Usenet Blocking Intensifies 449
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The war against the alt.* hierarchy of Usenet continues as NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has convinced two more ISPs to drop access to part of Usenet. They've also set up the website NY Stop Child Porn, and convinced California to join them in the fight. In some sense, this is rather like bulldozing the slums to fight crime; sure, it might get rid of a lot of undesirables, but it also affects many innocent people, and everyone will now start migrating elsewhere in droves. The article notes, 'Cuomo's new web site signifies that he's clearly not done yet. It includes contact information for 20 ISPs that presumably operate in New York, and text of a letter to send to them to urge that they sign on to the campaign.' And you thought the Eternal September was bad..."
Wonderful. (Score:5, Funny)
no more kinky sex stuff on usenet :\ That's the only good part of it, too.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
pointless, nearly everyone who does pirate stuff off of usenet uses something like giganews.
Hell i wish they put more legit stuff on it, i get 1.5-2MBs via giganews; I even download things like wow from it because its way faster then any other method.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the day usenet was my bread and butter. It is sad to watch it fade away into obscurity. The binary groups have been replaced with p2p and the message boards with blogs. Since my ISP imposed a 2GB per month limit I've stopped using it altogether. I do feel a small piece of me and my heritage has been lost.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
it's just a cover (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not just (or probably even mostly) about the kiddie porn - it's the software, video, and music that gets shared in the alt.* hierarchy, too. And the ISPs probably don't mind not providing a service that doesn't do much but cost them extra for bandwidth and storage.
Still, Cuomo's an asshole.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:it's just a cover (Score:5, Funny)
Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.
Re:it's just a cover (Score:5, Funny)
Re:it's just a cover (Score:5, Funny)
There's a German joke about sharks prefering politicians because without a spine and butter on their head (German idiom for having skeletons in your closet), they're the perfect diet.
Re:it's just a cover (Score:4, Insightful)
It's easier to shut down a website forum with easy to alter DNS records etc. then to stop free speech in Usenet which gets sent around all over the world, no central storage. THAT's what it's about, control of speech and thought.
Re:it's just a cover (Score:5, Insightful)
>And the ISPs probably don't mind not providing a service that doesn't do much but cost them extra for bandwidth and storage.
And customers.
Considering once the data is on their network, it costs them (virtually) zero to transmit it to their customers, a usenet leech is the best customer you could ever have.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:it's just a cover (Score:5, Insightful)
it's the software, video, and music that gets shared in the alt.* hierarchy, too.
That's basically the first thing I thought of: Cuomo in be with {RI,MP}AA and using child porn as a smokescreen.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
> It's not just (or probably even mostly) about the kiddie porn - it's the software, video, and music that gets shared in the alt.* hierarchy, too...
Not to mention my favorite alt.cows.moo.moo.moo
Perhaps we should create dozens of kinky sex groups in comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, talk
If we are able to slashdot mighty corporate servers we should be able to create hundreds of those too to show them how idiotic the whole thing is.
The Usenet Volunteer Votetakers among you should discuss this.
Dammit...do you not remember? (Score:5, Funny)
You don't talk about USENET.....
Re:Dammit...do you not remember? (Score:5, Funny)
alt.binaries.* came later.
Re:Dammit...do you not remember? (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't talk about USENET.....
.
Back to the Future:
Re: Wow.
"When AOL gained Usenet access people referred to it as "the September that never ended", referring to the fact that there was now a constant influx of clueless newbies"
But without new blood Usenet ages and dies
What happens if other ISPs decide that maintaining a news server for a handful of Geeks is no longer worth the trouble?
AOL Kills USENET Acess [slashdot.org] [posting as westlake January 25, 2005]
In 2008, I have my answer.
In June Roadrunner dropped USENET and the event passed with barely a rippple of protest.
Unlimited USENET in 2008 is Giganews [giganews.com] at $30/mo with encyption.
Giganews might as well put up a banner add explaining what it is they are really selling. This isn't USENET as an open public forum. It's USENET as a distribution channel for illicit content.
