

Time Warner Cable to Block All Usenet Access Nationwide - nickb
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9964895-38.html

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superchink
This title is inaccurate. Time Warner does not say they're going to block
access to usenet, but only that they plan to stop offering it as a part of
their service; this is not the same thing, as you could presumably still use a
third-party usenet provider, such as Giganews.

"We're going to stop offering our subscribers newsgroups," said Alex Dudley, a
spokesman for Time Warner Cable. "Some of the early press on this indicated we
were going to block certain Web sites. We're not going to do that."

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rbanffy
Since bank-robbing is such a big problem, I suggest closing all banks. I also
suggest preventing planes from flying with passengers inside, as they can
possibly get killed if the plane crashes. The odds, in fact, of getting killed
in a plane accident are probably bigger than the odds of the NYAG finding
child porn in a random newsgroup posting.

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iloveyouocean
This will not stop anyone from up/downloading child pornography. All but the
stupidest child pornographers are using anonymous third-party Usenet
providers.

This is nothing more than a feel good headline for Time Warner. 'See guys, we
did our part to save the children.'

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wmf
Usenet has been in decline for years; I've heard that only 1% or less of
Internet users access Usenet these days, and most of them are probably the
"bandwidth hogs" that ISPs hate anyway. Time Warner used to have news server
farms in each city then they outsourced their Usenet to one of the big
providers. This just gives ISPs an excuse to stop wasting money on Usenet
altogether.

~~~
xirium
> most of them are probably the "bandwidth hogs" that ISPs hate

No, these are the bandwidth hogs that ISPs love. When they're downloading with
NNTP from an ISP's server, they're not incurring a single byte of bandwidth
beyond the ISP's perimeter.

~~~
wmf
It depends whether the ISP's bottleneck is the last mile or the border. Also,
Time Warner outsourced their Usenet service a few years ago so all the traffic
goes over the Internet to Virginia.

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xirium
This issue is being discussed on the Network Neutrality Squad Mailing List (
<http://www.nnsquad.org/archives/nnsquad/msg01002.html>).

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shawndrost
I DON'T LIKE that allcaps can have an EFFECT ON ME even though I constantly
REMIND MYSELF that they're just visual spam.

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henryw
cable providers don't have long retention dates anyways. use giganews with
newzleech to download stuff.

~~~
Oompa
Actually, TWC has a rather good usenet service. Unlimited download, with no
speed cap other than the speed you pay for, and about 100 days retention on
binaries. Not bad service at all for costing a grand total of $0 a month.

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tptacek
Seriously: as someone who has spent time competing on the Freenix list and
hacking on INN --- good. fucking. riddance.

People are still using Usenet? What year is it?

~~~
smanek
I have found that, for example, comp.lang.lisp is active, vibrant, and
helpful.

Although, a lot of discussion seems to be taking place on IRC (freenode in
particular) these days as well.

~~~
rbanffy
That's probably because Emacs is such a nice NNTP client...

/me ducks for cover.

~~~
dfranke
Not sure if you were being sarcastic, but there's none better.

