I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
Hello,
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
You can read an epitaph (in French) on https://news.alphanet.ch/
(English translation by Google: https://www-alphanet-ch.translate.goog/nnrp.html?_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=e n&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
This article is sent automatically as I no longer read USENET.
A Thank you to my users for their fidelity.
Farewell.
Am 04.09.2023 um 06:46:35 Uhr schrieb Marc SCHAEFER:
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
Why?
You can read the lasts posts on fr.usenet.distribution, you will see
the harasment that he was victim.
Am 04.09.2023 um 10:19:45 Uhr schrieb yamo':
You can read the lasts posts on fr.usenet.distribution, you will see
the harasment that he was victim.
Can you post a message-id?
I cannot speak French, so I need to translate it.
I saw in the past nocem cancel messages from him that said
covid-fake-news on them so then I thought he had an idea that he
should remove thoughts not the same as his own from usenet.
Am 04.09.2023 um 07:59:59 Uhr schrieb Cartman:
I saw in the past nocem cancel messages from him that said
covid-fake-news on them so then I thought he had an idea that he
should remove thoughts not the same as his own from usenet.
Didn't that happen all the time Usenet was accessible for the public? Everybody can post, no moderation in normal groups, right-wing and antisemitic exist and will post their ideas.
Am 04.09.2023 um 10:19:45 Uhr schrieb yamo':
You can read the lasts posts on fr.usenet.distribution, you will see
the harasment that he was victim.
Can you post a message-id?
I cannot speak French, so I need to translate it.
On Mon, 4 Sep 2023 17:08:47 +0200 Marco <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
Am 04.09.2023 um 07:59:59 Uhr schrieb Cartman:
I saw in the past nocem cancel messages from him that said >>>covid-fake-news on them so then I thought he had an idea that he
should remove thoughts not the same as his own from usenet.
Didn't that happen all the time Usenet was accessible for the public? >>Everybody can post, no moderation in normal groups, right-wing and >>antisemitic exist and will post their ideas.
Yes it's always been that way. Maybe he got caught up in the recent idea
that views opposed to your own are suddenly dangerous or whatever.
Hello,
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
For me, Google Translate offered to translate it (in my case to
English), but that worked only once. Don't know how to get the Google >Translate popup/question back. :-(
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
Why 22nd September? Why not today - 4th September 2023?
What's the point
of having a server that has absolutely nothing of value to read? All the important posts are censored so nobody is interested in that server.
RIP and hope you don't start another hobby and abandon half way just
because you lost interest and don't have any energy to reinvent yourself.
Hi Good Guy,
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
Why 22nd September? Why not today - 4th September 2023?
Very probably to give his users some time to migrate to another news
service.
What's the point
of having a server that has absolutely nothing of value to read? All the
important posts are censored so nobody is interested in that server.
That's not true. Alphanet is a valuable and well-known server (at least
in Francophone countries). Marc created it in 1990 and have provided
several useful services since then. His involvement in the
French-speaking Usenet community is huge, and he personally is a very >good-hearted and caring person.
RIP and hope you don't start another hobby and abandon half way just
because you lost interest and don't have any energy to reinvent yourself.
That's not kind of you. Continuous harassment made him take the
decision to get away from Usenet.
--
Julien ÉLIE
« Ira furor breuis est. » (Horace)
Am 04.09.2023 um 06:46:35 Uhr schrieb Marc SCHAEFER:
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
Why?
Hello,
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
A Thank you to my users for their fidelity.
Farewell.
You helped put him in the spotlight by your efforts to restrict the
free speech of others. Your personal likes or dislikes are not representative of the conversing community at large. You
deliberately antagonized others who then went after the wrong people.
You are attempting to ruin paganini. Why Ivo listens to you is
mystifying as he seems to be a reasonable and bright fellow.
It is people like you who kill Usenet, not those who use it.
Hello,
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
A Thank you to my users for their fidelity.
