Dear Mr. Musk,
I have read in the news that you are (or were) interested in buying
Twitter in order to promote free speech. I applaud your goals , I care a
lot about free speech myself. But let me suggest that the operational
model of Twitter and free speech do not fit well together.
An absolute concept of free speech is that if persons A and B want to exchange views or information about whatever issue , no entity C (where "entity" means individual or corporation or government) should be able to prevent it. In other words , the decision should be entirely up to A and B and noone else.
There are physical limitations which make such absolute free speech impossible and it may not even be desirable. But it is also very far from
a desirable level of free speech if a single entity , like Twitter , can restrict people's ability to communicate with each other. Obviously
Twitter isn't the only form of online communication but my overall point
is that online discussion is too centralised at present , that this centralisation negatively affects freedom of speech and plurality of
opinions therefore the right way forward is to give emphasis to more decentralised methods of online discussion.
And as it turns out , there is such a method. Not only that but it is one
of the oldest forms of online dicussion : usenet !
I will guess that you have already encountered usenet although perhaps not recently. It is a lot less popular than what it was some decades ago but
it is still going strong. From the point of view of freedom of speech it
has many advantages over Twitter : it is decentralised , meaning a large number of servers controlled by different entities instead of servers ultimately controlled by a single entity which can command that this or
that should be censored. Usenet is based on open standards for which there exist already a large number of implementations both of servers and
clients and also programming libraries for many programming languages. So whether one wants to use a preexisting client or server or implement their own , possibly one with a fancier interface , the possibilities are limitless.
You are a visionary so let me a suggest the following vision : every city block in every city in every technologically advanced country will have at least 1 usenet server operating. Note that the servers do not need any special facilities , it could just as well be a server operating from
one's own home. It doesn't have to be a recent or powerful computer either
, an old computer which one has lying somewhere and remains unused , would
do the job just fine. The important thing is that all of these servers
would be operated by different people. So lets say someone does not want a certain usenet group or messages on their server because they consider
them as too right wing or too left wing or too whatever wing or they feel it's "hate speech" , etc. Not a problem. With so many servers the messages would still get transmitted between the people who are interested in them because there would be billions of different paths (passing through
servers) between clients a message could follow. Now *that's* freedom of speech.
So where do you come in ? No , I'm not suggesting that you pay for all
those servers out of your own pocket. What you can do is express publicly your interest and support for usenet. Coming from someone as well known as you , this already will have a large positive impact. It may be that this
is all that is needed. The infrastructure already exists : there is news client and news server software for the usual desktop operating systems , there exist both free and commercial servers running and more can be
created whether one is primarily motivated by profit or the desire to
offer a public service.
If you want to go further than that , you can announce a public competition for a new news client or a new news server with a prize for each of say 20,000 USD. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with already existing software but people get attracted to the new sexy thing and such
new software , with the attendant publicity , would be the new sexy thing.
I won't go into details of how such a competition could be run or what criteria should be used to rank the entries because it would make this too long and it would be a digression. The publicity would be more important
than the precise rules of the competition anyway.
You could create a charity which runs news servers. Again , the main advantage of such a thing would be the publicity caused by the association with your name rather than having a few extra servers.
None of the above suggestions would cost more than thousands of USD. A lot cheaper than Twitter and they would do a lot more for freedom of speech. I will admit though that if your main goal in the endeavour is to make
profit rather than enhance freedom of speech then a centralised medium
offers more opportunity.
So these are my suggestions , I hope you will get to read them and give
them some thought.
Finally , for your convenience here is a list of some usenet servers : news.aioe.org , news.cyber23.de , news.eternal-september.org (requires registration) , news2.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (read only).
Best regards
Spiros Bousbouras
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number.
It's also basically a
text-only kind of media, very 70s/80s, and not even as
interactive as those old 300-baud dial-up BBS systems.
If Musk wants to BE somebody then he needs control of
one or more large profit-making modern 'social media'
sites.
launching rockets will probably always get him more attention
anyway. Certainly from me.
In comp.misc 25B.Z959 <25B.Z959@nada.net> wrote:
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number.
Technically there was money in it in the 90s and early 2000s when
ISPs ran news servers themselves because it was one of the things
users were paying for an internet connection in order to access.
But the users left, and the ISPs followed. Though conveniently not
before computer hardware capable of running a public news server
became cheap enough that free services for text-only groups became
practical.
It's also basically a
text-only kind of media, very 70s/80s, and not even as
interactive as those old 300-baud dial-up BBS systems.
I dunno, Twitter seems pretty text-only
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number. It's also basically a
text-only kind of media, very 70s/80s, and not even as
interactive as those old 300-baud dial-up BBS systems.
Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
launching rockets will probably always get him more attention
anyway. Certainly from me.
More than digging tunnels.
Dear Mr. Musk,
I have read in the news that you are (or were) interested in buying
Twitter in order to promote free speech. I applaud your goals , I care a
lot about free speech myself. But let me suggest that the operational
model of Twitter and free speech do not fit well together.
An absolute concept of free speech is that if persons A and B want to exchange views or information about whatever issue , no entity C (where "entity" means individual or corporation or government) should be able to prevent it. In other words , the decision should be entirely up to A and B and noone else.
There are physical limitations which make such absolute free speech impossible and it may not even be desirable. But it is also very far from
a desirable level of free speech if a single entity , like Twitter , can restrict people's ability to communicate with each other. Obviously
Twitter isn't the only form of online communication but my overall point
is that online discussion is too centralised at present , that this centralisation negatively affects freedom of speech and plurality of
opinions therefore the right way forward is to give emphasis to more decentralised methods of online discussion.
And as it turns out , there is such a method. Not only that but it is one
of the oldest forms of online dicussion : usenet !
I will guess that you have already encountered usenet although perhaps not recently. It is a lot less popular than what it was some decades ago but
it is still going strong. From the point of view of freedom of speech it
has many advantages over Twitter : it is decentralised , meaning a large number of servers controlled by different entities instead of servers ultimately controlled by a single entity which can command that this or
that should be censored. Usenet is based on open standards for which there exist already a large number of implementations both of servers and
clients and also programming libraries for many programming languages. So whether one wants to use a preexisting client or server or implement their own , possibly one with a fancier interface , the possibilities are limitless.
You are a visionary so let me a suggest the following vision : every city block in every city in every technologically advanced country will have at least 1 usenet server operating. Note that the servers do not need any special facilities , it could just as well be a server operating from
one's own home. It doesn't have to be a recent or powerful computer either
, an old computer which one has lying somewhere and remains unused , would
do the job just fine. The important thing is that all of these servers
would be operated by different people. So lets say someone does not want a certain usenet group or messages on their server because they consider
them as too right wing or too left wing or too whatever wing or they feel it's "hate speech" , etc. Not a problem. With so many servers the messages would still get transmitted between the people who are interested in them because there would be billions of different paths (passing through
servers) between clients a message could follow. Now *that's* freedom of speech.
So where do you come in ? No , I'm not suggesting that you pay for all
those servers out of your own pocket. What you can do is express publicly your interest and support for usenet. Coming from someone as well known as you , this already will have a large positive impact. It may be that this
is all that is needed. The infrastructure already exists : there is news client and news server software for the usual desktop operating systems , there exist both free and commercial servers running and more can be
created whether one is primarily motivated by profit or the desire to
offer a public service.
If you want to go further than that , you can announce a public competition for a new news client or a new news server with a prize for each of say 20,000 USD. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with already existing software but people get attracted to the new sexy thing and such
new software , with the attendant publicity , would be the new sexy thing.
I won't go into details of how such a competition could be run or what criteria should be used to rank the entries because it would make this too long and it would be a digression. The publicity would be more important
than the precise rules of the competition anyway.
You could create a charity which runs news servers. Again , the main advantage of such a thing would be the publicity caused by the association with your name rather than having a few extra servers.
None of the above suggestions would cost more than thousands of USD. A lot cheaper than Twitter and they would do a lot more for freedom of speech. I will admit though that if your main goal in the endeavour is to make
profit rather than enhance freedom of speech then a centralised medium
offers more opportunity.
So these are my suggestions , I hope you will get to read them and give
them some thought.
Finally , for your convenience here is a list of some usenet servers : news.aioe.org , news.cyber23.de , news.eternal-september.org (requires registration) , news2.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (read only).
Best regards
Spiros Bousbouras
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file sharing app, has
the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and 'erotica' involving violence were
just a handful of the topics represented. I'm not quite sure where the line is
drawn, but "free speech for them too" meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of making the community somewhere I'd never recommend
to anyone else. A community that *can* become like that *will* become like that
eventually.
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file sharing app, >>has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section
was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the
job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and
'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics represented. >>I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for them too" >>meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of making >>the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A community >>that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually.
Not sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not »community
« that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure communication thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get that kind
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are serving that
kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really. Everyone have
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and why you
ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque" thing you
are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called nodes).
Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address) of nodes
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a neighbor
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric keys (PGP format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to securely and anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond your own
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does not generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is only
driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network: in order
to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange certificates
with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to build your
own network".
₪ BUD ₪
On 7/23/2022 5:50:29 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file sharing app, >>> has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section
was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the
job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and
'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics represented. >>> I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for them too" >>> meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of making >>> the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A community
that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually.
Not sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not ??community
?? that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure communication
thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get that kind >>
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are serving that
kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really. Everyone have
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and why you
ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque" thing you
are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called nodes).
Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address) of nodes >>
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a neighbor
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric keys (PGP
format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to securely and
anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond your own
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does not
generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is only
driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network: in order
to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange certificates
with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to build your
own network".
??? BUD ???
I get how Retroshare works, and from a technical standpoint, I think it's fantastic. In practice, however, the exception you take to my experience does two
things: it proves my point and reflects the difference between Retroshare and Twitter.
When one starts up Retroshare for the first time and makes the certs and so forth, it's an empty slate. This reveals the problem Retroshare has with the network effect: while everyone uses Twitter because everyone uses Twitter, telling your friends "use Retroshare so we can make our own network" is an incredibly uphill battle that doesn't involve finding new people one doesn't already know.
