WEBVTT - What is Usenet? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.800 Tex Style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.079 and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poett. 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:21.960 I am an editor here at how stuff works dot 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.200 com and as usual, sitting across from me, I have 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:30.720 senior writer Jonathan Strickland, and I'm more than meets the eye. Okay, 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.920 So Chris and I just moments ago, uh we're sitting 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.200 here in front of the microphones talking about Internet relay chat. 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.839 So that podcast may or may not have have published 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:44.800 by the time you hear this, but during that we said, 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.040 you know, we should really talk about another really important 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.760 part of the Internet that predates the World Wide Web, 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.520 but it's still around and uh, it's still playing a role. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.880 It's maybe not nearly as as a big role as 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:01.600 it used to, but it's something that that we felt 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:04.040 needs to be addressed in an episode. Do you want 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:07.520 to tell them what it is? Yes? Oh? Now, yeah, 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.600 use net, use net. Yeah. As as a matter of fact, 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.039 one of the things that we mentioned in the other podcast, 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:15.480 um and and several of the podcasts we've had in 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:17.600 the past, is that not all the traffic on the 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.440 Internet goes from place to place using the same method. Um. 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.280 You have emailing, you have the web, UM, you have 0:01:24.360 --> 0:01:27.880 file transfer protocol, UM. But in UH, in the case 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.360 of using net, it has its own protocol to deliver 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.040 UH news files, or at least that's what it was 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:38.199 used for initially. Yeah, it's kind of UM. It's funny 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:40.880 because the terms that we're used to kind of define 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:44.800 what use net was early on stuck around, even when 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:48.120 you might argue that it's more like a message board, 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.240 like an old If you go to a website that 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.000 has a message board, a lot of the message board 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.360 stuff that you'll see on their kind of owes a 0:01:55.400 --> 0:02:00.080 lot to the early use net days. And UH it 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:04.840 relies on a Unix to Unix copy protocol that was 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.160 the original writ call for use net. So you use 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:13.720 CP is what we abbreviate that as, or acronymicize. I'm 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:19.440 just gonna I'm acronemonious. UM. Yeah, that actually that actually 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.000 changed m Yeah, because I mean if it had just 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.680 stayed Unix to Unix, then that would have really limited 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:29.800 the usefulness of use net. It would have been useless net. Well, 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.960 relatively useless net. Well, and you can actually you can 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.520 actually use the web for uh for a lot of 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.000 this now, so I mean you can. There are some 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:43.880 uses of using net that you really don't even need 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.080 a specific client, although you can still get them. But later, 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:51.680 a later class um sorry, later protocol that they developed 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.000 to provide use net services is n NTP or Network 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:58.880 News Transfer Protocol, right um, and that that became the 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:04.799 way of deliver bring messages UH for US net groups. Now, uh, 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.440 these are in a way it's kind of hard to 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:10.160 describe a US net group to someone who's never seen one. 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:13.640 But if you think about, um, maybe a discussion board 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.280 on one of your favorite websites, it's sort of like that. Um, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:22.320 the the there is a board where there is a topic, um, say, 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.680 you know, fans of Beverly Hills nine o two one oh, 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.760 for example, and people can post messages pro or con 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:34.280 there just about anything for which there is a fan. 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.040 On one of these use net groups, you will find 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.000 people who are trolling. They're posting how much they cannot 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:42.400 stand whatever it is that other people are a fan of, right, 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.160 and that this other thing that is probably not related 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:49.880 to the first thing at all. Is obviously better. Oh yes, 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.840 So for example, I might jump into the Star Trek 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.440 uh fan discussion and talk about how Star Wars is 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.520 so much better than Star Trek and may not even 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.760 be that. I believe that, it's just that I decided 0:04:02.760 --> 0:04:04.800 I wanted to stir up some trouble. So yeah, actually, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.200 us that's we can get into where where how how 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.320 much usen has contributed to the culture of the Internet. 