Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL
| Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups I saw this article today with the following bit:
»news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-99882···nefd.top
"AT&T spokesman Marty Richter told me that the company is going to cease offering the alt.* hierarchy, which include sex-themed newsgroups but also ones such as alt.binaries.pictures.aviation, alt.binaries.drwho.pictures, and alt.binaries.pictures.vehicles. Customers will continue to be able to access third-party Usenet providers.
AT&T's existing policy has been to investigate all complaints of child porn hosted on its servers--and promptly remove any illegal images--within three business days. That will not change. On Thursday, AT&T said it will enter into an agreement with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to consult the group's lists in addition to complaints received from other sources."
Is this really true? Nothing came up on Google News except a mention in some Arizona paper. | |
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Dont Think So
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups I don't see that happening anytime soon but that's just pure speculation on my part. Have you posed this question to Dennis? | |
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graysonf
Premium,MVM
join:1999-07-16
Fort Lauderdale, FL
| On or before 6/28/2008 The attached list of groups were deleted from newsgroups.bellsouth.net. I have not checked since then to see if more have been deleted. | |
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 | Zoder
join:2002-04-16
Miami, FL
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by graysonf  :On or before 6/28/2008 The attached list of groups were deleted from newsgroups.bellsouth.net. I have not checked since then to see if more have been deleted. Well good riddance. I can't imagine why they were kept around this long.
It's complete crap that they are removing the entire hierarchy under the guise of child porn. At least be honest if you don't want to carry Alt.binaries.* anymore. | |
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| | charlie92
join:2005-09-29
Brandon, MS
 ·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups "Dennis" has posted (today July 11, 2008) that Bellsouth is working on an official announcement concerning the axing of the alt. heirarcy. I have already switched news providers.
It is simply a move under the guise of "pornography" to lower costs for AT&T while removing access to many many more legitimate ng's. I often read and post in alt.anti-virus. Why should it be dumped as part of a so-called "porno crusade?'
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DW7000 Pro - G4R 1110Mhz - DI-604 router - 3 Windows XP PC's - Ethernet CAT5 network | |
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leaving ATT
@sbcglobal.net
| Just read this.
In its ruling Tuesday, the federal appeals court concluded that the Child Online Protection Act is unconstitutionally overly broad and vague. The court also ruled that the law violates the First Amendment because filtering technologies and other parental control tools offer a less restrictive way to protect children from inappropriate content online. | |
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| | NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
·Pacific Bell - SBC
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups Except that Andrew Cuomo isn't trying to protect children from access to salacious content, he is trying to prevent everybody else from accessing content involving underage participants in salacious activity. The latter is, in most jurisdictions, a criminal act (the depiction of underage participants engaged in salacious activity).
It is still overly broad, IMHO, to chop all binary groups when so few were problematic. But I don't think the NYAG cares that the ISPs are being overly broad, as long as they include his pet newsgroups in the access denied list.
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum | |
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| | FAQFixer
Premium
join:2004-06-28
Powder Springs, GA
| said by leaving ATT :
Just read this.
In its ruling Tuesday, the federal appeals court concluded that the Child Online Protection Act is unconstitutionally overly broad and vague. The court also ruled that the law violates the First Amendment because filtering technologies and other parental control tools offer a less restrictive way to protect children from inappropriate content online.
The best way to protect your company is to not offer the service at all. You don't worry about any law or court cases because they don't apply to you. Pretty smart huh? | |
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Hayward
K A R - 1 2 0 C
Premium
join:2000-07-13
Key West, FL
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups ANd why woldn't they since without policing, vast majority are illegal. Why should they neet to police that... just do away.
Again the few spoiling things for the many.
There are TONS of CHEAP subscription NEWSGROUP feeds to subscribe to... I see no reason this should be part of ISP service, but for the freeloading 24/7 bloodsuckers.
Most can concede and addition $10/mo or so for all you can eat, and not impact the working of an essentially residential COMMUNICATIONS network, with occasional DL bursts..