The stereotypes of the geek are reinforced, he is marginalized a little more.
Re:Dammit...do you not remember? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I could write a very long and frustrating comment about "common carriers", but I'll just summarize it : You don't have enough cash nor do you provide enough of a useful service to become a common carrier.
That's basicly the gist of it.
Today Usenet (Score:4, Interesting)
bbs FTW! we dont need no steenkin ISPs.
So whats to stop some enterprising individual from putting all of Usenet on a distributed, encrypted network?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Today Usenet (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Throw in nntp and you'll be back in business.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
they should stop chasing ISP's (Score:5, Insightful)
and start chasing the people that harm the children.
Re:they should stop chasing ISP's (Score:5, Insightful)
And stop hurting the people under 18 who take pictures of them selves.
A life sentence for taking a picture of *yourself*? (In prison or registered a sex offender, there isn't much difference in some places)
Re:they should stop chasing ISP's (Score:4, Interesting)
Hey, if they can jail you for smoking a weed and affecting only yourself, or taking a pill and affecting only yourself, why not for taking a piccie?
Re:they should stop chasing ISP's (Score:4, Informative)
They weren't given life sentences in prison, but they were branded as "sex offenders", which in some ways is worse.
That, in certain counties, means that the person can't live in any house in the county that the person is required to live in. (Yes, they are forced to be homeless [cnn.com])
NY AG is despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
What really bugs me about this is the fact that the Attorney General has employed bogus threats to get ISPs to comply with his demands.
The AG's allegation is that all these ISPs have engaged in deceptive practices by on the one hand having terms of service that prohibit illegal content, and on the other hand failing to actively screen such content. If the AG's legal theory were correct, prohibiting illegal content would create a responsibility to screen all such content, and from what I can see it doesn't even matter whether the content actually originates on the ISPs servers.
Folks, the Attorney General's behavior is blatantly unethical. He's using false legal claims to bring down legitimate forums, and the ISPs are bending to his will.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Folks, the Attorney General's behavior is blatantly unethical. He's using false legal claims to bring down legitimate forums, and the ISPs are bending to his will.
The ISPs "bent to his will" in the sense that they decided that this particular service was not very important to their customers -- so unimportant that they won't even bother to defend a case that is an obvious slam dunk (according to you, anyway).
Have you ever heard anyone chose and ISP because of USENET? Most random people have never heard of it and most geeks just chose the fastest connection in their price range -- USENET doesn't figure into it. Just as well, since most ISP-newshosting services are no
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Have you ever heard anyone chose and ISP because of USENET?
Actually, before this fiasco, Verizon was the ISP of choice for usenet access. Their retention never compared to the commercial services, at only about 10 days. But their coverage was 80-90% of the best. Many people chose verizon specifically for their usenet service, especially back when the cable internet speeds weren't much better than dsl. If the recent news hadn't polluted the google searches for older discussions regarding verizon and usenet, I'd probably be able to quickly dig up 10-20 threads sp
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean caught? If he does get caught with "it" they will just find him in the evidence room looking at evidence... with his penis in his hand.
Spam filters (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Spam filters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A government chasing down CP is not representing me. Why? Because I don't give a damn about it. You want your kids safe? Your job. Not mine. You want to keep children abroad safe? Pay their parents more money so they don't send their kids working the streets.
No, a government that eliminates freedoms to create a feelgood nannystate doesn't represent me.
Somebody tell that tool that you can *add* groups (Score:5, Insightful)
e.g. startrek.ds9, music.lossless or porn.bigtits.
Re:Somebody tell that tool that you can *add* grou (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Somebody tell that tool that you can *add* grou (Score:5, Insightful)
TWRR dropped Usenet because they were sending too much money to Newshosting for their outsourced news server, and Cuomo gave them a convenient excuse.
Re:Somebody tell that tool that you can *add* grou (Score:3, Insightful)
At which point they'll just ban it entirely. They're already using overkill, what's the differences between a nuclear and a thermonuclear bomb if you don't care about the target's safety?