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.520 Trolls are one of the things that first started really 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.480 popping up right around the days of eusenet. Let's let's 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:20.320 kind of go back a bit. Let's talk about the 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.680 development of eusnet. Okay, so I'm assuming you're getting ready 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.000 to mention Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis and as I 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.760 do it first, Oh yes, those guys, Um, yeah, so 0:04:28.760 --> 0:04:31.200 they kind of came up with this idea. This was ah, 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.120 these were two graduate students with Duke University at the 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.280 time and the time being nineteen seventy nine, and uh, 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.560 they were thinking that they needed to update an older, 0:04:43.080 --> 0:04:48.720 uh model of of accessing information through the computer system. UM, 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:51.080 that would be the old BBS model or Bolton board 0:04:51.120 --> 0:04:55.240 system now Bolton board systems. I actually used these when 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:57.280 I was a kid. I mean I would log into them. 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.720 But a bolton Board system is much more limited than 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.279 you snet bolton Board system is. You would you would 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:05.920 not I remember dialing into them. You would use your 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:09.760 modem to dial in a specific phone number. You would 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.000 log into the bolton Board system, which is hosted on 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:16.599 a remote computer, and there you could uh interact with 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:21.160 other users by by posting to a discussion board. Um, 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:25.360 you could play games, you could transfer files, you could 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.719 upload stuff or download stuff, a lot of things that 0:05:27.760 --> 0:05:29.800 you can do on the web now. But it was 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:32.200 very limited in that it was only stuff that was 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.520 on that one computer. It's not like you had access 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.520 to everything on every bolton Board system. So every bolton 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.280 Board system had its own culture, its own selection of files, 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.400 its own message boards. Also, it had a very limited 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.560 number of people that could be logged in at one time. Uh. 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.640 Normally it had like a series of lines open, like 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:57.720 phone lines open that could be occupied before it reached capacity. 0:05:57.760 --> 0:05:59.880 And if you called when it was at capacity, you 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:02.840 couldn't get in. You'd have to wait, And which seems 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:05.520 weird now. Just imagine if you were to open up 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:08.039 your your web browser and you were told sorry, the 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:10.200 Internet is full. You're gonna have to wait until some 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.599 people log off before you can access it. But uh so, yeah, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.080 it was just it wasn't like a network really. It 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.640 was you were all using one computer as almost like 0:06:19.640 --> 0:06:22.800 a node, right, yes, and you you had a you know, 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:24.720 it was acting as a server. Your computer was acting 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:26.760 as a client. But there was no network. It was 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.599 just client server. That's it. Like a hub and spoke 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:35.680 right exactly, exactly. Yeah, the the host computer is is 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:38.120 right there at the very center, and then you're you 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.960 and all the other computers are on the edge connecting in. 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.120 So you would post messages to the hub and then 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.200 other people could read them and reply to them. And 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.240 all the information was there at that one central location exactly. 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.960 And if that one central location went down, then everything 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.320 was gone, ye until it came back up again. Usnet 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:00.480 is different. Usenet is more of a network system, and so, 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:03.880 uh Trustcott and Ellis had come up with this idea 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:07.200 of creating a system that would exist across multiple servers. 