• Remember when discussions were worth reading?

    From Tom Mix@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jul 25 17:19:12 2026
    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    --
    Tom Mix

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jul 25 15:06:56 2026
    Tom Mix <tommix@mixmin.net> writes:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Looks really well laid out. Can you share more about it? Is it
    centralized as in it's only available on this website or is there a
    network of websites that share the databases? Is it available over
    other protocols? Are you the sole author?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nuno Silva@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jul 25 23:26:45 2026
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to
    cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P

    --
    Nuno Silva

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Daniel Cerqueira@3:633/10 to All on Sun Jul 26 01:29:12 2026
    Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> writes:
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P
    Same, Nuno.
    --
    The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that
    refuse military service. ~ Albert Einstein


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Ted W.@3:633/10 to All on Sun Jul 26 01:02:25 2026
    On 2026-07-25, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P


    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that
    already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    If I've learned anything over the last 20+ years of modern social media
    it's that they either collapse or live long enough to sell your data.
    Usenet, the original social media platform, has been around since long
    before most Silicon Valley social media founders were born and it will
    remain long after they're gone.

    I'll stick to the original, warts and all.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jul 25 22:43:50 2026
    Daniel Cerqueira <dan.list@lispclub.com> writes:

    Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> writes:

    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to
    cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P

    Same, Nuno.

    I saw Lisp Club on a post header of your article. Are you discussing
    Lisp anywhere on the USENET or anywhere else on the Internet? Please
    share?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Daniel Cerqueira@3:633/10 to All on Sun Jul 26 11:30:17 2026
    Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> writes:

    [...]
    I saw Lisp Club on a post header of your article. Are you discussing
    Lisp anywhere on the USENET or anywhere else on the Internet? Please
    share?
    Thank you for informing me that you have noticed.
    I won't reply to it, because it is a personal question. And clearly
    off-topic here.
    --
    A little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes
    all the difference. ~ Alan Alexander Milne


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Caffeine Canidae@3:633/10 to All on Sun Jul 26 16:43:42 2026
    Ted W. wrote:
    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    If I've learned anything over the last 20+ years of modern social media
    it's that they either collapse or live long enough to sell your data.
    Usenet, the original social media platform, has been around since long
    before most Silicon Valley social media founders were born and it will
    remain long after they're gone.

    I'll stick to the original, warts and all.


    Yeah, I think it's an interesting project but hardly anything that is particularly new by any stretch - and you can already seen in quite alot
    of social media (especially the Reddit and Lemmy-like) the roots of the original social media platform.

    Nothing has ever truly replaced it in its entirety - because it'd only
    be a copy...

    (Collapsing or living long enough to sell data - quite the nihilistic
    way to look at it but hardly unfounded in the modern era)

    --
    - Mokka

    So long, and thanks for all the fish!

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Sun Jul 26 17:28:54 2026
    On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 01:02:25 -0000 (UTC), Ted W. wrote:

    On 2026-07-25, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    [...]

    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    If I've learned anything over the last 20+ years of modern social media
    it's that they either collapse or live long enough to sell your data.
    Usenet, the original social media platform, has been around since long
    before most Silicon Valley social media founders were born and it will
    remain long after they're gone.

    I'll stick to the original, warts and all.

    There is also something to say about just the simplicity. I have run a
    lemmy instance and still find it frustrating that you have to use web
    browsers to utilize the platform. KISS really applies here in that we
    already have protocol standards for discussions and minimal clients with minimal network connectivity required.

    Multimedia is rather over-emphasized on popular disccussion platforms and
    is better served on their own dedicated platforms for their binary types.

    As a side note, I would prefer its own protocol for the different types of media to be consumed (as with NNTP for mainly textual discussion) however, it's a far fetched and not well thought out idea of mine that I wouldn't expect to see ever happening in the wild at any great scale.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Scott Alfter@3:633/10 to All on Tue Jul 28 18:01:18 2026
    In article <1143mb1$1uena$1@xy0.dont-email.me>,
    Ted W. <ted@xy0.dont-email.me> wrote:
    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that >already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    ...and even that isn't exactly new. One iteration of the BBS I ran in the early-to-mid-'90s was on a Linux box with a menu interface implemented as a shell for users. It participated in the local FidoNet, which also had a
    Usenet gateway. I carried some newsgroups (comp.sys.apple2,
    rec.arts.startrek, and probably some others I don't recall), gatewayed
    through FidoNet back into a local NNTP server, and the menu interface was
    set to run trn to read them (the same trn I'm using right now :-) ).

    The FidoNet echoes I also carried were shoehorned into a Usenet-ish
    hierarchy, which sounds like what this Root Badger (?) site is doing.

    --
    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Wed Jul 29 14:33:46 2026
    "Ted W." <usenet@xy0.org> writes:

    On 2026-07-25, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to
    cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P


    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    If I've learned anything over the last 20+ years of modern social media
    it's that they either collapse or live long enough to sell your data.
    Usenet, the original social media platform, has been around since long
    before most Silicon Valley social media founders were born and it will
    remain long after they're gone.

    I'll stick to the original, warts and all.

    I think you're correct or mostly correct. Long live the USENET.

    It was the usenet-like group hierarchy that gave the impression the
    system could be decentralized, which I think would be a good idea.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Wed Jul 29 14:38:11 2026
    Jeffrey Bagely <6cf6e82302@darkc0de.one> writes:

    On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 01:02:25 -0000 (UTC), Ted W. wrote:

    On 2026-07-25, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    [...]

    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that
    already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    If I've learned anything over the last 20+ years of modern social media
    it's that they either collapse or live long enough to sell your data.
    Usenet, the original social media platform, has been around since long
    before most Silicon Valley social media founders were born and it will
    remain long after they're gone.

    I'll stick to the original, warts and all.

    There is also something to say about just the simplicity. I have run a
    lemmy instance and still find it frustrating that you have to use web browsers to utilize the platform. KISS really applies here in that we already have protocol standards for discussions and minimal clients with minimal network connectivity required.

    Multimedia is rather over-emphasized on popular disccussion platforms and
    is better served on their own dedicated platforms for their binary types.

    As a side note, I would prefer its own protocol for the different types of media to be consumed (as with NNTP for mainly textual discussion) however, it's a far fetched and not well thought out idea of mine that I wouldn't expect to see ever happening in the wild at any great scale.

    Can you elaborate on your idea? It seems you're saying that instead of
    using the web, a social network should implement its own multimedia
    protocol? If so, I'd side with you---I agree with the web isn't a very
    good user interface and I also don't know how we could turn a multimedia protocol into a good user interface. When I think of good user
    interface, I always think of text user interfaces, like the one we
    already have.

    Why is that so? I believe computers are not too different from what
    they were in the 70s. We're still using the same software pretty much.
    (Not saying everything is perfect.)

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:633/10 to All on Wed Jul 29 18:59:12 2026
    On 2026-07-29, Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote:

    Can you elaborate on your idea? It seems you're saying that instead of
    using the web, a social network should implement its own multimedia
    protocol? If so, I'd side with you---I agree with the web isn't a very
    good user interface and I also don't know how we could turn a multimedia protocol into a good user interface. When I think of good user
    interface, I always think of text user interfaces, like the one we
    already have.

    Me too - but we're a small minority.

    Why is that so? I believe computers are not too different from what
    they were in the 70s. We're still using the same software pretty much.
    (Not saying everything is perfect.)

    I agree that the lower layers might not have changed much.
    But they're buried under layer after layer of gooey bloatware.

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | In this world there are
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | two kinds of people:
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | 1. Those who can extrapolate
    / \ if you read it the right way. | from incomplete data.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Wed Jul 29 16:13:24 2026
    Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:

    On 2026-07-29, Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote:

    Can you elaborate on your idea? It seems you're saying that instead of
    using the web, a social network should implement its own multimedia
    protocol? If so, I'd side with you---I agree with the web isn't a very
    good user interface and I also don't know how we could turn a multimedia
    protocol into a good user interface. When I think of good user
    interface, I always think of text user interfaces, like the one we
    already have.

    Me too - but we're a small minority.

    Why is that so? I believe computers are not too different from what
    they were in the 70s. We're still using the same software pretty much.
    (Not saying everything is perfect.)

    I agree that the lower layers might not have changed much.
    But they're buried under layer after layer of gooey bloatware.

    Yes. Not being the smart way to use computers, it can't be the future.
    For years I've expected the web to somehow die precisely because of the
    way browsers have been evolving. Complex software is bound to die
    because of the lack of diversity. Look how very few browsers we have.
    Why is that? Because only very rich corporations can build it. And
    maybe now we have a glimpse of the downfall of the web. The so-called
    smart systems producing slop and bots perhaps being responsible for most
    of the web traffic. Maybe that's indeed the end of the web. Rebirth.
    I still think the web as its idealized conception is something we want.
    Just like the USENET is something we want.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From The True Melissa@3:633/10 to All on Thu Jul 30 10:17:24 2026
    Verily, in article <875x1xa9t7.fsf@safunu.org>, did anton@safunu.org
    deliver unto us this message:

    Yes. Not being the smart way to use computers, it can't be the future.
    For years I've expected the web to somehow die precisely because of the
    way browsers have been evolving. Complex software is bound to die
    because of the lack of diversity. Look how very few browsers we have.
    Why is that? Because only very rich corporations can build it. And
    maybe now we have a glimpse of the downfall of the web. The so-called
    smart systems producing slop and bots perhaps being responsible for most
    of the web traffic. Maybe that's indeed the end of the web. Rebirth.
    I still think the web as its idealized conception is something we want.
    Just like the USENET is something we want.

    This is an interesting discussion.

    Perhaps hypertext and document organization should never have been
    combined. I recently rediscovered gopherspace, and to my surprise it's
    not completely dead.

    The current web dissatisfies thinking people. Something else is bound to arise. Maybe it'll be a gopherspace revival or maybe a new thing, but
    the web just isn't cutting it these days.

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.

