Re: Netnews: The Origin Story

snipeco.2@gmail.com (Sn!pe) writes:

Wolfgang Agnes <wagnes@jemoni.to> wrote:
>

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
 

Yes, it is in the form of a pdf, but be that as it may, it makes for an
interesting view into the start of Usenet:
>
<https://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb/papers/netnews-hist.pdf>
>

>
Thank you for posting!
>

>
Writing as someone addicted to Usenet for 30 years it's good to see the
whole story, much of which was new to me; I've saved it, thanks again.
>
# Usenet was my first love
# And it will be my last...

Lol---amazing.  For some reason, I am deeply involved with it too,
though by the time I got involved with it (early 2000s) it was perhaps
at the end of its heyday.  Nevertheless, I continue to believe in it.
Not in its ``success'', ``popularity'' or whatever.  I believe in the
idea.

(*) The paper

I just finished reading the paper.  Almost everything in it was new to
me, so I'd like to thank the author very much for having written it.
(When I realized it was a 2024-paper, I was amazed!  At first I thought
it was a pretty old paper.)

I was struck by the conclusions regarding abuse and governance.  Perhaps
it is not hard to notice that these are the problems and that they were
never solved.  I have been thinking a bit about these things for many
years.  I think I've tried to solve these problems myself.  Not very
seriously, but in my mind.  I never did.  And recently I think I
convinced myself that I should not even try anymore.  This giving up
seems to have been fruitful because I actually believe that we should
have smaller groups, smaller networks.  It seems that it's the small
ones that actually do very well.

In other words, I came to the conclusion that anonimity is not that
important and having a boss dictating the local rules isn't so bad when
anyone can duplicate the whole software-server-thing and start your own.

I was also struck by the author's apparent opinion that they should've
used cryptography if it were easier and more available back then.  In
other words, it does seem that Steven Bellovin would care for
authenticity and not necessarily confidentiality (after all these
discussions are mostly public).

Now that Google Groups has left and that sysadmins have been keeping
spam out (THANK YOU SO MUCH, sysadmins of the USENET!), I think the
USENET is pretty good again.  The volume is low, so it's been great fun
to be here again sharing ideas and learning with the rest of the world
once again without the ads and all the unnecessary whistles and bells of
the web.  (Though I miss more people with expertise knowledge in all
areas, so I do wish that the volume grows a bit and I believe it will
because the network seems to be in order once again.  Thanks to everyone
who has contributed to this.)