Re: newsgroups will die....

Richard Crowley <rcrowley@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Mike Rivers" wrote ...
Google has had newsgroup posting access for several years now. I
believe that the only reason why we have this flood of spam here now
is that the spammers just never discovered rec.audio.pro before.

No. You apparently don't read many other newsgroups.
(If you are using Google Groups, that is understandable. :-)
If you did, you would have seen virtually the same spam in
dozens (maybe scores or even hundreds) of other newsgroups.

This is, in fact, why it's called spam.

It's easy to get rid of at the server, by searching for identical messages
posted to multiple groups. It's hard to get rid of on your client, because
you'd have to download all of Usenet to make that comparison. This is why
it's important to have a well-run Usenet server.

Google is just one of the pipelines they use, among others.

What they have discovered is Google's lack of any kind of
effective control over getting a gmail account enables them
to get a stock of "throw-away" accounts to use for posting
spam to Google Groups.

I think Google may actually be encouraging the practice. Part of the
problem is that "google groups" is not considered a very important part
of Google internally, it's underfunded and does not get the more motivated
employees.

It's possible that Google is filtering some spam, and is just not
filtering any posts which originate from their accounts. That would
make a certain degree of sense.

It would make sense only if they are willfully oblivious
to the abuse of their system by spammers. Why should
Google Groups give a "free pass" to messages posted
from gmail users? Do they have some delusion that their
own mail system (ab)users are somehow more responsible
than your average internet abuser?

I am increasingly suspicious that this is the case.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
.

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