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story category Rogers Axes Usenet Access
Doesn't e-mail customers about it...
(old news - 09:04AM Thursday Nov 10 2005)
tags: business · cable
Customers of Canadian cable provider Rogers have realized they'll no longer have Usenet service as of December 15. Of course customers weren't notified via e-mail; they instead noticed the decision only because the site FAQ had changed. Rogers claims that two things led to the decision: fewer people are using Usenet, and "as a member of Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAISE) Rogers is committed to reducing the effectiveness of Usenet as a distribution vehicle for child exploitation images."

Thus eliminating Usenet access entirely?

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Forums » Rogers Axes Usenet Access
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DR_JAY

join:2002-04-23
Verdun, QC

?!

There's a lot worst things than child exploitation on the usenet servers.

GoodyearMark
Premium
join:2001-05-02
Goodyear, AZ
·Cox HSI

Re: ?!

said by DR_JAY See Profile :

There's a lot worst things than child exploitation on the usenet servers.
Name one. This is as low as it goes.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

Re: ?!

said by GoodyearMark See Profile :

said by DR_JAY See Profile :

There's a lot worst things than child exploitation on the usenet servers.
Name one. This is as low as it goes.
Perhaps what he meant was, "there's far more of worth available via Usenet that overrides the small amount of child porn that is on it."

If we're to start shutting off useful tools because a small fringe abuses it, we may as well shut down ALL communications channels, including the internet and postal mail systems.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)
VirtualLarry
Premium
join:2003-08-01

Re: ?!

said by nixen See Profile :

Perhaps what he meant was, "there's far more of worth available via Usenet that overrides the small amount of child porn that is on it."

If we're to start shutting off useful tools because a small fringe abuses it, we may as well shut down ALL communications channels, including the internet and postal mail systems.

-tom
That's a good point. I wonder why the various Christian coalitions haven't petitioned to completely shut down the USPS yet, like they are attempting with Usenet.

P.S. comp.std.c++.moderated (IIRC?) is one good reason not to axe usenet. comp.dcom.modems used to be another. Killing Usenet, one of the largest collected groups of human wisdom (and crap), is akin to wholesale book-burning and shutting down libraries, just because of one or two "bad books" that might get circulated.

The sad thing is, because of the expense, and the relative P/L of running a large Usenet service, there are likely quite a few smaller ISPs that might even go along with killing off that service, not because of polical or other reasons, but secretly because of cost reasons. Those ISPs should get negative PR to no end though, if they do kill their Usenet, regardless of reasoning.

juwareze

@172.20.x.x

Re: ?!

no kidding. do u guys ever wonder why newsgroups arent really used by p2pers overseas (non-us/europ)? cuz our lameass ISPs only carry text groups mostly. but at least we get to read those useful groups.

They shud at least keep text access, those arent too stressful on teh newservers. personally i dont read them too much crap. and as for p2p well we alwayz got edonkey, kazaa, dc, irc... sure those arent as fast as newsgroups but we can also buy cd movies for cheap. something teh mpaa hasnt learned!!
raddicott

join:2002-12-29

Ooooh Canada!

What a shame.

rudnicke
Premium
join:2004-10-23
Rantoul, IL
clubs:

Wow.

They really thought that one through.
Davros866

join:2001-07-23
Houston, TX

Blocked

Why not block port 80 as well? I suspect a lot of child exploitation is done via the web browser.

Then there's email and IM. Those can be used also and should be blocked.
dsanders16

join:2001-02-24
Auburn, AL

Re: Blocked

Don't give them any ideas.

pnh102
Reptiles Are Cuddly And Pretty
Premium
join:2002-05-02
Mount Airy, MD

said by Davros866 See Profile :

Why not block port 80 as well? I suspect a lot of child exploitation is done via the web browser.

Then there's email and IM. Those can be used also and should be blocked.
<sarcasm>
Heck, block everything, inbound and outbound. This way, we will make sure no one's computer gets infected with viruses either!
</sarcasm>
--
Rove / Rumsfeld 2008!

N3OGH
Will it all be Obama's fault now?
Premium
join:2003-11-11
Philly burbs
·Verizon Online DSL

Virtually every avenue of the internet can be used to exploit children. Guess we should shut the whole thing down....