Farewell.
sad to read this. how is your retention? you have old articles?
Hi Good Guy,
I am closing the ALPHANET server on the 22th of september 2023,
including all the services (USENET archives, web read-only
interface, etc)
Why 22nd September? Why not today - 4th September 2023?
Very probably to give his users some time to migrate to another news
service.
Am 05.09.2023 um 00:17:06 Uhr schrieb Leonardk:
You helped put him in the spotlight by your efforts to restrict the
free speech of others. Your personal likes or dislikes are not representative of the conversing community at large. You
deliberately antagonized others who then went after the wrong people.
Is there anybody here who likes spam, address forgery and trollposts?
This is the content many people block and good NNTP server operators
ban such users.
I like freedom of speech, but spam and name forgery are not part of it.
I haven't seen many post originating from alphanet (only the operator
himself IIRC, but I don't read fr.*).
I don't see how he has been involved in having trolls on his server.
You are attempting to ruin paganini. Why Ivo listens to you is
mystifying as he seems to be a reasonable and bright fellow.
I simply asked questions - nothing more. Using a killfile to block
entire servers is the user's choice.
It is people like you who kill Usenet, not those who use it.
No, nobody wants spammers, name forgers or trolls.
Server like Mixmin or aioe were on the killfile of many, many users in
de.*, because some people massively abused it for trollposts
crossposted to non-related groups.
Am 05.09.2023 um 13:12:06 Uhr schrieb Sn!pe:
IMO the choice of whether to read or to ignore another's posts should
rest with the reader. It requires competence with a killfile but
surely that is far better than censorship. For censored discussions,
we might as well be in a web-forum.
Censorship is something like deleting post with a specific opinion or
by specific people.
Removing posts that are intentionally posted to unrelated groups with
forged addresses just to annoy people isn't censorship in my mind.
I don't want that.
If so, every spam filter at server side would be censorship, because
some people might be interested in what spammers want to tell them.
Mixmin didn't offer criteria that makes it able to put only the trolls
in a killfile, it was only possible to complete put Mixmin in the
killfile.
The operator of Mixmin didn't care about name forgery, trollposts and excessive crossposting at all, unless Hetzner disabled access to the
server.
There is a reason that it was use ~99% by trolls and name forgers, at
least in de.*.
IMO the choice of whether to read or to ignore another's posts should
rest with the reader. It requires competence with a killfile but
surely that is far better than censorship. For censored discussions,
we might as well be in a web-forum.
Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
Am 05.09.2023 um 00:17:06 Uhr schrieb Leonardk:
You helped put him in the spotlight by your efforts to restrict the
free speech of others. Your personal likes or dislikes are not >>>representative of the conversing community at large. You
deliberately antagonized others who then went after the wrong people.
Is there anybody here who likes spam, address forgery and trollposts?
This is the content many people block and good NNTP server operators
ban such users.
I like freedom of speech, but spam and name forgery are not part of it.
I haven't seen many post originating from alphanet (only the operator >>himself IIRC, but I don't read fr.*).
I don't see how he has been involved in having trolls on his server.
You are attempting to ruin paganini. Why Ivo listens to you is >>>mystifying as he seems to be a reasonable and bright fellow.
I simply asked questions - nothing more. Using a killfile to block
entire servers is the user's choice.
It is people like you who kill Usenet, not those who use it.
No, nobody wants spammers, name forgers or trolls.
Server like Mixmin or aioe were on the killfile of many, many users in >>de.*, because some people massively abused it for trollposts
crossposted to non-related groups.
This conversation illustrates the difference between the authoritarian
and libertarian viewpoints and risks generating more heat than light.
IMO the choice of whether to read or to ignore another's posts should
rest with the reader. It requires competence with a killfile but surely
that is far better than censorship. For censored discussions, we might
as well be in a web-forum.
Am 05.09.2023 um 13:12:06 Uhr schrieb Sn!pe:
IMO the choice of whether to read or to ignore another's posts should
rest with the reader. It requires competence with a killfile but
surely that is far better than censorship. For censored discussions,
we might as well be in a web-forum.