    --
    The meek shall inherit, we're told,
    But I'm not so easily sold.
    For supposing they should,
    It would do them no good --
    They'd lose it at once to the bold.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Thu Jul 30 12:41:33 2026
    The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.comNOSPAM> writes:

    Verily, in article <875x1xa9t7.fsf@safunu.org>, did anton@safunu.org
    deliver unto us this message:

    Yes. Not being the smart way to use computers, it can't be the future.
    For years I've expected the web to somehow die precisely because of the
    way browsers have been evolving. Complex software is bound to die
    because of the lack of diversity. Look how very few browsers we have.
    Why is that? Because only very rich corporations can build it. And
    maybe now we have a glimpse of the downfall of the web. The so-called
    smart systems producing slop and bots perhaps being responsible for most
    of the web traffic. Maybe that's indeed the end of the web. Rebirth.
    I still think the web as its idealized conception is something we want.
    Just like the USENET is something we want.

    This is an interesting discussion.

    Perhaps hypertext and document organization should never have been
    combined. I recently rediscovered gopherspace, and to my surprise it's
    not completely dead.

    The current web dissatisfies thinking people. Something else is bound to arise. Maybe it'll be a gopherspace revival or maybe a new thing, but
    the web just isn't cutting it these days.

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.

    Exactly. I don't think we could've done anything. They're free to
    destroy. They found a way to make money and so they did. I hesitate to
    say it was completely disastrous because perhaps some good came: a lot
    of us found a way to make a living? In the beginning, we were the only
    ones who knew how to use it and how it worked. I suppose this is the
    same we must do again.

    I'm not so closely in touch with NNTP admins here, but judging from the
    groups hosted by Eternal September, after Google Groups left the USENET,
    things look pretty bright here. Why? Because once again we're left to
    our own devices here. The only sorry thing is that all the experts we
    used to have are really hanging out somewhere else. I wonder if they
    know that the USENET is peaceful once again.

    What I believe is that they just don't want to come back because perhaps
    the USENET is just not disruption-free guaranteed. Perhaps we think now
    we need to really have semi-open groups such as a mailing list or a
    private NNTP server. For example, the Linux kernel people seem to
    prefer a mailing list (for posting) because this way they easily ban any misbehaving member and keep the newbies at bay.

    So that's another question I ask. Is the USENET model the adequate one
    for an Internet-populous world? Maybe we should begin a new network of interlinked private NNTP servers. It doesn't seem that a high-volume
    NNTP group is interesting anyway; that usually means a too high
    noise/content ratio.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From The True Melissa@3:633/10 to All on Thu Jul 30 16:38:26 2026
    Verily, in article <87o6fo7adu.fsf@safunu.org>, did anton@safunu.org
    deliver unto us this message:
    I wonder if they
    know that the USENET is peaceful once again.

    I've been telling a few here and there.

    We also need younger people, if it's to last. The newcomers who interest
    me most are the Zoomers setting up BBSes. GenZ is sick of corporate caca
    and hungry for authenticity, and old tech is helping some of them find
    it.

    What I believe is that they just don't want to come back because perhaps
    the USENET is just not disruption-free guaranteed. Perhaps we think now
    we need to really have semi-open groups such as a mailing list or a
    private NNTP server. For example, the Linux kernel people seem to
    prefer a mailing list (for posting) because this way they easily ban any misbehaving member and keep the newbies at bay.

    It's certainly easier to curate and moderate a mailing list than a
    newsgroup.

    I believe one of the values of Usenet is that the feed includes some
    fools and mischief-makers. Some people are amused by that and read it
    all, some people killfile the anti-social types, and some read only a
    selected few. We have direct and immediate control over our own Usenet
    feeds, unlike forums where we have to ask a mod.


    So that's another question I ask. Is the USENET model the adequate one
    for an Internet-populous world? Maybe we should begin a new network of interlinked private NNTP servers. It doesn't seem that a high-volume
    NNTP group is interesting anyway; that usually means a too high
    noise/content ratio.

    Usenet will never be for everyone. The barrier to entry is too high for
    many.



    --
    The meek shall inherit, we're told,
    But I'm not so easily sold.
    For supposing they should,
    It would do them no good --
    They'd lose it at once to the bold.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Thu Jul 30 20:53:52 2026
    On Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:17:24 -0400, The True Melissa wrote:

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.

    A lot of users of Free Software act very much like sheep.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Theo@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jul 31 12:45:16 2026
    Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote:
    Can you elaborate on your idea? It seems you're saying that instead of
    using the web, a social network should implement its own multimedia
    protocol? If so, I'd side with you---I agree with the web isn't a very
    good user interface and I also don't know how we could turn a multimedia protocol into a good user interface. When I think of good user
    interface, I always think of text user interfaces, like the one we
    already have.

    Why is that so? I believe computers are not too different from what
    they were in the 70s. We're still using the same software pretty much.
    (Not saying everything is perfect.)

    I would argue that what you're referring to can be achieved by separating
    the API from the presentation. eg the API client calls 'get-article' and returns an article. It's up to your client to decide how to present that article. If your client happens to be a website then you get a web UI, if
    your client happens to be on a VT100 then you get a TUI, if the client
    happens to run on iOS then it's an app, etc.

    NNTP is the API for Usenet, ActivityPub is the API for Mastodon and Lemmy, Reddit has its own API (which previously operated like this until they hiked the price for third party clients and killed most of them). How the servers operate behind the API sets how the system behaves as a network (division
    into groups, NNTP flood-fill, ActivityPub federation, moderation etc).

    I'd suggest that any next-generation Usenet:

    1. Considers the separation of backend and frontend via a published API

    2. Considers whether the APIs already out there already fulfill the needs
    over a new protocol.

    eg if you wanted to reimplement Usenet from scratch today perhaps you'd use ActivityPub instead of NNTP, but you could modify it to make a more
    Usenet-like experience.

    Theo

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From jayjwa@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jul 31 12:16:09 2026
    Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

    NNTP is the API for Usenet
    This is incorrect. NNTP is Network News Transfer Protocol, is not an
    API, and isn't technically needed to use usenet. Before NNTP, UUCP
    shuffled articles along. Two systems peered via UUCP over a serial/modem
    link can pass along articles. A PC user can dial-in to such a system and
    pull articles for reading in off-line mode. This was important in the
    time of expensive connections that ran up phone bills and tied up phone
    lines.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol

    --
    PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356 7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
    "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From jayjwa@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jul 31 12:27:38 2026
    The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.comNOSPAM> writes:

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.
    They didn't. People handed them control. People want a curated, safe,
    walled garden consisting of only the pleasant things they want to
    see, not a wild forest full of animals, danger, and trees that they have
    to cut down to build a cabin out of. People, most of them, willingly
    gave up their freedom and agency of will for convenience.

    If you bought Apple or Windows, if you run Ubuntu or whatever Redhat is
    calling itself these days, if you use Google, if you put up with
    Cloudflare's bullshit, if a smartphone is in your hand most of the day,
    if you use social media, if you email people behind Spamhaus, *you*
    helped create this.

    --
    PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356 7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
    "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Scott Lurndal@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jul 31 17:25:22 2026
    jayjwa <jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid> writes:
    Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

    NNTP is the API for Usenet
    This is incorrect. NNTP is Network News Transfer Protocol,

    I beg to differ. NNTP is effectively the API that is used
    by remote clients to access and post usenet articles.

    TCP is the transport for NNTP, while UUCP was the historical
    transport between newservers (the clients were typically local
    and used standard unix system calls as the API to the filesystem).

    is not an
    API, and isn't technically needed to use usenet. Before NNTP, UUCP
    shuffled articles along. Two systems peered via UUCP over a serial/modem
    link can pass along articles.

    Historically speaking, perhaps. Nobody uses UUCP over
    serial for news article transport (even if they could
    get a POTS line, which are less and less avialable).

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From The True Melissa@3:633/10 to All on Sat Aug 1 08:45:43 2026
    Verily, in article <87fr0zp1j9.fsf@atr2.ath.cx>, did jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid deliver unto us this message:

    The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.comNOSPAM> writes:

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.
    They didn't. People handed them control. People want a curated, safe,
    walled garden consisting of only the pleasant things they want to
    see, not a wild forest full of animals, danger, and trees that they have
    to cut down to build a cabin out of. People, most of them, willingly
    gave up their freedom and agency of will for convenience.

    It may seem okay until the owner of the garden does things we don't
    like.

    A whole, whole lot of people are dissatisfied with the current Internet
    of robots and slop. They just don't know what to do about it.


    --
    The meek shall inherit, we're told,
    But I'm not so easily sold.
    For supposing they should,
    It would do them no good --
    They'd lose it at once to the bold.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Kurt Weiske@3:633/10 to jayjwa on Sat Aug 1 07:30:10 2026
    To: jayjwa
    jayjwa wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

    They didn't. People handed them control. People want a curated, safe, walled garden consisting of only the pleasant things they want to
    see, not a wild forest full of animals, danger, and trees that they
    have to cut down to build a cabin out of. People, most of them,
    willingly gave up their freedom and agency of will for convenience.

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your
    company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own mail.

    What's next? :)



    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Win32 NewsLink 1.2
    * realitycheckBBS - Aptos, CA - telnet://realitycheckbbs.org

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 3 21:24:46 2026
    On Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:16:09 -0400, jayjwa wrote:

    Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

    NNTP is the API for Usenet
    This is incorrect. NNTP is Network News Transfer Protocol, is not an
    API, and isn't technically needed to use usenet. Before NNTP, UUCP
    shuffled articles along. Two systems peered via UUCP over a serial/modem
    link can pass along articles. A PC user can dial-in to such a system and
    pull articles for reading in off-line mode. This was important in the
    time of expensive connections that ran up phone bills and tied up phone lines.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_News_Transfer_Protocol

    I would argue that the differences between an ABI, API and Protocol are
    moot at its most bare perspective as they all describe the same kind of behaviour. A form of governance for communications between different
    pieces of software.
    I would say that API is more appropriately used when discussing an
    interface between software modules within the same ecosystem, or the same layer, or the same software stack (HTTP/TCP for example). So lets say
    layer 5-7. While ABI is better utilized for discussing compiling to a
    specific archetectures machine code; Which doesn't really fall anywhere in
    the OSI model. Protocols (as we typically think of them, i.e. sitting on
    top of (TCP/UDP)/IP) on the other hand can be found vaguely above layer 3
    or 4.

    Probably the least descriptive here is actually the term Protocol since it doesn't provide much meaning outside of "a set of rules to behave and interpret with" (in my eyes at least).

