Usenet, what have you become? (2012)
90percentofeverything.com
90percentofeverything.com
I still would like to use usenet for that content I can't get on Netflix/Amazon/HBO/Redbox but the effort required is too much -- I'll settle for watching something else. I also feel better about actual paying for the content I consume. I have my fingers crossed that we'll see more and more of the unstreamable content come to streaming providers.
Not only is it a different protocol, but it is a different interface as well.
But I realize this post was meant more towards Usenet's intended audience. I know for me, I really started migrating away from Usenet around 2005-06 when the SPAM got so bad I could barely sift through my daily posts.
"It's online but not a web page" won't glaze over many eyes.
The end result, with a good news reader program, is somewhat like a large global collection of topic-specific forums.
Binary posts are just a bunch of posts to the same group with a message Subject matching some pattern (usually with ascending numbers counting the posts). The content is encoded to work around the limitations of the protocol and/or provider. Historically this was "uuencode", but you can also do base64 (like email attachments) and the new jazz (hah! New in 2003, anyway) is "yEnc." yEnc relies on 8-bit safe NNTP servers and only encodes the few characters not permissible in NNTP messages (periods at the beginning of lines, I forget the rest). So you get much better encode ratios (~101-102% of original size) than with something like base64 (133% of original size).
NNTP providers, especially in binary groups, are subject to occasional message loss. So posters will typically generate Reed-Solomon forward-error-correction blocks using a program called "par2." This allows one to download binaries that are missing some messages, as well as some additional FEC (potentially on an as-needed basis), and rebuild the original content. Generating and recovering from par2 files is extremely computationally expensive.
> One posts individual messages (like one email) to a group
Messages can be posted to more than one group; this is called "cross-posting", much like with email mailing lists.
> The end result, with a good news reader program, is somewhat like a large global collection of topic-specific forums.
You can also choose to "subscribe" to a subset of the available groups; your news program is able to pull metadata only for that subset you care about. You can also download individual messages on demand, much like IMAP email access. It's fairly bandwidth efficient for clients.
Posts were (at least after https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Renaming) organized hierarchically, with the hierarchy created by consensus/voting.
Some time ago i built a tool where you can store files/folders incrementally on Usenet with encryption, parity etc. I put much effort into this. It was possible to restore a directory tree by a unique ID (which you could write on some piece of paper) that securely resolves to a chain which links to meta/raw blocks via Message-IDs and you could mount the whole thing with OSXFuse. The ID was reusable after updates to the tree, so incremental backups worked without a new ID.
I thought this would be a nice alternative use for binaries on Usenet instead of piracy stuff. But I never released it because I think that it would lead to pollution of the Usenet network.
Is anyone interested in this? Or maybe somebody has an idea on how to use this without polluting the network? Would love to hear some thoughts about this!
> I thought this would be a nice alternative use for binaries on Usenet instead of piracy stuff. But I never released it because I think that it would lead to pollution of the Usenet network.
> Is anyone interested in this? Or maybe somebody has an idea on how to use this without polluting the network?
No way around it, it's absolutely an abuse of the network. That being said, so is the piracy on the binary subgroups. I think the end use would be small enough to not materially affect the binary NNTP hosts anyway.
About the abuse: I imagined that the method could be used like some unlimited-disk-space-providers which had to get rid of that plan because the users used it as advertised.
Of course, apart from that, anyone can write such software. So it's maybe just a matter of time? Though I couldn't find any other solutions besides RAR archives.
The Usenet can be used as a key-value store with handicaps. And stuff can be built on top of that.
Even if it isn't infinite, you can download and repost every 7 years if you care about having backups for longer than that.
I suspect that if Tarsnap was over half of Usenet's traffic volume, it would start getting filtered.
I'd bet it's not zero days, but one stop shopping. So the consumer saves the overhead of wondering, "wait, is this on Hulu? Netflix? Amazon? iPlayer?" The entire catalog is in one place.
I think Netflix and Amazon are getting to the point where their catalogs are deeper than usenet.
Of course, most film junkie's "essential 100" lists will still probably hit somewhere less than 10% representation on Netflix: http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/films-on-spike-lees-...
Still an availability problem though.
It's not that there is nothing there, your standards just need adjusted before you can appreciate what is there.
I guess the same can be applied to cable, but you have to really lower those standards to appreciate dozens of home shopping networks, reality TV and infomercials.
They used to run competitions to improve their recommendation engine, because it was a big cost for a customer to get shipped a lemon.
They stopped that, I think they're running a different game now, where they just juice the expected rating to convince people to stream stuff that's really just ok.
The media companies have largely caught on to Usenet and have been issuing automated DMCAs on Usenet content immediately since the early 2010s. Since the posts are stored on a centralized server, the providers can and do comply with DMCA takedowns with automated software. As a result, popular TV and Movies with correct titles are usually taken down quickly.
In the US. Even in the UK, the offering is not even close, and in the rest of Europe, well though luck.
Then you have the choice of paying for a vpn and a netflix, and -maybe- you get lucky. Or you start wondering why would you send money to people that do not want you to see their stuff at any price.
There is almost no spam.
Some studios are getting drastically faster at getting their content pulled within minutes of nzb's appearing on the index sites. It's not as if its difficult to scan the groups and topics and issue take-down's on posts to the NSP's.
Get cheap block accounts from various providers, ideally one from each major reseller, configure them as backup/fill servers.
I was surprised nzb didn't get attacked more often. Posting an index of a post before the post it indexed could have meant an attacker grabbing the index, and then uploaded a bunch of junk to poison that index. If they're posting little 1 MB files and you're posting 20 MB split rars their posts are going to propagate faster.
Can be found cheaper though, like 1/4th of that price, if you're happy with less retention (1600 days instead of 4000 or so) and a download speed limit (never found this a problem, background downloading during the night or day still means you can watch shows same day or day after if you're into that).
By this point I was making enough money that $30 a month split between a few streaming services and a few bucks occasionally for a movie on amazon prime wasn't a big deal. It feels good to pay for quality. But as a young kid, who wanted to experience so many types of media and no means to pay, usenet was the best.
Piracy is the perfect thing for kids interested in computers to use. It's complex, you need to figure stuff out, takes a lot of time (which kids have), and the reward for doing so is free content. But once you get old and are time-poor and have the money, it's not really needed anymore.
telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl(If not, I wonder if I should? Sounds at least like a fun weekend project.)
In any case I think Popcorn Time still works well, and if not, there's always regular torrenting.
(after all I remember having access to full Usenet servers being served off ancient computers hooked into a T-1)
There is spam, yes, but almost all of it is in newsgroups that receive no messages other than spam, and there is no point in subscribing to these newsgroups in the first place. You can filter the rest away with SpamAssassin or Bogofilter.
You can get free access from news.solani.org or www.eternal-september.org to the non-binary newsgroups, where all the interesting discussion happens. Any client like Gnus or Thunderbird can do.
Total per month - $128 to have things literally on demand.
How much do you pay your cable or satellite company?
EDIT:
I should say that the box does cost money, but usually can be piece together with old equipment.