HIS.com Status: HIS discontinuing usenet news service

[HIS System Status Updates]

We've operated usenet news servers for the past 17 years, and we've 
finally concluded that the time has come to discontinue this service.

usenet news came into being in the pre-internet era, when networks 
connected with each other intermittently. usenet "newsgroups" became a 
form of bulletin board that supported discussions of thousands of 
topics. When individual networks connected, all articles received from 
other networks were passed along via the new connection, and the 
discussions were propagated around the world. When the internet matured, 
and networks became connected full-time, the usenet model continued, 
with each server picking up all messages offered from other usenet 
servers, and then passing them along to other servers.

The good news was that the technique worked. The bad news was that it 
was incredibly inefficient in terms of bandwidth used, since all servers 
transferred all messages, whether or not any of their own users cared to 
read any of them. The other bad news was that the usenet mechanism was 
abused by pornographers, who used it to distribute images and movies, 
and software pirates, who used it to post their 'warez' for others to 
share. These practices were not only illegal, but phenomenal consumers 
of bandwidth.

Today, most discussions have moved to web-based forums, and usenet has 
increasingly become a wasteland of spam (including/especially porn 
spam). From our point of view, operating usenet servers has used large 
quantities of bandwidth that could be used for more productive purposes, 
and we've been concerned about the porn issue. We long ago deleted the 
most obvious porn groups, but porn spam still pops up everywhere.

Our own customers have mostly moved to web-based forums or email lists, 
and we've watched use of news.his.com diminish steadily, and the number 
of servers exchanging news has also decreased steadily. AOL dropped 
usenet on short notice in 2005, and many other ISPs, universities and 
cable providers have followed suit. As a result, we've decided to shut 
down news.his.com on May 31, 2007.

For those of you who still find usenet useful, there are other options - 
Google offers free access via http://groups.google.com, and Comcast 
cable and Verizon dsl/FIOS customers can access usenet via those providers.

-- 

Paul Heller
ph at his.com