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.480 It would all be based on the same protocol and 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.760 you would build a essentially a message board, a news 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.880 group that where you could post articles about whatever subjects 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.080 you wanted and have discussions about those subjects, and UH 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:26.760 servers would contact one another and compare essentially their their 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.720 message boards, and anything that one server was missing, the 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.760 other server would send to it so it could update 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.080 its own its own database, and vice versa, so that 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:41.520 no matter what happened to any one single server machine, 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.280 you would still be able to access that information because 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:46.440 it would exist somewhere on the network, assuming that they 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:51.400 had synchronized somewhat recently. So UH it also meant that 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:55.360 you didn't have all these isolated conversations going on across 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.360 multiple bulletin board systems. That's what was happening before. Like 0:07:58.440 --> 0:08:02.880 you might have a very strong fan community in Los 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:06.120 Angeles for Star Trek, Well let's just stick with Star Trek, 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:08.440 and then you have another really strong fan community and 0:08:08.520 --> 0:08:10.840 say in New York City also about Star Trek. But 0:08:10.840 --> 0:08:13.680 they wouldn't necessarily be logging into the same bulletin board system, 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.600 especially if they were using dial up modems, because they 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.480 don't want to pay long distance to have to connect 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:25.840 to it, So their conversations would all be regional. USENET 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:29.720 allowed a global conversation to occur because you're no longer 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:35.920 worrying about logging into one specific local computer. So it 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.079 was a revolutionary idea. We take it for granted now 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:40.840 because the Worldwide Web has been around for a couple 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:43.880 of decades, but at the time it was, there was 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.240 this idea of, hey, we've already got the lines here 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.520 connecting all these computers, and we've got the protocols that 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:52.480 support this kind of data transfer, the whole T c 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.800 P I P protocols. Let's build something on top of 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.880 this infrastructure that allows us to share information. So the 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.200 same sort of idea that eventually became the World Wide Web, 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:09.439 but in a totally different implementation. Okay, then, so there 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:13.400 are literally tens of thousands of using net newsgroups available 0:09:13.400 --> 0:09:15.480 and they're still you know, that's it's still in in 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.800 pretty wide use. UM. You know that recently, I've i've 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:25.200 my most recent exploits on usinget UM. I've found several 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:31.040 UH communities that are are basically just spam magnets UM, 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:33.120 but there are still quite a few that are that 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.319 are very very popular UM. And using that actually has 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:41.200 a hierarchy to it. Yeah, that hierarchy wasn't always part 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.160 of usenet's history. In fact, the problem was that as 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.000 more and more information was being added to usenet, it 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:49.880 became difficult to navigate through all of it to see 0:09:49.880 --> 0:09:53.000 the stuff that's relevant to your own interests, and so 0:09:53.480 --> 0:09:56.680 they needed to come up with a scheme that would 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.640 allow people to post relevant things in discussions and make 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.120 it easier to find what you're interested in, so it 0:10:04.120 --> 0:10:07.840 wouldn't become an exercise and frustration. Part of that fell 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.520 to a group of people that became known as the 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:15.679 Backbone Cabal. That's really what they were known as, and 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:19.480 and that yeah, well, and some people argued that it 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:22.880 was sneaky and that the choices they made were not 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:26.000 representative of the community as a whole, something that we 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:29.120 see like in the background of wikis all the time. Now, 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.080 the same sort of problems happened with wikis. Whenever you 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:36.440 have a big, wide, open UH community, than any one 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.760 group making decisions is going to upset someone in that 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:45.199 community because it doesn't represent them. Right, So the cabal decided, 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.400 all right, well, we need to try and UH and 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:51.360 start um to organize this in a more efficient way. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.400 And that leads up to, in nineteen seven, an event 0:10:55.480 --> 0:11:03.440 called the Great Renaming Gasp. Yeah, so and the great renaming. 0:11:03.480 --> 0:11:07.040 That was when things had come to a head on usenet. 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.560 It was getting far too chaotic and they needed to 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.160 find a way of creating a hierarchy that made sense. 