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

On 7/20/22 9:41 PM, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> 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.

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 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.

> If Musk wants to BE somebody then he needs control of
> one or more large profit-making modern 'social media'
> sites.

Well launching rockets will probably always get him more attention
anyway. Certainly from me.

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _#

On 7/22/22 7:02 PM, 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.
>
>> 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 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.
>
>> If Musk wants to BE somebody then he needs control of
>> one or more large profit-making modern 'social media'
>> sites.
>
> Well launching rockets will probably always get him more attention
> anyway. Certainly from me.

I am fond of his rocket program - has proven very useful
so far, likely much more so tomorrow - assuming ideological
enemies don't manage to conspire to assure Boeing starts
getting all the contracts .....

I notice the full Starship hasn't launched. Technical ?
No. PERMITS/LICENCES/INSURANCE - there are LOTS of ways
to punish the un-Woke ..........

If the current administration persists it'll soon be
naught but ULA/Boeing and NASA launching more than a
tennis ball.

Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> launching rockets will probably always get him more attention
> anyway. Certainly from me.

More than digging tunnels.

not@telling.you.invalid (Computer Nerd Kev) writes:
> 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.

Users expected it, but it was pretty expensive to provide... I’m very
skeptical that it paid its way at my then-employer. Might have been
profitable for consumer ISPs.

> 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

It is full of images and videos.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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.
--scott

"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

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 7/23/22 4:01 AM, 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.

Consider a shiny computer/phone app. People SEE
the skin, the GUI, and give credit to whomever -
but that layer runs on hundreds of uninteresting
little functions and protocols - many invented
decades ago by people with no names, no faces,
only skill. #include <stdio.h> ... people always
tack that on at the top - but look at what's IN
it sometime.

On 7/20/2022 9:41:45 PM, Spiros Bousbouras wrote:
> 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.

There are more than a handful of folks who believe that Musk's discussion
regarding purchasing Twitter had far less to do with a desire for the
preservation of Free Speech, and more to do with stock market manipulations.
Twitter's stock price has been all over the map since the announcement, Musk
leveraged Tesla stock more than his cash-on-hand, and Twitter having to disclose
the actual number of users and bots as a matter of public record through the SEC
filings altered the price advertisers were willing to pay for ad space. Whether
Twitter was an unwitting pawn in Musk restructuring his Tesla ownership or there
was some sort of feud between Musk and Twitter's execs is unclear, but a lot of
people - myself included - are not convinced that Musk's primary concern was
altruistic.

Personally, the reason I'm unconvinced that free speech was his goal was because
Musk has some pretty solid resources at his disposal, both human and
technological. I'm sure he could have gotten a thousand people together, bought
an office building (if he doesn't have a spare already), gotten a couple of racks
of servers and hard drives from Dell or HP, forked Mastodon and spun up his own
Twitter competitor whose selling point was "better terms of service, clear due
process for violations, and no ads or tracking scripts for two years"...and he
probably would have had modest success with it AND spent $43 billion less than he
offered Twitter.

> 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.

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.

--
₪ BUD ₪

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 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 7/25/22 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?

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 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.

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?

On 7/25/22 10:09 AM, Bud Spencer wrote:
> 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 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.
>
> Yes. Yes. Done. Done.
>
> Try better.

On 7/25/22 2:18 PM, Andy Burns wrote:
>
> 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?

150 ? Yes.

Contemporary machines, not so much.

But what you DO with them and why - that's where he
figures his niche to be.

Face it, we DO need new TBM tech. Slowly grinding
away with carbide chips just ain't all that good.
Laser/particle-beam thermal shock - that'd be
a step up. Maybe ultrahigh pressure water cutting
jets ? Soften it up, deeply pre-fracture, THEN grind
out the chips. Oughtta be two or three times as fast.

May have to wait a couple centuries for phasor drilling.
Contact : Montgomery Scott, C/O Star Fleet Command,
San Francisco, N.America.

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

> 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.

Googling for "twitter maximum tweet length" gives several matches than
the limit is 280 characters.

> 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 don't understand the attraction of twitter either. I love online
discussions , you could even say that I'm addicted to them and I've read such
at times when I should be doing other things. But I like discussions which
have some "meat" in them : arguments and counterarguments , citations ,
computer code , something. From the occasional tweet I see cited , you mostly
get 1-2 sentences of strong statements often on complicated issues which
could well justify whole essays. I have 0 interest in that sort of thing.
I'm not simply interested in knowing what someone believes but why they
believe it.

My impression is that the concept of twitter is to extend online social
interaction friends do face to face ; something like

- Great party yesterday.
- Yeah. Did you notice John and Jenny making out ?

etc. , this kind of thing. For this it may work great. But for having a
decent conversation on complicated issues ? No way.

> 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.

Yes , he is a user.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_acquisition_of_Twitter_by_Elon_Musk :
Elon Musk published his first tweet on his personal Twitter account in
June 2010,^[1] and had more than 80 million followers at the time of the
purchase.^[2] In 2017, in response to a tweet suggesting Musk buy
Twitter, he replied, "How much is it?"^[3]

--
"A great disturbance in the internets. It was like a million hentai lovers
voices crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced."
"automatedresponse"
www.reddit.com/r/promos/comments/6mtzb/time_warner_cable_to_block_all_usenet_access

On 23 Jul 2022 13:23:20 -0000
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 ?

> "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

Indeed.

--
vlaho.ninja/prog

In comp.misc Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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:

1) upward growth of the web, which directly supported advertising
revenue

2) massive growth in Usenet data transfer and storage sizes if the ISP
provided the alt.binaries.* groups (but the alt.binaries.* groups also
meant those same ISP's /might/ be targeted by copyright/CP groups, so
the legal departments likely had nervous reservations).

3) no direct way to monitize via advertising (the ISP's could, at most,
have made it subscription -- but then going from "free" to $x/month for
what was previously free would have ticked off a lot of users who would
have likely said "no" on principle).

4) a huge upward trend in the AOLification of the user base (i.e., the
technical acumen of all those new users) which likely resulted in
upward trends in support calls for "how to I access this usenet thing"
[assuming those same AOL level users even /knew/ of usenet]). This
would have generated a "false impression of dwindling usage" because
even if usage was flat, a horde of new users who don't use Usenet added
into the totals would give the appearance of a large downward usage
trend.

5) a huge upward spike in Usenet spam-advertising -- this likely
contributed to the "reduction in usage" factor as for a while in the
late 90's many popular groups were very much overrun by spammers.
#4 and #5 would provide the "dwindling usage" factor that gets quoted.
Spammers driving users away plus a massive growth of new users who
don't even know Usenet exists and therefore don't look at Usenet
results in the "usage stats" showing a nosedive. Add in nervous legal
departments due to CP/copyright worries and direct expense for ever
more disk storage from server ops. and you have the makings of a "this
cost is exceeding any revenue we might get, lets cut it loose" business
planning mentality.

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.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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.

>> 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 ?

Other than to look up news.admin from the eighties and early nineties, I am
not sure where to point you. There were anonymizing services that would
allow people to post with their source obscured somewhat or completely.
Some people thought this was good. Some people thought it was bad.
When a war over Scientology began it helped fuel the fire.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

On 8/2/22 9:10 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:
> 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.

"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.