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alt.blocked: Verizon blocks access to whole USENET hierarchy

arstechnica.com — Verizon has released details of the agreement it and other ISPs signed last week to block access to Usenet groups that have been caught trafficking child pornography. Instead of simply blocking the handful of offending groups, however, Verizon has decided to enforce a blanket ban on what could be tens of thousands of completely innocent groups.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jun 17, 2008

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  • agisten, on 06/16/2008, -20/+290The First rule of the Usenet: You don't talk about the Usenet.
  • swifty29, on 06/17/2008, -0/+208CLOSE THE INTERNET! I heard there's kiddie porn there.
  • andibarnes, on 06/16/2008, -5/+167Chinese style censorship comes to the US
  • MariusAgricola, on 06/16/2008, -2/+113This is not a good precedent to set. It opens the door for sweeping censorship based on arbitrary standards. This kind of stuff needs a chance to move through the courts case by case instead of relying on heavy-handed approaches that punish lots of innocent users.

  • benologist, on 06/17/2008, -13/+119Usenet is not a secret and you haven't stumbled across something big that nobody knows about.

    Sorry.
  • Reddog_x2000, on 06/16/2008, -3/+100I'm all for blocking child porn. But, this seems pretty heavy handed. Verizon's customers should spank them for this. But, they probably won't. Not too many people on usenet these days.
  • relinquish, on 06/16/2008, -5/+78Although this is only half-related, censorship in general has a new enemy; enter the Brightnet. Nobody hides away (as opposed to a darknet) because every piece of information is stored by representing files in a random manner. The method of storing files in a randomized fashion is built on an inescapable property of mathematics--the fact that there is an infinite number of representations for any given number.

    Anyways, if you're interested just check out the project wiki for the Owner-Free Filesystem: http://wiki.offdev.org
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  • Falldog, on 06/17/2008, -1/+65I'm disappointed. Just when Verizon was looking a lot better than other major ISP's...
  • JensenSteve, on 06/17/2008, -1/+61This is only for Verizons own servers, if you use another usenet provider you are fine.
  • Heywoodj, on 06/16/2008, -2/+57C'mon we all know this is about music/video sharing.
    Call it child porn and anyone that complains is labeled a pedo.
    What gets me is they keep getting away with it.
    ***** VERIZON ***** THE RIAA AND ***** THE SNOWFLAKES
    well maybe not the last one.
  • MikeinLoFi, on 06/17/2008, -12/+65***** Verizon.
  • sockpuppets, on 06/17/2008, -3/+47alt.binaries.sockpuppets?
  • chrisduser, on 06/17/2008, -5/+38Humans produce child porn and, rape and kill children. It is impossible to produce humans without these traits. Therefore, all humans must be destroyed. Start up the gas chambers. This is the only option. Or are you a pedophile / apologist?
  • 1337Kitty, on 06/17/2008, -12/+44My stance on issues like goes like this. People that have or are getting child pornography should not be put in jail. Listed as a sex offender? Yes. Charged.? Yes. Jail? No.

    However, if you are caught distributing it or ESPECIALLY creating it, you should go to jail for a hell of a long time. It's not right, but it's better to have pedos fap to pictures of kids than rape kids.
  • schwit, on 06/17/2008, -2/+33NY AG found child porn in 88 newsgroups — out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

    Verizon's decision to cave to this bullying is nothing short of cowardice. Soon the MAFIAA will be expecting them to shut down any web site that they say has copyrighted material. Scientology will not be far behind. Say a bad thing about them and your site is history.

    This reminds of the Churchill quote "Appeasement is feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last."

    Our Internet is soon going to resemble that of China and Saudi Arabia.
  • benologist, on 06/17/2008, -4/+33So what? Usenet is older than the kids dribbeling that meme, millions know about it, governments know about it, law enforcement agencies know about it, ISPs know about it, content producers know about it. The list goes on and on.