So, the go-to solution for growing one's network in order to engage in a community is to do what I did: do some Google searches and add random users who
post their public keys on message boards and start growing the network. This is
what I did, which led to the Newcomers Lobby I ended up joining, where people exchanged keys readily. I had nearly 200 people in my network at this point; many
of them were unconnectable (one of Retroshare's issues is that it's extremely limited when users have CGNAT)...but I did have a pretty decent number of 'friends of friends' that yielded some actual chatrooms and some posts on the asynchronous one-to-many message boards (the "usenet-esque" function I described). It was at this point where I started encountering the content I described.
Retroshare works when the goal is for an insular community to connect, but that's
not creating new connections. Moreover, even when a set of users do what I did,
communication isn't necessarily effective - message board replies may not replicate all the way back to the person to whom one replies. Usenet solves this
with NNTP peering, but Retroshare has no similar mechanism beyond nodes that are
functionally centralized.
All of that being said, the point I was making about Retroshare is that the community that I stumbled into was the sort of community that most people would
consider 'unwelcoming' at the very least. "Just disconnect from those nodes" becomes extremely difficult to implement on any kind of scale, especially due to
how Retroshare handles replication through 2nd-order nodes.
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
On 7/23/2022 5:50:29 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file
sharing app,
has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section
was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the
job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and
'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics
represented.
I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for
them too"
meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of
making
the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A community >>>> that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually.
Not sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not ??community
?? that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure communication
thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get that
kind
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are serving that
kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really. Everyone
have
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and why you
ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque" thing you
are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called nodes).
Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address) of
nodes
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a
neighbor
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric keys (PGP
format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to securely and >>> anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond your
own
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does not
generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is only
driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network: in order >>> to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange certificates >>> with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to build your >>> own network".
??? BUD ???
I get how Retroshare works, and from a technical standpoint, I think it's
fantastic. In practice, however, the exception you take to my
experience does two
things: it proves my point and reflects the difference between
Retroshare and
Twitter.
When one starts up Retroshare for the first time and makes the certs
and so
forth, it's an empty slate. This reveals the problem Retroshare has
with the
network effect: while everyone uses Twitter because everyone uses
Twitter,
telling your friends "use Retroshare so we can make our own network"
is an
incredibly uphill battle that doesn't involve finding new people one
doesn't
already know.
So, the go-to solution for growing one's network in order to engage in a
community is to do what I did: do some Google searches and add random
users who
post their public keys on message boards and start growing the
network. This is
what I did, which led to the Newcomers Lobby I ended up joining, where
people
exchanged keys readily. I had nearly 200 people in my network at this
point; many
of them were unconnectable (one of Retroshare's issues is that it's
extremely
limited when users have CGNAT)...but I did have a pretty decent number of
'friends of friends' that yielded some actual chatrooms and some posts
on the
asynchronous one-to-many message boards (the "usenet-esque" function I
described). It was at this point where I started encountering the
content I
described.
Retroshare works when the goal is for an insular community to connect,
but that's
not creating new connections. Moreover, even when a set of users do
what I did,
communication isn't necessarily effective - message board replies may not
replicate all the way back to the person to whom one replies. Usenet
solves this
with NNTP peering, but Retroshare has no similar mechanism beyond
nodes that are
functionally centralized.
All of that being said, the point I was making about Retroshare is
that the
community that I stumbled into was the sort of community that most
people would
consider 'unwelcoming' at the very least. "Just disconnect from those
nodes"
becomes extremely difficult to implement on any kind of scale,
especially due to
how Retroshare handles replication through 2nd-order nodes.
All the tings you describet above haven't anything but ones own doing.
Yet, you still kinda blame the means for your actions ... peculiar might
some say. I'm not one of those. I just say, meh.
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, 25B.Z959 wrote:
On 7/24/22 8:18 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
On 7/23/2022 5:50:29 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file
sharing app,
has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section >>>>>> was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the >>>>>> job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and
'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics
represented.
I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for
them too"
meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of
making
the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A
community
that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually.
Not sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not ??community >>>>> ?? that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure communication >>>>> thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get
that kind
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are serving
that
kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really.
Everyone have
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and why
you
ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque" thing
you
are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called nodes). >>>>> Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address)
of nodes
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a
neighbor
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric keys
(PGP
format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to
securely and
anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond
your own
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does not >>>>> generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is only >>>>> driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network: in
order
to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange
certificates
with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to build
your
own network".
??? BUD ???
I get how Retroshare works, and from a technical standpoint, I think
it's
fantastic. In practice, however, the exception you take to my
experience does two
things: it proves my point and reflects the difference between
Retroshare and
Twitter.
When one starts up Retroshare for the first time and makes the certs
and so
forth, it's an empty slate. This reveals the problem Retroshare has
with the
network effect: while everyone uses Twitter because everyone uses
Twitter,
telling your friends "use Retroshare so we can make our own network"
is an
incredibly uphill battle that doesn't involve finding new people one
doesn't
already know.
So, the go-to solution for growing one's network in order to engage
in a
community is to do what I did: do some Google searches and add
random users who
post their public keys on message boards and start growing the
network. This is
what I did, which led to the Newcomers Lobby I ended up joining,
where people
exchanged keys readily. I had nearly 200 people in my network at
this point; many
of them were unconnectable (one of Retroshare's issues is that it's
extremely
limited when users have CGNAT)...but I did have a pretty decent
number of
'friends of friends' that yielded some actual chatrooms and some
posts on the
asynchronous one-to-many message boards (the "usenet-esque" function I >>>> described). It was at this point where I started encountering the
content I
described.
Retroshare works when the goal is for an insular community to
connect, but that's
not creating new connections. Moreover, even when a set of users do
what I did,
communication isn't necessarily effective - message board replies
may not
replicate all the way back to the person to whom one replies. Usenet
solves this
with NNTP peering, but Retroshare has no similar mechanism beyond
nodes that are
functionally centralized.
All of that being said, the point I was making about Retroshare is
that the
community that I stumbled into was the sort of community that most
people would
consider 'unwelcoming' at the very least. "Just disconnect from
those nodes"
becomes extremely difficult to implement on any kind of scale,
especially due to
how Retroshare handles replication through 2nd-order nodes.
All the tings you describet above haven't anything but ones own
doing. Yet, you still kinda blame the means for your actions ...
peculiar might some say. I'm not one of those. I just say, meh.
The "tings you describet" he went into are quite relevant.
Building Twitter/FB/IG replacements is a FORMIDIBLE task.
As said, people sign up for these things because everybody
else did so - they KNOW there will be a big 'community'
to make things interesting - to see and be seen.
Sorry, but at this juncture, if you value Free Speech/Ideas
you CAN'T really build a new service - you have to seize
control of the existing services.
It does not require force of arms or a revolution - it
requires MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY, and the WILL to
change things. As much as 'conservatives' (rightfully)
bitch I haven't seen them just BUYING these services
even though the money IS out there. I think this is quite
deliberate - in order to preserve a useful enemy.
Machiavelli said that there is just no substitute for
an Enemy Of The People ... and if there aren't any then
you must INVENT/CULTIVATE such Enemies. THEN you can
crusade against them, get vast public support and the
power that goes with that AND the liberty to employ
'emergency authority'.
The politics of power hasn't changed in thousands
of years. Machiavelli was mostly referencing Roman
political wisdom - which was still employed in
his day AND still in OUR day. Modern communications
tech has slightly changed the look and feel of
The Big Game, but the fundamentals do NOT change.
Humans still have the same "buttons" to press and
NEVER seem to catch on that they're being played.
Sorry ... but your incoherent rambling doesn't make any sense ... WTF
you mean with "Humans still have the same "buttons" to press"
Please elaborate, or am I just too fucking dumb?
On 7/24/22 8:18 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
On 7/23/2022 5:50:29 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file sharing >>>>> app,
has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section >>>>> was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the >>>>> job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and
'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics
represented.
I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for them >>>>> too"
meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of making >>>>> the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A community >>>>> that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually.
Not sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not ??community
?? that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure communication >>>> thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get that >>>> kind
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are serving that >>>> kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really. Everyone have >>>>
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and why you >>>> ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque" thing you >>>> are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called nodes). >>>> Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address) of
nodes
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a neighbor >>>>
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric keys (PGP >>>> format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to securely and >>>> anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond your own >>>>
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does not
generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is only >>>> driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network: in order >>>> to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange certificates >>>> with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to build your >>>> own network".
??? BUD ???
I get how Retroshare works, and from a technical standpoint, I think it's >>> fantastic. In practice, however, the exception you take to my experience >>> does two
things: it proves my point and reflects the difference between Retroshare >>> and
Twitter.
When one starts up Retroshare for the first time and makes the certs and >>> so
forth, it's an empty slate. This reveals the problem Retroshare has with >>> the
network effect: while everyone uses Twitter because everyone uses Twitter, >>> telling your friends "use Retroshare so we can make our own network" is an >>> incredibly uphill battle that doesn't involve finding new people one
doesn't
already know.
So, the go-to solution for growing one's network in order to engage in a >>> community is to do what I did: do some Google searches and add random
users who
post their public keys on message boards and start growing the network. >>> This is
what I did, which led to the Newcomers Lobby I ended up joining, where
people
exchanged keys readily. I had nearly 200 people in my network at this
point; many
of them were unconnectable (one of Retroshare's issues is that it's
extremely
limited when users have CGNAT)...but I did have a pretty decent number of >>> 'friends of friends' that yielded some actual chatrooms and some posts on >>> the
asynchronous one-to-many message boards (the "usenet-esque" function I
described). It was at this point where I started encountering the content >>> I
described.
Retroshare works when the goal is for an insular community to connect, but >>> that's
not creating new connections. Moreover, even when a set of users do what I >>> did,
communication isn't necessarily effective - message board replies may not >>> replicate all the way back to the person to whom one replies. Usenet
solves this
with NNTP peering, but Retroshare has no similar mechanism beyond nodes >>> that are
functionally centralized.