I've worked on child exploitation investigations in both my internship, and my current position. One things for sure, for as long as human beings wake every morning and move about, these sick bastards will find a way to do their evil (the child exploiters).

Shutting down any portion of any computer network will change that....

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

Re: Blocked

said by N3OGH See Profile :

Virtually every avenue of the internet can be used to exploit children. Guess we should shut the whole thing down....
Other avenues don't require an ISP to either put NNTP infrastructure in place or provide access/subscriptions to third-party services - either of which is not inexpensive.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)
vincom

join:2005-02-01
Wayne, NJ

edit:
November 10th, @09:24AM

Shady!

It's a cheap excuse to cut something they most likely did not want to continue the expense of operation.
grumpygeek

join:2004-12-14
Houston, TX

Re: Shady!

If a customer is going to run their cable modem at 100%, it's much better economically to have them pounding on your news servers than on your external connections.

But I can see a lot of ISP's being in an awkward place on this one. It's one thing to have a customer viewing web pages of atrocious stuff. It's quite another to have documented policies of how many days you cache alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen and dedicate support resources to it.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

Re: Shady!

said by grumpygeek See Profile :

If a customer is going to run their cable modem at 100%, it's much better economically to have them pounding on your news servers than on your external connections.

But I can see a lot of ISP's being in an awkward place on this one. It's one thing to have a customer viewing web pages of atrocious stuff. It's quite another to have documented policies of how many days you cache alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen and dedicate support resources to it.
My provider, SpeakEasy, gets around that by simply providing a basic subscription to GigaNews. So, they don't have to dedicate support services or dodge the landmines of explaining retention policies.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)

stephenju
Premium
join:2002-05-17
Bedford, MA

Why don't they do this...

quote:
as a member of Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAISE) Rogers is committed to reducing the effectiveness of Usenet as a distribution vehicle for child exploitation images.
Well. This reason alone is enough to shutdown the entire Internet.

P Ness
You'Ve Forgotten 9-11 Already
Premium
join:2001-08-29
Cromwell, CT
clubs:

Re: Why don't they do this...

said by stephenju See Profile :

quote:
as a member of Canadian Coalition Against Internet Child Exploitation (CCAISE) Rogers is committed to reducing the effectiveness of Usenet as a distribution vehicle for child exploitation images.
Well. This reason alone is enough to shutdown the entire Internet.
While you are at it they better shut down telephones too...and cars since preditors snatch kids from the streets in cars....
--
www.stopfcc.comI do not think the government needs to restrict free speech especially on a device that has an off knob.

Blasterbator
Sent By Grocery Clerks

join:2001-02-20
Jackson, MS

Re: Why don't they do this...

Actually, you guys are thinking entirely too small scale, shutting down Canada entirely would end any child exploitation that may occur in Canada.
athlon 11

join:2003-01-15
31400

Re: Why don't they do this...

why not lunch all nuclear weapon to kill all human being?hahaha

Cstefan
Stop Changing My Tag

join:2000-08-21
North Olmsted, OH

Re: Why don't they do this...

said by athlon 11 See Profile :

why not lunch all nuclear weapon to kill all human being?hahaha
I had a hotdog for lunch myself. Much safer than nuclear weapons.

dru

join:2000-09-14
Corona, CA

Re: Why don't they do this...

said by Cstefan See Profile :

said by athlon 11 See Profile :

why not lunch all nuclear weapon to kill all human being?hahaha
I had a hotdog for lunch myself. Much safer than nuclear weapons.
Certainly would cause less heartburn!:)
--
I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.
andreo

join:2001-03-30
Des Moines, IA
I think to nip this in the bud, you need to go to the source. Stop the sales of all video and photo cameras. If there's no way to take the pictures in the first place, then there are no pictures to be distributed.
phantom6294

join:2002-02-27
Abingdon, MD
·RoadRunner Cable
·Comcast


edit:
November 10th, @10:29AM

Re: Why don't they do this...

Well... but then they will start drawing pictures by hand of children and send them via postal mail... so the logic would flow we would have to shut down the postal mail system. So, to nip that in the bud, we better get rid of paper and pens/pencils/etc so they can't draw. But then, they will just imagine images in their head... and talk to their buddies on the phone describing the images... so the logic flows we would need to shut down the phone system... so to nip that in the bud, we will have to take away their minds so that can't even imagine the images....
logidev

join:2004-05-09
Nepean, ON

Ted's best interest.