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.480 And that's when they started making the the what was 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.240 initially called the Big Seven. Yes, it's the Big seven 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.319 hierarchical hierarchical groups. So you had things like COMP c 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:29.280 O MP for for any sort of computer discussion, comp 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:32.040 dot and then you could put something behind the dot 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:35.480 to specify, so you could do like comp dot hardware 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:37.280 and then if you want to get more specific, you 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:42.000 do COMP dot hardware, DOT monitor. So you would be 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.839 able to you know, break these down into subcategories so 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:48.880 that people could have very specific conversations and not have 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.280 to worry about, you know, cluttering up one comp thing 0:11:52.440 --> 0:11:55.719 with every single computer topic no demand. And there were 0:11:55.720 --> 0:12:00.079 other categories as well. There was you know s c 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:04.640 I for science UM. There was originally there was talk, 0:12:04.960 --> 0:12:07.400 which was supposed to be kind of a catch all category, 0:12:07.520 --> 0:12:11.920 but it was also monitored. This did not sit well 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.880 with some users because it meant that you couldn't have 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:20.280 true free communication, free speech because someone somewhere was monitoring 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.400 what was going on and could except or deny any 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:28.640 particular topic. Uh, which then led to what has become 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:33.840 probably the most famous or perhaps infamous hierarchy in usenet 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.160 alt ALT, which was not part of the Cabal. In fact, 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.280 that was a big, big selling point for the whole 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:44.080 alt things. What made it so popular so quickly. It's 0:12:44.120 --> 0:12:48.720 kind of anything and everything really yeah, alt dot whatever. 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:53.800 It's Brian Reid is the guy who kind of spearheaded 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.160 that project to to create and he was one of 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.880 the people who objected to this idea of the cabal 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:02.439 backed high archies, saying that you know, if we if 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.640 we do this, it limits us too much. We need 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.439 it to be more open than that. And uh, this 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.720 was a place where frank discussions could be held on 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.520 any topic. Like reeds point was that he wanted to 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:19.400 open up a a topic under wreck r e C 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.040 which is for recreation uh dot drugs. He wanted to 0:13:23.160 --> 0:13:26.680 create a topic for that to have discussion about drugs 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.880 drug use and was denied. Um. He was not allowed 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:35.560 to create a talk dot drugs group either, So he 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.200 decided to create this alt hierarchy, so so you know, 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:43.080 just circumventing the whole system and creating a new uh, 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:45.920 a new division that has nothing to do with the 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.760 Big seven. Um. And it took off. In fact, it 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:52.600 took off so much that it is the largest of 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:56.160 the categories, which is kind of ironic because all of 0:13:56.200 --> 0:14:00.439 course stands for alternative, right, but now every ing else 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.720 is the alternative because it's the main thing. Kind of 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:08.520 like alternative music was in the mid nineties or exactly exactly, 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.040 the alternative music was the only thing out there. There 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:17.320 was no alternative. Yeah, and using grungy And that's the 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:23.920 thing is if you dirty hippie type seattle the thing, 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.360 go ahead, are you done? I was a punk rocker. 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:37.560 You and China anyway, so umtally was so welcome. So yeah, 0:14:37.600 --> 0:14:41.120 I mean that's that's a good point. You can't just say, 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.800 you know what, I wanna start a discussion topic about 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:49.240 my band and just go start a group. Uh, not instantaneously. 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.440 You can put it up for a suggestion and uh 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.000 and you know, once people have had a chance to 0:14:56.400 --> 0:14:59.320 look at it and say, oh, well, you know, I 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:00.920 think that would be a kay or I don't think 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:04.760 that would be okay. You know, it can become a group. Um, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.160 but it's it's not like starting a a an Internet 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:09.560 relay chat channel where you go, you know what, I 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:11.040 want to talk about this right now, and just go 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.760 start a channel. You have to actually have it approved 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:16.880 um by by the powers that be, which really are 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:21.840 kind of decentralized anyway. It's kind of weird. Frankly, again, 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:25.760 I think the the comparison to wikis is fairly apt 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:30.640 because wikies are often maintained by a community of users 0:15:30.880 --> 0:15:35.000 and UH, and they often resist any attempts at any 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.680 single user trying to dictate policy. We we saw that 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.040 not that long ago actually with Wikipedia, where the co 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:47.360 founder Jimmy Wales went to try and delete material from 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:54.640 the Wikimedia Commons collection UM in in hoping to head 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:59.160 off any problems with with sponsors for Wikimedia. UH. And 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.520 as a result because of his because he didn't go 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:07.200 through the proper procedures and he bypassed the whole community aspect, UH, 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:11.760 there was a big kerfuffle over at at Wikipedia. Yeah. 