All of that being said, the point I was making about Retroshare is that >>> the
community that I stumbled into was the sort of community that most people >>> would
consider 'unwelcoming' at the very least. "Just disconnect from those
nodes"
becomes extremely difficult to implement on any kind of scale, especially >>> due to
how Retroshare handles replication through 2nd-order nodes.
All the tings you describet above haven't anything but ones own doing. Yet, >> you still kinda blame the means for your actions ... peculiar might some
say. I'm not one of those. I just say, meh.
The "tings you describet" he went into are quite relevant.
Building Twitter/FB/IG replacements is a FORMIDIBLE task.
As said, people sign up for these things because everybody
else did so - they KNOW there will be a big 'community'
to make things interesting - to see and be seen.
Sorry, but at this juncture, if you value Free Speech/Ideas
you CAN'T really build a new service - you have to seize
control of the existing services.
It does not require force of arms or a revolution - it
requires MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY, and the WILL to
change things. As much as 'conservatives' (rightfully)
bitch I haven't seen them just BUYING these services
even though the money IS out there. I think this is quite
deliberate - in order to preserve a useful enemy.
Machiavelli said that there is just no substitute for
an Enemy Of The People ... and if there aren't any then
you must INVENT/CULTIVATE such Enemies. THEN you can
crusade against them, get vast public support and the
power that goes with that AND the liberty to employ
'emergency authority'.
The politics of power hasn't changed in thousands
of years. Machiavelli was mostly referencing Roman
political wisdom - which was still employed in
his day AND still in OUR day. Modern communications
tech has slightly changed the look and feel of
The Big Game, but the fundamentals do NOT change.
Humans still have the same "buttons" to press and
NEVER seem to catch on that they're being played.
On 7/25/22 9:17 AM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, 25B.Z959 wrote:
On 7/24/22 8:18 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
On 7/23/2022 5:50:29 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file sharing >>>>>>> app,
has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section >>>>>>> was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the >>>>>>> job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and >>>>>>> 'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics
represented.
I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for them >>>>>>> too"
meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of >>>>>>> making
the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A
community
that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually.
Not sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not ??community >>>>>> ?? that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure communication >>>>>> thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get that >>>>>> kind
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are serving that >>>>>> kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really. Everyone >>>>>> have
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and why you >>>>>> ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque" thing you >>>>>> are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called nodes). >>>>>> Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address) of >>>>>> nodes
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a
neighbor
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric keys (PGP >>>>>> format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to securely >>>>>> and
anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond your >>>>>> own
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does not >>>>>> generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is only >>>>>> driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network: in >>>>>> order
to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange
certificates
with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to build >>>>>> your
own network".
??? BUD ???
I get how Retroshare works, and from a technical standpoint, I think >>>>> it's
fantastic. In practice, however, the exception you take to my experience >>>>> does two
things: it proves my point and reflects the difference between
Retroshare and
Twitter.
When one starts up Retroshare for the first time and makes the certs and >>>>> so
forth, it's an empty slate. This reveals the problem Retroshare has with >>>>> the
network effect: while everyone uses Twitter because everyone uses
Twitter,
telling your friends "use Retroshare so we can make our own network" is >>>>> an
incredibly uphill battle that doesn't involve finding new people one >>>>> doesn't
already know.
So, the go-to solution for growing one's network in order to engage in a >>>>> community is to do what I did: do some Google searches and add random >>>>> users who
post their public keys on message boards and start growing the network. >>>>> This is
what I did, which led to the Newcomers Lobby I ended up joining, where >>>>> people
exchanged keys readily. I had nearly 200 people in my network at this >>>>> point; many
of them were unconnectable (one of Retroshare's issues is that it's >>>>> extremely
limited when users have CGNAT)...but I did have a pretty decent number >>>>> of
'friends of friends' that yielded some actual chatrooms and some posts >>>>> on the
asynchronous one-to-many message boards (the "usenet-esque" function I >>>>> described). It was at this point where I started encountering the
content I
described.
Retroshare works when the goal is for an insular community to connect, >>>>> but that's
not creating new connections. Moreover, even when a set of users do what >>>>> I did,
communication isn't necessarily effective - message board replies may >>>>> not
replicate all the way back to the person to whom one replies. Usenet >>>>> solves this
with NNTP peering, but Retroshare has no similar mechanism beyond nodes >>>>> that are
functionally centralized.
All of that being said, the point I was making about Retroshare is that >>>>> the
community that I stumbled into was the sort of community that most
people would
consider 'unwelcoming' at the very least. "Just disconnect from those >>>>> nodes"
becomes extremely difficult to implement on any kind of scale,
especially due to
how Retroshare handles replication through 2nd-order nodes.
All the tings you describet above haven't anything but ones own doing. >>>> Yet, you still kinda blame the means for your actions ... peculiar might >>>> some say. I'm not one of those. I just say, meh.
?The "tings you describet" he went into are quite relevant.
?Building Twitter/FB/IG replacements is a FORMIDIBLE task.
?As said, people sign up for these things because everybody
?else did so - they KNOW there will be a big 'community'
?to make things interesting - to see and be seen.
?Sorry, but at this juncture, if you value Free Speech/Ideas
?you CAN'T really build a new service - you have to seize
?control of the existing services.
?It does not require force of arms or a revolution - it
?requires MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY, and the WILL to
?change things. As much as 'conservatives' (rightfully)
?bitch I haven't seen them just BUYING these services
?even though the money IS out there. I think this is quite
?deliberate - in order to preserve a useful enemy.
?Machiavelli said that there is just no substitute for
?an Enemy Of The People ... and if there aren't any then
?you must INVENT/CULTIVATE such Enemies. THEN you can
?crusade against them, get vast public support and the
?power that goes with that AND the liberty to employ
?'emergency authority'.
?The politics of power hasn't changed in thousands
?of years. Machiavelli was mostly referencing Roman
?political wisdom - which was still employed in
?his day AND still in OUR day. Modern communications
?tech has slightly changed the look and feel of
?The Big Game, but the fundamentals do NOT change.
?Humans still have the same "buttons" to press and
?NEVER seem to catch on that they're being played.
Sorry ... but your incoherent rambling doesn't make any sense ... WTF you >> mean with "Humans still have the same "buttons" to press"
Please elaborate, or am I just too fucking dumb?
When (if) you went to school - did you ride in the
big bus, or the short bus ? Study Machiavelli yourself.
I'd recommend 'Discourses' over 'Prince' because the
previous supplies the WHY for the latter.
As for "buttons", try "The Technological Society"
by Jaques Ellul, old but good.
Andy Burns wrote:
Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
launching rockets will probably always get him more attention anyway.
Certainly from me.
More than digging tunnels.
Mostly you don't SEE those ... doesn't mean they aren't extremely useful.
On Mon, 25 Jul 2022, 25B.Z959 wrote:
On 7/25/22 9:17 AM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, 25B.Z959 wrote:
On 7/24/22 8:18 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
On 7/23/2022 5:50:29 PM, Bud Spencer wrote:
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022, voyager55 wrote:
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p fileNot sure you understand how RetroShare works ... It's not
sharing app,
has the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque
section
was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish >>>>>>>> the
job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and >>>>>>>> 'erotica' involving violence were just a handful of the topics >>>>>>>> represented.
I'm not quite sure where the line is drawn, but "free speech for >>>>>>>> them too"
meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense >>>>>>>> of making
the community somewhere I'd never recommend to anyone else. A
community
that *can* become like that *will* become like that eventually. >>>>>>>
??community
?? that
you walk into. RetroShare is just a decentralised secure
communication
thingie you can use with your friends and such. In order you get >>>>>>> that kind
of content you described, YOU have to go to nodes that are
serving that
kind of content. Nothing to do with the RetroShare, really.
Everyone have
their own nodes, you did too when you used it. Not sure how and
why you
ended up with such places ... and what is this "usenet-esque"
thing you
are talking about?
From RetroShare website:
How does it work?
Retroshare allows you to create a network of computers (called
nodes).
Every user has it's own node. The exact location (the IP-address) >>>>>>> of nodes
is only known to neighbor nodes. You invite a person to become a >>>>>>> neighbor
by exchanging your Retroshare certificates with that person.
Links between nodes are authenticated using strong asymmetric
keys (PGP
format) and encrypted using Perfect Forward Secrecy (OpenSSL
implementation of TLS).
On top of the network mesh, Retroshare provides services to
securely and
anonymously exchange data with other nodes in the network beyond >>>>>>> your own
friends.
---
Seems too nice to be true. What's the catch?
There is no catch. Retroshare is provided free of charge and does >>>>>>> not
generate any kind of money. It is the result of hard work that is >>>>>>> only
driven by the goals of providing a tool to evade censorship.
The only catch is that you will need to build your own network:
in order
to use Retroshare, you have to recruit friends and exchange
certificates
with them, or join an existing network of friends.
---
Like it's said above "The only catch is that you will need to
build your
own network".
??? BUD ???
I get how Retroshare works, and from a technical standpoint, I
think it's
fantastic. In practice, however, the exception you take to my
experience does two
things: it proves my point and reflects the difference between
Retroshare and
Twitter.
When one starts up Retroshare for the first time and makes the
certs and so
forth, it's an empty slate. This reveals the problem Retroshare
has with the
network effect: while everyone uses Twitter because everyone uses
Twitter,
telling your friends "use Retroshare so we can make our own
network" is an
incredibly uphill battle that doesn't involve finding new people
one doesn't
already know.
So, the go-to solution for growing one's network in order to
engage in a
community is to do what I did: do some Google searches and add
random users who
post their public keys on message boards and start growing the
network. This is
what I did, which led to the Newcomers Lobby I ended up joining,
where people
exchanged keys readily. I had nearly 200 people in my network at
this point; many
of them were unconnectable (one of Retroshare's issues is that
it's extremely
limited when users have CGNAT)...but I did have a pretty decent
number of
'friends of friends' that yielded some actual chatrooms and some
posts on the
asynchronous one-to-many message boards (the "usenet-esque"
function I
described). It was at this point where I started encountering the
content I
described.
Retroshare works when the goal is for an insular community to
connect, but that's
not creating new connections. Moreover, even when a set of users
do what I did,
communication isn't necessarily effective - message board replies
may not
replicate all the way back to the person to whom one replies.