Protecting the children (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I can be protected from alt.rec.motorcycles
I'll miss it, but after all, it's for the children.
Also, there should be no "content" on the internet not owned by a benevolent large corporation.
Losing alt.rec.motorcycles is worth it to serve our new masters.
Re:Protecting the children (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never seen any kiddy porn on usenet, but I know that there's 5 terrabytes a day of something illegal.
For me, the rub of it is that I just upgraded to an encrypted usenet service so that I can't get clapped in irons for downloading TV shows, and now I'm worried that I'll be labelled as a sex offender.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We should also be sure to lose alt.comp.lang.learn.c-c++, a group whose standard has varied over the years, but which much of the time consists of questions asked by young people learning to program and answered by professionals taking the time to help out. It is absolutely essential to protect the interests of children that such volunteers should be put off wherever possible from using modern technology to offer the next generation the same or better opportunities than they enjoyed themselves.
Re:Protecting the children (Score:4, Funny)
Can't C++ be used to write programs that display images, without regard to whether they might contain child pornography??
Enabler!!!
KeS
usenet on the ropes? (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole thing is really sad. I love usenet. It's basically the only way I form more than passing personal relationships online. It's a great way to learn about and stay up with anything you're interested in. My ISP completely dropped usenet access last month.
I suspect that a lot of usenet users are simply going to give up at this point. There's been a vast amount of spam recently for knockoffs of shoes, purses, and watches. Many people whose ISPs have given up are not going to go to the trouble of finding affordable usenet access. Personally, I tried paying octanews, who ripped me off. Then for a while I used google groups, which reminded me of how much better a newsreader is than a web browser for participating in usenet. Finally a slashdotter recommended astraweb, which is working great for me now. Many people who had been using text-only usenet may not realize that you can pay for usenet access by the gigabyte rather than by the month, which means you can basically pay $10 and have usenet access for the indefinite future.
I mentioned usenet to my sister the other day, and she asked me what it was and why I wanted to use it. I actually had a hard time explaining it until I thought about it later. Basically, it gets the job of running a discussion group done way better than web browser interface. It's also noncommercial and very general -- none of this stuff about screwing around with some specific web-based group that will evaporate in a few years and that has no world-wide profile.
Re:usenet on the ropes? (Score:4, Interesting)
I gave up reading on USENET around 7 years ago - many of the technical discussion groups became spammed by junk mail and overloaded by students looking for quick solutions to their coursework assignments.
There was some mystique in dialing up your ISP, hearing than modem connect and see your newsgroups download. Then you could spend an hour or so just reading the world technical news and humour.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Meow!
HTTP (Score:5, Informative)
Just wait...if Cuomo discovers that child porn is shared via HTTP, he might force ISPs to drop access to the web.
I have dug a lot of Cuomo's recent suits for their customer/consumer-friendliness (recently he settled with Verizon when they advertised unlimited cell phone use and then dropped customers who talked too much, and also sued Dell for failing to deliver support). This is kind of silly, though. I mean, it's essentially declaring war on a protocol. It reminds me strip #2 of Get Your War On [mnftiu.cc].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just wait...if Cuomo discovers that child porn is shared via HTTP, he might force ISPs to drop access to the web.
No, that would be overreacting. Not the *whole* web... just the .coms!
NY Stop Child Porn? (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.nystopchildporn.com/ [nystopchildporn.com] - is that like http://www.expertsexchange.com/ [expertsexchange.com] or http://www.kidsexchange.com/ [kidsexchange.com] before they added their hyphens?
Or are they trying to lure in the kiddie-porn people, hoping they'll be looking for New York'S Top Child Porn?
Somebody wants to be Governor. (Score:5, Insightful)
Cuomo isn't an attorney, he's a politician.
He's playing the "Ooooh ooooh look at MEEEE!! I'm stopping those evil kiddy porn traders from hurting kids! I'm going to huff and puff and blow their house down!!!" game.
