not everyone has the same priorities as you Folk, nor do they roll over
as easily when they tell you you're in for a rogering.

Tell us Folk, what services exactly should ISPs provide for the end user?
Looks like a couple of people already provided the answer that you
already knew (based on my post ) that I would provide.

My main point though is that using third-party providers for email and
Usenet insulates you from the eventual ISP change. Some people put up
with crappy ISP service because "it's too much of a hassle to change
my email address". To me, that's not a valid reason.


A very valid reason actually, for those of us who have long-term
memorable email addresses and excellent spam filters.


It just seems odd to me that the OP would bid farewell to a newsgroup
just because his ISP decided to do something stupid.

Traffic on the particular alt. (computer/console-hardware) groups to
which I subscribe has shrunk significantly over the past year or two,
so the loss to me is not great and there are other forums available in
which I actively participate. The Verizon decision to eliminate ALL
alt. groups from their newservers instead of selectively filtering
well-known culprit-groups - a technically trivial task - bears the
hall-marks of a truly arrogant company that does not put their
customers first.

John Lewis


Correct, as the hidden motive as always is profit. Here are Verizon's
motivations:

1) USEnet carries a huge percentage of internet traffic, proportionally
large for the number of users. (alt.binaries.*)

2) USEnet is non-commercial by charter and any attempts to commercialize
USEnet will fail.

3) USEnet is distributed and thusly prohibitively difficult to fall
under complete corporate or covert control.

4) USEnet is not popular therefore its elimination will go mostly unnoticed.

5) USEnet can be accessed by other means, so they feel no responsibility
in maintaining access.

6) USEnet can provide cover for illegal and immoral acts

7) Part of a larger, more sinister overarching plan to commercialize and
profit off of all human activities and output, a creativity tax if you will.

8) Verizon loses money every time someone uses the internet from their
Verizon account.


Many of the technical problems are trivial and already solved, even
already implemented. Laws already exist a hundred times over, the world
over to punish actual criminals of any possible human activity
imaginable including those who use USEnet.

The only real concern is bandwidth: by failing to invest in
infrastructure Verizon and other ISPs find themselves in a similar
position as an airline that has overbooked the available number of seats
on a flight. When you get bumped off a flight you are required to be
overcompensated by law, to teach the airlines to better manage their
booking systems.

With Internet access, instead of getting you on the next flight and
vouchers or discounts for future travel Verizon simply cuts off a few
destinations for everyone since "You all really don't want to go there
anyway and if you do, fly with someone else since you are probably
smuggling something and you have too much luggage. Besides, we really
really need the planes elsewhere."

Invest in infrastructure.

"Blig Merk" wrote in message
...
It isn't just Verizon. There is a big list of the major ISP's doing
the same thing. This will eventually kill off Usenet since Usenet is
not based on central servers but is distributed across multiple ISP
newsgroup servers. This was part of the strength of using it to
distribute pirate binaries since shutting out one point only meant a
piece of the whole file was lost for awhile until it would be picked
up at another point. Now, if all the major ISP's agree to not carry
those pieces, then those groups eventually dry up and disappear. The
only problem is that it will probably start taking down other non-
related newsgroups. Usenet has been dying for years anyway. It used to
be the place for historical computer events a long time ago. Google
groups has a reference showing historical computer events that
happened on. This is one list of firsts that happened on Usenet:

http://yak.net/fqa/297.html

Becaue of fags like you

It's not just Verizon.

Road Runner (Time-Warner, Northeast Ohio) cut off ***ALL*** newsgroups
with no warning as of today. ALL of them. The entire service is simply
gone. No more newsgroups on Time-Warner Road Runner unless you use some
3rd party server.



Ding Dong wrote:
"Blig Merk" wrote in message
...
It isn't just Verizon. There is a big list of the major ISP's doing
the same thing. This will eventually kill off Usenet since Usenet is
not based on central servers but is distributed across multiple ISP
newsgroup servers. This was part of the strength of using it to
distribute pirate binaries since shutting out one point only meant a
piece of the whole file was lost for awhile until it would be picked
up at another point. Now, if all the major ISP's agree to not carry
those pieces, then those groups eventually dry up and disappear. The
only problem is that it will probably start taking down other non-
related newsgroups. Usenet has been dying for years anyway. It used to
be the place for historical computer events a long time ago. Google
groups has a reference showing historical computer events that
happened on. This is one list of firsts that happened on Usenet:

http://yak.net/fqa/297.html

Becaue of fags like you


** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

"John Lewis" wrote in message
...