    Who are you trying to hide it from? Your parents?
  • maexus, on 06/17/2008, -2/+31You'd be surprised how many people that don't know what Usenet is, or maybe you wouldn't be. I don't know. My point is, it's not exactly mainstream among the average internet user.
  • JasonCox, on 06/17/2008, -1/+24Listen, I'm all for blocking kiddie porn but blocking USENET is like stopping the sale of camcorders because someone *might* use it to make kiddie porn.
  • MrTito, on 06/17/2008, -0/+20ascii pedobear always makes me laugh.
  • Hegemony, on 06/17/2008, -0/+19Way to overreact Verizon...
  • Muyoso, on 06/17/2008, -6/+26Dont you dare say ***** verizon. Verizon allows me to download around a terabyte a month using torrents. They ***** rule. No ports blocked, none of that torrent packet shaping *****. They rule.
  • filovirus, on 06/17/2008, -3/+21Giganews FTW
  • headzoo, on 06/17/2008, -3/+20Downloading and reconstructing files from Usenet is still too complicated for your average Kazaa-type user. Because of that it's still not "mainstream", even if millions of people know about it.

    The recording and movie industries haven't cared about Usenet or IRC up to this point because it's not mainstream. Them going after Usenet users is like the DEA going after street corner dime bag sellers. There are bigger fish to fry, so they don't bother.

    However, it becomes more mainstream as more people are introduced to it. The more mainstream it gets, the easier it'll be to use, because new tools will come along that even grandma can use. That's when RIAA/MPAA take notice.

    agisten's comment is still relevant. If you want to keep a good thing good, then keep it to yourself. You pointing out that he hasn't stumbled across something new has nothing to do with what he said.

    Besides, it's not too late to slow the tide of new Usenet users that are just looking for free files.
  • Tenlow, on 06/17/2008, -1/+18By that logic, Networked devices in any form equals piracy. The ability to distribute copyrighted works does not constitute copyright infringement in itself.
  • inactive, on 06/17/2008, -9/+25Last time MrBabyMan was cut off from his porn supply he started to hit us.

    / me hides.
  • cubby, on 06/16/2008, -4/+20It's just laziness, and unfortunately there won't be much of an uprising since, as reddog said, not many still use it.
  • TheCheeks, on 06/17/2008, -4/+18Most people are so closed minded they wouldnt take your arguement into consideration, BUT you do speak the truth. Let them fap it out at home and get rid of any crazy urgess they would act upon on real people
  • yourmanstan, on 06/17/2008, -1/+15UPDATE: Verizon now blocking this digg post for discussion of child pornography.
  • universeman, on 06/17/2008, -1/+15And in truly American form - a private company, not the government, is censoring.
  • vtnerd, on 06/17/2008, -5/+18My two choices for broadband are Verizon and Comcast. It appears that neither one is worth giving money to, but I have to pick one....
  • ErrorF002, on 06/17/2008, -0/+13You pointed out what I was going to say. As far as I am concerned, this is a cover to stop the pirating. We all know UseNet is the place to go for this. Verizon is capping it up under the guise of kiddie porn to get more support. Kiddie porn is far less tolerated than pirating.
  • compu73rg33k, on 06/17/2008, -1/+14Yeah they block usenet but allow bittorrent. Comcast blocks bittorrent but allows usenet. So since they don't block what you want, you don't give a *****? If they get away with it now, wait till they block bittorrent, since the precedent is already set. You can't ride the fence, because eventually you'll get *****. ***** CENSORSHIP. PERIOD.
  • BenO169, on 06/17/2008, -3/+16They log things on the internets!?

    /sarcasm

    Yes you're much safer with torrents and trackers.

    /more sarcasm
  • dafragsta, on 06/17/2008, -1/+14I predict that Giganews will soon offer Verizon, Time Warner, and Sprint customers a discount on new signups. ;)
  • ProjectGSX, on 06/16/2008, -1/+13Agreed, this is stupid.
  • wukillabee, on 06/17/2008, -8/+20omfg verizons usenet access was great, had ***** load of groups and ulimited bandwidth, retention was only 7 days though but that was good enough and my speed always maxed out @ 5mbs ...

    this sucks :(.. i dont wanna pay for usenet :( :

    this was pretty much that all i needed to use:

    http://newzleech.com/usenet/?group=173&minage=&age ...
    http://newzleech.com/usenet/?group=203&minage=&age ...
    http://newzleech.com/usenet/?group=365&minage=&age ...
    http://newzleech.com/usenet/?group=441&minage=&age ...

    WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

    DAMN YOU PEDOS!