    If I had to describe the relationships between them its probably like
    this:

    Maths Incoming:
    -----
    ? ? Protocol
    Protocol ? API
    Protocol ? ABI

    API ? ABI

    ABI ? API
    ABI ? API
    -----

    Regardless, all this was just to say that harping on how a person uses API
    vs Protocol doesn't really matter much

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 3 21:45:15 2026
    On Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:38:26 -0400, The True Melissa wrote:

    Verily, in article <87o6fo7adu.fsf@safunu.org>, did anton@safunu.org
    deliver unto us this message:

    What I believe is that they just don't want to come back because
    perhaps the USENET is just not disruption-free guaranteed.
    [...]
    It's certainly easier to curate and moderate a mailing list than a
    newsgroup.

    I believe one of the values of Usenet is that the feed includes some
    fools and mischief-makers. Some people are amused by that and read it
    all, some people killfile the anti-social types, and some read only a selected few.

    I have to say though, at least on the NNTP server side, moderation tools
    could be modernized and made easier to setup. Its rather a pain with InterNetNews

    We have direct and immediate control over our own Usenet
    feeds, unlike forums where we have to ask a mod.

    This is one of the CRAZIEST comparisions that I never thought about. You
    have given me another reason to dislike those auto-mod bots. They serve to solve a problem that didn't really exist before (except for removing inappropriate content from discussions, for legal reasons, I suppose)

    So that's another question I ask. Is the USENET model the adequate one
    for an Internet-populous world? Maybe we should begin a new network of
    interlinked private NNTP servers. It doesn't seem that a high-volume
    NNTP group is interesting anyway; that usually means a too high
    noise/content ratio.

    Usenet will never be for everyone. The barrier to entry is too high for
    many.

    In a gate keeping kind of way lol, this is kinda nice. Here's what I mean,
    the way we see MS windows and the Web today? Heavily monetized and even
    more spy-like than ever before? It used to be pretty good for an OS and environment. But because they have so many normal every day joe users (and those who had deep pockets) who wanted to make money and raise adoption (presumably so they could make money with it) it lead to a saturation of ideals ranging from technical, to profiteering. Holistic to outright
    depraved (think wikipedia vs online gambling).

    Imagine if Linux was mainstream from the beginning? That windows didn't
    end up with the huge level of market share that aquired in the late 80s
    and early 90s? What would have happened to linux? We even started to see
    this before with it's ancestors from UNIX. The beginnings of the same
    level of closed off nature that has profit in mind.

    I believe that if MS windows didn't take off and USENET was brought to
    modern standards, we wouldn't have the bastions of quality and lovely
    software that we do now. Linux would have been the MS Windows of their alternate timeline and USENET the reddit of their alternate timeline. (Of course this may also mean that they would have a SuperLinux to their MS Windowsified version of Linux which would be equivalent in relationship to
    our version of MS Windows and Linux.

    Phew, that got a little hairy. I hope that made sense.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 3 21:50:04 2026
    On Sat, 1 Aug 2026 08:45:43 -0400, The True Melissa wrote:

    Verily, in article <87fr0zp1j9.fsf@atr2.ath.cx>, did jayjwa@atr2.ath.cx.invalid deliver unto us this message:

    The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.comNOSPAM> writes:

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.
    They didn't. People handed them control. People want a curated, safe,
    walled garden consisting of only the pleasant things they want to see,
    not a wild forest full of animals, danger, and trees that they have to
    cut down to build a cabin out of. People, most of them, willingly gave
    up their freedom and agency of will for convenience.

    It may seem okay until the owner of the garden does things we don't
    like.

    A whole, whole lot of people are dissatisfied with the current Internet
    of robots and slop. They just don't know what to do about it.

    The not knowing what to do about it doesn't bother me, its the fact that
    when you provide some options that are feasible for them (not reasonable
    as that is subjective) that these same people will usually shoot down
    those ideas. Rathering to fawn at the idea of not being able to do
    anything about the state of affairs and (at least in my experience) return
    out of that state with a renewed sense of wanting to stick their head in
    the sand so as to fawn further.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 3 23:02:04 2026
    On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:38:11 -0300, Anton Antimo wrote:

    Jeffrey Bagely <6cf6e82302@darkc0de.one> writes:

    [...]

    There is also something to say about just the simplicity. I have run a
    lemmy instance and still find it frustrating that you have to use web
    browsers to utilize the platform. KISS really applies here in that we
    already have protocol standards for discussions and minimal clients
    with minimal network connectivity required.

    Multimedia is rather over-emphasized on popular disccussion platforms
    and is better served on their own dedicated platforms for their binary
    types.

    As a side note, I would prefer its own protocol for the different types
    of media to be consumed (as with NNTP for mainly textual discussion)
    however,
    it's a far fetched and not well thought out idea of mine that I
    wouldn't expect to see ever happening in the wild at any great scale.

    Can you elaborate on your idea? It seems you're saying that instead of
    using the web, a social network should implement its own multimedia
    protocol? If so, I'd side with you---I agree with the web isn't a very
    good user interface and I also don't know how we could turn a multimedia protocol into a good user interface. When I think of good user
    interface, I always think of text user interfaces, like the one we
    already have.

    Why is that so? I believe computers are not too different from what
    they were in the 70s. We're still using the same software pretty much.
    (Not saying everything is perfect.)

    I mean, its more than possible. We don't really have to dwell on how that implementation would actually occur since this is just hypothetical but we
    for sure have more than enough examples of very good interfaces built
    around a single protocol or tool. The first one that comes to mind is git. They have things that visualize the git history over time in a really cool
    way like gource. They also have more typical graphical interfaces for git,
    vim integration, shell integration, web integration, emacs integration and plain old command line.

    The question of tying all the pieces together into a nice interface is up
    to the application developers.

    What I really am trying to get across above however is that the
    fundamental separation between data provenance, data presentation and data communication should be fully present. I think the best way to illistrate
    this is via an example.

    Current Day:

    You have a forum site that on the main landing page you have ads posted, videos auto playing and *linked* images automatically being loaded,
    infinite scrolling and click tracking. All of this being implemented on
    top of an HTTP/TCP stack.

    You point your web browser at it and you either get all of the features or none of them. The site determines what your computer does and what it
    doesn't

    This is a problem for many reasons that I will get into later.



    My Theoretical Ideal:

    You have a forum site or video sharing site or a government web page. When connecting you are provided with a basic HTML/HTTP style page that can be
    made to look pretty by your browser. No autoplaying anything, no
    autoloaded images, no javascript. You get just what you asked for and no
    more. If you just wanted the text of the web page then you already have it
    by accessing the site. You want to watch a video or a live stream? Follow
    this rtmp:// or "video://" link of which you can either download in full
    or live stream the video. You want to look at a photo gallery? Here is a
    list of images that you can set in your client to either fully fetch and display automatically via the photo:// links or let you manually select
    them as you please.

    Here I am assuming the video:// would be a static file on the webserver
    and that the "video" protocol has the ability to seek and livestream
    (protocol features) rather than just file transfer (despite modern
    browsers being capable of client side streaming of static mp4s served as
    files from HTTP servers).

    My Point:

    Regardless, this just seems like an idea that is a gopher or gemini
    protocol clone and derived from that ethos. And in a way, it is. But the
    idea of having separate protocols for the different "types" of data that
    you may wish to host brings the following benefits:

    1. You have less protocol overhead as the transfer protocol is specialized
    for that type of media, instead of using a protocol layered on top of the network that involves special parsing and additional considerations by
    each layer. Example being HLS and binary transfer in HTTP

    2. You have an easier time as a software client user and as a software
    client developer defining controls for the type of content you wish to
    view and whether you want it to be manually interacted with or
    automatically fetched.

    2b. This directly helps with the issues of dealing with things like JS where essentially you are running other people's served code, which can
    cause you to, lets say, auto play videos and auto fetch images despite you having those settings set to false. Avoiding so called jailbreaks

    4. It encourages a full applicatio suite. Much like the UNIX philosophy of
    one thing done well, you can have a separation of tools and separation of concerns for each developer.

    3. It provides for simpler specifications due to limited scope. One HUGE problem with HTML and HTTP is that their specifications are HUGE and
    forever changing. For example, HTML (SGML derived) is permissible to have non-well-formed documents. i.e. unclosed tags such as '<p>' '<br>' and
    many more. While in that same exact specification they have XHTML (XML Derived, now simply called HTML as they are no longer delineated in the
    spec) which *IS* well formed. HTTP also has for a while had the capability
    to do live streaming, overtaking traditional streaming control protocols
    such as rtsp, rtmp and rts (I know that some of these are hypertext
    oriented protocols, they are built for a specific purpose none-the-less). There are some good reasons for HLS vs rtsp, rtmp, etc... Originating from
    the way it plays nicely with CDNs (HLS is file based streaming in
    typically 0.5-2 second chunks) but I honestly have to think that similar benefits could be derived from the same level of trickery pulled to make
    HLS happen in just making a CDN friendly streaming protocol. Completely removing the HTTP stack and wackiness that way.

    3a. This also, I think, would make writing specifications that could be
    used universally much easier, rather than a lazy de facto standard that emerges from organizations developing for use cases individually and then sharing that with (or copying from) other orgs. Or even worse, only for a single platform/application, which leads every website to be a PWA that requires JS.



    Conclusion:

    Ultimately, I would want the media specific protocols for to simplfy and
    make the internet much more intentional and privacy respecting in nature. Screw algorithms, screw proprietary content delivery stacks and stop
    expecting me to run other people's shady code to view what could be
    summerized in a notepad.exe document (my fave cookie recipe).

    I think that we have enough going over HTTP. And for business/life
    critical tasks such as banking, there are very much correct ways to handle their communications that SHOULD be standardized in their own protocols
    using encryption and the like. Not left up to some web dev to figure out during their 8hr shift only for it to probably be implemented wrong. And
    if implemented correctly, only for that one bank.

    Removing the oppourtunity for error and distributing the control of media consumption and program execution is paramount to freedom of discussion
    and internet security. As a side note, the fact that I can get served zero cliekc malware through AD networks is just insane to me, I can't even
    support my favorite creators without worrying about my security! (This
    issue could be averted completely with server side AD code, but easily
    blocked :) )


    Post Script.