I think the truth behind the matter is that they are blocking that service as a result of the amount of "warez" downloading.
In their attempt to make good, they have knowingly lied about the root cause of their reasoning behind the blocks. It sounds much better for them to say "we are blocking this access to rid these sick people from downloading their smut. When the truth is, they are simply doing it for the money factor.

My two cents, plus GST.

aol suckest

@rr.com

Re: Ted's best interest.

they need to shut down AOL.. the biggest of all child endangering networks...


dudeisright

@67.98.x.x
I tend to agree. If you put a child p0rn label or terrorism label on something the uninformed public is less likely to push the issue.

What it really boils down to is they are censoring their customers communication.
vanDSLuser
Mahalo for reading
Premium
join:2004-07-28
West Vancouver, BC
Well, the "warez" is usually restritced to a few newsgroups, just cut those groups and keep the rest of USENET alive.

Of course, for anything text related, there's always google groups.

Just my 2c + 7% GST + 7% PST

Arcwhite

@ne.jp

Re: Ted's best interest.

"Warez" isn't restricted to a few newsgroups, almost every newsgroup has warez on it. Shutting down those newsgroups, more than half of usenet, or blocking access to them, would only make new ones spring up... at a faster pace than people could find them and block them. This might not happen in Canada... since I don't know if anyone really cares that much there, but if any of the big ISPs in America tried this, I don't think it would go very well... everyone being mad at the ISP and simply starting new groups for sharing warez would undoubtably happen...

Plus, I don't know why anyone would use usenet for anything besides music or software... using it as a message board is slow and painful, moreso than IRC, since IRC is real-time. I know they are different things, but still... Usenet is only useful for most people because it offers free software, games and music, and at really fast speeds (Pirated of course). Blocking access to the most popular warez groups wouldn't work for anyone, the only real way to get people to stop using usenet for illegal stuff, is to block access to usenet altogether, which will discourage most of the average-level computer users, but of course, in computers, there is always a way around such blocks. There will always be.

packetscan
Premium
join:2004-10-19
Bridgeport, CT
clubs:

What a Pile of crap

I dont buy that..

Bobcat
1.20.09 - The End of an Error
Premium
join:2001-02-04
Bedminster, NJ
·Verizon Online DSL

Poor excuse

If they were really concerned with "reducing the effectiveness of Usenet as a distribution vehicle for child exploitation images", they would simply stop carrying binary newsgroups and retain the text newsgroups.
--
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
» George W. Bush, April 9, 1999
jp10558
Premium
join:2005-06-24
Willseyville, NY

Re: Poor excuse

And text newsgroups aren't even that expensive to maintain. There are free text servers for goodness sake.
picardy

join:2002-11-07
Elkton, MD

Last time I checked, all news groups are text so banning binary groups would accomplish nothing. In binary groups binary files are converted into text before they are posted, binary groups are binary in name only. Only way to stop binary posting is to have all of Usenet moderated or limit how much someone can post.

See 7 replies to this post
raye
Premium
join:2000-08-14
Orange, CA

This, from the headquarters of NAMBLA

The North American Man-Boy Love Association is out of Canada. Seems to me getting rid of this organization would be a better use of resources.

insomniac
Oh Yeah
Premium
join:2002-09-22
Naperville, IL
clubs:

Re: This, from the headquarters of NAMBLA

Sure they're based in Canada?

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAMBLA

Miz
WTF?
Premium
join:2002-03-11
Miami, FL
clubs:

Google?

That is a load of crap. This is a little off topic but, can't you get access to usenet through Google in the Groups section?
--
»www.3dbauctions.com

Jason Levine
Premium
join:2001-07-13
Albany, NY

"Won't someone think of the children"

Be very suspicious at best and wary at worst when someone claims that something needs to be done "to protect the children." It's more likely that they are using that excuse to minimize opposition while they push their own agenda forward.

hurleyp

join:2000-06-20
Ottawa, ON

Didn't they warn us about this...?

It seems to me that Rogers was making a bit of noise about pulling the plug on Usenet a few months ago. I thought it was more a matter of them not wanting to maintain a service that relatively few people (outside of us techno-geeks ) actually use on a regular basis. The spin about protecting the kids from p0rn is probably mostly PR.
--
"I reject your reality and substitute my own."

sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed

Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada

Re: Didn't they warn us about this...?

