Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past after
the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
generally have a web page with information on what you should do to set
up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have) anything
similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors" arrangements ?

--
vlaho.ninja/menu

On 2/22/24 08:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past after
> the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
> generally have a web page with information on what you should do to set
> up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have) anything
> similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors" arrangements ?

Oh yea, I forgot that Google USENET support is shutting down today. Nice :)
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

In article <5jgQEd261SSBbv6CF@bongo-ra.co>,
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past after
>the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
>generally have a web page with information on what you should do to set
>up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have) anything
>similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors" arrangements ?
>
>--
>vlaho.ninja/menu

It died at 10 a.m. PST
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
What worth the power of law that won't stop lawlessness? -unknown

In article <ur7pp9$3uj3s$3@dont-email.me>,
candycanearter07 <no@thanks.net> wrote:
>On 2/22/24 08:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
>> Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past after
>> the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
>> generally have a web page with information on what you should do to set
>> up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have) anything
>> similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors" arrangements ?
>
>Oh yea, I forgot that Google USENET support is shutting down today. Nice :)
>--
>user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom
>

YAY!
--
Member - Liberal International This is doctor@nk.ca Ici doctor@nk.ca
Yahweh, King & country!Never Satan President Republic!Beware AntiChrist rising!
Look at Psalms 14 and 53 on Atheism ; unsubscribe from Google Groups to be seen
What worth the power of law that won't stop lawlessness? -unknown

On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 00:15:51 -0000 (UTC), doctor@doctor.nl2k.ab.ca (The Doctor) wrote:
>In article <5jgQEd261SSBbv6CF@bongo-ra.co>,
>Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>>Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past after
>>the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
>>generally have a web page with information on what you should do to set
>>up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have) anything
>>similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors" arrangements ?
>>--
>>vlaho.ninja/menu
>
>It died at 10 a.m. PST

quoting . . .

>From: Jesse Rehmer <jesse.rehmer@blueworldhosting.com>
>Newsgroups: news.admin.net-abuse.usenet
>Subject: Re: ding dong the wicked witch . . . ?
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:42:02 -0000 (UTC)
>Organization: BWH Usenet Archive (https://usenet.blueworldhosting.com)
>Message-ID: <ur8f3a$72f$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>
>References: <ae03e6ecaf3240e815b6273a9039449f@dizum.com>
>
snip
>
>The last one my server saw was:
><ddf29c87-cdab-4b64-95b4-17c2a93489aen@googlegroups.com>

didn't see raw message headers with injection timestamp but if this
really is the final article ever posted via google groups, or other
article(s) which might share that prestigious accolade of being the
last from google groups, then it's probably of interest to everyone

On 2/22/24 08:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past
> after the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
> generally have a web page with information on what you should do to
> set up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have)
> anything similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors"
> arrangements ?

Google had standard NNTP peering with select servers just like my server
has with other servers.

I don't know if Google ever /added/ any peers after acquiring Dejanews
or if they simply kept those peers all along.

Politically Google was definitely not a normal peer with anyone type of
peer. Technically, they were the same as all other NNTP peers.

--
Grant. . . .

On Thu, 22 Feb 2024 21:53:07 -0600
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> On 2/22/24 08:17, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> > Hopefully peering with googlegroups will be a thing of the past
> > after the end of today but I'm still curious about this. Newsservers
> > generally have a web page with information on what you should do to
> > set up peering with them. Does googlegroups have (or used to have)
> > anything similar or was all peering done with "behind closed doors"
> > arrangements ?
>
> Google had standard NNTP peering with select servers just like my server
> has with other servers.
>
> I don't know if Google ever /added/ any peers after acquiring Dejanews
> or if they simply kept those peers all along.
>
> Politically Google was definitely not a normal peer with anyone type of
> peer. Technically, they were the same as all other NNTP peers.

I was asking about the political (social may be a better term) rather than
the technical. I certainly wasn't thinking that any special protocols were in
place to do peering with googlegroups. So for example did someone from within
Google contact at some point in time certain newsserver administrators to
indicate that they wanted to set up peering and then they took it from there?