Of course nothing he is doing is having any sort of an effect whatsoever, but then that isn't the point. The point is that the average dimwitted (but I repeat myself) person doesn't knows very little about computers and absolutely nothing about usenet. But they sure do vote! So when Cuomo shakes his stick and growls at imaginary hobgoblins, the voters think well of him, and remember that good impression come election day.
Unfortunately the only real way to stop someone like him is to give him REAL problems to deal with and REAL bad guys to chase after.
This is what happens when you get rid of the mob, people like Cuomo have too much time on their hands.
Sad day -- but how relevant is Usenet anymore? (Score:4, Interesting)
I used Usenet way back in the day when it was the primary--nay, just about the only way to find like-minded people to discuss topics of interest. Particularly the alt hierarchy.
But now I find that web site forums, Google/Yahoo groups and email lists have supplanted Usenet. I haven't found any content I was looking for for a really long time on Usenet and haven't found a reason to delve there myself. I think the last time a search returned Usenet was a tech support question I asked like 4-5 years ago. We used it a little bit for Mozilla coordination but even then it felt like the bastard child of communication--bug reports, IRC and email lists were the method of choice.
It's definitely a sad day, killing a fly with a sledgehammer, etc. etc.--but how relevant is Usenet anymore really? Is it actually still heavily used and I just don't happen to know anyone who uses it?
Re:Sad day -- but how relevant is Usenet anymore? (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with the web site forums is the severe fragmentation. You have to join so many different sites just to have access to several of the topics. With Usenet, you could go to a single place to get everything under one signon. With Usenet, if you wanted to jump to another topic you have never been on before to ask some question, it's easy. With the web, you have to go find a site that carries that topic, register, keep track of yet another password, sift through ads that are in many cases abusive, and post your question. Then repeat half of that after you login, and do this all several times to see if you got an answer. And that doesn't even account for the fragmentation of there often being a couple dozen web sites covering the issue. But no web site is as thorough as Usenet; not even close.
Yes, it is sad that New Yorkers seem to host so many of the idiots of the Democratic party.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with the web site forums is the severe fragmentation. You have to join so many different sites just to have access to several of the topics. With Usenet, you could go to a single place to get everything under one signon. With Usenet, if you wanted to jump to another topic you have never been on before to ask some question, it's easy. With the web, you have to go find a site that carries that topic, register, keep track of yet another password, sift through ads that are in many cases abusive, and post your question.
+1 Insightful. Exactly right, USENET was fundamentally a democratic medium, since except for moderated groups, it wasn't "owned" by someone like a web forum. And as noted, it was all in one place. in so many ways, a lot of the "innovation" on the Web is retrograde. In some sense, what we have gone back to is the old BBS model, only with Google so you can actually find the locations of discussions.
The other good point here is that the main problem commercial types have with the old school USENET is that it d
Surprised it's taken so long (Score:5, Insightful)
Increasingly, it seems like Usenet is being hosted by a few large, dedicated Usenet providers, and ISP's just subscribe to them for their users, which is understandable. Who wants to maintain an NNTP server?
Only problem is it makes it easier to take down.
The stupids, now that they are starting to finally grasp the true power of the internet, are naturally keen to see it destroyed...because they're stupid. We gotta remember who's right in this struggle, and the importance of protecting unpleasant and unpopular speech--including filez, warez, movies--everything. If you can keep me from sharing data you don't want shared, you can control what I say. There's no two ways about it, you can have one or the other--free speech or control over content.
Besides, didn't I read a year or two ago how some of the big Usenet providers were working with the Feds to try to filter out the kiddie porn? I highly approve of that action, and I think thats where we need to draw the line.
The fundimental flaw of the internet (Score:3, Insightful)
I have always believed that the flaw of the internet was in fact one of its strengths, The idea that it is a web of unrelated legal entities routing traffic. Once one starts to think about which traffic to route, the internet as a "free" (as in freedom) medium breaks down.
This is exactly what we are seeing today.
The problem with the internet is the same problem we have with the U.S.A. Fascism! The joining of government and industry is a dangerous precedent and strategy.