Censorship is something like deleting post with a specific opinion or
by specific people.
Removing posts that are intentionally posted to unrelated groups with
forged addresses just to annoy people isn't censorship in my mind.
I don't want that.
If so, every spam filter at server side would be censorship, because
some people might be interested in what spammers want to tell them.
Mixmin didn't offer criteria that makes it able to put only the trolls
in a killfile, it was only possible to complete put Mixmin in the
killfile.
The operator of Mixmin didn't care about name forgery, trollposts and >excessive crossposting at all, unless Hetzner disabled access to the
server.
There is a reason that it was use ~99% by trolls and name forgers, at
least in de.*.
Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
Am 05.09.2023 um 00:17:06 Uhr schrieb Leonardk:
You helped put him in the spotlight by your efforts to restrict the >>>free speech of others. Your personal likes or dislikes are not >>>representative of the conversing community at large. You
deliberately antagonized others who then went after the wrong people.
Is there anybody here who likes spam, address forgery and trollposts? >>This is the content many people block and good NNTP server operators
ban such users.
I like freedom of speech, but spam and name forgery are not part of it.
I haven't seen many post originating from alphanet (only the operator >>himself IIRC, but I don't read fr.*).
I don't see how he has been involved in having trolls on his server.
You are attempting to ruin paganini. Why Ivo listens to you is >>>mystifying as he seems to be a reasonable and bright fellow.
I simply asked questions - nothing more. Using a killfile to block
entire servers is the user's choice.
It is people like you who kill Usenet, not those who use it.
No, nobody wants spammers, name forgers or trolls.
Server like Mixmin or aioe were on the killfile of many, many users in >>de.*, because some people massively abused it for trollposts
crossposted to non-related groups.
This conversation illustrates the difference between the authoritarian
and libertarian viewpoints and risks generating more heat than light.
IMO the choice of whether to read or to ignore another's posts should
rest with the reader. It requires competence with a killfile but surely >that is far better than censorship. For censored discussions, we might
as well be in a web-forum.
I don't think so. It depends on the nature of the off-topic post.
1) Cancellable spam should be dealt with by spam countermeasures
implemented server-wide. This CANNOT be dealt with by kill file. If the injecting News site takes no measures to prevent further cancellable
spam from being sent into Usenet, their peers need to seriously consider whether de-peering is necessary.
2) Forgery must be dealt with at the injecting server. It's not
possible for the reader to deal with by kill file. They should be TOSsed immediately and not allowed back.
3) Constantly-morphing trolls should be dealt with at the server level.
We get assholes that morph repeatedly in the same thread just to be
annoying. The News administrator should warn them. If they won't behave,
then TOS 'em.
I can be kill filed readily because I never morph. That's not true of morphing trolls.
4) The constant posters of hate-filled articles might be TOSsed but for
other reasons. More typically, they themselves aren't writing the root article but infringing upon copyright, reposting it from the Web. They
are crossposting or multiposting or both. That should probably be dealt
with at the injecting server, but that requires a lot of intervention.
If they morph or multi-post, again, that's really not possible to deal
with using a kill file. Cross posting can be dealt with using ordinary
kill file techniques if one has a good newsreader. If one doesn't want
to read political articles in one's non-political newsgroup, then kill crossposts to *politics* and other known political newsgroups.
5) Trolling without crossposting, multi-posting, or copyright
infringement, without constant morphing, sure, leave that up to the user
to kill file.
There is a unique poster who forges others, re-injecting articles
written by others, AND commits abuse by pre-loading injection headers from the original article. This blatantly violates RFCs but the injecting
server doesn't prevent it, and other servers are reluctant to junk these articles in Cleanfeed or its equivalent. Despite not prohibiting this
abuse, no one wants to de-peer this News site. I know what to look for
but most Usenet readers wouldn't. There's nothing to kill file.
