An inquisitive poll - Dare you to vote!
 

I would like to open a poll if I may. Today while I was at work I had a co-worker approach me and asked if I knew of any free Usenet servers. I told him not off hand but I would Find out. This topic came about because his ISP (AT&T) will be taking their Usenet server permanently off-line next month. But it got me thinking and wondering how many other people out there still hang out on Usenet Severs. It's been a number of years for me, this used to be twitter or mySpace of internet socialization next to IRC. So my question to you is, How many of You still hang out on Usenet? Post to the poll if you dare!

Google turns up usenet posts. If I'm doing a search and something turns up there, I click on the google link. But that's not the same at all. It's just the archives being made accessible on the web. Same as finding something from a mailing list archive.

I suppose I could set up Thunderbird to follow something like comp.unix.solaris, but ... too many other sources, and only so much bandwidth a person can handle.

Usenet was the greatest thing around, since sliced bread. Until the Big Brother decided that a free unmoderated exchange of anonymous opinion is too much for his beloved sheep. When you don't have everybody's IPs ready for a subpoena, it's hard to prosecute thought crimes, you see? ;)

It's the Freenet project now.

Usenet? That's so primitive ... sure is.

Usenet: Of course I use it!

Most of my goodies (movies, tv series, music etc) come from usenet.

I'll have to admit that I don't look at the (original) text based entries, 'just' the binaries.

Theodore,

Thanks for the information about the Freenet project. I think it is worthwhile to protect the freedoms of speech, I am still researching the project so far I am quite intrigued. The only issue now is find people with whom I can trust to run a darknet node with as I am paranoid and thus don't have many actual friends...

Doesn't tor provide enough privacy ?

The problem with freenet is that it stores routed info on your HDD ... whatever that info might be ... illegal or not, it may be found later on ... that's not good.

H_TeXMeX_H,

I am so paranoid that I wonder about tor and yet any traffic that leaves my house goes from my home to isp to internet.... If there were a way to encrypt everything I would be doing it. And I mean everything. But tor is likely better then just connecting to net with a good firewall and calling it good.

Of course all my sensitive data is transmitted across encrypted links but I don't absolutely know for sure that the destination server is secure how can I trust it.. With tor if I browse the net, I will be anonymous but once I exit tor then after that who knows.. My online banking is of course encrypted but I am paranoid against connecting via tor that I wouldn't connect unless I could be somewhat more sure of the systems involved...

While I don't have any TOP-SECRET stuff I regard my Identity as ABOVE TOP-SECRET and the advent of the internet has made Identity theft so much more easier to those who aim to ruin my life. I guess I should be using tar then i don't have to worry about my ISP giving what and where i go if they were ever Subpoenaed. And tor would make it harder to trace me, I don't do anything illegal, depending on your viewpoint of downloading music and movies for free.

I want to maintain my absolute privacy but nothing is absolute, and if I wanted that much privacy online then I shouldn't be online in the first place.

I'm not sure about routed info that is stored on my hard drive, I mean, the datastore is encrypted and all that... And I'm not interested in any illegal content or even piracy. I like the frost boards on Freenet, it's just like the old good Usenet -- you can discuss things that are completely unimaginable in today's Internet, where even calling a government official on Youtube a liar or posting a circus training video found elsewhere can get a SWAT team at your door... And TOR is a good thing, but not for that particular purpose, so I don't use it. :)

It's encrypted only if you set that option, so make sure you do. Even so, encryption can be broken. And the content that is stored may not be any content that you ever accessed, it may be simply routed through you.

Uncle_Theodore,

I am still trying to wrap my head around this freenet. I would like to do more on it but I am adamant about doing it without using the most secure settings (darknet). But one piece of information I am trying to find on this, is where the heck is the data store located and how can I move it if needed...

I don't use the darknet thing. I like to communicate with new people. :) After all, the darknet is good for the people, like, in China, where they can form resistance cells or something. Here, in the States I can pretty much communicate with my friends face to face. And I've never met anybody on the Internet, whom I could "befriend" in the Freenet sense. ;)

The datastore is located on your harddrive, you set its size and default location in configs.

From the looks of it, Freenet isn't doing quite so well, the content as far as I can see is limited at best, Usenet returns a hell of a lot more then Freenet. If I can find some free usenet I will jump on them. Anyone know of any good servers? Ones that you don't have to pay for? I know that the pay sites might be better but surely there is a Usenet Server that stands up to the best pay Usnets... I remember reading article after article on Usenet. I wasn't interested in pics, or videos when I was using the servers, it was to slow for me and I didn't bother. I mostly hung out in the Computer Article Usenets.

Countries outside US likely use free net more then those in the US.

Is $1/month close enough to free? http://www.teranews.com/ I've managed to scrape up the $1 so now I need a newsreader. I sure liked Forte Agent...