Just remember, Hitler (no godwin here, actual history) was fighting terrorists and protecting the children. We should be very suspicious of government that employs industry for its objectives because that mean industry will employ government of its objectives.
With RIAA, MPIAA, the telecoms and ISPs, and the new FISA bill can we ignore this any longer?
So where is alt.andrew.cuomo.sucks? (Score:3, Interesting)
Send a Letter to Your Internet Service Provider (Score:3, Interesting)
ADD ISP ADDRESS HERE
RE: Stopping child porn on the Internet
Dear ISP:
I am sure you are aware of the New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's campaign that claims it is to rid the Internet of child porn. So far, several major ISPs have fallen for the lies perpetrated by AG Cuomo and agreed to a code of serious misconduct to broadly overreact and shut down a huge portion of the Internet that has nothing to do with child porn. I am a subscriber to your services and am concerned that you might also be mislead by these lies and end up committing to the destructive agenda set out by Attorney General Cuomo. I urge you to contact the Attorney General's Office as soon as possible and tell him you will not participate in this stupid foolishness that will do nothing to actually shut down child pornography. Tell him instead that you will shut down actual sources of child pornography and nothing more than that. Tell him that you do not need to sign any agreements with his office whatsoever in order to do the right thing.
Sincerely,
ADD YOUR NAME HERE
cc: Office of New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo
Bye Bye Internet as We Used to Know It (Score:3, Informative)
Perhaps Slashdot is filled with users that are just interested in publishing various "workarounds" instead of addressing the real problem. Here I am looking for someone/something to "rally-cry" with, but nobody is home.. .
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the level of ignorance involved (Score:3, Informative)
From the front page of "nystopchildporn.com":
"Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office earlier this year conducted an unprecedented undercover investigation that revealed a major source of online child pornography known as Newsgroups, an online service not associated with websites."
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Informative)
this is for you [4chan.nu]
Little girls running down the beach naked isn't cp either.
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Funny)
this is for you [4chan.nu]
Little girls running down the beach naked isn't cp either.
Wow! looks like that link is slashdotted...
You buncha sick bastards!
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Funny)
4chan user detected!!! Launch missiles, Exterminate! EXTERMINATE! EXTERRMINAAAAATEEE!!!
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean seriously, do any of these usenet categories contribute anything of value to society???
Well, you could apply that question to all of Usenet and on average, the answer would be No.
Besides... if alt.binaries.* gets blocked, the pervs will just move to the rec.* branch, or whatever strikes their fancy. They've done this in the past; they're probably doing it now. In all seriousness, they might as well ban Usenet binary distribution altogether. That's what they're going to have to do if they're serious about going the distance with this.
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Funny)
"In all seriousness, they might as well ban Usenet binary distribution altogether. That's what they're going to have to do if they're serious about going the distance with this."
Genius! Cuomo has found a way to trick/force the Internet to abandon backwards compatibility for 7-bit character sets and MIME converstion!
DISAGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
It's quite easy to simply stop carrying the feeds for those groups. What this action is, is the equivalent of using thermonuclear bomb to kill a fly. I'm sure that out of the multiple thousands of groups in the alt.* hierarchy, there's probably some kiddie porn. For all I know, there might be some in the free.* hierarchy, but I have zero interest in searching through all the hierarchies to see if I can turn up any kiddy porn. I guarantee you it isn't present in the alt.help.*, alt.health.*, alt.animal.*, alt.fan.*, or the alt.sport.* groups. Even looking through the list of the alt.binaries.* groups, they're overwhelmingly obviously not kiddie-porn groups. But hey, somewhere in there there might be some.
Saying Usenet is "full of kiddie porn" is pretty much a lie. There are a lot of groups in the alt.hierarchy I've belonged to over the years, and still do, and I've never seen any. However, I've always used the rule of "if it looks like something you're not going to want to see, then don't go there!
Re:DISAGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't understand.
If there is even the possibility of child porn being present, then we have "Serious Cause For Concern".
If there is even the slightest amount of material that someone even thinks might be child pornography, then we have "Disturbing And Objectionable Materials Being Posted".