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»haywardm.com (Hayward's Key West)
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lnesomdove
@bellsouth.net
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by Hayward :ANd why woldn't they since without policing, vast majority are illegal. Why should they neet to police that... just do away. Again the few spoiling things for the many. There are TONS of CHEAP subscription NEWSGROUP feeds to subscribe to... I see no reason this should be part of ISP service, but for the freeloading 24/7 bloodsuckers. Most can concede and addition $10/mo or so for all you can eat, and not impact the working of an essentially residential COMMUNICATIONS network, with occasional DL bursts.. Regardless of where the traffic comes from, whether it be AT&T's servers or another newsgroup provider, the data is going to flow down the same pipe 'impacting the working of an essentially residential COMMUNICATIONS network'. The only difference is it doesn't begin the journey within AT&T, it starts some place else. The savings to AT&T may be on the servers used for maintaining the service, but I would believe that this particular server or servers are totally separate entities from the rest of what they do. In other words, moving this traffic to another source will have little impact assuming everyone that is currently using this service begins to pay for it elsewhere.
AT&T is losing a possible revenue stream, and in the process, making their existing customer base upset with their knee jerk decision. | |
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mdv921
join:2008-06-26
| This has been posted and reposted on the BS support newsgroup in the last 24 hours and so far Dennis has not made any comment whatsoever. If he continues to not respond then I think it's a done deal. Afterall he made the statement a few days ago, "there are NO changes scheduled for the AT&T/BS newsgroup service". Apparently that schedule was changed quickly.
Of course if it is confirmed a whole crew of people are going to start screaming that "I'm leaving AT&T/BS because of this". That will be fruitless because before long all the ISP's are going to follow suit and get rid of the alt hierarchy or usenet altogether.
May as well bite the bullet and get a premium news service and stay with AT&T/BS. | |
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mdv921
join:2008-06-26
1 edit | This is what Dennis just posted on the support newsgroup to my inquiry. I think the sad face he put at the bottom pretty much says what it is.
"We are working on the legal statement now. It will not be much longer and then everyone will no at the same time."
:-( | |
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mdv921
join:2008-06-26 | As of a few minutes ago the entire alt hierarchy has been deleted from the AT&T/BS servers. Hasta Lavista alt. I'm sure there will be lots of gnashing of teeth by tonight when those who used those groups and work out of the home get home. | |
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| RJ44
join:2001-10-19
Nashville, TN
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by mdv921 :As of a few minutes ago the entire alt hierarchy has been deleted from the AT&T/BS servers. Hasta Lavista alt. I'm sure there will be lots of gnashing of teeth by tonight when those who used those groups and work out of the home get home. Really? I thought I read it was the alt.binaries hierarchy. | |
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| | mdv921
join:2008-06-26
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by RJ44 :said by mdv921 :As of a few minutes ago the entire alt hierarchy has been deleted from the AT&T/BS servers. Hasta Lavista alt. I'm sure there will be lots of gnashing of teeth by tonight when those who used those groups and work out of the home get home. Really? I thought I read it was the alt.binaries hierarchy. Well now you may be right. All my 'alt' groups were binary groups and I didn't bother to check to see if any non-binary groups were gone. I just ass*u*me*d, which I shouldn't have done.
At the rate it's going with bringing up all the headers Giganews still has on their servers, I'll be downloading headers for the next 24 hours straight. | |
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DaveO
join:2001-09-05
Easley, SC | I wish AT&T had never bought Bellsouth. | |
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| mdv921
join:2008-06-26
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by DaveO :I wish AT&T had never bought Bellsouth. You and me both. But, all is not over. I just signed up with Giganews for the Silver Plan for 25 GB/downloads per month for $12.99/mo. That's not that bad and I'll never use 25 GB in a month.
I'll bet the premium news services are smiling broadly today! | |
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| | charlie92
join:2005-09-29
Brandon, MS
·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups Getting 20G/month for $5.95 with Agent Premium News service
at »www.forteinc.com/apn/index.php They have 90 day retention on binaries. It is the same company (Forte) that for literally decades have produced and developed the Agent News / Email client. Now at v 4.2 I have used their news service before and it is very satisfactory.
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DW7000 Pro - G4R 1110Mhz - DI-604 router - 3 Windows XP PC's - Ethernet CAT5 network | |
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Count Zero
MD2Be
Premium
join:2007-01-18
Warner Robins, GA | Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups I can't get my newly created service with forte to work. I can log-in to the account manager, but it times out while downloading the list of newsgroups at alt.binaries.games.xbox heck I don't even want THAT newsgroup. | |
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| | sobepmp
join:2008-07-13
Miami Beach, FL | Tomorrow I'm cancelling my AT&T internet service and Land Line Telephone. I'm switching to Atlantic Broadband. | |
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Kag3musha
@bellsouth.net
| Well I do not download or view kiddy porn, nor do I steal music....but I am now going to change providers.