The noise was stopping providing news services themselves. For the first while, Rogers provided their own news farm, run by Compaq. It was something of a performance headache with the servers often being out of step causing lots of problems.

So, they opted to outsource news (usenet) to Giganews and mail to Yahoo!

Now, they decided to simply cancel news altogether.

RR73

@bellsouth.ne

Usenet

I think there is a misunderstanding here, Rogers is not BLOCKING usenet access or ports, they are simply not going to provide the service themselves to their customers.
underscore

join:2004-04-20
Fairfax, VA

Re: Usenet

said by RR73 :

I think there is a misunderstanding here, Rogers is not BLOCKING usenet access or ports, they are simply not going to provide the service themselves to their customers.
If that is truly their intention, then are they going to reduce the monthly price to reflect the reduction in service?

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

Re: Usenet

said by underscore See Profile :

said by RR73 :

I think there is a misunderstanding here, Rogers is not BLOCKING usenet access or ports, they are simply not going to provide the service themselves to their customers.
If that is truly their intention, then are they going to reduce the monthly price to reflect the reduction in service?
Yeah. I can see that one happening...

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)
Primis1

join:2005-06-13
Coldwater, MI

What's the point of usenet anymore?

There are vehicles that can accomplish what usenet does far better than the archaic newsgroup system. This isn't 1996 anymore, we're nearing a decade past that.

Now... I'm old-school, I had my time with the newsgroups back-in-the-day, but... time has passed them by. The fact that some diedhards still refuse to switch doesn't change the fact that it's an old, archaic system that a *minscule* percentage still clings to more out of nostalgia than actual usage reasons.

Or should be all forget ISP's and go back to SynchroNet multinode BBS's too and just ignore the passage of time, culture, and technology?

Eliminating Usenet is one of those things I'm starting to become all for, because the longer peopel let it live on, the more noise the tiny percentage using it make whining about how unfair it'd be to kill them.

sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0

Re: What's the point of usenet anymore?

For heavy downloaders, usenet was replaced by P2P ... but now that the RIAA and MPAA are threatening P2P at every step, people are returning to usenet to distribute stuff (some illicit, some not)

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

If you're quoting 1996, you ain't "old school".

At any rate, what other system provides as effecitve a method of concentrating topical knowledge? Yeah, there's lots of nifty forums out there, but, in essence, they re-invent the wheel and dilute the pool of contributors. BBR's a perfect example: the tech forums on here are decent, but I'd still never trade them for the news groups that share similar subject matter.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)
Primis1

join:2005-06-13
Coldwater, MI

Re: What's the point of usenet anymore?

When did I ever say 1996 was "old-school". Oh that's right didn't...

For one, the signal-to-noise ratio on even a very popular WWW forum is STILL hundreds of times better than the same ratio on newsgroups.

Secondly, I stated this "wasn't 1996 anymore" because it's not like the WWW technology isn't there to have effective web-based, moderated forums even capable of things newsgroups aren't. There's NO REASON WHATSOEVER to use newsgroups other than a few scared, whiney die-hards who refuse to change and keep up with the times. That's it.

It would be a VERY good thing for ISP's to all begin killing newsgroups off and leave someone else to index them in a read-only state for archival putposes. ISP's have far better things to worry about than Joe Blow who's lazy and scared of change and thusly still wants his newsgroups access.

A safer as the "why reinvent the wheel?" comment, that's incredibly-ignorant and ridiculous. If nobody ever tried reinventing the wheel, you wouldn't have any of the internet components today., because they all came about by someone pushign forward and "reinventing the wheel" to do something a better, more-effective way. And the losers stuck a decade or two back refusing to give up their old ways, refusing change for the simple sake of refusing change, deserve to be left behind.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

Re: What's the point of usenet anymore?

