Google stewardship in action. Can we even go back to Usenet without Google Groups?
Usenet is still pretty alive for warez, and people pay providers for access.
Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
11–20 of 81 posts
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically it's simple, but I don't think anyone is willing to pay for the required infrastructure. Nor is it going to be used a lot.
I'd like to hear someone explain how simple and how expensive. I think there would be quite a lot of interest, at the right price point.
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Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#13I note that comp.lang.java and comp.arch (which I used to follow avidly back in dialup/uucp days) that I tried at random seem largely to be fine at a glance. Edit: the good old days: some of these nodes were mine! https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mail.maps/c/NxwZMYqBUjw/m/T...
The group selection the spammers target seems really strange, alt.comp.freeware is another example.
Not sure I understand what they're trying to achieve.
(I tried to raise the issue internally, fwiw).
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#14Google stewardship in action. Can we even go back to Usenet without Google Groups?
No. I mean technically yes but this wouldn't solve the actual problem: mass human communication at scale.
Usenet was a decent shot at this problem but it lost to other solutions. Yes, all the current solutions are pretty bad but they aren't worse than Usenet. In particular Usenet had zero spam protection, Google stewardship or not.
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#15Google stewardship in action. Can we even go back to Usenet without Google Groups?
Please yes. And while we are it, bring back Deja News too!
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#16I note that comp.lang.java and comp.arch (which I used to follow avidly back in dialup/uucp days) that I tried at random seem largely to be fine at a glance. Edit: the good old days: some of these nodes were mine! https://groups.google.com/g/comp.mail.maps/c/NxwZMYqBUjw/m/T...
The group selection the spammers target seems really strange, alt.comp.freeware is another example. Not sure I understand what they're trying to achieve. (I tried to raise the issue internally, fwiw).
Spammers make more sense when you realize that professional spammers sell their services to idiots who don’t know or care what actually gets sent out.
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#17Did something go wrong here? This spam doesn't look hard to filter.
I think it's more that they let it through. Google doesn't care. This is just a cost center for them.
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Technically it's simple, but I don't think anyone is willing to pay for the required infrastructure. Nor is it going to be used a lot.
I'd like to hear someone explain how simple and how expensive. I think there would be quite a lot of interest, at the right price point.
The costs would depend entirely on the userbase; usenet was in heavy use during the 1990-2000 era so the software must be incredibly lightweight by today's standards. I don't know what ongoing development has taken place wrt usenet server software.
The clients will all be hopelessly outdated, I imagine WinVN will still run but you probably wouldn't enjoy the experience much.
The big issue would be preventing the server/servers from filling up with AI entities. If you're attracting enough of a userbase to be worth influencing they will creep in unless you somehow find a way to guarantee that all users are real people, and that presents its own problems.
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#19Did something go wrong here? This spam doesn't look hard to filter.
I think it's more that they let it through. Google doesn't care. This is just a cost center for them.
Google cares in as much as it helps facilitate free labor for open source projects they heavily use themselves. I would venture to guess if its critical software to google that google group is going to be nice and tidy and free of spam.
Re: Comp.lang.c is now full of spam
#20This may be due to moderator inaction.
I moderate an Apache project mailing list and the amount of spam it receives on on some days is silly. However thanks to the good work done by the ASF infra team it takes very little effort from ML moderators to keep the spam from reaching subscribers.