Usenet solves this
with NNTP peering, but Retroshare has no similar mechanism beyond
nodes that are
functionally centralized.
All of that being said, the point I was making about Retroshare is >>>>>> that the
community that I stumbled into was the sort of community that most >>>>>> people would
consider 'unwelcoming' at the very least. "Just disconnect from
those nodes"
becomes extremely difficult to implement on any kind of scale,
especially due to
how Retroshare handles replication through 2nd-order nodes.
All the tings you describet above haven't anything but ones own
doing. Yet, you still kinda blame the means for your actions ...
peculiar might some say. I'm not one of those. I just say, meh.
?The "tings you describet" he went into are quite relevant.
?Building Twitter/FB/IG replacements is a FORMIDIBLE task.
?As said, people sign up for these things because everybody
?else did so - they KNOW there will be a big 'community'
?to make things interesting - to see and be seen.
?Sorry, but at this juncture, if you value Free Speech/Ideas
?you CAN'T really build a new service - you have to seize
?control of the existing services.
?It does not require force of arms or a revolution - it
?requires MONEY, lots and lots of MONEY, and the WILL to
?change things. As much as 'conservatives' (rightfully)
?bitch I haven't seen them just BUYING these services
?even though the money IS out there. I think this is quite
?deliberate - in order to preserve a useful enemy.
?Machiavelli said that there is just no substitute for
?an Enemy Of The People ... and if there aren't any then
?you must INVENT/CULTIVATE such Enemies. THEN you can
?crusade against them, get vast public support and the
?power that goes with that AND the liberty to employ
?'emergency authority'.
?The politics of power hasn't changed in thousands
?of years. Machiavelli was mostly referencing Roman
?political wisdom - which was still employed in
?his day AND still in OUR day. Modern communications
?tech has slightly changed the look and feel of
?The Big Game, but the fundamentals do NOT change.
?Humans still have the same "buttons" to press and
?NEVER seem to catch on that they're being played.
Sorry ... but your incoherent rambling doesn't make any sense ... WTF
you mean with "Humans still have the same "buttons" to press"
Please elaborate, or am I just too fucking dumb?
When (if) you went to school - did you ride in the
big bus, or the short bus ? Study Machiavelli yourself.
I'd recommend 'Discourses' over 'Prince' because the
previous supplies the WHY for the latter.
As for "buttons", try "The Technological Society"
by Jaques Ellul, old but good.
Yes. Yes. Done. Done.
Try better.
25B.Z959 wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
launching rockets will probably always get him more attention anyway.
Certainly from me.
More than digging tunnels.
Mostly you don't SEE those ... doesn't mean they aren't extremely useful.
But are his tunnels any kind of a breakthrough,
compared to when the era
of tunnel boring machines began 150+ years ago?
In comp.misc 25B.Z959 <25B.Z959@nada.net> wrote:
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number.
Technically there was money in it in the 90s and early 2000s when
ISPs ran news servers themselves because it was one of the things
users were paying for an internet connection in order to access.
But the users left, and the ISPs followed. Though conveniently not
before computer hardware capable of running a public news server
became cheap enough that free services for text-only groups became
practical.
I dunno, Twitter seems pretty text-only and used to be even more
limited with its mamimum number of characters (based on the maximum
length of an SMS, was it?), though I gather that restriction must
have been lifted at some point given some of the long tweets that I
see published in the media.
I don't really understand the attraction of Twitter, perhaps in a
similar way to how hardly anybody understands the attraction of
Usenet today.
I do know that Musk is a user of Twitter (again
thanks to tweets published in the media), so the platform that he
wants is possibly something I wouldn't like anyway, free speech
issues aside.
25B.Z959 <25B.Z959@nada.net> wrote:
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number. It's also basically a
text-only kind of media, very 70s/80s, and not even as
interactive as those old 300-baud dial-up BBS systems.
When Usenet was popular, it belonged to the people that ran the machines. Some of those people, like the ones that ran PSUVM, were less active about controlling users than others. But believe me, if you posted something
that was problematic, it was entirely possible to get kicked off a server. Carasso managed it at least a dozen times.
Now, the point is that the system was distributed so that if you found yourself kicked off one server you could likely get an account elsewhere, until you go to the point where UDP was threatened for the servers that
would accept you. So there was some de facto freedom here but it had
limits.
But the freedom of Usenet was in no way unlimited, and there were many
fights between the anon.penet.fi people and the cs.utexas.edu people
and people trying to control traffic which are well-documented.
"You have the freedom to say whatever you want but you do not have the
freedom to use my computer to do it." -- Newsmistress, U. Chicago
On 23 Jul 2022 09:02:17 +1000
not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) wrote:
In comp.misc 25B.Z959 <25B.Z959@nada.net> wrote:
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number.
Technically there was money in it in the 90s and early 2000s when
ISPs ran news servers themselves because it was one of the things
users were paying for an internet connection in order to access.
But the users left, and the ISPs followed. Though conveniently not
before computer hardware capable of running a public news server
became cheap enough that free services for text-only groups became
practical.
I thought it was the other way around at least in U.S.A. , ISPs stopped offering it and then users left. It doesn't really shed light on the
issue but here is a somewhat related thread : https://www.reddit.com/r/promos/comments/6mtzb/time_warner_cable_to_block_all_usenet_access
If you go digging, you can probably find as many explanations as you
wish, all of which in isolation will sound plausable. There is one
floating around related to a New York AG who was going hard at child
porn circa 1997-1999 and targeted Usenet in his 'sweep' that is offered
up as a reason why ISP's started dropping Usenet.
Reality is more likely a combination of:[...]
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
25B.Z959 <25B.Z959@nada.net> wrote:
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number. It's also basically a
text-only kind of media, very 70s/80s, and not even as
interactive as those old 300-baud dial-up BBS systems.
When Usenet was popular, it belonged to the people that ran the machines.
Some of those people, like the ones that ran PSUVM, were less active about >> controlling users than others. But believe me, if you posted something
that was problematic, it was entirely possible to get kicked off a server. >> Carasso managed it at least a dozen times.
PSUVM ? Carasso ? I'm guessing you don't mean "Emmanuel Carasso or Emanuel >Karasu was an Ottoman lawyer and a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish >Carasso family of Ottoman Salonica."
Now, the point is that the system was distributed so that if you found
yourself kicked off one server you could likely get an account elsewhere,
until you go to the point where UDP was threatened for the servers that
would accept you. So there was some de facto freedom here but it had
limits.
And that's why we need as many servers as possible. Otherwise , yes freedom >has de facto limits. After all , people have been jailed or killed for saying >some things in public , usenet cannot magically remove such physical >possibilities , it can at most make them harder.
But the freedom of Usenet was in no way unlimited, and there were many
fights between the anon.penet.fi people and the cs.utexas.edu people
and people trying to control traffic which are well-documented.
Can you say a bit more on this or point me to some sources ?
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
25B.Z959 <25B.Z959@nada.net> wrote:
Usenet doesn't belong to anybody ... ergo there's not
much money in it. You can't buy it, you can't sell it,
it's just an IP port number. It's also basically a
text-only kind of media, very 70s/80s, and not even as
interactive as those old 300-baud dial-up BBS systems.
When Usenet was popular, it belonged to the people that ran the machines. >>> Some of those people, like the ones that ran PSUVM, were less active about >>> controlling users than others. But believe me, if you posted something
that was problematic, it was entirely possible to get kicked off a server. >>> Carasso managed it at least a dozen times.
PSUVM ? Carasso ? I'm guessing you don't mean "Emmanuel Carasso or Emanuel >> Karasu was an Ottoman lawyer and a member of the prominent Sephardic Jewish >> Carasso family of Ottoman Salonica."
Roger David Carasso may not have invented trolling on the internet, but
he certainly perfected it. And there is some chance that he may have invented many of the more popular trolling techniques seen today.
PSUVM was an IBM machine at Penn State which was full of undergraduates with Usenet access, I believe through some sort of BITNET gateway. It was famous for the huge flood of ignorant posts that appeared every September.
Now, the point is that the system was distributed so that if you found
yourself kicked off one server you could likely get an account elsewhere, >>> until you go to the point where UDP was threatened for the servers that
would accept you. So there was some de facto freedom here but it had
limits.
And that's why we need as many servers as possible. Otherwise , yes freedom >> has de facto limits. After all , people have been jailed or killed for saying
some things in public , usenet cannot magically remove such physical
possibilities , it can at most make them harder.
Having as many servers as possible means that people who really should be removed from the net do not get removed. That's kind of the problem today. The management system that worked for Usenet does not scale up.
On 7/20/2022 9:41:45 PM, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
An absolute concept of free speech is that if persons A and B want to exchange views or information about whatever issue , no entity C (where "entity" means individual or corporation or government) should be able to prevent it. In other words , the decision should be entirely up to A and B and noone else.
I submit that this still exists, for the most part. E-mail is still mostly unaffected by this, and while both Microsoft and Google are likely to hand over a
user's inbox to law enforcement whenever asked, they're unlikely to censor contents. The protocol itself has all the functionality you describe; it's decentralized and federated, and anyone can spin up a mail server if they so choose. There are also a number of chat applications that handle synchronous communication in a similar manner. Signal and Telegram have so far managed to hold up to some scrutiny, while Rocketchat and Mattermost and Matrix allow users
to spin up their own chat servers and federate them as well.
The statement above assumes one-to-one communication, while Twitter's claim to
fame is one-to-many communication...and that's why the question arises with Twitter in a way that it doesn't with E-mail.
There are physical limitations which make such absolute free speech impossible and it may not even be desirable. But it is also very far from
a desirable level of free speech if a single entity , like Twitter , can restrict people's ability to communicate with each other. Obviously
Twitter isn't the only form of online communication but my overall point
is that online discussion is too centralised at present , that this centralisation negatively affects freedom of speech and plurality of opinions therefore the right way forward is to give emphasis to more decentralised methods of online discussion.