    As another side note. I think that one thing the entirety of the global network really really forgets is that separation of concerns does not
    simply stop at the hardware/infrastructure level. Neither does the UNIX philosophy stop where it seems to end. Instead, separation of concerns,
    trust and function are at the core values of the whole computing machine
    and it networking. Simply those platforms that most use don't take this approach. Its the minimal viable product, the path of least resistence and highest profit. Feature creep over expert execution. It just hurts my soul

    Post Post Script.

    I honestly think that ultimately what I have proposed would do a lot of
    good for the main use case that people use the internet for now, communication/entertainment (this has been kinda blurred in recent
    decades) and would prevent a lot of vendor/application lock in that we
    have seen with web browsers and word processors. It would just rely on
    people actually wanting to retain that type of computing environment once
    they realize what they have and could lose.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 3 21:59:53 2026
    "Kurt Weiske" <kurt.weiske@realitycheckbbs.org.remove-3f9-this> writes:

    To: jayjwa
    jayjwa wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

    They didn't. People handed them control. People want a curated, safe, walled garden consisting of only the pleasant things they want to
    see, not a wild forest full of animals, danger, and trees that they
    have to cut down to build a cabin out of. People, most of them,
    willingly gave up their freedom and agency of will for convenience.

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your
    company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own mail.

    Those days are still here.

    What's next? :)

    Your call. :)

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Ames@3:633/10 to All on Tue Aug 4 08:29:35 2026
    On Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:59:53 -0300
    Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote:

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own
    mail.

    Those days are still here.

    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block
    all but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still
    100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you
    please. (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much
    every browser has reasonable CSS support.)


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 02:54:47 2026
    On Tue, 4 Aug 2026 08:29:35 -0700, John Ames wrote:

    On Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:59:53 -0300 Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org>
    wrote:

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your
    company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own mail.

    Those days are still here.

    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block all
    but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still 100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you please.
    (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much every
    browser has reasonable CSS support.)

    What is even worse is that major VPS providers and ISPs block outbound
    port 25 (SMTP) and the encrypted port (don't care to look it up). Its
    quite evil.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Bob Eager@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 09:36:01 2026
    On Tue, 04 Aug 2026 08:29:35 -0700, John Ames wrote:

    On Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:59:53 -0300 Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org>
    wrote:

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your
    company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own mail.

    Those days are still here.

    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block all
    but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still 100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you please.
    (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much every
    browser has reasonable CSS support.)

    I have no trouble with mail hosting (I have a cooperative ISP).

    Web hosting - I only do that for low volume stuff, but some providers
    refuse access to it.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From jayjwa@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 10:31:57 2026
    Jeffrey Bagely <6cf6e82302@darkc0de.one> writes:

    What is even worse is that major VPS providers and ISPs block outbound
    port 25 (SMTP) and the encrypted port (don't care to look it up). Its
    quite evil.

    Not all of them. They block Windows smb/nmb stuff (on ipv4 only) here
    but that's all. I could double my speeds down and match on up if I move
    to another company that is doing fiber but I don't - for this reason and
    the fact that they do ipv6 with prefix delegation. The fiber is CGNAT'd
    and that's a deal-breaker for me.

    --
    PGP Key ID: 781C A3E2 C6ED 70A6 B356 7AF5 B510 542E D460 5CAE
    "The Internet should always be the Wild West!"

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Ames@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 08:36:33 2026
    On 5 Aug 2026 09:36:01 GMT
    Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> wrote:

    I have no trouble with mail hosting (I have a cooperative ISP).

    Getting the ISP to allow outbound is one thing. The larger problem as
    I've seen it is that Major Players (Google, f'rexample) are perfectly
    happy to take a you're-not-on-The-List-sir approach to actual delivery; nominally for spam control, but it's mighty convenient that this makes
    smaller players in the space effectively second-class citizens.

    (F'rexample, I'm on a mailing list that GMail has simply stopped taking messages from; it's a bog-standard MailMan list as people have been
    running since the late Paleolithic, but for some reason messages won't
    come through no matter what I do. Don't even show up in my spam folder,
    just go straight to dev/null. Actually had to open an account with a
    small provider to receive them.)


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 12:47:59 2026
    Jeffrey Bagely <6cf6e82302@darkc0de.one> writes:

    On Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:38:11 -0300, Anton Antimo wrote:

    Jeffrey Bagely <6cf6e82302@darkc0de.one> writes:

    [...]

    There is also something to say about just the simplicity. I have run a
    lemmy instance and still find it frustrating that you have to use web
    browsers to utilize the platform. KISS really applies here in that we
    already have protocol standards for discussions and minimal clients
    with minimal network connectivity required.

    Multimedia is rather over-emphasized on popular disccussion platforms
    and is better served on their own dedicated platforms for their binary
    types.

    As a side note, I would prefer its own protocol for the different
    types of media to be consumed (as with NNTP for mainly textual
    discussion) however, it's a far fetched and not well thought out
    idea of mine that I wouldn't expect to see ever happening in the
    wild at any great scale.

    Can you elaborate on your idea? It seems you're saying that instead of
    using the web, a social network should implement its own multimedia
    protocol? If so, I'd side with you---I agree with the web isn't a very
    good user interface and I also don't know how we could turn a multimedia
    protocol into a good user interface. When I think of good user
    interface, I always think of text user interfaces, like the one we
    already have.

    Why is that so? I believe computers are not too different from what
    they were in the 70s. We're still using the same software pretty much.
    (Not saying everything is perfect.)

    I mean, its more than possible. We don't really have to dwell on how that implementation would actually occur since this is just hypothetical but we for sure have more than enough examples of very good interfaces built
    around a single protocol or tool. The first one that comes to mind is git. They have things that visualize the git history over time in a really cool way like gource. They also have more typical graphical interfaces for git, vim integration, shell integration, web integration, emacs integration and plain old command line.

    The question of tying all the pieces together into a nice interface is up
    to the application developers.

    What I really am trying to get across above however is that the
    fundamental separation between data provenance, data presentation and data communication should be fully present. I think the best way to illistrate this is via an example.

    Current Day:

    You have a forum site that on the main landing page you have ads posted, videos auto playing and *linked* images automatically being loaded,
    infinite scrolling and click tracking. All of this being implemented on
    top of an HTTP/TCP stack.

    You point your web browser at it and you either get all of the features or none of them. The site determines what your computer does and what it doesn't

    This is a problem for many reasons that I will get into later.

    My Theoretical Ideal:

    You have a forum site or video sharing site or a government web page. When connecting you are provided with a basic HTML/HTTP style page that can be made to look pretty by your browser. No autoplaying anything, no
    autoloaded images, no javascript. You get just what you asked for and no more. If you just wanted the text of the web page then you already have it by accessing the site. You want to watch a video or a live stream? Follow this rtmp:// or "video://" link of which you can either download in full
    or live stream the video. You want to look at a photo gallery? Here is a list of images that you can set in your client to either fully fetch and display automatically via the photo:// links or let you manually select
    them as you please.

    Here I am assuming the video:// would be a static file on the webserver
    and that the "video" protocol has the ability to seek and livestream (protocol features) rather than just file transfer (despite modern
    browsers being capable of client side streaming of static mp4s served as files from HTTP servers).

    My Point:

    Regardless, this just seems like an idea that is a gopher or gemini
    protocol clone and derived from that ethos. And in a way, it is. But the idea of having separate protocols for the different "types" of data that
    you may wish to host brings the following benefits:

    1. You have less protocol overhead as the transfer protocol is specialized for that type of media, instead of using a protocol layered on top of the network that involves special parsing and additional considerations by
    each layer. Example being HLS and binary transfer in HTTP

    2. You have an easier time as a software client user and as a software client developer defining controls for the type of content you wish to
    view and whether you want it to be manually interacted with or
    automatically fetched.

    2b. This directly helps with the issues of dealing with things like JS where essentially you are running other people's served code, which can cause you to, lets say, auto play videos and auto fetch images despite you having those settings set to false. Avoiding so called jailbreaks

    4. It encourages a full applicatio suite. Much like the UNIX philosophy of one thing done well, you can have a separation of tools and separation of concerns for each developer.

    3. It provides for simpler specifications due to limited scope. One HUGE problem with HTML and HTTP is that their specifications are HUGE and
    forever changing. For example, HTML (SGML derived) is permissible to have non-well-formed documents. i.e. unclosed tags such as '<p>' '<br>' and
    many more. While in that same exact specification they have XHTML (XML Derived, now simply called HTML as they are no longer delineated in the spec) which *IS* well formed. HTTP also has for a while had the capability to do live streaming, overtaking traditional streaming control protocols such as rtsp, rtmp and rts (I know that some of these are hypertext
    oriented protocols, they are built for a specific purpose none-the-less). There are some good reasons for HLS vs rtsp, rtmp, etc... Originating from the way it plays nicely with CDNs (HLS is file based streaming in
    typically 0.5-2 second chunks) but I honestly have to think that similar benefits could be derived from the same level of trickery pulled to make
    HLS happen in just making a CDN friendly streaming protocol. Completely removing the HTTP stack and wackiness that way.

    3a. This also, I think, would make writing specifications that could be
    used universally much easier, rather than a lazy de facto standard that emerges from organizations developing for use cases individually and then sharing that with (or copying from) other orgs. Or even worse, only for a single platform/application, which leads every website to be a PWA that requires JS.

    Conclusion:

    Ultimately, I would want the media specific protocols for to simplfy and make the internet much more intentional and privacy respecting in nature. Screw algorithms, screw proprietary content delivery stacks and stop expecting me to run other people's shady code to view what could be summerized in a notepad.exe document (my fave cookie recipe).

    I think that we have enough going over HTTP. And for business/life
    critical tasks such as banking, there are very much correct ways to handle their communications that SHOULD be standardized in their own protocols using encryption and the like. Not left up to some web dev to figure out during their 8hr shift only for it to probably be implemented wrong. And
    if implemented correctly, only for that one bank.

    Removing the oppourtunity for error and distributing the control of media consumption and program execution is paramount to freedom of discussion
    and internet security. As a side note, the fact that I can get served zero cliekc malware through AD networks is just insane to me, I can't even support my favorite creators without worrying about my security! (This
    issue could be averted completely with server side AD code, but easily blocked :) )


    Post Script.

    As another side note. I think that one thing the entirety of the global network really really forgets is that separation of concerns does not
    simply stop at the hardware/infrastructure level. Neither does the UNIX philosophy stop where it seems to end. Instead, separation of concerns, trust and function are at the core values of the whole computing machine
    and it networking. Simply those platforms that most use don't take this approach. Its the minimal viable product, the path of least resistence and highest profit. Feature creep over expert execution. It just hurts my soul

    Post Post Script.

