say goodbye to alt.binaries.*

LouCypher

Veteran X
ISPs Nationwide Unite in Attack against Exploitation
Verizon, Sprint, RoadRunner, and late last week, AT&T, have all acted on the Attorney General's recommendation. Today, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association (NCTA) announced a "historic" agreement where all member companies have entered into a MOU (Memoradum of Understanding) with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) to attack child pornography on their servers and networks.
...
Those who signed on today are as follows: "Comcast Corporation; Cox Communications; Charter Communications; Cablevision Systems Corporation; Bright House Networks; Suddenlink Communications; Mediacom Communications; Insight Communications; Bresnan Communications; Midcontinent Communications; Broadstripe; GCI; Harron Communications; US Cable Corporation; BendBroadband; Eagle Communications; and Sjoberg’s, Inc. Time Warner Cable has already signed the MOU."
I don't think anyone that used newsgroups for warez is going to buy that excuse, but at least it flies with the average joe.

Just checked in GrabIt and they're already gone on the AT&T/BellSouth server. :(

I know pay providers will still carry them, but this is going to put a serious damper in distribution to other networks like BitTorrent.
 
ofn but I'm too lazy/drunk to find proof.

Something like the NY Attorney General wanted to do this to curb child porn. As if child porn wont just find other venues to reach its market.
 
seriously, just get giganews. I don't know why this is a problem. Its not like your isp carried more than 2-3 days retention anyways.
 
Shit. I even posted in that thread. Oh well, it's practically every national ISP now. In my case BellSouth/AT&T didn't drop all the alt.* hierarchy, just the alt.binaries.* groups. The only thing I used them for anyway was an earlier download of MMA events so I suppose it's not a huge loss.

seriously, just get giganews. I don't know why this is a problem. Its not like your isp carried more than 2-3 days retention anyways.
Because people that download warez are notorious for not paying for shit. Not everyone that reposts stuff from Usenet uses a pay provider when retention is not an issue for 0 day stuff. BellSouth/AT&T also had a really good server with much longer retention than 2-3 days, probably more like 2-3 weeks. That covered pretty much anything I was looking for that wasn't already on a torrent somewhere.

I just liked them because it was a guaranteed max download vs a recently uploaded torrent. :shrug:
 
$30/mo (unlimited/ssl/240d retention)

consider i've downloaded literally.. just tens of thousands of dollars worth of crap by now.

I saw wall-e that way. great movie. surprised they had a ts out.

look, i used verizon newsgroups before this, they're just no comparison. its certainly not the "death of newsgroups" or whatever. first of all, its only in this country, second, its only isps. People rarely upload shit through their isp servers, because it traces directly back to their ip. Its stupid. Us downloaders will be fine.
 
Shit. I even posted in that thread.

:lol: I've done that before too.

I do like how the first response in that thread was the tinfoil hat and here we are one month later and it's actually happening.

I've never used newsgroups so it doesnt affect me personally but I still dont like it.

And I find it funny that the Attorney General's office was searching newsgroups for child pron in the first place. I wonder how much time and resources went into that.
 
Last edited:
$30/mo (unlimited/ssl/240d retention)

consider i've downloaded literally.. just tens of thousands of dollars worth of crap by now.

I saw wall-e that way. great movie. surprised they had a ts out.
Name one thing you've downloaded from a newsgroup I can't find via torrent.

I'm sure you consider it a great value, but to me they were only good for the occasional new stuff.
 
And I find it funny that the Attorney General's office was searching newsgroups for child pron in the first place. I wonder how much time and resources went into that.
This is only the beginning. The ISPs are also going to block sites known to host child pornography, however infrequent or in contradiction to site policy or rules. The Pirate Bay is notorious for not deleting torrents, regardless of content. This "crusade" will be their excuse to do what the courts won't.
 
The government ALWAYS used child pornography as an excuse to do this shit.

If that's what they really cared about, they would spend all those resources going after the people who make it, not a bunch of .jpgs floating around endlessly on the internet.
 
I've never used newgroups. I guess I was always intimidated by the unknown and would have no idea where to start.
 
Name one thing you've downloaded from a newsgroup I can't find via torrent.

I'm sure you consider it a great value, but to me they were only good for the occasional new stuff.

Nice thing about newsgroups is with Giganews I can go back and get shit that was posted 240 days ago and still get it at full speed. Torrents are good for getting things that are new but if you're looking for something somewhat older you're pretty much at the mercy of how many people are on the torrent if there is even one posted still.
 
Usenet Newsgroups Service, News Servers, Usenet Access - Giganews
Newzbin - Login
I never had a torrent download at 1500KB/s

edit: lol
Giganews is offering first month discounts for current Sprint and Verizon subscribers.

According to a recent announcement, Verizon will stop providing access to alt.binaries newsgroups on their internal Usenet systems as of June 24, 2008. Sprint will stop providing access to alt.binaries newsgroups sometime thereafter.

To help members who may no longer have access to alt.binaries newsgroups, Giganews is offering this special introductory rate for Sprint and Verizon customers.
 
Back
Top