In a couple of days, Verizon, one of the big US telecoms, will stop
providing the alt.* newsgroups. So I will be unable to post and read your
messages unless I subscribe to a private newsgroup provider. Back in the
day, the alt.* groups were created to liberate discussion from the
influence
of big providers, known as "hubs". Now they may well die because of a
ridiculous knee-jerk reaction to posturing by New York Attorney-General
Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo's investigations apparently found child-**** on a
small
number of the thousands of alt.* groups.
This may be true, as I know there were a couple of kiddie-**** groups a
few
years ago. The normal reaction would be to remove those groups (as my
indie
ISP in Australia did years ago). Or if you are that worried about illegal
****, carry the alt.* groups, but block the binary attachments.
As a result of these ham-fisted reactions, a huge number of US internet
users will not even know that the alt.* hierarchy even exists. Which is a
shame.
A couple of links which explain the situation in more detail:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.%2A_hierarchy
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-9964895-38.html
http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKN0930574820080611
Yet another step towards stifling the internet as a free forum for
discussion.
Andy
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