    I honestly think that ultimately what I have proposed would do a lot of
    good for the main use case that people use the internet for now, communication/entertainment (this has been kinda blurred in recent
    decades) and would prevent a lot of vendor/application lock in that we
    have seen with web browsers and word processors. It would just rely on people actually wanting to retain that type of computing environment once they realize what they have and could lose.

    Thanks for the through presentation. Your ideas are what makes sense to
    me; it is the lack of such properties in the current web and web
    browsing that makes me think they will not survive down the road. In
    the end, it is really the best design that survives. (Yes, Common Lisp
    is still an island, but the story is not over yet. Things don't evolve
    as fast as the expert would like to see.)

    Not to criticize your ideas, but just to add the comment that I still
    can't see a new-revolutionary idea. The current difficulty that we face
    at the current web seems to be how to move it from where it is to this doug-mcilroy-do-one-thing-and-do-it-well design. The obvious thing /to
    me/ is the need for a new type of web browser. Things hardly ever are
    born more powerful than the current in-use tool, but it has to be cool
    enough to encourage people to use it. Without a New Browser (whatever
    it would be), users will not take it on and so web developers will not
    care about it. I was happy to see the birth of the Gemini protocol, but
    it's unclear it is it.

    One my current hopes is the so-called ai-slop. Perhaps it will destroy
    the web so badly that it will bury the web browser, allowing new ideas
    to emerge.

    I feel we may be at an exciting moment. In the beginning, the
    excitement was the void, the unknown that was ahead of the hacker's
    work. Now the void may be here again, but in the form of nonsense.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Bob Eager@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 20:16:25 2026
    On Wed, 05 Aug 2026 08:36:33 -0700, John Ames wrote:

    On 5 Aug 2026 09:36:01 GMT Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> wrote:

    I have no trouble with mail hosting (I have a cooperative ISP).

    Getting the ISP to allow outbound is one thing. The larger problem as
    I've seen it is that Major Players (Google, f'rexample) are perfectly
    happy to take a you're-not-on-The-List-sir approach to actual delivery; nominally for spam control, but it's mighty convenient that this makes smaller players in the space effectively second-class citizens.

    (F'rexample, I'm on a mailing list that GMail has simply stopped taking messages from; it's a bog-standard MailMan list as people have been
    running since the late Paleolithic, but for some reason messages won't
    come through no matter what I do. Don't even show up in my spam folder,
    just go straight to dev/null. Actually had to open an account with a
    small provider to receive them.)

    I run several Mailman lists, and a lot of subscribers have gmail
    addresses; they are getting messages.

    It may be because my ISP is classed (I guess) as a business ISP.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 21:00:42 2026
    On Wed, 5 Aug 2026 08:36:33 -0700, John Ames wrote:

    On 5 Aug 2026 09:36:01 GMT Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> wrote:

    I have no trouble with mail hosting (I have a cooperative ISP).

    Getting the ISP to allow outbound is one thing. The larger problem as
    I've seen it is that Major Players (Google, f'rexample) are perfectly
    happy to take a you're-not-on-The-List-sir approach to actual delivery; nominally for spam control, but it's mighty convenient that this makes smaller players in the space effectively second-class citizens.

    (F'rexample, I'm on a mailing list that GMail has simply stopped taking messages from; it's a bog-standard MailMan list as people have been
    running since the late Paleolithic, but for some reason messages won't
    come through no matter what I do. Don't even show up in my spam folder,
    just go straight to dev/null. Actually had to open an account with a
    small provider to receive them.)

    This is because the IP needs to whitelisted on one of the major
    whitelisting services like https://www.whitelisted.org and then you have
    to set up all the SPF, DKIM and DMARC stuff in the correct way. *THEN* you gotta warm up the domain since new domains arriving to these providers
    like GMail just get sent to spam half the time. With whitelisting your MX
    box its about 50/50 your mail gets sent to spam, without its 100%

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 21:48:41 2026
    On Wed, 05 Aug 2026 12:47:59 -0300, Anton Antimo wrote:

    Thanks for the through presentation. Your ideas are what makes sense to
    me; it is the lack of such properties in the current web and web
    browsing that makes me think they will not survive down the road. In
    the end, it is really the best design that survives. (Yes, Common Lisp
    is still an island, but the story is not over yet. Things don't evolve
    as fast as the expert would like to see.)

    Agreed. In my opinion it really is a battle of what dimension of design
    wins out over the other however. Which one of the design priorities
    ultimately trump the other? Is it cost/profitabliity? Is it fundamental resilience? Or a natural ephermrality that ultimately leads to the 'best' design.

    That is more exitential question that humanity answers as a whole
    collective in a type of consensus ultimately; which is most accurately
    defined when smoothed out over time (in effect) which dilutes the
    influences of single actors imposed on a whole populace (the "ruling
    elite" or the technocracy).

    Not to criticize your ideas, but just to add the comment that I still
    can't see a new-revolutionary idea. The current difficulty that we face
    at the current web seems to be how to move it from where it is to this doug-mcilroy-do-one-thing-and-do-it-well design. The obvious thing /to
    me/ is the need for a new type of web browser. Things hardly ever are
    born more powerful than the current in-use tool, but it has to be cool
    enough to encourage people to use it. Without a New Browser (whatever
    it would be), users will not take it on and so web developers will not
    care about it. I was happy to see the birth of the Gemini protocol, but
    it's unclear it is it.

    This is true, but perhaps new ideas aren't always necessary. Instead it is
    the perception of existing conceptual architectures and frameworks, or it
    is a generallack of understanding of the impact in the differences between conceptually similar designs.

    A good example for me is pondering over the difference between E-Mail vs
    NNTP. Excluding topics of encryption and privacy (as those are deep dives
    in of themselves regarding originally crypto-unaware protocols) we can
    take a look a the simple difference between the push and pull nature of message transference, or the ability to select who you federate with, a
    deny by default vs allow by default policy.

    These small differences have profound deep cutting implications in how
    users interact and respond to each style of communication.

    My point is this. No, I don't have any completely new ideas to really
    bring to the table, but I think that people tend to summerize too quickly
    and generalize/abstract/relate-closely (a bit too closely mind you)
    existing ideas into groups. All while not giving pre-existing ideas the
    credit for having survived so long and digging into the deepest depths of nuance that even for those who are technically or philosophically inclined tend to overlook or dismiss.

    For those who speak multiple langauges this analogy may help. French,
    Spanish, Portugese and much of English are derived from Latin and share a
    lot of their ancestry with the Roman language. It would be fair to group
    and describe these languages as single group, the romance languages.
    However, I would say that if you asked one native individual for each
    langauge and have them interact with one of another language, having them discuss the difference in interpretation and meaning (emotive and logical)
    of a phase, idiom, or a descriptive essay (provided to each in their respective native langauges, translated to preserve as much meaning and emotion as possible) they would find very quickly and clearly find the differences between how one interprets their similar language vs the
    other.

    This is also something that I believe behavioral science has also studied quite extensively (though I have no sources). The effect of language on
    one's interpretation and perception of the world. To those native each
    word has a specific impact special to that language and to the people that speak it, to those who share a similar language (but not the same
    language) will find different impact/meaning in that same pharse spoken in theirs. And from an outsider it appears they simply say the same thing
    with no difference in meaning.

    So, to return from this tangential thought train, I think it is actually better to see how existing ideas being refined, or slightly redefined, may actually provide greater value than trying to find a whole new solution to begin with (IMO this encourages radical deviation from what is expected
    since it is percieved as new and a plausible, yet underdeveloped
    solution).

    One my current hopes is the so-called ai-slop. Perhaps it will destroy
    the web so badly that it will bury the web browser, allowing new ideas
    to emerge.

    This fits well with the, you don't know what you had before it's gone. The internet was great for a good while. Then the enshitification happened, corporations started to centralize attention and drain a user's ability to understand the computing environment they live in under the promise of convenience and "making it better".

    I feel we may be at an exciting moment. In the beginning, the
    excitement was the void, the unknown that was ahead of the hacker's
    work. Now the void may be here again, but in the form of nonsense.

    Remember, the internet has been around for only so long. Humanity has
    never been connected at such a huge scale to such a huge degree ever in
    it's entire existence. We are still in the wild west of the hyper
    connected world, despite the maturity it seems to have gathered in the
    past two, almost three decades.

    Regardless, I have hope for the future as well. I see those around me
    becoming more aware and intentional about their opinions and actions
    regarding technology. It's becoming important (dare I say cool?) to pay attention and be a curator of your online and computing environments.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 18:14:25 2026
    Jeffrey Bagely <6cf6e82302@darkc0de.one> writes:

    On Tue, 4 Aug 2026 08:29:35 -0700, John Ames wrote:

    On Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:59:53 -0300 Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org>
    wrote:

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your
    company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own mail.

    Those days are still here.

    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block all
    but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still 100%
    possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you please.
    (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much every
    browser has reasonable CSS support.)

    What is even worse is that major VPS providers and ISPs block outbound
    port 25 (SMTP) and the encrypted port (don't care to look it up). Its
    quite evil.

    Yeah---that sucks. When I say I host my own email, it means I bought a
    server on the Internet that also creates an PTR-record in their zone.
    Otherwise we can't really run an SMTP.

    But I can't blame the initiative of the creators of SPF, DKIM, DMARC et
    cetera given the status quo of the Internet.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Wed Aug 5 18:12:25 2026
    John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> writes:

    On Mon, 03 Aug 2026 21:59:53 -0300
    Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote:

    I miss those days of hand-hacking web sites, stashing a box in your
    company's server room to serve web pages, and hosting your own
    mail.

    Those days are still here.

    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block
    all but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still
    100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you
    please. (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much
    every browser has reasonable CSS support.)


    And a simple website is easily generated by the Smart Systems.

    Speaking of them, I think they would make the setting up of a new SMTP
    for a home user a lot easier as well---if one is the hacker-type. I
    never tried them for that, but I have a feeling they would be very
    helpful.