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:13.720 And the same sort of thing happened on usenet all 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.760 the time and still does probably in some of these 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.200 uh and some of these news groups. It's not like 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.400 it's it's not really a democracy, UM. And the people 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.760 in charge aren't really completely in charge. It's you know, 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.440 it's a it's a little strain, it's a little wild 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:30.720 West out there. But you know, I think I think 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.600 the people who are are really getting the the or 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.160 nay votes are too people who have been established and 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:40.480 really entrenched in the usneture. Well, we we've mentioned earlier 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.560 that trolls were one of the uh you know, they 0:16:43.640 --> 0:16:47.480 kind of emerged from usenet, and one of the most 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.560 common trolli ish tactics on usenet was to log into 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.760 any particular discussion forum and then start talking about something 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:57.480 that was completely off topic. And you're doing it on purpose. 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:00.920 You're doing it specifically to upset people. Or you would 0:17:00.920 --> 0:17:05.040 log into a discussion group about a particular topic and 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:11.040 then start asking inane questions, or start asking legitimate questions 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:16.200 and then slowly have them morph into more and more 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:18.840 inane questions, just to see how far you could push people, 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.399 how long you could get people to respond to you 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:23.880 before they caught onto that it was all a joke 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.280 and uh, trolls really the whole purpose was just too 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.520 In most cases anyway, um, the purpose was just for 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.200 their own amusement to try and wind people up, see 0:17:34.200 --> 0:17:36.199 how upset they could get them, or just see if 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.560 they could play a joke. Not all of them were malicious. 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:40.960 Some of them were really just pranks, you know, They're 0:17:41.000 --> 0:17:44.080 more mischievous than malicious. And then there were others where 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.359 you would get people who were fans of one particular 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:53.359 UH discussion group and they would get real rivalries with 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:56.320 other discussion groups and would actually go in and spam. 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.480 That's another thing that came out of use spam. The 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.360 earliest the instances and naming of spam came from that 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.440 and people just coming in and posting ridiculous stuff. Because 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.480 that's another you know, if you post enough to use net, 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:15.800 you start to UM, you start to scroll content off 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.719 of use net. Yes, because it only had a limited 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.960 amount of space to store UM data. And if you 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.200 went in and posted enough stuff, you could push data 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.600 off of use net and then people wouldn't be able 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.639 to access it anymore. Yes. UM. And since people were 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.120 using us neet to do things like not just have conversations, 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:38.119 but to host files UM where you could you know, 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:43.800 especially things like uh uh material that's under copyright UM. 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.160 There's tons of piracy that you can find on use 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:51.560 net of various kinds of materials yea. And that was 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:54.680 one of the things that that struck me as odd 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:57.880 because UM, I used most of my use net use 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:02.160 was way back in the early to mid nineties UM. 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:05.600 And then a few years ago I heard people starting 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.560 to talk about using Actually one of my favorite software 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:11.479 of shareware developers came out with a brand new use 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.080 that client, and I was thinking, really, people are still 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:17.320 using that, And then I realized the correlation between that 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.159 and my Internet service provider putting a cap on the 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:24.160 amount of data that you could receive over use net 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.560 because I was thinking, since when did use that traffic 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.440 becomes so uh, you know, such an issue. And then 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.720 then I realized that I learned about the binaries groups 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.040 because you can break down a file into multiple pieces 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.280 and spread it out over multiple messages, and and the 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.800 messages are threaded. I neglected to mention earlier because that's 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:46.320 how you sort of follow the topic, is that they're 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.399 responding to posts and you can you can thread them 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.840 together and see, you know, where the conversation has gone. 