Verizon Cutting Access To Entire Alt.* Usenet Hierarchy 579
modemac writes
"Verizon has declared it will no longer offer access to the entire alt.* hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups to its customers. This stems from last week's agreement for major ISPs to cut off access to 'newsgroups and Web sites' that make child pornography available. The story notes, 'No law requires Verizon to do this. Instead, the company (and, to varying extents, Time Warner Cable and Sprint) agreed to restrictions on Usenet in response to political strong-arming by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups — out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist.' In response, Verizon will cut its customers off from a large portion of Usenet, as it will only carry newsgroups in the Big 8."
Re:so what (Score:5, Informative)
I think the issue for many people is more about being blocked from accessing the alt.binaries.* groups, of which Google Groups doesn't provide access (well, not to the actual binary files at least).
Re:Common Carrier Status *poof* (Score:5, Informative)
Just like every single NNTP server out there.
But don't let that stop you from overreacting, though.
Binary groups (Score:2, Informative)
This is all hype (Score:3, Informative)
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:3, Informative)
Why is this such an issue? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Logical progression: (Score:2, Informative)
The only times I've used usenet in the last few years were to download TV shows. When my ISP decided to drop postings larger than a few megabytes in order to fight piracy, I was slightly inconvenienced, and had to switch to an alternate pay service, but I didn't complain. In fact I didn't understand why they didn't do it sooner. They were, after all, *hosting* the content on their own servers.
Now sure, that probably ended up blocking some valid postings along with the wealth of pirated movies and music that could previously have been found, but what else were they to do?
In this case, the solution isn't so easy though. Do any of you whiners have a better one? And before you suggest cutting of just the obvious child porn groups, you might want to read up on how Usenet works.
Anyway, I don't see this as unfair. The moment they start blocking websites that *might possibly* contain illegal material, they would be crossing a line into censorship territory where they are deciding what you can or can't expose yourself to, but in this case they are just choosing to not make the material availaable themselves.
Would you guys also object if a web host cancelled the account of an unmoderated web forum about cars or star trek or whatever but also let people post child porn to their servers?
Re:Those Evil Democrats (Score:1, Informative)
Uh, you realize that it's not a choice, right? There are plenty of people out there who would love to stop being attracted to their own gender if they could help it.
Re: Does anybody mind? (Score:3, Informative)
Since I use Usenet+NZBs, BitNabber works for me.
Others that might work for you:
Giganews.com [giganews.com] - 200 days retention, from 7.99 p/m [SSL available] - no nzb service
SuperNews.com [supernews.com] - from 3.95 p/m - the owner / admin Daniel is very hardline against spam, possibly the cleanest provider out there
Whilst it's frustrating that service should be cut, it seems that Verizon is behind the curve on cutting NG access anyhow.
China censors political speech (Score:1, Informative)
I have no problem with Verizon's new policy. They own those nntpd servers, they can do anything they want with them. They could blend those machines and post the video to youtube for all I care.
It is just staggering to me how the bias on slashdot in favor of "free speech" has blinded so many to the terrible horror that children face when abused in this manner. Those children have rights, not the least of which is just the simple right to privacy after the fact, such that their pornographic images are removed from public view. A child's right to privacy, especially in this circumstance, trumps your supposed 1st amendment right to "free speech" - particularly given that this "speech" is not the least bit protected under constitutional law.
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I'm surprised it took this long (Score:3, Informative)
But don't tell the politicians that...
Re:That's all? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: alt.binaries.* (Score:1, Informative)
I pay $3 a month for 10GB. It's $6 for 20GB, $10 for 60GB. For $15, you get unlimited downloads. 70 days retention, and if you exceed your cap, you can pony up for your next month early to get your service back.
http://www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php [forteinc.com]
If a third party can offer this service at this price point, an ISP can undercut them with ease, because they don't have to pay for the much larger interconnect bandwidth bills.
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:4, Informative)
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:4, Informative)
But some of us don't understand why we need to "move on" from a superior technology.
NNTP plus a good news reader still beats Slashdot and all other web forums in terms of usability/user-friendliness.
Re:alt.binaries.* (Score:5, Informative)
They just save on hardware.
Keep in mind, most ISPs only pay the big bucks for their internet connectivity. The network between them and you (and all their customers) is MUCH cheaper, measured only in maintenance costs. The internet lines have the same maintenance cost, plus bandwidth costs, on top of base charges.
Before, they transfered all of the news articles Once, using internet bandwidth once, from their upstream new servers to their own.
Customers could get these all from their news server, which can happen by any number of customers any number of times and there is no extra bandwidth fees to the ISP.
Now, all of their users will be transferring news articles from the internet to them, each one taking their share of bandwidth from the internet pipes.
Re: alt.binaries.* (Score:3, Informative)
Not necessarily (Score:4, Informative)
Re:the problem with filtering (Score:3, Informative)