    I've set up a wonderful qmail server that implements DKIM and DMARC.
    But before I did it, I felt frustrated with the very idea you're
    presenting here---that it's become non-trivial. Someone on Hacker News
    said goodbye to hosting his own SMTP after so many X years. I initially believed it was going to be hopeless. In the end, I realized that there
    are so many more users on Gmail than on Hotmail. It turns out Gmail
    doesn't give us a lot of trouble if you implement SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
    As a result, I'm a very happy qmail sysadmin and email user.

    But I can't email my (one) friend on Hotmail because Hotmail has banned
    the IP address I currently use, though this IP address is not present in
    any other famous SMTP blacklist out there that I know of.

    I think I like SPF and DKIM. I can't say I care about DMARC.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Thu Aug 6 03:27:57 2026
    On Wed, 05 Aug 2026 18:12:25 -0300, Anton Antimo wrote:

    It turns out Gmail doesn't give us a lot of trouble if you implement
    SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

    I put SPF on my domain, and GMail doesn?t seem to give me trouble.

    What *does* give me trouble is ProofPoint. I have dealt with one or
    two organizations that divert their incoming mail through that, and it
    refuses to accept messages from my VPS, unless I sign up on their
    website or something.

    Then there?s this large company that a client of mine occasionally has
    to deal with, that diverts its incoming mail through Mimecast into
    Outlook.com. But the SPF for my client?s domain does not include
    Mimecast among the permitted senders, so Outlook.com rejects it.

    It?s their configuration screwup, not the fault of my client. (No, I
    don?t see why we need to include Mimecast among the permitted senders
    -- they have nothing to do with us.)

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nuno Silva@3:633/10 to All on Thu Aug 6 09:27:17 2026
    Subject: Electronic mail deliverability (was: Re: Remember when discussions were worth reading?)

    On 2026-08-05, John Ames wrote:

    On 5 Aug 2026 09:36:01 GMT
    Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> wrote:

    I have no trouble with mail hosting (I have a cooperative ISP).

    Getting the ISP to allow outbound is one thing. The larger problem as
    I've seen it is that Major Players (Google, f'rexample) are perfectly
    happy to take a you're-not-on-The-List-sir approach to actual delivery; nominally for spam control, but it's mighty convenient that this makes smaller players in the space effectively second-class citizens.

    (F'rexample, I'm on a mailing list that GMail has simply stopped taking messages from; it's a bog-standard MailMan list as people have been
    running since the late Paleolithic, but for some reason messages won't
    come through no matter what I do. Don't even show up in my spam folder,
    just go straight to dev/null. Actually had to open an account with a
    small provider to receive them.)

    What will more likely become the case is that you'll need at least one
    account with "Major Players" with a mailbox, and a mail address and
    mailbox outside of said players, so that you're reachable and can reach
    both sides of the schism.

    Also, beware that Microsoft is especially evil regarding e-mail
    delivery. If you're delivering or sending to somebody whose domain has
    MX handled by Microsoft (local hosting also included in this, if it uses Exchange Online Protection - I literally mean the MX record pointing to Microsoft), it's better to cautiously assume it will not be delivered.

    I need to get together a concise list of URLs I can append to a message
    to summarize the Microsoft situation. Here's one:

    <https://www.nerd-quickies.net/2020/10/20/microsoft-silently-dropping-emails-a-sad-but-true-story/>

    AFAIK, there are four possible outcomes when a message is accepted by Microsoft:

    1) Message accepted for delivery and dropped by SmartScreen???;

    2) Message accepted for delivery and put in the "Quarantine", which must
    be checked separately and may still not allow access to quarantined
    content depending on organisation rules;

    3) Message accepted for delivery but put into the Junk/Spam folder;

    4) Message reaches the intended inbox.

    A key problem is that, unless you're aware, you may think that only 3)
    and 4) are possible.

    --
    Nuno Silva

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Bob Eager@3:633/10 to All on Thu Aug 6 09:37:15 2026
    Subject: Re: Electronic mail deliverability (was: Re: Remember when discussions were worth reading?)

    On Thu, 06 Aug 2026 09:27:17 +0100, Nuno Silva wrote:

    What will more likely become the case is that you'll need at least one account with "Major Players" with a mailbox, and a mail address and
    mailbox outside of said players, so that you're reachable and can reach
    both sides of the schism.

    Also, beware that Microsoft is especially evil regarding e-mail
    delivery. If you're delivering or sending to somebody whose domain has
    MX handled by Microsoft (local hosting also included in this, if it uses Exchange Online Protection - I literally mean the MX record pointing to Microsoft), it's better to cautiously assume it will not be delivered.

    At the moment:

    - my mail server is local to me (it's 2 metres to my right as I type)
    - it's with a commercial ISP who make no restrictions on port usage
    - I have full SPF/DKIM/DMARC set up for the server
    - I control the MX (I run the DNS server too)

    I'll probably still get screwed at some point.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Bud Frede@3:633/10 to All on Thu Aug 6 14:02:25 2026
    Daniel Cerqueira <dan.list@lispclub.com> writes:

    Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> writes:


    [...]

    I saw Lisp Club on a post header of your article. Are you discussing
    Lisp anywhere on the USENET or anywhere else on the Internet? Please
    share?

    Thank you for informing me that you have noticed.

    I won't reply to it, because it is a personal question. And clearly off-topic here.

    LISP is old enough to be topical in this newsfroup.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Jeffrey Bagely@3:633/10 to All on Thu Aug 6 20:55:15 2026

    I won't reply to it, because it is a personal question. And clearly
    off-topic here.

    LISP is old enough to be topical in this newsfroup.

    Oh how time flys

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Scott Alfter@3:633/10 to All on Fri Aug 7 21:23:38 2026
    In article <87mrv0s24m.fsf@safunu.org>, Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote: >But I can't email my (one) friend on Hotmail because Hotmail has banned
    the IP address I currently use, though this IP address is not present in
    any other famous SMTP blacklist out there that I know of.

    Where is your mail server located? Mine was (at the time) on a Linode VPS. The scammers at UCEProtect have blacklisted Linode's entire IP address
    range, just because they're assholes like that.

    I only noticed this was a problem when I was trying to send mail to someone
    I know IRL who has an email address through one of Microsoft's services
    (don't recall if it was Hotmail or Outlook.com). For some inexplicable
    reason, Microsoft had configured its mail servers to use UCEProtect.

    I filed a ticket at Linode. Linode contacted Microsoft. Within a day or
    two, the problem was resolved and the mail started going through.

    (I ended up moving that VPS to Server Optima...more disk and RAM at a lower price. That said, I still have other services at Linode and wouldn't
    hesitate to recommend them.)

    --
    _/_
    / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
    (IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
    \_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lynn Wheeler@3:633/10 to All on Fri Aug 7 16:00:55 2026

    Some of the MIT CTSS/7094 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System
    people went to the 5th flr and MULTICS
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics
    others went to the 4th flr and IBM Cambridge Science Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Scientific_Center

    CTSS RUNOFF
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TYPSET_and_RUNOFF
    was redone for CMS as "SCRIPT"

    One of the 1969 GML (GML tag processing added to SCRIPT, later morphs
    into SGML and HTML) inventors, CSC had originally hired to promote the Scientific Center wide-area network; https://web.archive.org/web/20230402212558/http://www.sgmlsource.com/history/jasis.htm
    Actually, the law office application was the original motivation for the project, something I was allowed to do part-time because of my knowledge
    of the user requirements. My real job was to encourage the staffs of the various scientific centers to make use of the CP-67-based Wide Area
    Network that was centered in Cambridge.

    which becomes RSCs/VNET, used for the internal corporate network (larger
    than arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until sometimed
    mid/late 80s about the time forced to convert SNA/VTAM) ... also used
    for the corporate sponsored univ. BITNET
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BITNET

    ... CSC CP/67 was precursor to VM370. Edson was responsible for CP67
    wide-area network
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edson_Hendricks
    In June 1975, MIT Professor Jerry Saltzer accompanied Hendricks to
    DARPA, where Hendricks described his innovations to the principal
    scientist, Dr. Vinton Cerf. Later that year in September 15-19 of 75,
    Cerf and Hendricks were the only two delegates from the United States,
    to attend a workshop on Data Communications at the International
    Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 2361 Laxenburg Austria where
    again, Hendricks spoke publicly about his innovative design which paved
    the way to the Internet as we know it today.

    SJMerc article about Edson (he passed aug2020) and "IBM'S MISSED
    OPPORTUNITY WITH THE INTERNET" (gone behind paywall but lives free at
    wayback machine) https://web.archive.org/web/20000124004147/http://www1.sjmercury.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg092499.htm
    Also from wayback machine, some additional (IBM missed internet)
    references from Ed's website https://web.archive.org/web/20000115185349/http://www.edh.net/bungle.htm

    2nd half 70s, Ed and I transfer out to SJR on the west coast and I get
    to wander around IBM mainframe datacenters in silicon valley
    ... including TYMSHARE

    TYMSHARE
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
    in Aug1976, started offering their (IBM mainframe) VM370/CMS-based
    computer conferencing, free to the (user group) SHARE organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHARE_(computing)
    archives here:
    http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare

    I cut a deal with TYMSHARE for a monthly tape dump of all VMSHARE files
    for puting up on the internal network and systems. Late 70s and early
    80s, I'm also blamed for online computer conferencing on the internal
    network. It really took off spring 1981 when I distributed trip report
    to visit Jim Gray at Tandem. We packaged up six copies of 300 pages in
    Tandem 3-ring binders and set them to corperate executive committee
    (folklore is that 5of6 wanted to fire me).

    Early 80s, I got "HSDT", T1 and faster computer links (terrestrial and satellite) and battles with the communication group (60s had 2701 that supported T1 links, 70s issues with VTAM capped controllers at
    56kbits). Funding was predicated on being able to show some IBM content,
    was able to find FSD S/1 T1 Zirpel cards (for gov. agency 2701s that
    were failing). Also working with NSF director and was suppose to get
    $20M to interconnect the NSF supercomputer centers. Then congress cuts
    the budget, some other things happened and eventually there was RFP
    released (in part based on what we already had running). NSF 28Mar1986 Preliminary Announcement https://web.archive.org/web/20260311074443/https://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002k.html#12
    The OASC has initiated three programs: The Supercomputer Centers Program
    to provide Supercomputer cycles; the New Technologies Program to foster
    new supercomputer software and hardware developments; and the Networking Program to build a National Supercomputer Access Network - NSFnet.