If there is actually some child pornography in any form, then we have "A Haven Of Depravity Full Of Obscene And Vile Depictions Of Abuse".
If you don't like entire internet protocols being tarnished in this manner, then you are a "Person Of Questionable Motivation".
And of course if the place is an actual child pornographer's hangout stuffed to the gills with the worst of material, then you have an "Private Gentlemens Club, For Pillars Of The Community".
Re:DISAGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
And dropping alt.* creates lots of collateral damage -- much intelligent discussion on various topics, and variety of non-porn-related subjects that happen to fall in the alt.* hierarchy.
The last thing certain people in charge want right now, are people participating in intelligent discussions.
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Informative)
then we got a bunch of parents out there that are liable to be arrested and taken to jail for taking shots of their little kids bathing or running around nekkid...
You haven't visited Britain lately...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/06/25/noindex/nbaby.xml [telegraph.co.uk]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?xml=/global/2008/06/25/noindex/nchild.xml [telegraph.co.uk]
It's the same in Australia (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know why there's a flamebait mod on this. I am British, I live here, and I can tell you that there's a ridiculous amount of groundless fear and hysteria in this country. The article saying that they are struggling to find people to work with children because people are terrified someone will think they are a peadophile is spot on. I don't know how this country is in comparison to other countries, so maybe that's where the flamebait comes in, but it seems to me that things are pretty bad here and we need to find a way to make it acceptable to actually like children again and enjoy spending time with them, even when you don't have an "excuse" such as being their parent.
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Informative)
Technically speaking, in the US at least, there's no requirement that there be any kind of sexual act or activity, only that there are minors engaged in something that can be described as lewd or lascivious.
What that means is that if some prude thinks the picture where you're giving your infant kid a bath in the bathroom sink... that can be child porn. That sort of thing actually does happen, and it ruins people's lives.
As another example, there are deeply creepy web sites where parents dress up their 12-year-old daughters in bikinis and miniskirts and get them to pose in very adult (think Penthouse) ways. People have gotten in trouble for that, too. I don't have links. I don't really want to go looking for links, but that stuff is out there.
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Funny)
Uh oh! A website with questionable content!
WE'D BETTER BLOCK ALL WEBSITES TOO
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Funny)
Why wait? You can just disable them in your hosts file, like I'm doi@'#^&2:_=
NO CARRIER
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Funny)
Channel28.EverybodyLovesRaymond
Channel52.AmericanIdol
Channel76.FriendsReruns
Channel95.FoxNews
Channel176.WWESmackdown
I mean seriously, do any of these TV shows contribute anything of value to society???
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
Is some of that really 'kiddie porn'? I checked out naturism newsgroup has lots of regular looking folks not engaging in sex and doing regular activities in the nude, I wouldn't exactly call that 'porn', many of them look like family vacation/bbq/get together photos to me IMHO.
Looking at pictures in naturism.family doesn't seem like porn to me at all, (disregarding cross posters) there are regular people taking pictures in the background in a few of them.
I think this all has to do with judeo-christian cultural values of the west and it's crazy puritan heritage, other cultures do not share the same values. The idea of 'kiddie porn' is not universal.
People are naturally born naked, and many other cultures are comfortable being around people (strangers) in other countries, it's only really the west that is so repressed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People often have problems defining kiddie porn, but they know it when they see it ... and many, when they see pictures of a naked family having a bbq ... they know it's kiddie porn. (now, the actual law may (and actually does, in the US) say something else, but that doesn't matter -- they know this is kiddie porn, and off they go on their crusade against it.)
Now, that works for the naturism group. But if the name has `erotica' in it, that suggests that it's actual pornography. As for alt.binaries.er
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So, it's just the west? There's moderate to severe nudity taboos in Japan and China (don't know about the rest of the Far East), in many middle eastern countries, and most of the post-Russian block countries. In fact, the only place off the top of my head where nudity is a normal part of society is Africa, and the in much of Europe it's tolerated (kinda), and that's, uh, the West. No, nudity taboos are pretty universal among developed nations - the West has not
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Informative)
Can't speak to China, but Japan had their nudity taboo imposed on them by Westerners. [japanvisitor.com] Originally, onsen (hot spring baths) and sento (public baths) were not separated by gender. Out in the countryside, people worked in the fields pretty much naked.