No, I've never agreed with Marco Moock, but I don't agree with you that
it's entirely hands off and that News administrators don't need to take active measures to prevent large categories of abuse.
Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
Sn!pe <snipeco.1@gmail.com> wrote:
Marco Moock <mo01@posteo.de> wrote:
Am 05.09.2023 um 00:17:06 Uhr schrieb Leonardk:
You helped put him in the spotlight by your efforts to restrict the >>>>>free speech of others. Your personal likes or dislikes are not >>>>>representative of the conversing community at large. You >>>>>deliberately antagonized others who then went after the wrong people.
Is there anybody here who likes spam, address forgery and trollposts? >>>>This is the content many people block and good NNTP server operators >>>>ban such users.
I like freedom of speech, but spam and name forgery are not part of it.
I haven't seen many post originating from alphanet (only the operator >>>>himself IIRC, but I don't read fr.*).
I don't see how he has been involved in having trolls on his server.
You are attempting to ruin paganini. Why Ivo listens to you is >>>>>mystifying as he seems to be a reasonable and bright fellow.
I simply asked questions - nothing more. Using a killfile to block >>>>entire servers is the user's choice.
It is people like you who kill Usenet, not those who use it.
No, nobody wants spammers, name forgers or trolls.
Server like Mixmin or aioe were on the killfile of many, many users in >>>>de.*, because some people massively abused it for trollposts >>>>crossposted to non-related groups.
This conversation illustrates the difference between the authoritarian >>>and libertarian viewpoints and risks generating more heat than light.
IMO the choice of whether to read or to ignore another's posts should >>>rest with the reader. It requires competence with a killfile but surely >>>that is far better than censorship. For censored discussions, we might >>>as well be in a web-forum.
I don't think so. It depends on the nature of the off-topic post.
1) Cancellable spam should be dealt with by spam countermeasures >>implemented server-wide. This CANNOT be dealt with by kill file. If the >>injecting News site takes no measures to prevent further cancellable
spam from being sent into Usenet, their peers need to seriously consider >>whether de-peering is necessary.
2) Forgery must be dealt with at the injecting server. It's not
possible for the reader to deal with by kill file. They should be TOSsed >>immediately and not allowed back.
3) Constantly-morphing trolls should be dealt with at the server level.
We get assholes that morph repeatedly in the same thread just to be >>annoying. The News administrator should warn them. If they won't behave, >>then TOS 'em.
I can be kill filed readily because I never morph. That's not true of >>morphing trolls.
4) The constant posters of hate-filled articles might be TOSsed but for >>other reasons. More typically, they themselves aren't writing the root >>article but infringing upon copyright, reposting it from the Web. They
are crossposting or multiposting or both. That should probably be dealt >>with at the injecting server, but that requires a lot of intervention.
If they morph or multi-post, again, that's really not possible to deal
with using a kill file. Cross posting can be dealt with using ordinary
kill file techniques if one has a good newsreader. If one doesn't want
to read political articles in one's non-political newsgroup, then kill >>crossposts to *politics* and other known political newsgroups.
5) Trolling without crossposting, multi-posting, or copyright
infringement, without constant morphing, sure, leave that up to the user
to kill file.
There is a unique poster who forges others, re-injecting articles
written by others, AND commits abuse by pre-loading injection headers from >>the original article. This blatantly violates RFCs but the injecting
server doesn't prevent it, and other servers are reluctant to junk these >>articles in Cleanfeed or its equivalent. Despite not prohibiting this >>abuse, no one wants to de-peer this News site. I know what to look for
but most Usenet readers wouldn't. There's nothing to kill file.
No, I've never agreed with Marco Moock, but I don't agree with you that >>it's entirely hands off and that News administrators don't need to take >>active measures to prevent large categories of abuse.