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:54.680 We can also do that with binary files, and that's 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.960 how you know, rather than using something such as bit 0:19:58.000 --> 0:20:03.200 torrent for example, people were shared ing uh, cracked files 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:07.359 or binaries of of other media that you know, people 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.120 were going on us it's and I think it's sort 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:13.080 of escaped attention simply because using net was old in 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.000 terms of the Internet. Yeah, you could. You could find 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:20.080 stuff software, images, music, that kind of thing, provided of course, 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:22.240 your i SP isn't blocking those groups, which it it 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.600 doesn't necessarily your your i SP doesn't have to carry 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:26.680 access to to use that they could block it. And 0:20:26.720 --> 0:20:29.520 if they are blocking access to those groups, you may 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:31.439 not see them, you know, right in and go my 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:34.000 SP doesn't have those Well, maybe your IP is blocking 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.040 and they're they're i s p s that would just 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:39.679 put anything that falls under alt binary as you know, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.199 they block it automatically, um, which you know, that's that 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:46.520 could be frustrating because there usenet was a way of 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:51.359 being able to share legitimate open source software. So it 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.479 wasn't just stuff that was pirate ID or you know 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:56.800 that that was being illegally shared. There was there were 0:20:56.880 --> 0:21:00.239 legitimate uses to to uh to log in to all 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:05.159 binaries that had nothing to do with piracy stealing intellectual property. 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:07.960 But you know, it gets really really hard to separate 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.760 all of that out. And uh so most companies, most 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:13.560 I s p s, if they're going to block it, 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.439 would just rather paint with a broad brush than than 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:18.680 to try and have to determine, okay, well is this 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.119 is this group all right? And is this group not 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.439 all right? And why? And that's just one part of 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:27.400 I mean, the piracy was one part. Pornography is another big, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.840 big thing on housnet, or at least it used to be. UM. 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.480 So there are some come I s p s that 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:38.879 would just block all the the groups that had anything 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:43.719 to do with pornographic content. Um. And I remember when 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.520 I in the nineties, when I would log into usenet 0:21:46.600 --> 0:21:48.359 and look at the different groups, I was kind of 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.719 shocked at how many were dedicated to that in various forms, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:58.639 especially when you're like, you know, obviously my education doesn't 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:00.480 extend as far as these people would, as I would 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.639 have sworn that three of these groups are saying the 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:05.760 same thing, but they're all arguing that it's something unique, 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:08.720 and I'm scared to see what they mean. You know, 0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:11.760 it reminds me of a song. Um yeah, so maybe 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.120 we should just drop that part of this. So so 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:19.280 earlier I mentioned um that in general, you would want 0:22:19.480 --> 0:22:24.080 to to get a Usenet reader, a client software client 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:25.880 to do this and that, and that's generally the way 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.600 you're you're going to go to get you know, more 0:22:29.640 --> 0:22:35.520 recent postings. But there was a website that used to archive, uh, 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:39.480 postings from usenet and um and yeah, that's as you 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.760 were mentioning earlier, Jonathan also, um, usually the server will 0:22:44.119 --> 0:22:46.800 basically slough off the old messages as the newer ones 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:49.560 come in to save space. They only say save up 0:22:49.560 --> 0:22:52.960 to a certain point. Um. Well, as people were archiving them, 0:22:52.960 --> 0:22:55.359 there was a website called dejan News that was keeping 0:22:55.400 --> 0:22:56.919 track of all this. And if you were looking for 0:22:56.960 --> 0:23:01.040 something in particular, um, and it was you know, from 0:23:01.119 --> 0:23:02.800 five years ago or something like this, and you know 0:23:02.880 --> 0:23:04.399 you saw this posting in this news group and you 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:07.639 didn't save a copy, Um, you might go to dejan 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:12.719 news do this. Well, they were acquired by a larger company, um, 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:17.640 which you may have heard of. Is it Yahoo? No? No, 0:23:18.000 --> 0:23:23.359 that Facebook, Twitter, It's gotta be Google. Yes, yes, it 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:28.080