"Reinventing the wheel" implies just that: that you've wasted the effort to create something "new" that isn't. Something that doesn't provide any really new functionality, often at the expense of existing functionality. Frankly, I've yet to find a forum that does anything other than reinvent the Usenet "wheel". Oh wait, the ability to toss in a or a is just such a vast improvement. And you can't have the cute little posting tags/icons either... Oh, wait, yes you can, if you know how or if your news client supports it. And Usenet doesn't support threading or anything else (funny, but even news clients as decrepit as trn seem to think that Usenet does). I guess that's the "improvement" that web-based forums provide: they provide no level of expectation on the user. There's no value to using a better reading/posting client or knowing how to more effectively use the medium. They make everything "easy" by removing the advanced functionality capabilities. Ok, that's an improvement... But, whatever, it seems that you never truly availed yourself of the worth of Usenet. That explains your willingness to junk it for "better" things.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)

TK Junk Mail
Go ahead, make my day
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Margate City, NJ
clubs:
·Comcast

Few users and reducing unneeded costs

Rogers is just cutting an unnecessary cost by no longer having to pay Giganews for a service very few are using.

They are not blocking access, just not paying Giganews for users to get free access.

Who cares. For those who need it or want it, they can pay Giganews directly.
--
--
Join Red Room Forum
My Web Page

sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed

Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada

edit:
November 10th, @12:30PM

Re: Few users and reducing unneeded costs

News was one of the few services that were considered core to an ISPs operation, historically.

This obviously comes down to $$$ ... whether it's unnecessary or not is a judgement call that is questionable.

Probably it's a case of the fact that Rogers sees the writing on the wall as far as P2P is concerned and that Usenet is going to be the way folks get their materials, pushing up bandwidth costs too. So this is purely cost savings.

It would be one thing if Rogers came out and said "We're eliminating Usenet because we want to save a million a month when comparatively few folks use it", but no, they hide under the child porn thing. This is what is so disturbing. Rogers seems incapable of implementing things negative to their users and calling it for what it is. Speed cuts = improved service. Yahoo! mail = improved service. Bandwidth Caps = improved service. This comes on the heels a couple months ago of an increase of $2 to top tier users and $5 to the upper of the lite tiers.

They recently implemented widespread P2P throttling and apparently other disabling techniques, but have only sideways admitted to it. Support doesn't know anything about it.

It's no wonder people are pissed off with them ... of itself, it's not a big deal, but it is the pattern of behaviour from Rogers that is so disturbing. I call it "Mind over Matter - We don't mind because the customer doesn't matter!"

TK Junk Mail
Go ahead, make my day
Premium
join:2002-03-03
Margate City, NJ
clubs:
·Comcast

Re: Few users and reducing unneeded costs

said by sbrook See Profile :

News was one of the few services that were considered core to an ISPs operation, historically.
But there are now dozens of sources of free news that the ISP doesn't have to pay for. Why should they continue to pay for something that is freely available thru many many other sources? See Google news, Google groups, Yahoo, MSN, etc. etc.
--
--
Join Red Room Forum
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nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

said by sbrook See Profile :

It would be one thing if Rogers came out and said "We're eliminating Usenet because we want to save a million a month when comparatively few folks use it", but no, they hide under the child porn thing.
`zactly..

said by sbrook See Profile :

This is what is so disturbing. Rogers seems incapable of implementing things negative to their users and calling it for what it is. Speed cuts = improved service. Yahoo! mail = improved service. Bandwidth Caps = improved service. This comes on the heels a couple months ago of an increase of $2 to top tier users and $5 to the upper of the lite tiers.
Corporate "double speak": gotta love it.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)

Vig
Thread-safe since 1997
Premium
join:2004-03-23
San Diego, CA
·RoadRunner Cable

I think the only reason this story got any degree of attention is because of the "protecting the children" angle they tried to use to spin the decision. Had they just come out and given their real reason- it's costing more than it's worth- a few people would grumble about how this company sucks, is greedy, etc. and it would have gone largely unnoticed. It would have been refreshing to see a company actually start with the truth for once, instead of the constant attempt to spin spin spin.
--
Visit the land of the never-setting sun

sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed

Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada

Re: Few users and reducing unneeded costs

said by Vig See Profile :

It would have been refreshing to see a company actually start with the truth for once, instead of the constant attempt to spin spin spin.
EXACTLY. Rogers has a history of customer abuse ... A few years ago, it was "Negative Optioning" ... we're going to add services and charge you for them. If you don't want them, call. Recently "Rogers Home Phone" ... which they advertise then hit everyone with a $1.99 per month system access fee.
The list of Rogers abuses of their customers goes on and on.

Desi
Premium
join:2002-05-05
Kanata, ON
clubs:

Newbs...

