The following message is a courtesy copy of an article that has been posted to bit.listserv.ibm-main,alt.folklore.computers as well.
shmuel+ibm-m...@patriot.net (Shmuel Metz , Seymour J.) writes: > There are no group owners. Usenet is a distributed network implemented by > autonomous peers; the admin of each news server runs it in accordance with > his local policy. See RFC 3977 and 5537. re: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#31 Posts missing from ibm-main on google groups as mentioned in this post ... there seems to have been several usenet problems about the time of reports of wierd SSL attacks: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010c.html#47 Extracting STDOUT data from USS Besides missing posts on usenet ... during the period, I was also getting sporadic wierd characteristic attempting to (SSL) connect to my usenet server (time-outs, connection drops, long outages when couldn't connect, reading email connected fine ... but unable to post, things appearing to post ... and then not showing up, etc). Usenet started out based on UUCP protocol. these were a lot of sporadically dialup connections ... which would transfer accumulated email and other stuff ... like usenet news ... some refs: http://www.uucp.org/history/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUCP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet http://www.tcpipguide.com/free/t_UsenetOverviewHistoryandStandards-3.htm while the internal network ... some past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet was larger than the arpanet/internet from just about the beginning until possibly late '85 or early '86. One of the major contributors to internet exceeding size of internal network at that time ... was appearance of workstations & PCs as network nodes ... while on the internal network ... these machines were restricted to terminal emulation ... misc. past posts mentioning terminal emulation http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#emulation a listing of approx. nodes sometime 1985 (aka "VNET" was internal network) BITNET 435 ARPAnet 1155 CSnet 104 (excluding ARPAnet overlap) VNET 1650 EasyNet 4200 UUCP 6000 USENET 1150 (excluding UUCP nodes) ... snip ... I had gotten blamed for computer conferencing on the internal network in the late 70s and early 80s. There was then an "official" facility deployed on the internal network called "TOOLSRUN" ... that could operate either in USENET mode or mailing list mode. Later, there was something similar deployed on BITNET supporting just mailing list mode ... historical reference: http://www.lsoft.com/products/listserv-history.asp BITNET used somewhat similar technology as was used on the internal network (and ibm-main mailing list originated on BITNET) ... misc. past posts mentioning BITNET (and/or EARN ... bitnet outside US) http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#bitnet USENET also was distributed over other media. For a time there was special modem that received USENET over unused part of broadcast TV signal. There was also service that broadcast USENET over satellite. In 1993, I did device driver for a number of platforms (dos/windows, a couple different unixes) for such a service ... along with article in boardwatch (BBS industry mag) ... and got free dish/modem/service ... old posts (with picture of me in backyard with R/O satellite dish): http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#66 UUCP email http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005l.html#20 Newsgroups (Was Another OS/390 to z/OS 1.4 migration http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#19 Another one bites the dust http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009l.html#21 Disksize history question during the 90s, majority of USENET moved off of other distribution media to tcp/ip and the internet. from my rfc index: http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/rfcietff.htm click on "Term (term->RFC#)" in the "RFCs listed by" section, then click on "NNTP" in the "Acronym fastpath" section: network news transfer protocol (NNTP ) 4644 4643 4642 3977 2980 977 then there is: 1036 - Standard for interchange of USENET messages, Adams R., Horton M., 1987/12/01 (19pp) (.txt=45825) (Obsoleted by 5536) (Obsoletes 850) (Ref'ed By 1468, 1554, 1580, 1630, 1700, 1738, 1842, 1922, 1945, 2068, 2076, 2110, 2557, 2616, 2924, 2980, 3864, 3977, 4707, 5064, 5536, 5537) ... also, some number of the BITNET mailing lists created distribution gateway to USENET (usually just one direction, i.e. outbound traffic only) ... distributed email simulating USENET post in the usenet bit.listserv hiearchy. GOOGLE supports two-way gateway between USENET and google groups ... aka (old bitnet) mailing list gatewayed to USENET bit.listserv hierarchy then gatewayed to google groups. As mentioned ... during the wierd SSL attack period ... I was seeing strange operation connecting to USENET server ... so I suspect that the various gateways also were seeing strange behavior. misc. past posts mentioning TOOLSRUN http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#5 what makes a cpu fast http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#11 Was FORTRAN buggy? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006r.html#16 Was FORTRAN buggy? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#35 Top versus bottom posting was Re: IBM sues maker of Intel-based Mainframe clones http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006y.html#10 Why so little parallelism? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007.html#23 How to write a full-screen Rexx debugger? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#7 information utility http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#31 IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#32 IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007b.html#55 IBMLink 2000 Finding ESO levels http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007j.html#70 Using rexx to send an email http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007p.html#30 Newsweek article--baby boomers and computers http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#48 Anyone know of some good internet Listserv's? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#46 Anyone still have access to VMTOOLS and TEXTTOOLS? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#49 Discussions areas, private message silos, and how far we've come since 199x http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008o.html#61 Discussions areas, private message silos, and how far we've come since 199x http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#12 Discussions areas, private message silos, and how far we've come since 199x http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#13 "Telecommunications" from '85 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#37 BITNET & LISTSERV http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008q.html#45 Usenet - Dead? Why? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009g.html#14 Top 10 Cybersecurity Threats for 2009, will they cause creation of highly-secure Corporate-wide Intranets? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009j.html#79 Timeline: The evolution of online communities http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#6 Timeline: The evolution of online communities http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009m.html#55 Tell me something about how you use signature files! http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009o.html#38 U.S. house decommissions its last mainframe, saves $730,000 http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#52 Mainframe Hacking http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#84 Anyone going to Supercomputers '09 in Portland? http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#4 Arpanet http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#17 toolsrun http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009s.html#12 user group meetings http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010.html#7 CAPS Fantasia http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010b.html#36 Happy DEC-10 Day -- 42yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