All fair comment, I can find nothing in your post to disagree with. It
has just occurred to me that as I use Eternal-September with its nicely >sanitised feed, I'm probably not aware of the full extent of this
problem. I'm certainly grateful for the efforts of News admins in
cleaning the feed, I'm sure it isn't a trivial task.
No, I've never agreed with Marco Moock, but I don't agree with you that >>it's entirely hands off and that News administrators don't need to take >>active measures to prevent large categories of abuse.
All fair comment, I can find nothing in your post to disagree with. It
has just occurred to me that as I use Eternal-September with its nicely >sanitised feed, I'm probably not aware of the full extent of this
problem. I'm certainly grateful for the efforts of News admins in
cleaning the feed, I'm sure it isn't a trivial task.
You know, I looked through articles that I junked in one active
newsgroup I participate in. It gets lots of crossposting because the political trolls know there is participation. Just this morning, my kill
file junk two dozen articles. The group would be unreadable without kill filing. This is mainly junking unwanted crossposts. I'm not doing
anything about multi-posting, so I'm seeing quite a bit of drug spam,
which I junk manually. Much of that is through News sites that Google
Groups and nobody else peer with.
- and to whitelist the few interesting posters who use Google.
It may be that I miss their initial posts so I rely on other
readers finding them interesting enough to respond to them,
then I notice them.
Sn!pe <snipeco.2@gmail.com> wrote:
- and to whitelist the few interesting posters who use Google.
It may be that I miss their initial posts so I rely on other
readers finding them interesting enough to respond to them,
then I notice them.
I like this strategy and use something roughly similar--but rather
than killfiling anyone, I use slrn's scoring function to highlight
the proven good posters (and interesting subjects). From there I
can identify additional posters worth reading. I know which
posters to skip, and read either all remaining posts, or just the
highlighted ones--depending on how much time I have.
I'm not doing
anything about multi-posting, so I'm seeing quite a bit of drug spam,
which I junk manually. Much of that is through News sites that Google
Groups and nobody else peer with.
On Tue, 5 Sep 2023 18:23:01 -0000 (UTC)
"Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
I'm not doing
anything about multi-posting, so I'm seeing quite a bit of drug spam,
which I junk manually. Much of that is through News sites that Google >>Groups and nobody else peer with.
I've never seen a googlegroups spam message which wasn't injected through >googlegroups.
Do you happen to have a Message-ID of one ? In fact , I
wonder if googlegroups even forwards to other servers messages which did
not originate on googlegroups ; obviously it still makes available through >its web interface articles it received from other servers.
I've never seen a googlegroups spam message which wasn't injected
through googlegroups. Do you happen to have a Message-ID of one ? In
fact , I wonder if googlegroups even forwards to other servers
messages which did not originate on googlegroups ; obviously it still
makes available through its web interface articles it received from
other servers.
Sep 11, 2023 at 12:26:14 AM CDT, Marco Moock <mm+usenet-es@dorfdsl.de>:
Am 10.09.2023 um 20:33:31 Uhr schrieb Spiros Bousbouras:
I've never seen a googlegroups spam message which wasn't injected
through googlegroups. Do you happen to have a Message-ID of one ? In
fact , I wonder if googlegroups even forwards to other servers
messages which did not originate on googlegroups ; obviously it still >>>makes available through its web interface articles it received from
other servers.
IIRC Google Groups has only a small amount of peers and that makes it
very unlikely that post from other servers will be transferred over
Google and then to other servers because the probability that these
servers already have the messages is high.
I can't say with 100% certainty how their NNTP infrastructure is setup, but I >have never seen an article pass through Google's infrastructure that did not >originate from Google Groups.
I know they peer with most of the commercial Usenet providers and a telecom or >two still running Usenet services in Europe, but it doesn't look like they >"exchange" articles from other sites with peers, they accept inbound but only >propagate articles that originate from their platform to peers.
Am 10.09.2023 um 20:33:31 Uhr schrieb Spiros Bousbouras:
I've never seen a googlegroups spam message which wasn't injected
through googlegroups. Do you happen to have a Message-ID of one ? In
fact , I wonder if googlegroups even forwards to other servers
messages which did not originate on googlegroups ; obviously it still
makes available through its web interface articles it received from
other servers.
