Gaming Verizon blocked newsgroups.

[OrcMonkey©]

Verizon made so you cant use verizoon to download newsgroups

 

[Joe88]

Looking through some news online from it, seems to be blocked because of Child Pornography being exchanged

 

[Destructobot]

Did they block access to real usenet servers, or did they just stop providing their own usenet service?

 

[zidane_genome]

Verizon has declared it will no longer offer access to the entire alt.* hierarchy of Usenet newsgroups to its customers. This stems from last week's agreement for major ISPs to cut off access to 'newsgroups and Web sites' that make child pornography available. The story notes, 'No law requires Verizon to do this. Instead, the company (and, to varying extents, Time Warner Cable and Sprint) agreed to restrictions on Usenet in response to political strong-arming by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Cuomo claimed that his office found child porn on 88 newsgroups — out of roughly 100,000 newsgroups that exist.' In response, Verizon will cut its customers off from a large portion of Usenet, as it will only carry newsgroups in the Big 8.

Not ALL NewsGroups have been cut, just alt.*.*.* due to a 1 in 5,000,000 posts contain child porn. I for one support this... even if it is 1 in 5 million, that's still a shit load of people with no access to it!

Full Story at CNet

 

[Lumstar]

This is under the radar. A bad sign for network neutrality...

 

[Destructobot]

In response, Verizon will cut its customers off from a large portion of Usenet, as it will only carry newsgroups in the Big 8.

In other words, if you already have real usenet service instead of crappy BS that ISPs provide as part of their service package, this will not affect you at all. Correct?

 

[zidane_genome]

Correct... if you access your NewsGroups via Verizon, it's cut off...

If you access your NewsGroups via somewhere else, your fine with all your kiddy porn, lol (kidding about the kiddy porn!)

 

[fischju]

Verizon has always been the most pirate friendly ISP. They were under a lot of political pressure, for offering these newsgroups for free. They do not block anything.

 

[jesuschristmonke]

Looking through some news online from it, seems to be blocked because of Child Pornography being exchanged

Creeps can still transport it by car, so do we close the highway system now?

All this "thinka the children" garbage is only for curtailing our rights.

And yes, I'm a parent.

 

[Joe88]

Looking through some news online from it, seems to be blocked because of Child Pornography being exchanged

Creeps can still transport it by car, so do we close the highway system now?

All this "thinka the children" garbage is only for curtailing our rights.

And yes, I'm a parent.

this is one way of getting rid of it
I mean you just search newsgroups and bam it there, all from your home computer

and frankly I dont care because I use torrents anyway
and if where serious about newgroups you would have a private site that you pay for memberships for

 

[Dermy]

Ohhhhhh, that's why the articles won't update......
At least I got a taste of what newsgroups are like.
I guess it's gonna be torrents for now or start paying for newsgroups.

 

[zidane_genome]

I'm not a parent, but an uncle... and if I caught anyone doing anything to my necies, I would make them wish I would kill them...

back on topic, I am a Verizon DSL customer (and a Comcast Cable customer)...

Comcast doesn't even offer NewsGroups, and with Verizon blocking the ALT.* section, I could care less... if I want music, porn (legal that is), software, or anything else, there's a whole Bay of Pirates I can go to, as well as many many many other DEMONic torrent trackers out there that I don't have to worry about 9 million different sections of a file, and then decrypting and joining... I just get a big RAR or ISO, lol

 

[FAST6191]

@zidane_genome * points to the likes of newsbin, grabit and altbinz. Usenet apps these days check and extract (even clean up after themselves) as well joining the "thousands of post" like they have done for the last decade or more.

jesuschristmonkeyballs started it but as for the 1 in several million I am pretty sure IRC, FTP, HTTP, HTTPS, torrent, SFTP, FTPS and just about every protocol and encoding format known to man can, is and has been used. Would you support a ban of them? I could probably even define 100 others in the next 5 minutes (probably very similar mind you but data is data however I slice it).
Furthermore having read the transcripts/evidence of a few trials it seems all the "dangerous" people are capable of using encryption and techniques far beyond all known law enforcement. And just because I can the hierarchy is nothing but a loosely agreed upon set of rules anyway.
I doubt this will even be a footnote in the history of such things and it the metaphorical equivalent of arresting a part time drug dealer and hoping it all goes away.

 

[Strokemouth]

This isn't a ban nor is Verizon blocking anything. As it's been said, they are limiting the groups they carry, that's it.

And the whole child pornography angle is half the story. The other half is money. Verizon's point is that they are spending a ton of money to maintain their news servers, of which a very small percentage of their customers actually use. And even then, a very small percentage use them for anything outside of the Big-8. The vast majority of people that use newsgroups for binaries will go for a "real" news provider that offers a wider group selection and much better retention (I believe most of Verizon's are less than 15 or 20 days).

ISP's providing usenet access on their own servers are just hemorrhaging money.

EDIT: Oh, and Time Warner is dropping ALL newsgroup access...not even providing the Big 8.

 

[Gaisuto]

That explains mine...I think? I use Bright House over here in Central Florida. They have a free one that was pretty damn fast. But when I tried to download Alone in the Dark from it, I got a ton of images saying Bright House moved and changed their policy.

It's still free, and it's still limited at 4 connections at a time, but it's so ****ing slow now...

 

[704jaffer]

Correct... if you access your NewsGroups via Verizon, it's cut off...

If you access your NewsGroups via somewhere else, your fine with all your kiddy porn, lol (kidding about the kiddy porn!)

Oh good, I thought the ISPs were willy-nilly going around somehow blocking all newsgroup service

 

[754boy]

I can also confirm that AT&T has deleted all "alt.binaries" from their servers. Which basically means nothing is available. No one uses the other groups so I'm pretty much SOL. Fucking pedophiles and their child porn......now they've gone too far!!!

 

[Mangofett]

Eathlink still has a.b, but the speeds suck in the first place so it doesn't matter.

 

[deathfisaro]

Does child pornography mean child as strictly under 18 (or 19), or like before primary school children?

If it's the latter then that's pretty sick.
If it's the former then since teenage pregnancy is an issue already, I won't really be surprised if they put it on tape.

 

[754boy]

Does child pornography mean child as strictly under 18 (or 19), or like before primary school children?

17 and below...technically 18 is legal...that includes everything from exploited teens to infants. Sick shit.