[TUHS] Steve Bellovin recounts the history of USENET

[Larry McVoy]

On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 01:06:45PM -0800, Kurt H Maier wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 03:49:58PM -0500, Henry Bent wrote:
> > 
> > Has anyone definitely proven that any of the contents of these files are
> > not in the searchable Google Groups interface?  I don't really see any need
> > to duplicate their efforts. 
> 
> That data is essentially unavailable to people without Google accounts.
> Even back when it was, the search had degraded to the point where you
> could paste explicit quotes from messages and those messages would not
> be in the results page.
> 
> I wholeheartedly see a need to duplicate (and surpass) their efforts. The 
> Deja News service was wonderful; Google's implementation is not.  Even if
> someon were to convince them to improve it, they've demonstrated they're
> not a good company to rely on for long-term availability of services
> that are not active surveillance vehicles.

Amen.