On 2/23/24 07:32, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> I was asking about the political (social may be a better term)
> rather than the technical. I certainly wasn't thinking that any
> special protocols were in place to do peering with googlegroups.

Ah.

> So for example did someone from within Google contact at some point
> in time certain newsserver administrators to indicate that they wanted
> to set up peering and then they took it from there?

I don't know who initiated the peering. It was a very long time ago in
computer time and even longer ago in Google time.

It may have been Google reaching out to other peers. Or it may have
been other peers reaching out to Google. I suspect it was some of both.

My opinion is that Google largely let their Usenet interaction /
infrastructure bit-rot on the vine. Any attempt I had with Google
employees working on it left me quite disappointed.

--
Grant. . . .

On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 07:59:28 -0600, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 2/23/24 07:32, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
>> I was asking about the political (social may be a better term)
>> rather than the technical. I certainly wasn't thinking that any
>> special protocols were in place to do peering with googlegroups.
>Ah.
>> So for example did someone from within Google contact at some point
>> in time certain newsserver administrators to indicate that they wanted
>> to set up peering and then they took it from there?
>
>I don't know who initiated the peering. It was a very long time ago in
>computer time and even longer ago in Google time.
>It may have been Google reaching out to other peers. Or it may have
>been other peers reaching out to Google. I suspect it was some of both.
>My opinion is that Google largely let their Usenet interaction /
>infrastructure bit-rot on the vine. Any attempt I had with Google
>employees working on it left me quite disappointed.

as an older guy and life-long outsider to the system, the world has
always functioned under the rubric umbrella of compartmentalization
and need to know, never divulging anything to anyone outside of the
loop without careful planning and orchestrated media damage control

In article <ura8c0$t6p$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>I don't know who initiated the peering. It was a very long time
>ago in computer time and even longer ago in Google time.

Google inherited the Dejanews peerings. There was also a meeting,
where Russ & I sat at Google HQ & talked to the team lead of the
new "Groups" service -- about things like control messages, etc.
We secured their agreement on some things, which is why things
managed to work as well as they did for a while, in terms of fitting
into Usenet. It was not a meeting I was all that happy with at the
time, but it was "OK." I don't even remember what year this was.

>My opinion is that Google largely let their Usenet interaction /
>infrastructure bit-rot on the vine.

Yes. Or put another way, they attempted to swallow us whole, but
eventually had to spit us back out.

Anyway, I only tend to skim this group, so sorry if I miss an
inquiry....

In article <urap66$dga$1@hope.eyrie.org>,
Todd M. McComb <mccomb@medieval.org> wrote:
>Google inherited the Dejanews peerings.

Now that I posted that, I realize my memory isn't so clear on this
part either. Actually, and I may be wrong, I think that Google
first bought another "news" startup -- and that's where the guy we
met with came from -- and then Deja soon after. Either way, they
had existing peering.

(To state the obvious, we were NDA'd like crazy for that meeting.
I'm probably breaking it now!)

On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 18:46:30 -0000 (UTC)
mccomb@medieval.org (Todd M. McComb) wrote:
> In article <ura8c0$t6p$1@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>,
> Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> >My opinion is that Google largely let their Usenet interaction /
> >infrastructure bit-rot on the vine.
>
> Yes. Or put another way, they attempted to swallow us whole, but
> eventually had to spit us back out.

Who's "us" ?

On Fri, 23 Feb 2024 07:59:28 -0600
Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
> On 2/23/24 07:32, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> > So for example did someone from within Google contact at some point
> > in time certain newsserver administrators to indicate that they wanted
> > to set up peering and then they took it from there?
>
> I don't know who initiated the peering. It was a very long time ago in
> computer time and even longer ago in Google time.
>
> It may have been Google reaching out to other peers. Or it may have
> been other peers reaching out to Google. I suspect it was some of both.
>
> My opinion is that Google largely let their Usenet interaction /
> infrastructure bit-rot on the vine. Any attempt I had with Google
> employees working on it left me quite disappointed.

What I find striking about the whole affair is how the peers were willing
to continue the peering despite all the spam. When I read peering policies
it is very common that they specify that the prospective peers must operate
antispam measures. Google clearly did not operate any but the peering
continued. I wonder if Google paid money to some/all their peers.

Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

> What I find striking about the whole affair is how the peers were willing
> to continue the peering despite all the spam.

Out of curiosity, I've logged on to groups.google.com today, and it's
pure tumbleweed in there, didn't see any goggle group that was a usenet
group with any new messages from today. and only saw a single email
list that had one new message.

If it wasn't for the archive, they might as well turn off posting to
their own groups/lists, as it seems they haven't got any users left.

In article <X9IA3sGwT7OXav0Kh@bongo-ra.co>,
Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
>Who's "us" ?

Usenet... the prior network, all of us still here.

According to Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk>:
>If it wasn't for the archive, they might as well turn off posting to
>their own groups/lists, as it seems they haven't got any users left.

Only part of groups peered with usenet. There are plenty of live
groups that are private discussion lists. I'm on a few of them.

I'm not surprised that the ex-usenet groups are dead. Anyone who
cared has moved somewhere else that still peers.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

John Levine wrote:

> Only part of groups peered with usenet. There are plenty of live
> groups that are private discussion lists. I'm on a few of them.
>
> I'm not surprised that the ex-usenet groups are dead. Anyone who
> cared has moved somewhere else that still peers.

I've never used the non-usenet parts of googlegroups, I see hundreds of
thousands of "groups" by searching for names containing a single letter
"a" or "t", yet 99% of them say no new traffic in last 30 days, some
have never had any messages ...

For some usenet groups there are people who compile monthly/yearly stats
of prolific posters, until recently over half the users in some groups
were via googlegroups.

I found googlegroups unbearable to use for sending, I would only do so
if I wanted to reply to an ancient message that had aged-out from my
thunderbird ...

On 2/23/24 15:29, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> What I find striking about the whole affair is how the peers
> were willing to continue the peering despite all the spam. When I
> read peering policies it is very common that they specify that the
> prospective peers must operate antispam measures. Google clearly did
> not operate any but the peering continued. I wonder if Google paid
> money to some/all their peers.

Google is one of those entities that almost everybody is afraid of going
up against. This means that most people were unwilling to depeer (not
that they need to any more) or filter email from Google, because Google!

Google really enjoyed their small startup position competing with Yahoo
and Microsoft's offering at the time. Lots of people wanted to favor
Google if for nothing other than David vs Goliath support for the little
guy. Now Google is Goliath and many people are scared to go against Google.

--
Grant. . . .

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> On 2/23/24 15:29, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
>> What I find striking about the whole affair is how the peers were
>> willing to continue the peering despite all the spam. When I read
>> peering policies it is very common that they specify that the
>> prospective peers must operate antispam measures. Google clearly did
>> not operate any but the peering continued. I wonder if Google paid
>> money to some/all their peers.
>
> Google is one of those entities that almost everybody is afraid of
> going up against. This means that most people were unwilling to
> depeer (not that they need to any more) or filter email from Google,
> because Google!
>
> Google really enjoyed their small startup position competing with
> Yahoo and Microsoft's offering at the time. Lots of people wanted to
> favor Google if for nothing other than David vs Goliath support for
> the little guy. Now Google is Goliath and many people are scared to
> go against Google.

Gmail was also so far in advance of all other free webmail when it came
out, it wasn't even a competition. The interface was clean and fast, but
most importantly you got *so much storage*, at a time when most free
accounts had a few pitiful megabytes.

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 2/23/24 15:29, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:

>>What I find striking about the whole affair is how the peers
>>were willing to continue the peering despite all the spam. When I
>>read peering policies it is very common that they specify that the
>>prospective peers must operate antispam measures. Google clearly did
>>not operate any but the peering continued. I wonder if Google paid
>>money to some/all their peers.

>Google is one of those entities that almost everybody is afraid of going
>up against. This means that most people were unwilling to depeer (not
>that they need to any more) or filter email from Google, because Google!

How does that work? You are operating SpamAssasin as an email abuse
countermeasure and you tell it NOT to filter any email originating from
Gmail because you are afraid of reprisals from Google?

