Warning: 76.191.100.35 malware/virus spreader

[Mayayana]

| >> If Google were a real NSP, they'd be de-peered.
| >
| > But isn't its backend a real NSP since it can put GG users' messages
into
| > other NSPs? Even though its functionalities are greatly crippled by its
web
| > frontend.
|
| I wish I knew what their plan was. They don't
| serve any purpose any more with that thing, so
| maintaining it must be a "vanity thing".
|
| Yes, there's probably a server associated with the
| whole thing, and hundreds of peers.
|

I've been curious about all that myself. What is
"de-peered"? Since I can't see how GG works without
getting a "Mark of the GBeast", I don't quite get how
these posts happen. My understanding is that GG is
a mashing together of Google chat groups and Usenet.
I'm guessing that people are not answering old posts
in the newsreader. So.... Are they perhaps coming
across GG postings in their search results and Google
is displaying them in their newsreader, making these
people think it's an active conversation? Or maybe any
old Usenet trivia can show up in their GG chat?

However it works, the design seems to mislead people
who don't know Usenet. I've often found my own posts
appearing on websites that reprint Usenet as a source
of "content", pretending it's their own private forum, but
these misguided posts seems to always come via GMail.

I wrote up an explanation to post to people who
seem to be earnestly responding to an old post, to
explain to them how they could join Usenet, but
it's not clear to me whether those people might come
back to read responses, or whether they would have no
idea of even where to find the place they posted to. Maybe
my explanation might be of some help simply by being
stored in search engines, but I'm not sure.

If you or someone else understands this better than
I do, I'd appreciate an explanation.

 

[Paul]

| >> If Google were a real NSP, they'd be de-peered.
| >
| > But isn't its backend a real NSP since it can put GG users' messages
into
| > other NSPs? Even though its functionalities are greatly crippled by its
web
| > frontend.
|
| I wish I knew what their plan was. They don't
| serve any purpose any more with that thing, so
| maintaining it must be a "vanity thing".
|
| Yes, there's probably a server associated with the
| whole thing, and hundreds of peers.
|

I've been curious about all that myself. What is
"de-peered"?

News servers are set up in a peer-level mesh network.
The news servers exchange messages in such a way,
that every news server has a copy of a posted message.

De-peering would occur, if you happened to be a poor
administrator, you allowed a continuous sporge flood for
three months, and you were stubbornly determined to ignore
advice from the administrators of other servers. When you're
de-peered, the other server administrators disable the
connection to your server. Your server becomes an island.
You can still run your little news server, but the articles
posted to it, cannot "leave" the machine for world wide distribution.

Paul

 

[Mayayana]

| > I've been curious about all that myself. What is
| > "de-peered"?
|
| News servers are set up in a peer-level mesh network.
| The news servers exchange messages in such a way,
| that every news server has a copy of a posted message.
|
| De-peering would occur, if you happened to be a poor
| administrator, you allowed a continuous sporge flood for
| three months, and you were stubbornly determined to ignore
| advice from the administrators of other servers. When you're
| de-peered, the other server administrators disable the
| connection to your server. Your server becomes an island.
| You can still run your little news server, but the articles
| posted to it, cannot "leave" the machine for world wide distribution.
|

OK. Thanks. That's clear. I guess that in a sense Google
is a real Usenet server, but they've corrputed the system.
It's hard to imagine such a giant entity being de-peered,
though. And there are people who use GG to post legitimately.

Now the question is how people are posting to 10-year-old
posts in the first place. I'm curious how the whole thing is
seen and understood by those people.

 

[Bert]

It's hard to imagine such a giant entity being de-peered,
though.

http://twovoyagers.com/improve-usenet.org/

The "Usenet Improvement Project" was an attempt to effectively de-peer
Google by encouraging users to simply killfile all posts from
googlegroupers:

In a manner in keeping with the workings of your proper news
client, simply install a rule that is triggered by the
appearance of the string googlegroups in the Message-ID (MID)
header of articles to kill/bin/twit those articles.

And there are people who use GG to post legitimately.

I killfile all thread-starting posts from googlegroupers, while allowing
posts that are followups. It makes for a more pleasant USENET experience.

The originator of the Usenet Improvement Project died some time ago, but
copies of his Web site are kept in various places in memoriam.

 

[Nil]

The originator of the Usenet Improvement Project died some time
ago, but copies of his Web site are kept in various places in
memoriam.

Sorry about Blinky, but his "project" is a counterproductive waste of
time.

 

[Bert]

In Nil

Sorry about Blinky, but his "project" is a counterproductive waste of
time.

How counterproductive is it to killfile people who do nothing but annoy
you in newsgroups?

How much of your time does it take to do that?

 

[Nil]

How counterproductive is it to killfile people who do nothing but
annoy you in newsgroups?

How much of your time does it take to do that?

I do killfile people who annoy me, often and without hesitation. What I
don't do is wholesale killfile people who post through Google. There
are plenty of Google posters who contribute positively to the groups I
monitor. The ones that don't go into the bin. The odd remaining Google
miscreant is dealt with by a quick punch of the Delete key.

As far as I can see, there's far more destructive stuff coming out of
aioe and the various anonymous remailers than there is from Google. I
don't even see much spam from Google. I think that, due to the decline
in Usenet readership, it's not worth their time and they don't even
bother much any more.

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

Google... I think that, due to the decline
in Usenet readership, it's not worth their time and they don't even
bother much any more.

Just thinking to myself... most of the usenet posters to the
comp, automotive, camera, and sci groups, are over 50, including me.
We grew up reading.

 

[Bert]

In Nil

I think that, due to the decline in Usenet readership, it's not worth
their time and they don't even bother much any more.

You have a point; since USENET in general, and google's participation in
USENET have waned, maybe googlegroupers aren't as much a problem as they
once were.

 

[Nil]

You have a point; since USENET in general, and google's
participation in USENET have waned, maybe googlegroupers aren't as
much a problem as they once were.

I think they're not much of a problem. Yes, googlegroupers tend to be
more clueless than those who use real Usenet services and newsreaders,
but that doesn't mean they don't have something positive to contribute.
I think there is far more malicious trolling and destruction brought
into the network by people who know what they're doing than by ignorant
googlegroupers.

Between my news service's spam filters and the spammers having
presumably moved on to greener pastures, the days of the newsgroup
being flooded with ads for shoes and handbags seem to be gone.

 

[JJ]

I think there is far more malicious trolling and destruction brought
into the network by people who know what they're doing than by ignorant
googlegroupers.

GG itself is clueless considering how it handle message quoting. It
practically flood threads, even when viewed from GG itself.