Need explanation about Usenet (lemmy.ml)

submitted 3 days ago by foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I found about Usenet and the sort of "hype" relative to it and I wonder some stuff.

Maybe I'm a bit old school but is this process not against the spirit of piracy,

be generous to share
fight against censorship and DCMA takedown
work in a decentralized way

Just wondered it, if someone wants to give his opinion

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[-] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago

In the way of piracy (maybe I missed it but Usenet piracy is new for me)

[-] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 28 points 3 days ago

Yeah, you missed it. It isn't new at all. Piracy on Usenet predates Napster, and as pointed out probably predates the Web.

[-] foremanguy92_@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

I am wrong but you need to use usenet providers to download stuff right? So it's centralized and company based?

[-] wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Yes, that's how Usenet works. Although it is federated.

[-] Clusterfck@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 3 days ago

Replying to this before OP asks.

Usenet is distributed across hundreds (thousands maybe?) of servers. It's centralized in that setting up your own server and getting the same access as joining an existing Usenet server is going to be very difficult (and with Usenet being used for privacy more and more, could be impossible due to admins not trusting a random new person), but in theory one could.

[-] johnwicksdog@aussie.zone 11 points 3 days ago

With modern Usenet there are about 8 or so backbones used for file sharing. Your Usenet provider/server would connect to one or more of these backbones.

Its true Usenet is designed for federation, and in the 80s and 90s it was thousands of servers but today commercial Usenet providers just resell these 8 backbones.

[-] thisusernameistaken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago

There are more than just 8 separate usenet servers that are out there. Many might not carry binaries but that does not define a usenet server. https://top1000.anthologeek.net/top1000.current.txt

[-] johnwicksdog@aussie.zone 1 points 2 days ago

I’m aware. You may have missed that I made that distinction in my first sentence.

[-] WarmApplePieShrek@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 days ago

Usenet has splintered into text and piracy. Text is low volume and many servers can peer with yours for free. Piracy is more centralized, gets spammed like half a petabyte every day, we know that because 99% of "the posts" never get downloaded even once, it's commercial because of the huge storage requirements.

[-] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 24 points 3 days ago

It is not new. I downloaded (copyrighted) porn movies from my ISP's own Usenet servers in the early 90s. On dialup. It was a decentralized, federated service before anybody even knew what decentralization or federation even meant or why they would want it. It was just assumed that everyone would want to run their own Usenet servers because the technologies of the time didn't allow direct, continuous, real-time connection between everybody. Sharing was expensive but running a Usenet server was relatively cheap and was a good way to share all that data to all of an ISP's users at once. It was ALWAYS an option to use it for piracy, and people did.

Nowadays, sharing is cheap, and running Usenet servers is expensive, so almost nobody runs their own Usenet servers, especially not ISPs. But that's not the technology's fault, it's just the way the world has changed. The internet is a very different place now, and we use it in different ways. Usenet, on the other hand, has not changed at all. Only the people using it have changed.