Centralization also has its benefits, if we're going to be real about it. If it
didn't, Gmail wouldn't be the default it is today. Ever try to solve an e-mail
flow issue? User->Server->Filter->Internet- >Filter->Server->User, any one of those links can go wrong. They're worth having for the very reasons you specify,
but we can't truly solve an issue if we're not honest about why it is chosen.
Yes, Twitter brings censorship with it, but it also brings message amplification
to it. Reddit does this as well. Though Reddit is admittedly susceptible to groupthink, lets users upvote/downvote and sort by those votes, allowing generally-more-desirable content to be sifted from the generally-less-desirable
content, without actually censoring anyone (in principle, anyway). As much as I
appreciate the true egalitarianism of Usenet, it is disingenuous to paint the algorithms at Twitter (and the more human one at Reddit) as completely without
merit.
Your post and some random cryptocurrency spam have two different values.
The relatively low user count of Usenet at the moment is pretty much the primary
reason why your post wasn't bordered by a thousand crypto bot spam messages and
the protocol makes it extremely difficult to solve this problem.
Retroshare, an interesting chatroom/IM/Usenet/E-mail/p2p file sharing app, has
the tech part on lock, but my time in their Usenet-esque section was rather unnerving. Actual-antisemitism (i.e. calls to 'finish the job'), bomb-making instructions, unhinged conspiracy theories and 'erotica' involving violence were
just a handful of the topics represented. I'm not quite sure where the line is
drawn, but "free speech for them too" meant Retroshare was philosophically consistent at the expense of making the community somewhere I'd never recommend
to anyone else. A community that *can* become like that *will* become like that
eventually.
And as it turns out , there is such a method. Not only that but it is one of the oldest forms of online dicussion : usenet !
I will guess that you have already encountered usenet although perhaps not recently. It is a lot less popular than what it was some decades ago but
it is still going strong. From the point of view of freedom of speech it has many advantages over Twitter : it is decentralised , meaning a large number of servers controlled by different entities instead of servers ultimately controlled by a single entity which can command that this or that should be censored. Usenet is based on open standards for which there exist already a large number of implementations both of servers and
clients and also programming libraries for many programming languages. So whether one wants to use a preexisting client or server or implement their own , possibly one with a fancier interface , the possibilities are limitless.
Ironically, due to the aforementioned spam issue, something tells me that a successful Usenet renaissance would yield one of two related solutions.
The first variant would be something like Mimecast or Mailprotector - users would
pay a company to implement spam filtering and 'good stuff prioritization'. This
has some advantages, in that services could compete on the efficacy of their filtering solution, and also that users would have greater control over the algorithm while being able to say "show me everything" in a verifiable way.
The second variant would be something like Gmail: "Usenet access, complete with
antispam and good stuff prioritization!" Which, Google Groups essentially is. This sort of solution would end up being Twitter with extra steps. If Google were
to implement their Gmail filtering to their Usenet service, you're right next to
censorship.
The last variant is what you talk about below: having a myriad of servers users
can choose to subscribe to, and leave it up to the server ops to pick things to
remove. I'll address this below the section...
You are a visionary so let me a suggest the following vision : every city block in every city in every technologically advanced country will have at least 1 usenet server operating. Note that the servers do not need any special facilities , it could just as well be a server operating from
one's own home. It doesn't have to be a recent or powerful computer either , an old computer which one has lying somewhere and remains unused , would do the job just fine. The important thing is that all of these servers would be operated by different people. So lets say someone does not want a certain usenet group or messages on their server because they consider
them as too right wing or too left wing or too whatever wing or they feel it's "hate speech" , etc. Not a problem. With so many servers the messages would still get transmitted between the people who are interested in them because there would be billions of different paths (passing through servers) between clients a message could follow. Now *that's* freedom of speech.
I don't think the lack of NNTP services is truly a problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/usenet/wiki/providers/ For good or for ill, they don't
censor much of anything. As many of the existing Usenet services cater primarily
to binary downloads, the closest thing the existing companies seem to come to is
to handle DMCA takedowns. A handful of individual newsgroups are moderated, but
post removals on those aren't performed by server owners.
The sort of solution you're describing is either obscenely time consuming for humans to perform (there are over 110,000 existing newsgroups), or those server
ops are stuck running a spam/content filter of their own and not letting end users weigh in.
Philosophically, is the solution to censorship "lots of different
censors to choose from"?
Practically, can users on two federated servers have a
meaningful discourse if either one of them has a server op who deletes one half
of the conversation? We're back to the shadowbans of Twitter, but with two potential chokepoints.
So where do you come in ? No , I'm not suggesting that you pay for all those servers out of your own pocket. What you can do is express publicly your interest and support for usenet. Coming from someone as well known as you , this already will have a large positive impact. It may be that this is all that is needed. The infrastructure already exists : there is news client and news server software for the usual desktop operating systems , there exist both free and commercial servers running and more can be created whether one is primarily motivated by profit or the desire to
offer a public service.
I submit that there is plenty more that is needed. As you correctly point out,
all of this is in place already. This very discourse proves that. Tweaknews has
basically solved this. Their first party Usenetwire client is almost as simple to
use as Facebook (though some folks lament its terrible formatting), and 2 gets a
10GB block, i.e. more data than one could ever use for text-based discourse in a
lifetime. And yet, people aren't flocking to it.
Usenet has different sets of issues than Twitter. Creating a new newsgroup seems
more complicated than it needs to be, but paradoxically, there are many newsgroups that are redundant and likely could be consolidated. Similarly, there
are swaths of abandoned newsgroups that haven't had a non-spam post since 2006,
and there's the awkward discussion about what to do with newsgroups that have served their purpose (alt.windows95, anyone?).
The ability to avoid censorship by changing one's username and e-mail is laudable, but it also means that genuinely bad behavior can't really be regulated.
Head over to alt.windows95 and look at the post from June 25,
2020...and let's try and figure out a solution for it. Deleting the post is censorship, banning the author is basically impossible, and leaving it up there
validates the "why am I here" and "is this the upside to the absence of censorship" questions that a whole lot of people would have. You and I can 'just
ignore it', but that's not a benefit to most people who would come by to look around.
Twitter allows for pictures and GIFs to be part of posts, for good and for ill.
Usenet is still inconsistent with Unicode.
Usenet's asynchronous nature is helpful in that one needn't worry about missing a
post from last week. However, imagine the Twitter Users who already have a tendency to mob and bandwagon getting infinite retention. It would make a flame
war last longer than it needed to, only for someone new to scroll up a bit and
restart the fire all over again. However, the paradox I find myself in as I write
this is the functional gatekeeping that the implicit alternative ("don't let them
on Usenet") recommends. I don't want to do that, but Usenet + Twitter Mob strikes
me as the worst of both worlds.
The presence of different Usenet clients has its benefits, but is also a liability. Looking at Wikipedia's list of desktop Usenet clients, how many see a
meaningful amount of active development?
Culturally, the handful of remaining Usenet post creators are of a particular breed. We're generally tech savvy and generally can have a discussion that runs
its course and lets it sit. We can have a discussion over the course of days or
weeks, and it's fine. We can handle the technical issues and slower pace. Modern
social media and its users are unlikely to fit into such a culture, becoming a
bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.
I addressed a lot of this already, but I submit that a grassroots return to Usenet is going to be difficult to execute. Even if a few sexy newsreaders and
some additional servers were to be spun up, the differentiator you're proposing
over just being another Highwinds node is the huge number of different moderators. That's what needs to be incentivized, which paradoxically, means providing a financial incentive to censorship...which Twitter already has. I'm
all about giving Giganews some competition, but it's unclear how Usenet's problems are solved by the presence of more servers, and even if moderation was
tied to servers, the problem has more to do with getting people dedicated to performing the moderation on a continuing basis. Bandwidth and server maintenance
also play into the underlying question about how dedicated the grassroots sysops
would be. Some would be a 'labor of love' for a retired person, sure, but if they
get popular, it's a lot of work, and if they don't, it's work done in vain.
You could create a charity which runs news servers. Again , the main advantage of such a thing would be the publicity caused by the association with your name rather than having a few extra servers.
Would the charities then be responsible for moderation the way grassroots servers
are? It's unclear how that's helpful.
None of the above suggestions would cost more than thousands of USD. A lot cheaper than Twitter and they would do a lot more for freedom of speech. I will admit though that if your main goal in the endeavour is to make
profit rather than enhance freedom of speech then a centralised medium offers more opportunity.
Although I agree with the statement expressly stated here, this goes all the way
back to Musk being able to accomplish 99% of what you're talking about with a Mastodon fork, possibly with some volunteer moderators, and having a better experience for everyone in the process.
I'm obviously not Elon Musk, and I do appreciate the fact that the problem is being considered by someone besides me. I like the idea of more servers, more grassroots servers, and even if there are occasional out-of-control flamewars, a
renaissance of Usenet would be worthwhile. As IRC got extensions and successors
in the form of Slack and Discord, so too could Usenet evolve in some way that brings the best aspects of Usenet (client/server, organized discussion threads,
moderated/free-for-all choices, low bandwidth, asynchronous discussions with splinters, etc.) while mitigating the worst (spam, total absence of even light-touch moderation, no communities, no upvote/downvote system).
I love the
handful of folks like you and me who still check in, but I think that bringing
the masses back here would ultimately be as much a fool's errand as buying Twitter.
On 8/2/22 9:10 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
And that's why we need as many servers as possible. Otherwise , yes freedom
has de facto limits. After all , people have been jailed or killed for saying
some things in public , usenet cannot magically remove such physical
possibilities , it can at most make them harder.
Having as many servers as possible means that people who really should be removed from the net do not get removed. That's kind of the problem today. The management system that worked for Usenet does not scale up.
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
If you go digging, you can probably find as many explanations as you
wish, all of which in isolation will sound plausable. There is one floating around related to a New York AG who was going hard at child
porn circa 1997-1999 and targeted Usenet in his 'sweep' that is offered
up as a reason why ISP's started dropping Usenet.
There were various legal issues in the UK but Usenet provision largely continued despite them. Virgin Media appear to have only stopped in 2021
(TBH I’m surprised they carried on that long.)
Reality is more likely a combination of:[...]
6) There was no good way to prevent bad behavior on Usenet. If you
wanted to escape bad actors (or just posters who can’t let go), Usenet’s competitors offered an easy way out.
