Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 12:51:06 -0400 From: "Gary Palmer" <gpalmer@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Ron Bickers <rbickers@intercenter.net> Cc: freebsd-isp@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Binaries in Usenet (was: News...) Message-ID: <9548.861295866@orion.webspan.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 17 Apr 1997 11:33:46 EDT." <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970417112546.302A-100000@bigboy.intercenter.net>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Ron Bickers wrote in message ID <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970417112546.302A-100000@bigboy.intercenter.net>: > > A lot of people are afraid that by dropping sex newsgroups specifically, > > they will become legally vulnerable since they are EDITTING the material > > on their news server based on its content. But there's an interesting > Blockbuster doesn't have an X-rated movie section. Does that mean they're > editing material? No. I'm not a lawyer either, but not carrying a.b.p.e > is not "editing" anything, it's simply making it not available at all. > There's nothing illegal about that. Depends. A lot of ISP's advertise `unlimited' access. It can be legally questionable to start deleting newsgroups if you advertised that. And it could be awkward if you changed your advertising before you changed your group listing, as people from the old ad campaign would still get rather pissed. On the other hand, my point of view is that carrying these groups is a legal liability. ``unlimited internet'' does NOT mean ``unlimited license to break state and federal law on distribution of pornography''. That's one thing that lusers always seem to forget, is that SOMEONE (typically not them) is liable for the availability of such `information', and in the end it's their right to pull it since it's their neck on the line. Or put it another way, I'd say ``would you rather lose the porn groups now or the entire server(s) when we get raided by the state police for illegal pornography distribution??'' > > IMHO the solution is to clean up binaries from USENET and force people to > > use file transfer protocols (FTP, HTTP, DCC, FSP) to transfer files. > I second that. It's out of control. Wonder what kind of bandwidth would > be freed up if that were to happen. >From my feed log from Mar 30 (the highest volume I've ever registered on my server): Usenet Statistics (1997/03/29 - 1997/03/30) Total feed size: 7189.87 Mb in 244236 articles over 1.00 days Average daily rate: 7190.03 Mb, 244241 articles Top 20 newsgroup hierarchies by article size Rank Key Size/day (Mb) %age of total 1 alt 6919.14 96.23 2 alt.binaries 6070.56 84.43 3 alt.binaries.pictures 2768.54 38.51 4 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica 2193.74 30.51 5 alt.binaries.warez 1165.76 16.21 6 alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc 1108.81 15.42 7 alt.binaries.games 893.78 12.43 8 alt.binaries.multimedia 490.09 6.82 9 alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica 438.19 6.09 10 alt.sex 358.78 4.99 11 alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.games 243.04 3.38 12 alt.binaries.sounds 233.14 3.24 13 alt.binaries.mac 231.41 3.22 14 alt.binaries.mac.applications 226.32 3.15 15 alt.binaries.pictures.erotic 205.80 2.86 16 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen 196.65 2.74 17 alt.binaries.pictures.erotic.centerfolds 186.64 2.60 18 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.admiralkrag 173.69 2.42 19 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.blondes 148.77 2.07 20 alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.teen.female 139.61 1.94 (note: there was an alledgedly higher throughput this last weekend, but server problems kept my machine unreliable enough that I didn't catch it) So, thats roughly 2 gig of porn. Multiply that by all the news boxes in the world. Then add in the disk usage. Then add in the overhead added with all the IHAVE/CHECK commands. Then add in the larger history causing more processor/disk/memory to be thrown in the box. Not forgetting overviews. The porn spammers probably cost the average ISP $1 per reader per year in hardware upgrades just 'cos of their spam (that's NOT including any additional internal bandwidth). That's not including the `legit' porn. I'd say that if the porn was taken off the net tomorrow, the performance of my server would double within 2 weeks (the length of time my /remember/ is set to) (maybe a bit shorter if I get really pissed and rebuild my history file :) ). And you know what the REALLY sad part is? Reader stats show that the porn-of-questionably-aged-people is the most popular. There are sick people out there. And most of them are on the net for that sole reason. Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD: Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?9548.861295866>