Shinto still has hadaka matsuri - literally, "naked festivals", though these days people usually (but not always) wear fundoshi. [wikipedia.org]
Old Japanese erotic prints usually depict clothed figures, not naked ones!
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are probably right, but it is odd for Abrahamic religions to develop a taboo surrounding nudity. If you look in the bible, you will find that non-sexual nudity isn't really seen as negative. In fact, Adam and Eve were quite content to walk around naked. This was before there was sin in the world. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life, committing the original sin, they suddenly felt bad about nudity. Since the world was without sin befo
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is some of that really 'kiddie porn'? I checked out naturism newsgroup has lots of regular looking folks not engaging in sex and doing regular activities in the nude, I wouldn't exactly call that 'porn', many of them look like family vacation/bbq/get together photos to me IMHO.
"Naturism" was used as a way to sell nudie mags back in the days when they were illegal in many places.
Why do you think anyone would want to look at pictures of naked people barbecuing except to arouse themselves? It might be boring, but its still porn.
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
Who am I to decide why someone looks at pics? We're getting pretty close to thoughtcrime here.
Is it possible? Yes. Is it likely? I'd guess so, since I don't understand the appeal of watching people BBQ naked (unless you're in some twisted way interested in how people react when they get burned in more sensitive places, I wouldn't stand next to a BBQ without some protective clothing).
But just because I don't understand it doesn't make it "evil", or leads automatically to the train of thought "there is no other reason to do X but Y", since Y is the only thing I could think of. Along the same lines, you could argue that games like Battlefield and Call of Duty serve no purpose but to prepare people for terror attacks, since I don't understand why someone would play it for the sake of playing it.
Beware the borders of thoughtcrime.
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Informative)
Take a look at all the newsgroups you listed. What do they all have in common besides being in the alt. hierarchy? Here's a hint. Look at the second item in the name.
They aren't just dropping alt.binaries. They are dropping the entire alt. hierarchy. Including the ones where you can't even trade files.
These people have admitted that they only found child porn in 88 of the 100,000 newsgroups.
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with "something must be done" is that it rapidly turns into "this is something, therefore, it must be done".
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Funny)
While Usenet does have useful value, it IS full of kiddie porn. alt.binaries.pictures.naturism.family alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.young alt.binaries.pictures.youth-and-beauty alt.binaries.erotica.teen.female alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.mclt I mean seriously, do any of these usenet categories contribute anything of value to society???
If there is a street in your town conveniently called Rapey Lane, just don't walk down it.
Demolishing Manchester becase of Moss Side is only a good idea on paper.
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Insightful)
Does blocking them?
Re:AGREED (Score:5, Insightful)
If Cuomo really wanted to stop the child porn, he'd focus on the child porn. But this absolute idiot who is a disgrace to the human race is running some kind of agenda to shut down the internet. Instead of asking these ISPs to close off the groups that have the porn, he's creating a situation where people who have absolutely nothing to do with the porn, and are involved in groups that do not have any porn, are forced to go somewhere else, which is likely to have those same porn groups. This is an action that won't shut down porn. It will just move it elsewhere ... and move the other people that effectively and unknowingly help support it, along at the same time. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! That is one dumb politician.
He's only making the problem worse.
The child porn will go somewhere else. He hasn't eliminated the market for it. Then he'll demand shutting down other parts of the net. Next you know he'll demand ISPs block port 443. Dumb! Dumb! Dumb! That is one dumb politician.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AGREED (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the typical action of a "quick, fast, hard action" politician. I don't even think he isn't aware that this action won't do or solve anything. I'm quite sure he's aware of that. But it serves the purpose: It looks like he's really badass about cracking down on $boogieman_of_the_month.
