If you’re familiar with Usenet, you’ll be well aware that the newsreading platform is, well, not longer about newsreading. In fact, most Usenet providers are, by necessity, experienced data storage providers. That being said, GoldenFrog has just announced DumpTruck, a WebDAV file-sharing resource that, in the wrong hands, could end up a SOPA target.
The service lets you store data in the cloud. → Read More
Oh dear, another Usenet post. Quickly now, as we don’t want to draw too much to the last interesting place left on the Internet. Giganews recently hit 900 days of retention, and they’ve announced that they expect to his 1,000 days of rentention—just think about that for a second—on May 2. To celebrate, they’re having a bit of a contest. → Read More
Uh, oh: the second Usenet story of the day, this time from Newsdemon. Someone check to see if the planets are still in their orbits, or whether or not that second sun has popped up yet. They’re running a contest over there that I thought I’d point out for a minute. The prize? A couple of free games up for grabs. Nothing wrong with that. → Read More
Look at that: Giganews now has 900 days of binary retention. And to think I actually remember a time when my ISP-supplied news server had a whopping two days of retention time! It sure made things tricky way back when. → Read More
Giganews, the biggest Usenet provider around, has a new feature for Diamond members that’s certainly worth mentioning here. They’ve teamed up with Golden Frog—yes, the same people who developed Giganews’ VyperVPN service—to create a brand new Usenet browser. It’s called Mimo Usenet Browser, and could be an easy way to get acquainted with the many wonders of Usenet, which is still, to… → Read More
“[W]ebsites and hosting services should not be ‘fads’ any more than forests and cities should be fads – they represent countless hours of writing, of editing, of thinking, of creating. They represent their time, and they represent the thoughts and dreams of people now much older, or gone completely. There’s history here. Real, honest, true history.” And thus did the Archive Team set… → Read More
How did I miss this? Giganews, the biggest Usenet provider out there by some margin, now has 800 days of binary retention. A year and a half ago I wrote a similar story, but the number was 365 days of retention. Man, I remember the days when I had two days of retention! Granted, it was an ISP-provided feed, but it worked just fine. → Read More
Well that didn’t take long. Newzbin.com has shut down, just about six weeks after the High Court in the UK ruled against the Usenet indexing site. You had to see this coming. → Read More
Thus begins the countdown to the Death of Usenet. It’s capitalized because it’s important. The High Court in the UK has ruled against famous Usenet index site Newzbin, saying that the site can be held liable for the copyright infringement of its users. Hear that? That’s the sound of the world’s Usenet users screaming “OH DEAR GOD NO!” You knew this day was coming. → Read More
Sorry for beating the Newsdemon horse, but I just noticed they had a few deals for bloggers, students, and other animals. Usenet is really nice. → Read More
It’s the tree of life, and for no particular reason, either. As a corollary to Biggs’ “cable companies are doomed” article from earlier today, I thought I’d demonstrate how easy it is to accomplish what he was threatening. That is, live a happy and successful life without having to pay $100+ a month to Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, or whomever. (Note: I’m neither happy… → Read More
Six months ago, Giganews announced that it would expand its server capacity to 365 days of retention. It passed that barrier some time ago, and just yesterday reached the magical 400-day mark. In plain English, that means if someone posted Some File to alt.binaries.boneless back in July, 2008, you should be able to find it on Giganews’ servers. And to think, back in my early days of Usenet use… → Read More
Come September 30, Verizon will completely drop Usenet access. (It had already been limiting access for some time now.) To that end, a number of Usenet providers, including Giganews and Newsdemon, have special deals set up for Verizon users to make the hurting stop. → Read More
This doesn’t look like it’s advertised yet – it’s not linked on the NewsDemon front page – but for a limited time you can get their unlimited plan with 20 connections for $10.95 a month. → Read More
Jealous of the likes of CNET and Scobilizer getting to play with Microsoft Office 2010? Well don’t be! You, too, can edit spreadsheets and send e-mail if you’re willing to fire up your newsreader or BitTorrent client. → Read More
Ladies and germs! If you’re an AT&T Broadband customer you should know that your ISP is shutting off access to Usenet at the end of the month. Why? Yup, it’s related to that whole smear campaign from last year. Some nonsense about illegal content that may or may not be there. Anyway, Giganews has a little sale for you guys: 50 percent off three months of the Diamond Plan and 20 percent off… → Read More