The recent massive Usenet abuse from Google Groups finally made the
public aware of something Google had been failing to do for years, run a
Usenet site like a good actor. It caused Google embarassment in front of
a public that for the most part of ignorant of the existence of Usenet.

I must have missed the news that the Google assasination squad took out
any of the people that we know.

>Google really enjoyed their small startup position competing with Yahoo
>and Microsoft's offering at the time. Lots of people wanted to favor
>Google if for nothing other than David vs Goliath support for the little
>guy. Now Google is Goliath and many people are scared to go against Google.

I don't recall what search Microsoft offered. Yahoo was fantastic
because they were offering a directory service edited by human beings.

In olden days before the Web, we had the Gopher protocol which was... a
high quality directory service edited by human beings. ftp sites were
forced to make an attempt at logical organization because finding the
file you needed to download was difficult enough. The Web didn't
require a directory to function so too many Web sites were set up without
logical structure. That's where search engines come in, but indexing
doesn't impose structure.

Google search doesn't exactly make it easy to find what you need. I'd
rather start with a directory but Google made those go away. Google's
advertising model appears to be the more bad hits we present, the more
ads we serve. It's a negative incentive.

On Sun, 25 Feb 2024 16:42:31 -0000 (UTC), "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>>On 2/23/24 15:29, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
>>>What I find striking about the whole affair is how the peers
>>>were willing to continue the peering despite all the spam. When I
>>>read peering policies it is very common that they specify that the
>>>prospective peers must operate antispam measures. Google clearly did
>>>not operate any but the peering continued. I wonder if Google paid
>>>money to some/all their peers.
>
>>Google is one of those entities that almost everybody is afraid of going
>>up against. This means that most people were unwilling to depeer (not
>>that they need to any more) or filter email from Google, because Google!
>
>How does that work? You are operating SpamAssasin as an email abuse
>countermeasure and you tell it NOT to filter any email originating from
>Gmail because you are afraid of reprisals from Google?
>The recent massive Usenet abuse from Google Groups finally made the
>public aware of something Google had been failing to do for years, run a
>Usenet site like a good actor. It caused Google embarassment in front of
>a public that for the most part of ignorant of the existence of Usenet.
>I must have missed the news that the Google assasination squad took out
>any of the people that we know.
>
>>Google really enjoyed their small startup position competing with Yahoo
>>and Microsoft's offering at the time. Lots of people wanted to favor
>>Google if for nothing other than David vs Goliath support for the little
>>guy. Now Google is Goliath and many people are scared to go against Google.
>
>I don't recall what search Microsoft offered. Yahoo was fantastic
>because they were offering a directory service edited by human beings.
>In olden days before the Web, we had the Gopher protocol which was... a
>high quality directory service edited by human beings. ftp sites were
>forced to make an attempt at logical organization because finding the
>file you needed to download was difficult enough. The Web didn't
>require a directory to function so too many Web sites were set up without
>logical structure. That's where search engines come in, but indexing
>doesn't impose structure.
>Google search doesn't exactly make it easy to find what you need. I'd
>rather start with a directory but Google made those go away. Google's
>advertising model appears to be the more bad hits we present, the more
>ads we serve. It's a negative incentive.

been using duckduckgo exclusively since 2012 (default search for tor browser);
altavista https://web.archive.org/web/19961022174810/http://www.altavista.com/
worked great while it lasted; no one can actually "go against" the system, but
avoiding them is the law of the jungle, get too close and that's all she wrote

On 2/25/24 10:09, John wrote:
> Gmail was also so far in advance of all other free webmail when it came
> out, it wasn't even a competition. The interface was clean and fast,

It didn't take much to be ahead of the other web mail interfaces then.

I still don't think it takes much to be ahead of web mail interfaces.

I think the average client side MTA from the '90s still VASTLY
outperforms all web mail interfaces nearly 30 years later.

> but most importantly you gotso much storage, at a time when most free
> accounts had a few pitiful megabytes.

I don't care how much storage there is to bribe someone if the interface
sucks and is missing many features that I use every day.

--
Grant. . . .

On 2/25/24 10:42, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> How does that work? You are operating SpamAssasin as an email abuse
> countermeasure and you tell it NOT to filter any email originating
> from Gmail because you are afraid of reprisals from Google?

