Re: What is happening with Newsgroups?

mruscoe wrote:
Charles Carroll wrote:
Dear all,

I just received a notice that my internet service provider (ISP) will discontinue its Newsgroups service as of 25 October 2008. Comcast claims it has seen "a decline in popularity of newsgroups as customers have chosen to get information from other sources."
>
There is a bit more to this story, relating to the New York Attorney General:

http://techliberation.com/2008/07/21/comcast-resists-pressure-to-drop-usenet-access/


http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080922-lights-out-for-usenet-access-through-comcast.html


It figures that child pornographers were at the heart of this issue. Despicable.

Too bad there isn't a type of filter ISPs could use that would block any USENET post containing binaries. I know that binary USENET posts are encoded as text, so it would be tough to implement, but it seems there should be a way. Alas, I'm no computer/software scientist, and don't know much about the inner workings of USENET.

-KC
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