IMO Usenet is dying due to lack of demand, not lack of supply.
On Tue, 02 Aug 2022 21:27:23 +0100
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
If you go digging, you can probably find as many explanations as you
wish, all of which in isolation will sound plausable. There is one
floating around related to a New York AG who was going hard at child
porn circa 1997-1999 and targeted Usenet in his 'sweep' that is offered
up as a reason why ISP's started dropping Usenet.
There were various legal issues in the UK but Usenet provision largely
continued despite them. Virgin Media appear to have only stopped in 2021
(TBH I?m surprised they carried on that long.)
Yes , virginmedia were providing usenet until 2021-06-30 . The retention on some groups was more than 10 years. Very nice. There is a U.S. based ISP who still provide usenet access : https://secure.dslextreme.com/support/kb/email-and-newsgroups/newsgroups/news-settings-for-clients
I have a vague recollection that I've come across a Canadian ISP doing similar
but I couldn't find an entry in my bookmarks and perhaps I'm misremembering. I guess this is as good a place as any to ask if anyone knows of any ISP in any country who automatically provide usenet access to their subscribers.
Reality is more likely a combination of:[...]
6) There was no good way to prevent bad behavior on Usenet. If you
wanted to escape bad actors (or just posters who can?t let go),
Usenet?s competitors offered an easy way out.
Or you could and can use filtering.
It is a minor mystery to me why people don't do that. I have
indirect evidence that some people chose to leave a group which had
posters they strongly disliked rather than filter those posters and I
could see from the headers of the people who left that they were
using a newsreader i.e. not googlegroups. My guess is that for some
people there is a psychological factor involved and they find
off-putting or distracting the idea that they are reading or posting
on the same online discussion medium as some "bad" people.
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
6) There was no good way to prevent bad behavior on Usenet. If you
wanted to escape bad actors (or just posters who can’t let go), Usenet’s >> competitors offered an easy way out.
Or you could and can use filtering. It is a minor mystery to me why
people don't do that. I have indirect evidence that some people chose
to leave a group which had posters they strongly disliked rather than
filter those posters and I could see from the headers of the people
who left that they were using a newsreader i.e. not googlegroups. My
guess is that for some people there is a psychological factor involved
and they find off-putting or distracting the idea that they are
reading or posting on the same online discussion medium as some "bad"
people. So even if they can apply filtering and not see any of the
posts of the bad people , that's not good enough for them.
IMO Usenet is dying due to lack of demand, not lack of supply.
I don't think it's dying but advertising it more is desirable.
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may be
spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You can
2022-08-03, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> schrieb:
[Schnipp]
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may be spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You can
Ever thought of filtering on the "References"-header?
On Tue, 2 Aug 2022 22:34:38 -0400
"25B.Z969" <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
On 8/2/22 9:10 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
And that's why we need as many servers as possible. Otherwise , yes freedom
has de facto limits. After all , people have been jailed or killed for saying
some things in public , usenet cannot magically remove such physical
possibilities , it can at most make them harder.
Having as many servers as possible means that people who really should be >>> removed from the net do not get removed. That's kind of the problem today. >>> The management system that worked for Usenet does not scale up.
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
Yes , that's my feeling too. Having said that , with a huge amount of servers available , I expect some would do filtering. Say for example person A thinks that person B is a jerk. Then person A can run a news server which filters all posts by B. Those people who agree that B is indeed a jerk could connect to this server and not see any posts by B without bothering to do any filtering themselves. Those who still want to see posts by B could connect to a different server. But I'm totally against the idea that B should be prevented on a worldwide level from making available his/her views online. In extreme circumstances (like , B is sharing a realistic way to construct an atomic bomb using ordinary kitchen materials !) then maybe but in such cases the authorities would likely need to be involved anyway and handle the matter in the physical world and that's a whole different discussion.
2022-08-03, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> schrieb:
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may be
spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You can
Ever thought of filtering on the "References"-header?
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
25B.Z969 <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
And that, in short, is what killed Usenet.
On 8/5/22 7:40 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
25B.Z969 <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
And that, in short, is what killed Usenet.
Gimmicks, eye-candy and GOOD ADVERTISING killed Usenet.
Everybody wanted to post pictures and video of their lunch
or cats. Usenet isn't good for that (and be very very
happy it isn't).
"25B.Z969" <25B.Z969@noda.net> writes:
On 8/5/22 7:40 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
25B.Z969 <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
And that, in short, is what killed Usenet.
Does no one remember the hipcrime flooder? Screening/scoring 25,000
posts a day means sucking down at least the headers for 25,000 posts.
So yeah, I'm kinda selfrightrously authoritarian about someone trying
to burn the medium down. Were you trolling with accusations of >"totalitarian"?
Also, on Usenet in general there is no strong binding from posters to
humans. You can make a million sockpuppets and they can all post. The
email addresses don't even have to be valid. If somebody blocks one of your socks you have 999,999 more socks you can post from. If you do this enough you overwhelm the ability of readers to add you to the block list. Some servers (eg Google Groups) enforce a valid email<->account policy, but people still use them to post spam, and it's trivial to find a server that doesn't need this.
Essentially the filtering tools on Usenet are designed for not seeing posts from people posting genuinely. They are not designed for people posting adversarially, who aim to work around the filtering.
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
6) There was no good way to prevent bad behavior on Usenet. If you
wanted to escape bad actors (or just posters who can’t let go), Usenet’s
competitors offered an easy way out.
Or you could and can use filtering. It is a minor mystery to me why
people don't do that. I have indirect evidence that some people chose
to leave a group which had posters they strongly disliked rather than filter those posters and I could see from the headers of the people
who left that they were using a newsreader i.e. not googlegroups. My
guess is that for some people there is a psychological factor involved
and they find off-putting or distracting the idea that they are
reading or posting on the same online discussion medium as some "bad" people. So even if they can apply filtering and not see any of the
posts of the bad people , that's not good enough for them.
Filtering as implemented on Usenet is inadequate for reasons that seems pretty clear to me.
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may be
spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You can
filter out everyone who likes arguing with idiots but then you miss everything else they say outside those arguments.
Secondly, everybody has to do their own filtering. It’s considerable
excess effort compared to centralized blocking and means that everyone
gets a different view of what would otherwise be a unified forum.
In contrast Usenet’s successors have, for the most part, distributed decisions over blocking of bad actors to localized authorities.
Empirically it seems that most people prefer this model.
Elsewhere you wrote:
| Say you have an online discussion community with 1,000,000 people and
| 999,999 of them think that person A is a sage and person B is an idiot
| but there is one person C who thinks that B says more worthwhile stuff
| than A ; C should still have the ability to read B's messages. If the
| 999,999 people can use their preferences to prevent C from reading B's
| posts (or make it very hard) , it goes against freedom of speech
| regardless of what algorithms these 999,999 people use to achieve
| that.
The reality is different. What actually happens is different in two
ways:
1) The controllers of the discussion community ban person B, usually
with very little reference to the 999,999 other readers. Those readers
stay or go elsewhere depending on their views of the moderation policy,
the quality of the discussion, etc.
2) If B and C still want to communicate then they can can make a new
online discussion community to do so.
No communication that anyone actually wants to receive is blocked. The
only thing that B is denied is access to an audience that don’t want to hear from them anyway.
To me, “freedom of speech” means freedom to speak to those who wish to hear you. It does not give anyone a claim over other people’s attention.
IMO Usenet is dying due to lack of demand, not lack of supply.
I don't think it's dying but advertising it more is desirable.
It’s dying in the sense that the numbers of users and posts have sharply and consistently declined from their peak (IIRC somewhere around the
turn of the century).
Ultimately what I want is for people to make an informed choice. Usenet is an online discussion medium where the software allows each individual to make very precise and sophisticated filtering based on personal preferences with no centralised filtering (but centralised filtering is also possible). If someone does know that such a medium exists and they still prefer centralised filtering then fair enough.
On 8/3/22 9:04 AM, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:[...]
On Tue, 2 Aug 2022 22:34:38 -0400
"25B.Z969" <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
Yes , that's my feeling too. Having said that , with a huge amount of servers
available , I expect some would do filtering.
Everybody has favorite perspectives - and, even unconsciously,
kinda tramps-down the "heretics". This is why we need some
sources where such activity is just not tolerated, or possible.
IMHO, the ability to make yourself heard is still too low -
it NEEDS to be where even aggressive govts can't stop it.
Bounce lasers off the moon if need-be.
Jan van den Broek <balglaas@dds.nl> writes:
2022-08-03, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> schrieb:
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may be
spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You can
Ever thought of filtering on the "References"-header?
Yes, and I do. But it’s additional effort for every discussion, and if
the subthread gets back on track then it produces false positives.
The starting point of this subthread was “it’s a mystery why people don’t use filtering”. It is really not a mystery if you’re paying attention.
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Jan van den Broek <balglaas@dds.nl> writes:
2022-08-03, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> schrieb:
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may
be spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You
can
Ever thought of filtering on the "References"-header?
Yes, and I do. But it’s additional effort for every discussion, and if
the subthread gets back on track then it produces false positives.
The starting point of this subthread was “it’s a mystery why people
don’t use filtering”. It is really not a mystery if you’re paying
attention.
Let me mention 2 specific cases.
Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
"25B.Z969" <25B.Z969@noda.net> writes:
On 8/5/22 7:40 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
25B.Z969 <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
"Should be removed" ?????? Gee, how TOTALITARIAN of you !
NOBODY "should be removed from Usenet" - not even the
worst pin-headed trolls. If you don't like them, there
doesn't exist a newsreader where you can't plonk them
so you're no longer bothered.
And that, in short, is what killed Usenet.
Does no one remember the hipcrime flooder? Screening/scoring 25,000
posts a day means sucking down at least the headers for 25,000 posts.
So yeah, I'm kinda selfrightrously authoritarian about someone trying
to burn the medium down. Were you trolling with accusations of >"totalitarian"?
I was thinking more about alt.religion.scientology and the cancelbunny
wars than about hipcrime but indeed the problems are similar.