Yup...after almost eight years with Bellsouth(AT&T) I am going to be changing providers.
I am tired of the "for the children" crowd getting the government to force private enterprise to do their bidding.
There are a TON more groups in the alt.* category than just warez and porn.
Fscking idiots. | |
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| yesse
join:2004-05-09
Debary, FL
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by Kag3musha :
Well I do not download or view kiddy porn, nor do I steal music....but I am now going to change providers.
Yup...after almost eight years with Bellsouth(AT&T) I am going to be changing providers.
I am tired of the "for the children" crowd getting the government to force private enterprise to do their bidding.
There are a TON more groups in the alt.* category than just warez and porn.
Fscking idiots.
Boy have you hit the nail on the head for me with your statement. After almost seven years of service with Bellsouth/AT&T I too will be switching providers. It'll be somewhat of a hassle at first but I would now rather give my money to someone else. Bad move AT&T, very bad. | |
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vilfrard
join:2005-06-22
Fort Lauderdale, FL
| alt.binaries.erotic.children
alt.binaries.erotica.pre-teen
alt.binaries.pictures.amateur.male
alt.binaries.pictures.child
alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica
alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.female
alt.binaries.pictures.child.erotica.male
alt.binaries.pictures.child.starlets
alt.binaries.pictures.children
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.13-17
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.age.13-17
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.lolita
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.bestiality.pre-teen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.child.female
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.early-teen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.early-teens
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.early-teens.firsthair
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.early-teens.hardcore
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female.young.moderated
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.hornyrob
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.incest
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.ll-series
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.lolita
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.mclt
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.preteen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teen.chatter
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pre-teens
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pussy.firsthair
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.pw-series
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.rape.loki
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.young
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.young.orientals
alt.binaries.pictures.kids
alt.binaries.pictures.lolita
alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.fucking
alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.misc
alt.binaries.pictures.young
alt.binaries.pictures.youth
These are not the only groups deleted I can't get any Alt. groups to come up | |
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stomp357
join:2003-04-13
Lake Charles, LA
 ·Suddenlink
| As much as liked my DSL over the years, the only reason I stayed was for the alt.binaries. Now I'm gona test drive cable for a month, and see how the 8Mbit/512kbps service holds up. The last time I had cable was back in 2000, and DSL was way better, so I switched. My brother has had cable since 2000, and his suked for a long time, but until a little over a year ago, his speeds have been pretty solid, even in the afternoons.
If mine is pretty solid, then I'm giving AT&T the boot. Suddenlink doesn't have news service, but you can access the news.lga.highwinds-media.com from Suddenlink the last time I tried at my brother's. Bellsouth/AT&T seems to be blocked from this server. Hopefully Suddenlink will hold up since their 8Mbit service is cheaper than AT&T 6Mbit. | |
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jmontyburns
join:2002-12-17
Nashville, TN
| I just updated newsgroups and all the alt.binaries groups are gone. HOWEVER, in their infinite wisdom, they left all the alt.sex groups, including the alt.sex.pedophilia trees. I use an alternative provider and even they won't carry those. This is just a lame excuse to get rid of the binaries groups. They know full well that most of those groups don't carry the kiddie porn. Wow, they're either incredibly dishonest or incredibly stupid. Probably both. | |
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savetheinternet
@bellsouth.net
| AT&T - the new BS... No Binaries? WTF! I have been a bellsouth customer for over 6 years and can honestly say that everything has been downhill since the AT&T merger. What was the point in breaking them up in the first place?
I can confirm all alt.binaries removed today when just yesterday everything was fine...
Now, thanks to AT&T, Bellsouth really can be abbreviated as BS! | |
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MichaelGA
@bellsouth.net
| Confirming that all binary groups seem gone now.
Seeing as all the binary groups are now gone I may decide to switch ISPs finally. I quite enjoyed browsing through various newsgroups, and quite frankly can't afford to pay a separate fee.
I've been a customer for around 8 years, and they really dropped the ball with this one. | |
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Airwolf7
Premium
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY
·AT&T Southeast
1 edit | This doesn't have anything to do with child porn.
"We are doing it to save the little children." is just a smoke screen for something they want to do that would be unpopular if they told you the true reason so they just tell you this lie to pull at your heart strings.
The only way to deal with these Monsters that do these things to children is to hunt them down and shoot them in the back of the head with a .45 and if you can't sneak up on them then shoot them in the face. No judge, no jury, just shoot them in the head. What if a mistake is made? Collateral Damage. Remember we are doing this to save the little children.
