[sf-lug] Suspicious email from LinuxMafia

[Rick Moen]

Bobbie Sellers wrote:

> Eternal September comes highly recommended by many, but it is my
> understanding that it is pay-to-access.

Oh, sorry, I hadn't realised Eternal September is a humourously named
NNTP news server offering.  Sorry, a little slow, here!  ;->

(I really hadn't been hip to what you meant by the reference to
eternal-september.news, at all.  Local newsgroup name, I guess?)

> I have not investigated this myself, because as a Sonic customer, I
> have access to Sonic's server, but it seemingly only carries about
> five weeks' worth of articles in most groups, is reportedly in
> imminent danger of hardware failure with no backup, and is
> administrated by only one guy. Sonic reportedly also has an
> undocumented "supernews" server with more articles in even more dire
> straits, but I have not used it.

All a painfully familiar pattern.  E.g., a super-clueful employee set up
a dedicated innd (InterNetNews, an NNTP daemon program offering
amazingly good research at the expense of fearful wear on hard disks)
ten years ago at the ISP, but he's no longer at the firm and it's still
running because it's completely self-maintaining _but_ nobody has any
idea how to fix it if it breaks.

Supernews is a commercial NNTP news server specialty provider.  Some
ISPs pay for the right of all of their users to get access (or at least,
some ISPs used to, before Usenet became unfashionable).  _Or_,
individual subscribers can always pay for their own individual access.

http://www.supernews.com/

  With 2357 days of binary retention and 4644 days of text retention, we
  offer the most Usenet retention for the best price. Our retention
  updates every day - day by day - to give you complete Usenet access.
  Simply put, Supernews offers the best Usenet value in the world.

Based on reputation, I believe them.  I'm sure it's a quality
experience.  Note 3-day free trial.

Why did Usenet start becoming unfashionable?  A cynic might note that
the Web is a perfect vehicle for shoving advertising down people's
throats, while Usenet very much is not.  The latter requires literacy, 
as well (except for the binary newsgroups, I guess).

-- 
Cheers,                                        "He who hesitates is frost."
Rick Moen                                                 -- Inuit proverb
rick at linuxmafia.com  
McQ!  (4x80)