    ...

    IBM internal politics was not allowing us to bid. The NSF director tried
    to help by writing the company a letter (3Apr1986, NSF Director to IBM
    Chief Scientist and IBM Senior VP and director of Research, copying IBM
    CEO) with support from other gov. agencies ... but that just made the
    internal politics worse (as did claims that what we already had
    operational was at least 5yrs ahead of the winning bid), as regional
    networks connect in, NSFnet becomes the NSFNET backbone, precursor to
    modern internet.

    --
    virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Kurt Weiske@3:633/10 to scott on Sat Aug 8 08:06:31 2026
    To: scott
    scott wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

    I only noticed this was a problem when I was trying to send mail to someone I know IRL who has an email address through one of Microsoft's services (don't recall if it was Hotmail or Outlook.com). For some inexplicable reason, Microsoft had configured its mail servers to use UCEProtect.

    I filed a ticket at Linode. Linode contacted Microsoft. Within a day
    or two, the problem was resolved and the mail started going through.

    I was shocked ("Shocked, I say!") when I researched why my office Teams
    telephone number showed up as SPAM RISK on my Android phone. I went to
    hiya.com and registered my Teams number, and within 24 hours the SPAM
    moniker went away.

    kurt weiske | kweiske at realitycheckbbs dot org
    | http://realitycheckbbs.org
    | 1:218/700@fidonet



    --- MultiMail/Win v0.52
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Win32 NewsLink 1.2
    * realitycheckBBS - Aptos, CA - telnet://realitycheckbbs.org

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Ted W.@3:633/10 to All on Sat Aug 8 17:34:55 2026
    On 2026-08-04, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block
    all but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still
    100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you
    please. (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much
    every browser has reasonable CSS support.)

    Only partially true. Yes, the major MSPs have taken over the majority of
    mail delivery. And, yes, there are certain hoops you have to jump
    through to get mail to deliver reliably to them. But it's far from
    impossible and I would argue that achieving reliable delivery is only marginally non-trivial. Most of the issues are well documented and most
    MSPs follow pretty standard practices (DMARC, DKIM, SPF, etc.)

    I started hosting my own mail server about 15 years ago and haven't
    looked back. The ability to use unique and randomly generated email
    addresses for every website reduces not only the ability for advertisers
    to have a reliable primary key with which to fingerprint your activity
    online. Additionally, it makes it trivial to fight spam. It also has the
    side benefit of enabling attribution to companies that have sold your
    data or who have experienced breaches.

    It's certainly more work than signing up for Gmail but I'd argue that
    there are more benefits than people realize. I also hold the, possibly unpopular opinion that LLMs have made the hosting of one's own mail
    server ever the more trivial since a lot of what complicated doing so in
    the past was knowing how the major MSPs fight spam. This information has by-and-large been consumed by LLMs and is now very easy to find.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Sat Aug 8 23:41:14 2026
    On Sat, 8 Aug 2026 08:06:31 -0700, Kurt Weiske wrote:

    scott wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

    I filed a ticket at Linode. Linode contacted Microsoft. Within a
    day or two, the problem was resolved and the mail started going
    through.

    I was shocked ("Shocked, I say!") when I researched why my office
    Teams telephone number showed up as SPAM RISK on my Android phone. I
    went to hiya.com and registered my Teams number, and within 24 hours
    the SPAM moniker went away.

    Isn?t it convenient to have all these random sites popping that will
    make your problems go away, if you give them enough personal details?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From danny burstein@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 00:03:23 2026
    (response appended below_

    In <1158eqq$1tqe9$1@dont-email.me> Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

    On Sat, 8 Aug 2026 08:06:31 -0700, Kurt Weiske wrote:

    scott wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

    I filed a ticket at Linode. Linode contacted Microsoft. Within a
    day or two, the problem was resolved and the mail started going
    through.

    I was shocked ("Shocked, I say!") when I researched why my office
    Teams telephone number showed up as SPAM RISK on my Android phone. I
    went to hiya.com and registered my Teams number, and within 24 hours
    the SPAM moniker went away.

    I've run into similar issues and we've been pulling our
    collective hair out.

    Calls from the SOCIAL SECURITY office, as well as
    some hospitals, have been flagged with "scam likely".

    Apparently the SCAMMERS have been spoofing the phone
    numbers of these high profile, "got to answer this!"
    phone numbers. And some people then report these
    to the various spammer data bases.

    No easy way to resolve this. The various steps
    the telcos have been forced to take have reduced
    the quantity of faked phone numbers, but it's
    still way too much.



    --
    _____________________________________________________
    Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
    dannyb@panix.com
    [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 02:22:57 2026
    On Sun, 9 Aug 2026 00:03:23 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein wrote:

    Apparently the SCAMMERS have been spoofing the phone numbers of
    these high profile, "got to answer this!" phone numbers. And some
    people then report these to the various spammer data bases.

    There are supposed to be protocols in place for reputable telcos to be
    able to attest to caller ID from their own customers, and also define
    the level of trust for that passed across from other providers <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN>.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From danny burstein@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 02:31:55 2026
    In <1158oa1$20b2q$1@dont-email.me> Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

    On Sun, 9 Aug 2026 00:03:23 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein wrote:

    Apparently the SCAMMERS have been spoofing the phone numbers of
    these high profile, "got to answer this!" phone numbers. And some
    people then report these to the various spammer data bases.

    There are supposed to be protocols in place for reputable telcos to be
    able to attest to caller ID from their own customers, and also define
    the level of trust for that passed across from other providers ><https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN>.

    to be sure these steps have helped, but there are still
    plenty, make that PLENTY, of callers who fake their CNID.

    Note, of course, there are valid reasons to do this spoofing.
    Just as one example (which I was involved in...)
    People doing food deliveries for "Meals on Wheels" and similars.

    When the driver is calling five minutes away, it makes much more
    sense to "send" the main office number...

    But yeah, lots of assholes still get through.



    --
    _____________________________________________________
    Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
    dannyb@panix.com
    [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 10:46:02 2026
    On 26/07/2026 9:43 AM, Anton Antimo wrote:
    Daniel Cerqueira <dan.list@lispclub.com> writes:

    Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> writes:

    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to >>> cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P

    Same, Nuno.

    I saw Lisp Club on a post header of your article. Are you discussing
    Lisp anywhere on the USENET or anywhere else on the Internet? Please
    share?

    I have been discussing how to learn Common Lisp in comp.lang.lisp. What
    is it about Lisp that you want to discuss? Do you wish to weave a web
    with me on Hunchentoot? We could create a front weave for alt.folklore. computers!
    --
    Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
    I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 10:52:42 2026
    On 27/07/2026 1:28 AM, Jeffrey Bagely wrote:
    On Sun, 26 Jul 2026 01:02:25 -0000 (UTC), Ted W. wrote:

    On 2026-07-25, Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:
    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    [...]

    Just another centralized message board among hundreds (thousands?) that
    already exist. The novelty is the usenet-like group hierarchy otherwise
    it looks just like Digg (RIP), Reddit, Lemmy and others.

    If I've learned anything over the last 20+ years of modern social media
    it's that they either collapse or live long enough to sell your data.
    Usenet, the original social media platform, has been around since long
    before most Silicon Valley social media founders were born and it will
    remain long after they're gone.

    I'll stick to the original, warts and all.

    There is also something to say about just the simplicity. I have run a
    lemmy instance and still find it frustrating that you have to use web browsers to utilize the platform. KISS really applies here in that we
    already have protocol standards for discussions and minimal clients with minimal network connectivity required.

    Multimedia is rather over-emphasized on popular disccussion platforms and
    is better served on their own dedicated platforms for their binary types.

    As a side note, I would prefer its own protocol for the different types of media to be consumed (as with NNTP for mainly textual discussion) however, it's a far fetched and not well thought out idea of mine that I wouldn't expect to see ever happening in the wild at any great scale.

    I've entered the frayed corners of the weave.* And there are still
    people connecting to old school BBS systems from a Commodore 64. This necessitates leaving the web, and entering unknown territories with
    really strange weaves.

    You'll meet strange creatures who speak of Commodore 64 as the pinnacle
    of computer interfaces. And I have not dared to ask if these characters
    are completely human; because on the weave, nobody knows if you're a
    spider.

    I'm sure some of them even use N.N.T.P. What they weave there, I do not
    know.


    Best wishes, and happy weaving on the N.N.T.P of alt.folklore.computers!


    * I use the term /weave/ for a reason, we've already left the /web/.
    --
    Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
    I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 10:58:55 2026
    On 30/07/2026 10:17 PM, The True Melissa wrote:
    Verily, in article <875x1xa9t7.fsf@safunu.org>, did anton@safunu.org
    deliver unto us this message:

    Yes. Not being the smart way to use computers, it can't be the future.
    For years I've expected the web to somehow die precisely because of the
    way browsers have been evolving. Complex software is bound to die
    because of the lack of diversity. Look how very few browsers we have.
    Why is that? Because only very rich corporations can build it. And
    maybe now we have a glimpse of the downfall of the web. The so-called
    smart systems producing slop and bots perhaps being responsible for most
    of the web traffic. Maybe that's indeed the end of the web. Rebirth.
    I still think the web as its idealized conception is something we want.
    Just like the USENET is something we want.

    This is an interesting discussion.

    Perhaps hypertext and document organization should never have been
    combined. I recently rediscovered gopherspace, and to my surprise it's
    not completely dead.

    Welcome to the Gopher weave. I have a node there. There's only a
    single file of pure text, but you're welcome to find it. I'll let you
    know when I have something substantial to share on my node of the weave.


    The current web dissatisfies thinking people. Something else is bound to arise. Maybe it'll be a gopherspace revival or maybe a new thing, but
    the web just isn't cutting it these days.

    And not just thinking people. Even people with social media accounts
    have stopped posting -- well for the most part -- because the effort
    is not worth it. I don't want to get into other people's personal
    reasons, but believe me when I say that it's not just me, and I know
    some of these people intimately.


    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.


    That is indeed a problem, and social revolutions are not won with plat-
    itudes and speeches. We could start our own, but it's a lot of bother,
    and we're already living in the dystopian fiction of teenage melodrama.