What you need to do for this tactic is to shut down something that can in some way be linked to the crime in question and doesn't hurt a sizable portion of your voters. Now, who uses UseNet? Certainly not Joe Average Voter. So Usenet is the perfect scapegoat. It's something his voters don't understand, thus don't really miss if it's gone, and it looks like he's really putting pressure behind his agenda. That it doesn't do jack doesn't matter.
When you look around at the scapegoats that were blamed for this or that, and politicians going badass against those things, you will notice that NONE of those scapegoats were anything a sizable majority of their voters would use or at least know about.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids and bathwater (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what we're getting in here. You want to stop X, X is faciliated by Y, so getting rid of Y should get rid of X. Easy conclusion, but a fallacy.
Child porn was around years before the internet existed, and no matter how you crack down on internet propagation thereof, you won't stop it. Why? Because the internet is not the medium it was created for. If you wanted to get rid of, say, MMORPGs, then yes, getting rid of the internet would probably solve this problem.
If you want to fight child porn, don't try
Re:Bring Back BBS (Score:5, Informative)
Unless I'm mistaken, they aren't blocking access to USENET, what they are doing, is essentially blocking groups or encouraging ISP's to drop carrying USENET on their own servers. You would still be free to connect to pay or free USENET servers out there...you just won't have one run by your ISP to connect to any longer.
Re:The USENET is dead! (Score:4, Insightful)
Far from it...I still find programming advice, and discussions out there. I've had discussions with lawyers and accountants on corporate law (especially when wanting for form my own corp)...and lets not forget the huge amount of binary material out there, easy to download tv shows you might have missed in real time.
I'm guessing your are gonna say that IRC is dead and unused for anything real too?
Re:The USENET is dead! (Score:4, Insightful)
From a technical standpoint, I have absolutely no problem with an ISP dropping access to USENET. It's an old protocol that has outlived its usefulness. No one expects their ISP to carry access to UUCP anymore, this is no different.
But that's not the argument that Cuomo is making. He's essentially saying that because some third grader pissed in one end of one pool, we have to close and drain all the municipal pools and outlaw swim lessons. This is absurd. Kiddie porn traders used to send their garbage through the mail, did anyone suggest shutting down the postal service? What's next, will he try to force ISPs to inspect every email that traverses their network and make sure there are no images of little kids in them? (Oops, I think they're actually already doing this one.)
He's had some good press lately with the consumer protection stuff, this is just completely insane and should be laughed out of court.
Re:The USENET is dead! (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, you're confusing a network protocol and a community. The Usenet of NNTP is the same as the Usenet that used to be propagated via UUCP. Some people might still get their messages via UUCP - how would you know?
Second of all, we don't have many things we took for granted at the height of Usenet:
Today's fragmented web has nothing that can approach Usenet, and every time somebody wants to add these features to some web app or another, he has to do it from scratch, and often incompatibly and poorly.
The USENET is actually quite alive (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Pro-control (Score:5, Insightful)
CENSORSHIP IS NEVER THE ANSWER. WHAT YOU PROPOSE IS STILL CENSORSHIP.
Information can never hurt anyone. If you want to stop harmful acts, then stop harmful acts. As a Supreme Court justice one said, the answer to bad speech is more speech. Not banning what you personally find offensive. Banning things is the way to a repressive, stagnated culture.
Also, what ISPs are doing, although reprehensible, is perfectly legal. Stop the sloppy thinking already. Learn to separate the concept of "right" from that of "legal". You'll get bitten in the ass time and again.
The answer to "why shouldn't I do this?" should always be "because it's wrong", not "because it's illegal."
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Your analysis is retarded.
Extending your 'logic' just slightly into your preferred medium of wonder and light, the markup Web, we can also swiftly dispense with most websites that aren't TMZ.com since in percentage terms, most of the sites out there are a miniscule portion of 'total Internet users' and thus can be disregarded.
I'm pretty sure that would include this one.
I think of USENET to the markup Web as radio was/is to TV.
Now make my day and followup with a similar brilliant analysis of why radio should