You know Google is a ****ass company based on almost one thing..Spam.
They spam everything, the entire Internet is full of Google originated spam.
****ing block Google with Protowall or Peer Guardian or some other
packet blocker or method if you know how. HTML Gateways and Google Groups
are for Internet Nubs and the main reasons why ISP's are dumping groups and
Usenet service altogether. Why let some asshole company make money from you
for free so you can use a pretty HTML ad infested privacy killing interface
as they ad-sense your IP? how many great usenet group were just abandoned to
the spammers? Thousands..mainly thanks to Google that POS Spamming company.

www.dogpile.com
www.yahoo.com
www.msn.com

"Mark Morrison" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:22:03 -0400, Folk wrote:

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:45:34 GMT, (John Lewis)
wrote:

Verizon provides me a near fault-free service with no bandwidth caps
or erratic upload bandwidth, so I have no real inclination to change
ISP providers [...] So, I say farewell to a couple of my favorite alt.
groups..

I never understood people who based their ISP decisions on the quality
of their Usenet service. Most folks long ago wised up and went with a
third-party email service so that changing ISP's or crappy ISP related
mail service wasn't a big issue, so why don't they do the same with
Usenet? If all you're interested in is text based groups, then there
are scores of independent Usenet providers who can hook you up for
next to nothing. Even premium Usenet provider who offer all the
groups and no download limits (or at least reasonable download limits)
can be had for around $10/month.

I switched to Giganews years ago, but I also use it for binaries.

The danger is that giganews is becoming the usenet and in the end the only
provider.

Another way to block Google.

Thanks sittingduck

http://usenet4all.se/
Information

No more google groups posts on this server.

If you want to read postings from google then use google.



Screw Google use

www.dogpile.com
www.yahoo.com
www.msn.com









http://improve-usenet.org/index.html


http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2008/06...illing-usenet/

Barry Watzman wrote:
It's not just Verizon.

Road Runner (Time-Warner, Northeast Ohio) cut off ***ALL*** newsgroups
with no warning as of today. ALL of them. The entire service is simply
gone. No more newsgroups on Time-Warner Road Runner unless you use some
3rd party server.



Ding Dong wrote:
"Blig Merk" wrote in message
...
It isn't just Verizon. There is a big list of the major ISP's doing
the same thing. This will eventually kill off Usenet since Usenet is
not based on central servers but is distributed across multiple ISP
newsgroup servers. This was part of the strength of using it to
distribute pirate binaries since shutting out one point only meant a
piece of the whole file was lost for awhile until it would be picked
up at another point. Now, if all the major ISP's agree to not carry
those pieces, then those groups eventually dry up and disappear. The
only problem is that it will probably start taking down other non-
related newsgroups. Usenet has been dying for years anyway. It used to
be the place for historical computer events a long time ago. Google
groups has a reference showing historical computer events that
happened on. This is one list of firsts that happened on Usenet:

http://yak.net/fqa/297.html

Becaue of fags like you

** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **
My Australian ISP shut off Usenet last year, after lots of media
coverage of porn, etc.
However they did start again after a couple of months, with the binaries
missing.

I find newsgroups like these important information sources. The lack of
binaries is no loss, for me. Although I don't like being censored. You
never know when "they" will stop.

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:07:48 +0100, Mark Morrison said...

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:22:03 -0400, Folk wrote:

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:45:34 GMT, (John Lewis)
wrote:

Verizon provides me a near fault-free service with no bandwidth caps
or erratic upload bandwidth, so I have no real inclination to change
ISP providers [...] So, I say farewell to a couple of my favorite alt. groups..

I never understood people who based their ISP decisions on the quality
of their Usenet service. Most folks long ago wised up and went with a
third-party email service so that changing ISP's or crappy ISP related
mail service wasn't a big issue, so why don't they do the same with
Usenet? If all you're interested in is text based groups, then there
are scores of independent Usenet providers who can hook you up for
next to nothing. Even premium Usenet provider who offer all the
groups and no download limits (or at least reasonable download limits)
can be had for around $10/month.

I switched to Giganews years ago, but I also use it for binaries.

I stopped using Roadrunner's news servers over a year ago, and hooked up with a
paid Usenet provider also (Newsguy). Tried Giganews, and they were good, but
frankly other providers offer comparable service and are less expensive.

I get 50 Gig through Newsguy for $8 month, and the closet account at Giganews
was 25 Gigs for $13 month. Newsguy also has a 10 Gig / $3 month option, compared
to 2 Gig / $8 month at Giganews. I also liked the fact that Newsguy rolls over
my unused dload capacity each month, and Giganews didn't.

For what it's worth, Newsguy is offering a free month of newsgroup access to
Roadrunner & Verizon customers...

http://newsguy.com/freemonth.htm

- F

Why not cut out all the yakking and
post some links to subscription Usenet Newsgroup services that have
everything.

Money talks. So do Subscribers.

Best way to get back at the ISPs is to make them suffer by losing
subscribers.