    ***** THING SUCKS!
  • inactive, on 06/17/2008, -1/+12I find it scary that big companies are hiding behind the child porn card to make huge sweeping changes that hurt more people than it helps. I'm all for stopping the trading but go after those who are doing it, not ALL of usenet. This looks like it's going to be the new card all the big companies play so they seem like the good guys when they're really screwing everyone over.
  • furi0us1, on 06/17/2008, -0/+11I call ***** on this whole thing. It's been well known for decades that there were some usenet groups that contained CP; this isn't some new revelation that required swift action by Verizon for the good of the children. I think this is simply their excuse for dumping a service that they felt provided no value to their internet service (since so few even knew about it) but was simply a headache to keep offering.
  • ErrorF002, on 06/17/2008, -2/+12"However, if you are caught distributing it or ESPECIALLY creating it, you should go to jail for a hell of a long time. It's not right, but it's better to have pedos fap to pictures of kids than rape kids."

    So by your logic we should provide it freely to prevent it from being acted upon. But then you are distributing... Its a gray gray line. Most consumers distribute it as well. Its how they get newer and fresher material. The best medicine I have seen is "To Catch a Predator". To bad they let the glamour and glitz of it get to their heads to the point where they began to bend the rules for ratings.

    A right answer will be hard to come by. I don't profess to have one. Just offering my two cents.
  • Muyoso, on 06/17/2008, -0/+9Pretty much only could if you were caught dealing child porn.
  • Kinnkster, on 06/17/2008, -0/+9How is someone a "sex offender" for looking at a picture?
  • Mootabolife, on 06/17/2008, -0/+9Not to rain on the parade, but they would eventually consider it copyright infringement.

    It's similar to an encrypted password protected RAR file containing encrypted copyright data. It doesn't represent anything copyrighted until you put in the password to decrypt it. The brightnet just stores the password to decrypting the random data it uses to represent the file in a URL link with instructions.

    I like the idea, but just like torrents, they'll view it as a way to distribute copyrighted information.
  • yaddayaddayoda, on 06/17/2008, -0/+9If you are a Verizon subscriber and you are losing your Usenet access (or if you are with one of the other companies that will soon follow), you can get a pay Usenet server that will blow your ISP's doors off. Usually will cost you $10 to $15 a month. I have been a happy customer of Easynews for years... ever since our cable company cut Usenet access years ago. This is more of the same. They figure that 5% of their customers use 95% of the bandwidth, so why not dump them? Especially if you can blame it on somebody else.
    If you are just using Usenet to access discussion groups instead of high-bandwidth binary groups, Tera News has a free limited-bandwidth option.
  • explnx, on 04/27/2009, -1/+10Who has been sued for copyright violation for downloading something from usenet, ever? For that matter, who gets sued for downloading anything? Uploading is the one you get hit for, and there is no obligation to upload with usenet.
  • pikelet, on 06/17/2008, -3/+11Oh for *****'s sake stop acting like a spoilt brat protecting his toys. It's not like Usenet is some SUPA SEKRIT new pirate invention. It's been around forever. It's not just for your little filesharing circle jerk.

    And lol at burying the story. You act like Usenet was conceived of in the past two years or so. Of course the tech blogs are going to report on this!
  • Chieffancypants, on 06/17/2008, -0/+8This only affects Verizon hosted newsgroups which barely work and have like 24h retention anyway. No big loss.
  • Coded1, on 06/17/2008, -2/+10You know what the dumb thing is about trying to get child porn off the net is? It's not going to stop anything, you know why. Cause like a straight man is attracted to women and a gay man are attracted to men pedophiles are attracted to little kids. Its the only thing that gets them off, thats like saying if there were no naked men on the internet there would be no homosexuals.

    What we gain by having child porn on the internet is these guys (in most cases) start coming out with it and maybe some outside of the circle will come by it and report it. If you think the average person will get off on watching a little kid your likely pretty wrong, even if some one does see it and does decide to send it around or come back for more it just brings more attention to it. If they get off the internet they will just walk around with prints.

    Wouldn't it be better if they walked around showing everyone those prints?
  • EdwardsNH, on 06/16/2008, -2/+10Grrrrrrrr... I want to make a big stink about this, but I also don't want to draw any more attention to Usenet.
  • DeathGod321, on 06/17/2008, -2/+10Thanks! Now I have a legal way to share my childporn.

    I hope joke doesn't come back to bite me in the ass one day.
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