Date: Thu, 17 Apr 1997 22:04:30 -0500 From: "Jeffrey J. Mountin" <sysop@mixcom.com> To: "Gary Palmer" <gpalmer@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Binaries in Usenet (was: News...) Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970417220430.00ba8d44@mixcom.com>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
At 12:51 PM 4/17/97 -0400, Gary Palmer wrote: --snip-- >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. Usually the implied point is unlimited (time), thanks to someone's working on another list, the fine print will read "Unmetered Interactive Usage" in 5 hour blocks. One place that want to change to block limits is in a bit of a quandary, but we went from metered to 5 hours blocks. >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??'' Arg, putting the blame on the ISP is ludicrous, as think of how much time it would take to check all web and ftp sites, as well as news. After doing a find for graphic and compressed files, they would have to be examined. Messages posted to news (assuming we would be responsible for just our customers postings) would have to be checked. etc, etc NOT! >> > 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) --snip-- Ouch! That is a lot of trash to take out. >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. What most users don't know is that you can easily find out who pulled what and I can picture someone calling "Is something wrong with news?" 'Why?' "I don't see anything new in the groups I look at" 'Hold on' (checks things out...) 'Sorry, but alt.binary.teen* are gone.' At least it doesn't take long to find who spammed news. Now mail... <sigh> ------------------------------------------- Jeff Mountin - System/Network Administrator jeff@mixcom.net MIX Communications Serving the Internet since 1990
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3.0.32.19970417220430.00ba8d44>