It worked to slam AOHell...
so do it to the rest of them until they "learn" that freedom is required,
demanded, and will not be abridged or amended.

They can slam spammers, malware purveyors, terrorists & conspirators, but
not to do so by diminishing services to subscribers.
IMVHO.


"John Lewis" wrote in message
I am a Verizon Online (DSL) subscriber and have just read their
announcement, quoted befow verbatim:-
================================================== ==============
Dear Verizon Online Customer,

As a Verizon Newsgroup service user, we wanted to let you know about
some important changes that we will soon be making to our Newsgroup
service.

On June 24, 2008, we will be modifying our Newsgroup offerings to only
offer groups in the Big-8 Newsgroup hierarchies, which are listed
below. The 0.verizon.* newsgroup hierarchy will also continue to be
available. Users will not be able to post or download from any other
newsgroups using our Newsgroup service.

comp.*
humanities.*
misc.*
news.*
rec.*
sci.*
soc.*
talk.*

More details regarding the Big 8 newsgroup hierarchies is available
at: http://www.big-8.org/.

This change will not affect your Internet access service. If you
would like to subscribe to newsgroups other than those we offer, you
will need to subscribe to a separate commercial news service. Please
note that your use of any such service is still subject to our Terms
of Service and Acceptable Use Policy.

There are no changes required to your software, but you will need to
unsubscribe from all Newsgroups other than the Big 8 hierarchies and
the 0.verizon.* hierarchy noted above. The following link explains
how to subscribe and unsubscribe in Outlook Express:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/171190

IMPORTANT: If you continue to subscribe to unsupported newsgroups, you
may experience poor computer performance and slow throughput speeds.
Failure to unsubscribe may also interfere with the functioning of the
Verizon network or use of the network by other Verizon users, which is
a violation of our Acceptable Use Policy.

We appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to serve
you in the future.

Sincerely,

Verizon Online
================================================== ====

Since the only alt. groups to which I subscribe are computer/console
hardware-related, this is not particularly discomforting for me. There
are alternate forums for such discussions. However, I sympathise with
those who subscribe to many of the (non-porn) social groups. Verizon
could have easily implemented fiters for the few dozen "nasties"
(sex/porn, binaries, etc ) in the many thousands of alt. newsgroups.
A sledgehammer to crack a nut....

However, for me there is also the practical problem of replying to
postings that may also have been crossposted to alt. groups. To comply
fully with the "IMPORTANT" paragraph in Verizon's directive, I believe
I will have to manually check the reply-header of all my replies to
eliminate any reference to the alt. domain if present. Thanks Verizon
for nothing.

Verizon provides me a near fault-free service with no bandwidth caps
or erratic upload bandwidth, so I have no real inclination to change
ISP providers.

So, I say farewell to a couple of my favorite alt. groups unless
Verizon has a change of heart stimulated by pocket-book considerations
(which I doubt)

John Lewis

"Folk" wrote in message
On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:37:34 -0400, "Mr.E Solved!"
wrote:

Folk wrote:
On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:45:34 GMT, (John Lewis)
wrote:

Verizon provides me a near fault-free service with no bandwidth caps
or erratic upload bandwidth, so I have no real inclination to change
ISP providers [...] So, I say farewell to a couple of my favorite alt.
groups..

I never understood people who based their ISP decisions on the quality
of their Usenet service. Most folks long ago wised up and went with a
third-party email service so that changing ISP's or crappy ISP related
mail service wasn't a big issue, so why don't they do the same with
Usenet? If all you're interested in is text based groups, then there
are scores of independent Usenet providers who can hook you up for
next to nothing. Even premium Usenet provider who offer all the
groups and no download limits (or at least reasonable download limits)
can be had for around $10/month.


By your logic ISPs should not even offer email, nor should anyone pick
an ISP based on their email service.. since you can get email at any
third party provider.

Regardless of the breach of contract by cutting out an enumerated
service, regardless of the same old witch-hunt war-cry of child-sex
vagaries, this is an attack on the free exchange of information.

Not everyone has the same priorities as you Folk, nor do they roll over
as easily when they tell you you're in for a rogering.

Tell us Folk, what services exactly should ISPs provide for the end user?

Looks like a couple of people already provided the answer that you
already knew (based on my post ) that I would provide.

My main point though is that using third-party providers for email and
Usenet insulates you from the eventual ISP change. Some people put up
with crappy ISP service because "it's too much of a hassle to change
my email address". To me, that's not a valid reason.

Horsehockey. People have email addresses for business, pal. It IS a valid
reason. Sometimes essential.
Just because it does not fit YOUR model, doesn't mean it isn't valid.

It just seems odd to me that the OP would bid farewell to a newsgroup
just because his ISP decided to do something stupid.

Right, so post some useful links to subscription Usenet services please and
try to be USEful...
end this pointless drivel.