    And without writing my own dystopian fiction right here in the weave of alt.folklore.computers, I bid you farewell, and do not dare to think of potential solutions to a world wide web.
    --
    Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
    I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 11:05:35 2026
    On 30/07/2026 11:41 PM, Anton Antimo wrote:
    The True Melissa <thetruemelissa@gmail.comNOSPAM> writes:

    Verily, in article <875x1xa9t7.fsf@safunu.org>, did anton@safunu.org
    deliver unto us this message:

    Yes. Not being the smart way to use computers, it can't be the future.
    For years I've expected the web to somehow die precisely because of the
    way browsers have been evolving. Complex software is bound to die
    because of the lack of diversity. Look how very few browsers we have.
    Why is that? Because only very rich corporations can build it. And
    maybe now we have a glimpse of the downfall of the web. The so-called
    smart systems producing slop and bots perhaps being responsible for most >>> of the web traffic. Maybe that's indeed the end of the web. Rebirth.
    I still think the web as its idealized conception is something we want.
    Just like the USENET is something we want.

    This is an interesting discussion.

    Perhaps hypertext and document organization should never have been
    combined. I recently rediscovered gopherspace, and to my surprise it's
    not completely dead.

    The current web dissatisfies thinking people. Something else is bound to
    arise. Maybe it'll be a gopherspace revival or maybe a new thing, but
    the web just isn't cutting it these days.

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.

    Exactly. I don't think we could've done anything. They're free to
    destroy. They found a way to make money and so they did. I hesitate to
    say it was completely disastrous because perhaps some good came: a lot
    of us found a way to make a living? In the beginning, we were the only
    ones who knew how to use it and how it worked. I suppose this is the
    same we must do again.

    I beg to differ. Nothing good comes from planned hurdles over technical arcana.


    I'm not so closely in touch with NNTP admins here, but judging from the groups hosted by Eternal September, after Google Groups left the USENET, things look pretty bright here. Why? Because once again we're left to
    our own devices here. The only sorry thing is that all the experts we
    used to have are really hanging out somewhere else. I wonder if they
    know that the USENET is peaceful once again.

    And we're once again free from most of the spam. And not all of us have appetite for the spam.


    What I believe is that they just don't want to come back because perhaps
    the USENET is just not disruption-free guaranteed. Perhaps we think now
    we need to really have semi-open groups such as a mailing list or a
    private NNTP server. For example, the Linux kernel people seem to
    prefer a mailing list (for posting) because this way they easily ban any misbehaving member and keep the newbies at bay.

    So that's another question I ask. Is the USENET model the adequate one
    for an Internet-populous world? Maybe we should begin a new network of interlinked private NNTP servers. It doesn't seem that a high-volume
    NNTP group is interesting anyway; that usually means a too high
    noise/content ratio.

    The Usenet model is perhaps best, but it's not what people nowadays are
    used to. As you can see below, I'm also present on a blue sky, and it's
    a symptom, not a cause. I mean the blue sky is a symptom. People don't
    know about /netiquette/ and staying on topic, nor how to have a long
    form conversation.

    Not even every one here on the Usenet weave knows how to do that, and
    behave like this is a Discordious conversation, and try to leave "funny"
    one liners in hopes of receiving some sort of /internet points/.
    --
    Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
    I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson@3:633/10 to All on Sun Aug 9 11:12:30 2026
    Subject: CorelDRAW! on S.C.O. Unix (was: Re: Remember when discussions were worth reading?)

    On 31/07/2026 4:53 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
    On Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:17:24 -0400, The True Melissa wrote:

    We never should have let the corporatins sieze control of everything,
    but we didn't know what to do.

    A lot of users of Free Software act very much like sheep.

    I see you are still using your proprietary S.C.O. UnixWare, or what.
    How did it feel to spend USD 7,833.00 on licensed proprietary Unix?

    And how is your rental of CorelDRAW! going? Did you make some inter-
    esting drawings yet? Have you posted some in the binary newsgroups?

    For the people here on the alt.folklore.computers weave, see the

    Message-ID: <E3FcS.38017$UXf1.11211@fx03.ams4>

    on comp.unix.shell. Lawrence was really interested in proprietary
    Unix shells, and I told him about S.C.O.
    --
    Johann | email: invalid -> com | http://www.myrkraverk.com/blog/
    I'm not from the Internet, I just work there. | via Easynews.com https://bsky.app/profile/myrkraverk.bsky.social | for ( ;; ) _:;

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nuno Silva@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 10 00:52:50 2026
    On 2026-08-08, Ted W. wrote:

    On 2026-08-04, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block
    all but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still
    100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you
    please. (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much
    every browser has reasonable CSS support.)

    Only partially true. Yes, the major MSPs have taken over the majority of
    mail delivery. And, yes, there are certain hoops you have to jump
    through to get mail to deliver reliably to them. But it's far from
    impossible and I would argue that achieving reliable delivery is only marginally non-trivial. Most of the issues are well documented and most
    MSPs follow pretty standard practices (DMARC, DKIM, SPF, etc.)

    So what you're saying is that Microsoft is actually an outlier in that
    regard?

    I started hosting my own mail server about 15 years ago and haven't
    looked back. The ability to use unique and randomly generated email
    addresses for every website reduces not only the ability for advertisers
    to have a reliable primary key with which to fingerprint your activity online. Additionally, it makes it trivial to fight spam. It also has the
    side benefit of enabling attribution to companies that have sold your
    data or who have experienced breaches.

    It's certainly more work than signing up for Gmail but I'd argue that
    there are more benefits than people realize. I also hold the, possibly unpopular opinion that LLMs have made the hosting of one's own mail
    server ever the more trivial since a lot of what complicated doing so in
    the past was knowing how the major MSPs fight spam. This information has by-and-large been consumed by LLMs and is now very easy to find.

    --
    Nuno Silva

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 10 09:25:42 2026
    Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> writes:

    On 26/07/2026 9:43 AM, Anton Antimo wrote:
    Daniel Cerqueira <dan.list@lispclub.com> writes:

    Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> writes:

    On 2026-07-25, Tom Mix wrote:

    So do we.

    https://rootbadger.com

    Given the amount of times this is being advertised here, that's about to >>>> cross a threshold of me never looking into it because it's being
    advertised as if this were a TV commercial spot :-P

    Same, Nuno.
    I saw Lisp Club on a post header of your article. Are you
    discussing
    Lisp anywhere on the USENET or anywhere else on the Internet? Please
    share?

    I have been discussing how to learn Common Lisp in comp.lang.lisp. What
    is it about Lisp that you want to discuss? Do you wish to weave a web
    with me on Hunchentoot? We could create a front weave for alt.folklore. computers!

    I'm following your discussion in comp.lang.lisp. What's to weave a web?
    Hack something together? Let's do it. How about we write together
    something on top of Hunchentoot with a REPL that can patch the server
    hot, fixing a bug without shutting it down---something cool that can be
    easily done with Common Lisp. A front for a news group sounds good. I
    suggest we don't handle the NNTP-network side of things---let's just
    take an archive of articles and read them locally (first).

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 10 11:04:19 2026
    scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) writes:

    In article <87mrv0s24m.fsf@safunu.org>, Anton Antimo <anton@safunu.org> wrote:
    But I can't email my (one) friend on Hotmail because Hotmail has banned
    the IP address I currently use, though this IP address is not present in >>any other famous SMTP blacklist out there that I know of.

    Where is your mail server located? Mine was (at the time) on a Linode VPS. The scammers at UCEProtect have blacklisted Linode's entire IP address
    range, just because they're assholes like that.

    Mine is on Kamatera.com.

    I only noticed this was a problem when I was trying to send mail to
    someone I know IRL who has an email address through one of Microsoft's services (don't recall if it was Hotmail or Outlook.com). For some inexplicable reason, Microsoft had configured its mail servers to use UCEProtect.

    I filed a ticket at Linode. Linode contacted Microsoft. Within a day
    or two, the problem was resolved and the mail started going through.

    I filled a Microsoft form on the web, whose immediate reply was that I
    didn't qualify for any consideration. I understood my IP address was
    hopeless and gave up.

    Thanks for sharing your case.

    (I ended up moving that VPS to Server Optima...more disk and RAM at a
    lower price. That said, I still have other services at Linode and
    wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.)

    Thanks for the recommendation. I was a Hetzner user, but they refused
    to create me a PT record, in what looked like they were thinking I was
    a spammer. I had to leave them. I'm pretty happy with Kamatera.com.


    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Anton Antimo@3:633/10 to All on Mon Aug 10 11:11:43 2026
    "Ted W." <usenet@xy0.org> writes:

    On 2026-08-04, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
    Mail hosting is unfortunately non-trivial thanks to the Major Players
    going ape with spam control in a way that *just so happens* to block
    all but the Major Players from reliable delivery - but yes, it's still
    100% possible to roll your own website as much from-scratch as you
    please. (Hell, in some ways it's actually easier, now that pretty much
    every browser has reasonable CSS support.)

    Only partially true. Yes, the major MSPs have taken over the majority of
    mail delivery. And, yes, there are certain hoops you have to jump
    through to get mail to deliver reliably to them. But it's far from
    impossible and I would argue that achieving reliable delivery is only marginally non-trivial. Most of the issues are well documented and most
    MSPs follow pretty standard practices (DMARC, DKIM, SPF, etc.)

    I started hosting my own mail server about 15 years ago and haven't
    looked back. The ability to use unique and randomly generated email
    addresses for every website reduces not only the ability for advertisers
    to have a reliable primary key with which to fingerprint your activity online. Additionally, it makes it trivial to fight spam. It also has the
    side benefit of enabling attribution to companies that have sold your
    data or who have experienced breaches.

    Can you share a bit more of your strategy? For example, do you set up
    your system to deliver everything@your.domain to you? I didn't do this
    because I thought I'd get a lot of nonsense in my mailbox. But then
    creating an alias every time I need to create an account online happens
    to be not very convenient. So I end up reusing accounts, though I agree
    with you that using a single account for each site is the best thing.

    It's certainly more work than signing up for Gmail but I'd argue that
    there are more benefits than people realize. I also hold the, possibly unpopular opinion that LLMs have made the hosting of one's own mail
    server ever the more trivial since a lot of what complicated doing so
    in the past was knowing how the major MSPs fight spam. This
    information has by-and-large been consumed by LLMs and is now very
    easy to find.

    I totally agree. Software configuration has become a lot easier with
    their help.

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.19
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)