If AT&T/BellSouth gave a shit about child porn they would have made these groups go away a long time ago. It's not like alt.binaries.pictures.lolita.fucking and those like it just popped up one day out of the blue. They have been there for a long time.
They probably received a friendly heads up from the RIAA/MPAA that they are going to start to sue the shit out of newsgroups providers and this is just their way to get out of this mess before the SHTF.
These groups don't want to piss off the big ISPs because the MPAA will want to be licensing movies to AT&T for U-verse and like all pay tv services they will also have many dozens of music channels to listen to so that will cover the RIAA.
Don't believe me? Just hold those thoughts for 6 months from now and see.
I could be wrong, but just wait and see.
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To everybody wanting to run away to another provider.
There is no need to do that because all of the big ISPs will be getting rid of these newsgroups too.
--
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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
"Those who beat swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who don't."
Quotes by Benjamin Franklin. | |
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DeathStarDummies
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups said by Airwolf7 :This doesn't have anything to do with child porn. They probably received a friendly heads up from the RIAA/MPAA that they are going to start to sue the shit out of newsgroups providers and this is just their way to get out of this mess before the SHTF. Bingo! I agree 100%
said by Airwolf7 :To everybody wanting to run away to another provider. There is no need to do that because all of the big ISPs will be getting rid of these newsgroups too. I realize that most other ISPs will be doing the same thing if not already. The reason I stayed with Bellsouth was that they offered free, unlimited, and reliable usenet access. That no longer is the case so I will try out the offer Comcast has been pitching me for the past two years. More than double the speed for the same price per month, if not a bit less. | |
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| | Airwolf7
Premium
join:2004-12-12
Franklin, KY
·AT&T Southeast
| Re: Is AT&T removing alt.* newsgroups AT&T Southeast would have to beat me with a stick to get me to leave my FastAccess DSL Xtreme 6.0 and line powered POTS voice service with real 911 for another provider.
Lives are at stake and I can't do without real phone service and I would put my Xtreme 6.0 up against anything Comcast has to offer from a reliability standpoint and from a speed standpoint below 16Mbps/2Mbps except for the upload side of things, but I don't really care about upload that much. That PowerBoost thing is pretty nice though for little files.
--
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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
"Those who beat swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who don't."
Quotes by Benjamin Franklin. | |
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powerpop
@bellsouth.net
| Wow, that was a surprise to find as I came home from work. Clearly, anyone who remotely thinks this had anything to do with what AT&T says it does is not thinking very hard. Over the years when I've considered switching providers I didn't because of Newsgroup access. Heck, this might be even a better time to not only switch providers, but get rid of my phone service as well.
Bigtime disappointment from a long time customer. | |
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kashikan
@bellsouth.net | Wow. I guess this will be my last month with Bellsouth/ATT DSL. | |
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Digg It
@bellsouth.net
| What's with the "Save the Children" antics? At least be honest with people and tell them the new AT&T is just cutting back on bandwidth to appease the MPAA/RIAA, etc.
I have been reading Digg.com social media every day for the past few years and feel this article needs to make frontpage.
Digg it up to show your support @ »digg.com/tech_news/AT_T_Blocks_e···up_today | |
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mdv921
join:2008-06-26
1 edit | But what are you guys gonna do when the new ISP's you go to get rid of alt groups or usenet altogether? You know they're going to do it eventually. The government is forcing the ISP's hands on this and the ISP's are buckling. And frankly I don't really think that AT&T would care if every customer they had who used the newsgroups up and left. The newsgroup community is quite small as a whole. I rarely find anyone who has internet service who even knows what the newsgroups are. Hell, I've talked to AT&T/BS tech support people in the past who don't even know what newsgroups are.
You may as well stay where you are (if you like the service) and get a 3rd party news service. | |
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See 15 replies to this post |
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rob33
@bellsouth.net
| I've been using Bellsouth/AT&T for quite a while now. this move caught me by surprise, as for some reason I didn't hear about this development. I should have known something like this was going to happen sooner or later. I find it highly ironic that they yanked the entire alt.binaries. group, rather than just filtering out the offending groups. the really bad thing, is that as of 3:10am in the morning 07/12-2008, a newsgroup titled "alt.bianries (It is spelled this way).pictures.teen-starlets" is still active.(this was found browsing the complete newsgroups list.) what a load of BS | |
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Guess I'll be doing all my pirating via BT now. 