It’s safe to say that I shed no tears yesterday when, for all intents and purposes, The Pirate Bay ceased to be. Suffice it to say that if Usenet comes under attack next I will not be a happy camper. (I know, I know: The first rule of Usenet is not to talk about Usenet, but bear with the story for a minute.) The RIAA just won a lawsuit against usenet.com, which, as you might guess, is a premium… → Read More
Panic, the maker of shockingly good Mac software, is having itself a nice little sale that you may want to take advantage of. From now until 11:59 PM PDT on May 29 (so, a little over a day) you can buy Transmist, Coda, Candy Bar and Unison for 50 percent off. → Read More
Heads up, Usenet users. We just got word that Giganews is in the process of upgrading its server retention capacity to 365 days. An entire year of binary group goodness, right in your newsreader! (That’s a screen shot of Panic’s Unison, one of the better Mac newsreaders.) Starting next week there will be a little counter on their Web site showing the race to 365. Keep in mind that it’ll take a few… → Read More
The nice guys at NewsDemon just offered you guys a coupon for 50% off monthly service between now an next Wednesday. Why? Because they want to pull Usenet out of the file sharing ghetto and expand their audience to cool people like you (us). → Read More
Wow, Gears of War 2 has now leaked and can be found all over the place. I just checked Usenet, and it’s there waiting for you. It’s also on private and public torrent sites if you feel like risking a hefty fine (maybe). The game is scheduled to come out three weeks from now on November 7. It can’t be too long before Epic and/or Microsoft make a comment about its leak. → Read More
Gotta have an ominous-looking photo to accompany stories like this Do you remember how, earlier in the year, New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, set his sights on ISPs that provided Usenet access to their users? Cuomo argued that Usenet is a safe haven for child pornography and that it’s up to ISPs to shut off the spicket. We’ve discussed this at length, but now… → Read More
Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360 has leaked onto the Internet, and it’s available on all the big BitTorrent sites, Usenet, etc. You’ll needed a modded console to play it, obviously. The 6.52GB file leaked sometime yesterday, only a few days after the game went gold. I would say this is the second biggest leak of the year—Grand Theft Auto IV‘s leak, I think, was a “bigger”… → Read More
Sascha at PCMag writes a charming little piece on the death of Usenet as a method of discourse and its eventual rebirth as a repository for porn, spam, and pirated warez. He recalls the days of “serious conversations” on 8-bit Atari architecture and net.manners. In a way inconceivable in today’s Web-fragmented marketplace, Usenet was where you went to talk. Conceived back in the… → Read More
Two more Internet Service Providers have agreed to cut off access to Usenet as a result of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s crusade to eliminate child pornography once and for all. AT&T and AOL now no longer carry the alt.* hierarchy, something that the New York politician is trumpeting as nothing short of peace in our time. To the right is Mr. Cuomo for you non-New Yorkers who… → Read More
Is this the beginning of the end for Usenet as we know it? Wouldn’t surprise me. It broke last week that New York’s attorney general had targeted Usenet because of the existence of child pornography. Fair enough, no one wants that. But the reaction by several ISPs could set a dangerous precedent, and could threaten the way Usenet works. Time Warner, my ISP (for the time being), will no… → Read More
Usenet is in the news today, but not for something as trivial as downloading music or movies or anything, but for efforts against child pornography. New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, said today that ISPs Verizon, Sprint and Time Warner have agreed to help block newsgroups known to carry child pornography. Some 88 groups have been identified in the plan, which contained as many as… → Read More
How quickly would you reach Time Warner’s 40GB data cap? I’d be finished in like a week. No lie. By now you’re probably well aware of Time Warner’s scheme to charge you by the gigabyte. Arrington wrote a piece yesterday on TechCrunch saying how it would destroy innovation—how can YouTube et al. make money if no one has the bandwidth to watch videos, or… → Read More
Before I write this gem of a post, let me attempt to absolve myself of all legal responsibility: I’m merely doing what I was told to do. That should hold up in court, no? My second charge this fine Productivity Week is to teach y’all how to pirate movies, music, video games, etc. more efficiently. On what planet is this type of advice is both approved of and encouraged I don’t… → Read More
Usenet appears to be the MPAA’s next target. Not good. The MPAA has told Newzbin, a popular Usenet indexing service and creator of the NZB file format, that it’s hosting copyright-infringing material, material that needs to be removed post-haste. Never mind that NZB files themselves aren’t copyright-infringing (though I doubt the courts would make that distinction), but such is… → Read More
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