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Usenet: Usenet Newsgroups
built 227 days ago
Usenet is a computerized message system that spans the globe. Similar to a computerized bulletin board but much larger in scope, Usenet (... known as "netnews" or sometimes just "news") has thousands of discussion areas, known as newsgroups, about everything from computers to politics to recipes; thousands of articles are exchanged every day.
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Usenet is divided up into seven major hierarchies, and a plethora of little hierarchies. These can be further classified as being either boring or fun. There is a set of newsgroups for computers (boring), miscellaneous (boring), Usenet news (boring), recreation (fun), science (boring), social (either boring--social issues--or fun--socializing; be careful who you socialize with!), and talking (always fun!).
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Over time, the amount of Usenet traffic has steadily increased. It is important to note... that much of this traffic increase reflects not an increase in discrete users or newsgroup discussions, but instead the combination of massive automated spamming and an increase in the use of .binaries newsgroups in which large files (frequently pornography or pirated media) are often posted publicly. A small sampling of the change (measured in feed size per day) follows:
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Using public newsgroups as described in the last chapter, you can augment a corporate web site with Usenet-style discussion. These site-specific newsgroups work a bit differently from their Usenet counterparts. They can store messages much longer than Usenet newsgroups do—even indefinitely. That persistence creates opportunities to manage the message store as a pool of content that can be advantageously linked into a web site. But this is still a public mode of collaboration, one that ought to appeal to the widest possible audience. It's inappropriate here, as it is inappropriate on the Usenet, to use the full set of capabilities built into the Microsoft/Netscape newsreaders.
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Millions of files of every type are posted to Usenet newsgroups every day. Just like the World Wide Web, Usenet newsgroups contain information on many subjects including technical discussion, personal experiences, heated arguments, controversial articles, and sexually explicit material. Some of the posted material may be offensive or illegal, and some of it may contain copyrighted works of music, art or literature. Since Usenet is a world wide system, material that may be legal to post in one country may be illegal to download in another country.
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News Rover is a Usenet newsreader that features a built-in search engine for finding files in any Usenet newsgroup. Just enter keywords and News Rover will instantly find matching files in any newsgroup. News Rover includes a built-in RAR/PAR processor for handing RAR file posts. News Rover fully supports .nzb descriptor files. News Rover ... has a JPEG picture gallery, iPod/Windows Media Player transfer option, password protection and file encryption for privacy.
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Usenet Newsgroups