There are people that do that.

There are also a lot of people that will block list a small mom & pop
ISP that would never dare to block Google. What's really sad is that
most mom & pop ISPs actually care a LOT more than Google has ever cared;
both about quality of their service and making sure that their user base
isn't doing something unfavorable.

> The recent massive Usenet abuse from Google Groups finally made the
> public aware of something Google had been failing to do for years,
> run a Usenet site like a good actor. It caused Google embarassment in
> front of a public that for the most part of ignorant of the existence
> of Usenet.

I don't think that it did cause any embarrassment for Google. You can't
be embarrassed by something if you don't care about it.

> I must have missed the news that the Google assasination squad took
> out any of the people that we know.

?

> I don't recall what search Microsoft offered. Yahoo was fantastic
> because they were offering a directory service edited by human beings.

Yahoo started as a hand curated directory but switched away from that by
the early '00s.

> In olden days before the Web, we had the Gopher protocol which
> was... a high quality directory service edited by human beings. ftp
> sites were forced to make an attempt at logical organization because
> finding the file you needed to download was difficult enough. The Web
> didn't require a directory to function so too many Web sites were set
> up without logical structure. That's where search engines come in,
> but indexing doesn't impose structure.

I'd argue that sites should still try to provide a logical layout.

> Google search doesn't exactly make it easy to find what you need. I'd
> rather start with a directory but Google made those go away. Google's
> advertising model appears to be the more bad hits we present, the
> more ads we serve. It's a negative incentive.

I cuss at Google less now that I avoid them when I can reasonably do so.

--
Grant. . . .

On 2/25/24 12:28, D wrote:
> been using duckduckgo exclusively since 2012 (default search for
> tor browser);

I think that DDG has also gone down hill. They are starting to exhibit
the same problems I had with Google.

I have this funny thing, when I search for something I expect the words
that are in my search to be in the page that the results link to. Or at
least the cached copy as of when the page was crawled.

I would rather get a "we didn't find any pages with all the search
terms" than bull shit that doesn't contain my search terms or so far
from them that it's not even remotely funny.

> altavista ... worked great while it lasted;

I've heard good things about AltaVista. I don't remember using them. I
do remember using WebCrawler and was happy enough with them until Google
came along 20 years ago.

> no one can actually "go against" the system, but avoiding them is
> the law of the jungle, get too close and that's all she wrote

I've threatened to write my own search engine. I'd probably choose a
name with "grep" in it.

--
Grant. . . .

On Sun, 25 Feb 2024 21:19:32 -0600, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>On 2/25/24 12:28, D wrote:
>> been using duckduckgo exclusively since 2012 (default search for
>> tor browser);
>
>I think that DDG has also gone down hill. They are starting to exhibit
>the same problems I had with Google.
>I have this funny thing, when I search for something I expect the words
>that are in my search to be in the page that the results link to. Or at
>least the cached copy as of when the page was crawled.
>I would rather get a "we didn't find any pages with all the search
>terms" than bull shit that doesn't contain my search terms or so far
>from them that it's not even remotely funny.

boolean logic vs. commercial advertising . . . same thing happened to
newspapers, magazines, radio, and especially television; the internet
became popular, so it too became saturated with garish commercial ads;
afaict duckduckgo still works fine for what i've usually searched for

>> altavista ... worked great while it lasted;
>
>I've heard good things about AltaVista. I don't remember using them. I
>do remember using WebCrawler and was happy enough with them until Google
>came along 20 years ago.

at first, altavista clearly favored boolean logic for search results,
but it's growing popularity attracted the usual wall street piranhas

>> no one can actually "go against" the system, but avoiding them is
>> the law of the jungle, get too close and that's all she wrote
>
>I've threatened to write my own search engine. I'd probably choose a
>name with "grep" in it.

unfamiliar... had to google it:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=grep
>...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grep
>grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines
>that match a regular expression. Its name comes from the ed command g/re/p
>(global / regular expression search / and print), which has the same effect.
>[3][4] grep was originally developed for the Unix operating system, but
>later available for all Unix-like systems and some others such as OS-9.[5]
[end quote]