IIRC Google Groups has only a small amount of peers and that makes it
very unlikely that post from other servers will be transferred over
Google and then to other servers because the probability that these
servers already have the messages is high.
Jesse Rehmer <jesse.rehmer@blueworldhosting.com> wrote:
I can't say with 100% certainty how their NNTP infrastructure is setup, but I
have never seen an article pass through Google's infrastructure that did not >originate from Google Groups.
I know they peer with most of the commercial Usenet providers and a telecom or
two still running Usenet services in Europe, but it doesn't look like they >"exchange" articles from other sites with peers, they accept inbound but only
propagate articles that originate from their platform to peers.
I already withdrew my comment that the drug spam originated with sites
that Google Groups was peering with. I was wrong. Let's say instead that Google Groups accepted drug spam from users on hosts that no responsible
News site would have tolerated for very long.
Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:10:19 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:
Jesse Rehmer <jesse.rehmer@blueworldhosting.com> wrote:
I can't say with 100% certainty how their NNTP infrastructure is setup, >>>but I have never seen an article pass through Google's infrastructure >>>that did not originate from Google Groups.
I know they peer with most of the commercial Usenet providers and a >>>telecom or two still running Usenet services in Europe, but it doesn't >>>look like they "exchange" articles from other sites with peers, they >>>accept inbound but only propagate articles that originate from their >>>platform to peers.
I already withdrew my comment that the drug spam originated with sites
that Google Groups was peering with. I was wrong. Let's say instead that >>Google Groups accepted drug spam from users on hosts that no responsible >>News site would have tolerated for very long.
It isn't about your original comment anymore , I asked because I'm curious in >general and not just for spam posts but all of them. Like Jesse , I've never >seen an article which passed through googlegroups and did not originate from >googlegroups.
Is the Path: header field a reliable way to tell ? That's where I tend to >look and if *googlegroups.com appears at all then it's the penultimate >component , right before the !not-for-mail part. Perhaps some server >administrator who reads this group can run a script and see if there are >messages arriving at their server which don't meet this description.
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:10:19 -0000 (UTC) Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>: >>Jesse Rehmer <jesse.rehmer@blueworldhosting.com> wrote:
I can't say with 100% certainty how their NNTP infrastructure is setup, >>>but I have never seen an article pass through Google's infrastructure >>>that did not originate from Google Groups.
I know they peer with most of the commercial Usenet providers and a >>>telecom or two still running Usenet services in Europe, but it doesn't >>>look like they "exchange" articles from other sites with peers, they >>>accept inbound but only propagate articles that originate from their >>>platform to peers.
I already withdrew my comment that the drug spam originated with sites >>that Google Groups was peering with. I was wrong. Let's say instead that >>Google Groups accepted drug spam from users on hosts that no responsible >>News site would have tolerated for very long.
It isn't about your original comment anymore , I asked because I'm curious in
general and not just for spam posts but all of them. Like Jesse , I've never >seen an article which passed through googlegroups and did not originate from >googlegroups.
Is the Path: header field a reliable way to tell ? That's where I tend to >look and if *googlegroups.com appears at all then it's the penultimate >component , right before the !not-for-mail part. Perhaps some server >administrator who reads this group can run a script and see if there are >messages arriving at their server which don't meet this description.
Are you suggesting that Google Groups truncates Path? Anything is
possible.
No , I'm not suggesting anything , I simply asked a question. To rephrase it ,
if in Path: a *googlegroups.com pattern appears not as the final or penultimate component , does it mean that the message passed through googlegroups but was not posted through googlegroups ?
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 546 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 09:11:36 |
| Calls: | 10,388 |
| Calls today: | 3 |
| Files: | 14,061 |
| Messages: | 6,416,843 |
| Posted today: | 1 |