I think there is a broad middle road between totalitarianism and complete absence of editorial control. And I think a lot of people don't seem to realize that road exists.
Usenet (and to a much greater extent altnet)
tend toward the latter, which is why we still can't get rid of alt.hairy-douchebag.meredith-tanner thirty years after Carasso mkgrouped it.
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Jan van den Broek <balglaas@dds.nl> writes:
2022-08-03, Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> schrieb:
First if you block one person you still see the responses. You may
be spared one particular idiot, but you still see the argument. You
can
Ever thought of filtering on the "References"-header?
Yes, and I do. But it’s additional effort for every discussion, and if >> the subthread gets back on track then it produces false positives.
The starting point of this subthread was “it’s a mystery why people
don’t use filtering”. It is really not a mystery if you’re paying
attention.
Let me mention 2 specific cases.
It seems pretty clear that most people (including Pascal and Scott) find Usenet’s local filtering inadequate. The only remaining issue is that
you don’t believe anyone when they tell you this.
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
Ultimately what I want is for people to make an informed choice. Usenet is an
online discussion medium where the software allows each individual to make very precise and sophisticated filtering based on personal preferences with no centralised filtering (but centralised filtering is also possible). If someone does know that such a medium exists and they still prefer centralised
filtering then fair enough.
People did make an informed choice. When alternatives to Usenet appeared
they started to abandon Usenet.
On Sat, 23 Jul 2022 17:13:50 -0400
"voyager55" <voyager55@none.none> wrote:
The sort of solution you're describing is either obscenely time consuming for
humans to perform (there are over 110,000 existing newsgroups), or those server
ops are stuck running a spam/content filter of their own and not letting end
users weigh in.
There's no reason for a server to carry all those groups. In my idea of every city block having at least one usenet server , I was thinking around the lines
that each server would carry a few hundred groups whose content the operator of the server would be somewhat interested in.
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
Ultimately what I want is for people to make an informed
choice. Usenet is an online discussion medium where the software
allows each individual to make very precise and sophisticated
filtering based on personal preferences with no centralised
filtering (but centralised filtering is also possible). If someone
does know that such a medium exists and they still prefer
centralised filtering then fair enough.
People did make an informed choice. When alternatives to Usenet
appeared they started to abandon Usenet.
Decades ago it might have been the case that anyone who went online
also learned about usenet. This no longer applies (apparently , there
are even people who don't realise that being on facebook counts as
being on the internet. But presumably such people wouldn't be a good
match for usenet anyway) so it would be good that people *now* knew
about usenet and its capabilities and made a choice. I cannot
absolutely exclude that they do know and have made a choice but ,
based on some comments I have seen from people who post through
googlegroups , there are people who don't have a clear picture.
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
I think there is a broad middle road between totalitarianism and complete
absence of editorial control. And I think a lot of people don't seem to
realize that road exists.
Unless someone has had very limited exposure to online discussions , I can't >imagine how they would fail to realise that there are many possibilities for >editorial control including total absence of it. They may have a strong >preference for some small subrange of what's available but they must have come >across the many possibilities. However , in this day and age where usenet is >not that well known , it may be that there are many people who don't realise >that it's possible to have a group like comp.misc which has no moderation >but you still get civil and educated discussion.
Usenet (and to a much greater extent altnet)
tend toward the latter, which is why we still can't get rid of
alt.hairy-douchebag.meredith-tanner thirty years after Carasso mkgrouped it.
What's altnet ? Googling did not give me a definite answer.
I've never used newsserver software but I assume that it tends to have some >configuration file and , based on the content , the server carries whichever >groups. Is it more complicated than this ? If not then can't any server >operator who wants to get rid of some newsgroup simply edit the file and >that's all there is to it ?
By the way , the list of groups offered by a server I used in the past >includes alt.flame.hairy-douchebag.meredith-tanner and >alt.flame.hairy-douchebag.roger-david-carasso but no >alt.hairy-douchebag.meredith-tanner .In any case , having such groups (or >twitter for that matter) available where people can express their base >instincts so to speak and having other parts of usenet for more in control >discussion , seems perfectly reasonable to me. So I don't necessarily think >it is bad to have alt.flame* newsgroups. I have even come across message >boards which have some subforum where anything goes (or close) and other >subforums have stricter rules.
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
People did make an informed choice. When alternatives to Usenet
appeared they started to abandon Usenet.
Decades ago it might have been the case that anyone who went online
also learned about usenet. This no longer applies (apparently , there
are even people who don't realise that being on facebook counts as
being on the internet. But presumably such people wouldn't be a good
match for usenet anyway) so it would be good that people *now* knew
about usenet and its capabilities and made a choice. I cannot
absolutely exclude that they do know and have made a choice but ,
based on some comments I have seen from people who post through googlegroups , there are people who don't have a clear picture.
Obviously I meant that the people _who were on Usenet_ made an informed choice. But unless you think people have fundamentally changed in the
last couple of decades there’s no reason to think the outcome would be
any different if today’s Internet population were introduced to Usenet.
I think you’re just in denial about Usenet going the way of telegrams
and fax. Sometimes the world moves on.
On Sun, 14 Aug 2022 18:00:58 +0100
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> writes:
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
People did make an informed choice. When alternatives to Usenet
appeared they started to abandon Usenet.
Decades ago it might have been the case that anyone who went online
also learned about usenet. This no longer applies (apparently , there
are even people who don't realise that being on facebook counts as
being on the internet. But presumably such people wouldn't be a good
match for usenet anyway) so it would be good that people *now* knew
about usenet and its capabilities and made a choice. I cannot
absolutely exclude that they do know and have made a choice but ,
based on some comments I have seen from people who post through
googlegroups , there are people who don't have a clear picture.
Obviously I meant that the people _who were on Usenet_ made an informed
choice. But unless you think people have fundamentally changed in the
last couple of decades there’s no reason to think the outcome would be
any different if today’s Internet population were introduced to Usenet.
What has certainly changed in the last 2 decades is the population of the planet which has gone up (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population : 6,143,494,000 in 2000 , 7,795,000,000 in 2020) and the percentage of that population who have internet access. I imagine (but can't be bothered to search for statistics) that that percentage has also gone up due to technological and economic development. So there are a lot more potential usenet users.
Beyond that , where one decides to conduct one's discussion , especially political discussion , is among other things a political decision. In the last few years there have been many complaints , justified or not , that a few social media big players have too much control over which political opinions get heard. So the conditions are ripe for people to use a much
more decentralised medium for online discussion. Usenet is here and it
is technologically mature.
I think you’re just in denial about Usenet going the way of telegrams
and fax. Sometimes the world moves on.
We'll see.
On 8/14/22 2:13 PM, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2022 18:00:58 +0100
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
I think you’re just in denial about Usenet going the way of telegrams
and fax. Sometimes the world moves on.
We'll see.
I still have a FAX, and it has its uses. So does usenet.
But you can't really post pix of your lunch or that
weird looking toenail looking for a minute of nano-fame
and cheers - so, for 99%, it's useless. IMHO, it's better
if the shallow-water people DON'T know about usenet or any
similar options. Keep them occupied with cat videos.
Usenet is basically what used to be called a "BBS" - but
one that nobody owns. I'd like to see people hosting it
to ECHO it on a standard web page on the same server.
Doesn't have to be fancy at all, just functional.
Hey, you can (I have) run a simple web page on a damned
ARDUINO UNO ... so it's not like it'd put a strain on
anybody's decacore i9 box.
The idea is to not rely on
an odd port number ISPs/govts can trivially cut off off,
micromanage or charge money for.
On 14 Aug 2022 17:22:03 -0000
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
For the most part this has made many altnet groups totally unusable because of the lack of control and the history of the alt.sex groups is a very enlightening example.
I have found them perfectly usable myself. alt.usage.english and several alt.os.linux.* groups have high quality content. I haven't visited much
the alt.sex groups but at least they have led to www.asstr.org which is
a fine website (although I've just tried it and it doesn't respond).
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
comp.misc has no moderation, but being a Usenet group, the server is allowed to carry it because they are not abusive. Carrying Usenet groups (unlike altnet groups) is a privilege and not a right.
Usenet (and to a much greater extent altnet)
tend toward the latter, which is why we still can't get rid of
alt.hairy-douchebag.meredith-tanner thirty years after Carasso mkgrouped it.
What's altnet ? Googling did not give me a definite answer.
Okay, there are basically three kinds of newsgroups. There are Usenet groups,
which is to say the Big Eight heirarchy. Groups in the Big Eight are managed by the backbone cabal. There is a published procedure for creating and removing groups, which involves a whole lot of discussion and voting before
a cmesg newgroup is issued.
Altnet came about in the nineties because some people thought this was too restrictive. Anyone can create an alt. group and it is pretty much impossible to ever get rid of one. There is no Usenet Death Penalty for
alt. groups and no backbone cabal like there is for the Big Eight groups.
For the most part this has made many altnet groups totally unusable because of the lack of control and the history of the alt.sex groups is a very enlightening example.
The third kind of groups are local or regional groups, like mit.general or dc.dining, which are managed by a single admin or a small number of admins and which don't have wide propagation.
I've never used newsserver software but I assume that it tends to have some >configuration file and , based on the content , the server carries whichever >groups. Is it more complicated than this ? If not then can't any server >operator who wants to get rid of some newsgroup simply edit the file and >that's all there is to it ?
If you carry the Big Eight, you carry all the Big Eight groups. That is
part of the agreement. You do not create or remove groups except with control messages sent throughout the entire heirarchy, after a vote has
been performed.
If you carry the alt. groups you can remove groups from your local server
but if you do, sooner or later there will be a control message coming down the line causing the recreation of those groups. People have tried to get rid of some of the altnet groups for decades and they keep coming back. Altnet is not Usenet and does not follow Usenet rules but it uses the Usenet mechanisms.
Altnet is not Usenet. Many sites that carry Usenet do not carry Altnet.
You may wish to read some of the discussion in news.admin.newusers.
On Tue, 16 Aug 2022 12:14:45 -0400means
"25B.Z969" <25B.Z969@noda.net> wrote:
On 8/14/22 2:13 PM, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2022 18:00:58 +0100
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
[...]