This blows, only two weeks ago I used Rogers Newsgroups to learn my way around newsgroups... Mind you, once I figured out what I was doing, I switched to NewsHosting because of their faster speeds. Had this free service not been availible, I would have never started playing around with this (I'm not one to pay for something before I atleast know it's capabilities to some degree)... Won't somebody please think of the noobies?!
--
The User formerly known as Desi StYlE

shudwein
OG

join:2001-10-12
Canada

Re: Newbs...

If they came out and said they were just trying to save a few bucks but cutting operation costs so the Blue Jays (Rogers owns the Toronto MLB team) can compete in the AL East, even that would be satisfactory.

nixen
Rockin' the Boxen
Premium
join:2002-10-04
Alexandria, VA
·Cox HSI
·Speakeasy

And that's essentially what has killed Usenet and why it's primarily an "old timers" tool. Lots of people have come online, but few have been told about the great resource that Usenet is. Most come to it on accident, if at all. Thus, as a percentage of overall Internet users, its use goes down, whether its actual number of users does.

-tom
--
"Some people have morals, standards and ideals about quality, but I'm an American: I couldn't care less." --Tony Pierce (paraphrased)

anonymity

@verizon.com

When Comcast dumped the newsgroups

I had to pay Giganews $23/month plus Comcast's $45/month, just to get the same service I was getting before. Comcast stated that the newsgroups were maiinly used by less than 1% of their subscribers. But I'll bet these 1% were using more bandwidth than the other 99% combined. Now Comcast gives me a 1 gig/month account with Giganews. Heck, you can download 1 gig of headers in less than a day.

oliphant
I Have 8 Boobies
Premium
join:2004-11-26
Corona, CA


edit:
November 10th, @03:03PM

Bullcrap...

They just don't want to pay for the binaries groups. So now, after how many years are they just getting concerned about child porn on the usenet? Oh please. All they have to do is not mirror those groups.

And like Carlin said, "F*** the children! F*** 'em." They're 99% of all the excuses used to screw the rest of us.

--
WAR HAS NEVER SOLVED ANYTHING, except ending slavery, facism, communism, Nazism....
john262

join:2003-09-26
Elko, NV
·Wireless Beehive

Re: Bullcrap...

If people want access to Usent so that they can download video, MP3 files, warez and porn, let then sign up for one of the many pay NNTP services that are available. If they only want Usenet for the text only groups, then there is very good NNTP server that provides the text only groups for free, DFNNetNews.

DrTCP
Yours truly
Premium,ExMod 1999-04
join:1999-11-09
Round Rock, TX

Real reason: Too much bandwidth and space

As always they are using one thing (Child exploitation) as an excuse for another. Usenet requires a lot of bandwidth (especially binary newsgroups) for meaningful retention and the servers should be closely watched and upgraded regularly (storage, bandwidth etc.) This is probably the real reason.

The news server problems have been a on again-off again constant issue on Time Warner Austin cable discussion group on Yahoo Groups.

There is still a lot of value outside of binary groups. They could drop groups that carry X-/R- rated material and leave access to others available if children was the real concern.

MrMichael

@primus.ca

Re: Real reason: Too much bandwidth and space

I always have a good laugh when I read the Rogers forum posts. Why anyone would subscribe to any service from this company always makes my head spin. For those of you who aren't in the know, Rogers are considered Canada's worst isp.

As far as free usenet service goes, now that Rogers have discontinued free access to their customers, Shaw cable will be next.

You read it here first kids.

sbrook
Premium,Mod
join:2001-12-14
H0H 0H0
·Rogers Hi-Speed

Host:
Rogers
Bell Canada

Re: Real reason: Too much bandwidth and space

Why do people use Rogers? When it's the only broadband capability in town, you're kind of stuck. I use it for relatively good performance connectivity. Dial up cost me more than Rogers by the time I had a dedicated line (we have activity in our house about 14-18 hours per day) and a dial ISP, I'm paying as much or more than Rogers. When Rogers connectivity performance for me drops below that of dialup, or I get an alternative here, then I'll gladly abandon them. (Can't get wireless ... in a no-reception pocket. Can't get DSL ... too far from a non-digital remote from our newly digital CO. Can't get satellite ... need to cut the neighbours' trees down ... don't think he'd go for that!)