I think you’re just in denial about Usenet going the way of telegrams
and fax. Sometimes the world moves on.
We'll see.
I still have a FAX, and it has its uses. So does usenet.
To give another technological example , several years ago vinyl records looked like they were on their way out. But they're making a comeback.
Such things are fashion up to a point and fashions are unpredictable.
But you can't really post pix of your lunch or that
weird looking toenail looking for a minute of nano-fame
and cheers - so, for 99%, it's useless. IMHO, it's better
if the shallow-water people DON'T know about usenet or any
similar options. Keep them occupied with cat videos.
One can both be interested in shallow stuff and deeper stuff. By all
let people have twitter for light stuff including 1 sentence comments.
Usenet is basically what used to be called a "BBS" - but
one that nobody owns. I'd like to see people hosting it
to ECHO it on a standard web page on the same server.
Doesn't have to be fancy at all, just functional.
Hey, you can (I have) run a simple web page on a damned
ARDUINO UNO ... so it's not like it'd put a strain on
anybody's decacore i9 box.
Or indeed running a newsserver.
The idea is to not rely on
an odd port number ISPs/govts can trivially cut off off,
micromanage or charge money for.
Remember the purpose of NewSpeak ... to so dumb-down and abbreviate
language and thus ideas that it would be impossible to organize a
rebellion, or even the complex thoughts to understand that there might
be a reason for one. The word itself might be obsoleted. No more
"Common Sense", no more DeclarationsVE ..... just frenetic postings of
lunch menus and cute kittens forever.
There's plenty wrong with Twitter but if you think it's just food and
cat pictures then you're obviously not paying attention.
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
which is to say the Big Eight heirarchy. Groups in the Big Eight are managed
by the backbone cabal. There is a published procedure for creating and
removing groups, which involves a whole lot of discussion and voting before >> a cmesg newgroup is issued.
So according to your terminology alt.usage.english for example does not count
as usenet ? I don't think this is standard terminology. The way I have >encountered the terms , if it gets transmitted through NNTP and the headers >have the usual format then it's usenet. Perhaps just the NNTP part is sufficient.
Altnet came about in the nineties because some people thought this was too >> restrictive. Anyone can create an alt. group and it is pretty much
impossible to ever get rid of one. There is no Usenet Death Penalty for
alt. groups and no backbone cabal like there is for the Big Eight groups.
But there is still a process , see >http://www.faqs.org/faqs/alt-creation-guide .
In your classification where does the free.* hierarchy fall ? How about >uk.* or language specific hierarchies like de.* ?
If you carry the Big Eight, you carry all the Big Eight groups. That is
part of the agreement. You do not create or remove groups except with
control messages sent throughout the entire heirarchy, after a vote has
been performed.
Agreement between which people ? If servers A and B do peering and A stops >carrying , say comp.misc , but still carries the other big 8 groups , how
is the operator of server B going to find out and why should he care ? It >won't cause any problems for server B not to be able to exchange comp.misc >messages with server A.
If you carry the alt. groups you can remove groups from your local server
but if you do, sooner or later there will be a control message coming down >> the line causing the recreation of those groups. People have tried to get >> rid of some of the altnet groups for decades and they keep coming back.
Altnet is not Usenet and does not follow Usenet rules but it uses the Usenet >> mechanisms.
Why can't a server operator simply configure the software to for example >ignore all control messages for alt.flames* newsgroups ?
Who are these people who have tried and in what way did they try ?
On Tue, 16 Aug 2022 18:58:14 -0000 (UTC)
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
On 14 Aug 2022 17:22:03 -0000
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
For the most part this has made many altnet groups totally unusable because
of the lack of control and the history of the alt.sex groups is a very
enlightening example.
I have found them perfectly usable myself. alt.usage.english and several
alt.os.linux.* groups have high quality content. I haven't visited much
the alt.sex groups but at least they have led to www.asstr.org which is >> a fine website (although I've just tried it and it doesn't respond).
How could I forget ? There is also alt.folklore.computers which is >excellent.
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
There's plenty wrong with Twitter but if you think it's just food and
cat pictures then you're obviously not paying attention.
Yeah. For an old guy like me, it's utterly bizarre that the president
of the USA made policy announcements, fired high-ranking staff and the
like using a medium designed for trivial nattering among people with
tiny attention spans.
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:[...]
kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey) wrote:
So according to your terminology alt.usage.english for example does not count
as usenet ? I don't think this is standard terminology. The way I have >encountered the terms , if it gets transmitted through NNTP and the headers >have the usual format then it's usenet. Perhaps just the NNTP part is sufficient.
alt.usage english is not a Usenet group. If it makes it less confusing to you,
think about it as being not a Big 8 Group.
Anyone can start a news server, but not everyone can connect it up to
Usenet. If you want to get free. groups or alt. groups that is a different matter.
In your classification where does the free.* hierarchy fall ? How about >uk.* or language specific hierarchies like de.* ?
They are all individual nntp networks. If you run a news server, you can pick
up whichever ones you want.
de. and uk. are regional groups, and at one time there was a lot of argument about carrying regional groups outside of their region, but really nobody cares anymore.
If you carry the Big Eight, you carry all the Big Eight groups. That is >> part of the agreement. You do not create or remove groups except with
control messages sent throughout the entire heirarchy, after a vote has
been performed.
Agreement between which people ? If servers A and B do peering and A stops >carrying , say comp.misc , but still carries the other big 8 groups , how >is the operator of server B going to find out and why should he care ? It >won't cause any problems for server B not to be able to exchange comp.misc >messages with server A.
There is discussion in news.groups.
If you carry the alt. groups you can remove groups from your local server >> but if you do, sooner or later there will be a control message coming down >> the line causing the recreation of those groups. People have tried to get >> rid of some of the altnet groups for decades and they keep coming back.
Altnet is not Usenet and does not follow Usenet rules but it uses the Usenet
mechanisms.
Why can't a server operator simply configure the software to for example >ignore all control messages for alt.flames* newsgroups ?
They could, but then no new alt.flames* groups would get created on their system. When there were many hundreds of servers, the issue was more problematic than it is today of course.
Richard Kettlewell <invalid@invalid.invalid> writes:
There's plenty wrong with Twitter but if you think it's just food and
cat pictures then you're obviously not paying attention.
Yeah. For an old guy like me, it's utterly bizarre that the president
of the USA made policy announcements, fired high-ranking staff and the
like using a medium designed for trivial nattering among people with
tiny attention spans.
Dear Mr. Musk,
I have read in the news that you are (or were) interested in buying
Twitter in order to promote free speech. I applaud your goals , I care a
lot about free speech myself. But let me suggest that the operational
model of Twitter and free speech do not fit well together.
An absolute concept of free speech is that if persons A and B want to exchange views or information about whatever issue , no entity C (where "entity" means individual or corporation or government) should be able to prevent it. In other words , the decision should be entirely up to A and B and noone else.
There are physical limitations which make such absolute free speech impossible and it may not even be desirable. But it is also very far from
a desirable level of free speech if a single entity , like Twitter , can restrict people's ability to communicate with each other. Obviously
Twitter isn't the only form of online communication but my overall point
is that online discussion is too centralised at present , that this centralisation negatively affects freedom of speech and plurality of
opinions therefore the right way forward is to give emphasis to more decentralised methods of online discussion.
And as it turns out , there is such a method. Not only that but it is one
of the oldest forms of online dicussion : usenet !
I will guess that you have already encountered usenet although perhaps not recently. It is a lot less popular than what it was some decades ago but
it is still going strong. From the point of view of freedom of speech it
has many advantages over Twitter : it is decentralised , meaning a large number of servers controlled by different entities instead of servers ultimately controlled by a single entity which can command that this or
that should be censored. Usenet is based on open standards for which there exist already a large number of implementations both of servers and
clients and also programming libraries for many programming languages. So whether one wants to use a preexisting client or server or implement their own , possibly one with a fancier interface , the possibilities are limitless.
You are a visionary so let me a suggest the following vision : every city block in every city in every technologically advanced country will have at least 1 usenet server operating. Note that the servers do not need any special facilities , it could just as well be a server operating from
one's own home. It doesn't have to be a recent or powerful computer either
, an old computer which one has lying somewhere and remains unused , would
do the job just fine. The important thing is that all of these servers
would be operated by different people. So lets say someone does not want a certain usenet group or messages on their server because they consider
them as too right wing or too left wing or too whatever wing or they feel it's "hate speech" , etc. Not a problem. With so many servers the messages would still get transmitted between the people who are interested in them because there would be billions of different paths (passing through
servers) between clients a message could follow. Now *that's* freedom of speech.
So where do you come in ? No , I'm not suggesting that you pay for all
those servers out of your own pocket. What you can do is express publicly your interest and support for usenet. Coming from someone as well known as you , this already will have a large positive impact. It may be that this
is all that is needed. The infrastructure already exists : there is news client and news server software for the usual desktop operating systems , there exist both free and commercial servers running and more can be
created whether one is primarily motivated by profit or the desire to
offer a public service.
If you want to go further than that , you can announce a public competition for a new news client or a new news server with a prize for each of say 20,000 USD. That's not to say that there is anything wrong with already existing software but people get attracted to the new sexy thing and such
new software , with the attendant publicity , would be the new sexy thing.
I won't go into details of how such a competition could be run or what criteria should be used to rank the entries because it would make this too long and it would be a digression. The publicity would be more important
than the precise rules of the competition anyway.
You could create a charity which runs news servers. Again , the main advantage of such a thing would be the publicity caused by the association with your name rather than having a few extra servers.
None of the above suggestions would cost more than thousands of USD. A lot cheaper than Twitter and they would do a lot more for freedom of speech. I will admit though that if your main goal in the endeavour is to make
profit rather than enhance freedom of speech then a centralised medium
offers more opportunity.
So these are my suggestions , I hope you will get to read them and give
them some thought.
Finally , for your convenience here is a list of some usenet servers : news.aioe.org , news.cyber23.de , news.eternal-september.org (requires registration) , news2.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (read only).
Best regards
Spiros Bousbouras
You don't know his e-mail address ?
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