Old posts don't die -- they get archived

By: Dinesh Nair

Google today announced that they've gone further back and provided online archives of Usenet news articles from May 1981. This brings two decades of Usenet news archives to the collective memory of the Internet. For the vast majority of Internet users today, this holds no significance whatsoever. I would be surprised if any significant number of new Internet users within the last 3 years have heard of Usenet, let alone posted to it. The web has brought forth Yahoo!Groups and its ilk which allows discussion threads to be read using a browser.

But for us old fogeys, Google's efforts in establishing this archive from the acquired assets of DejaNews is very welcome. Trolling thru these snippets of a time long gone and reading net history as it was being made can bring a touch of sentiment or two. You're more likely to find interesting bits of historical trivia, such as Tim Berners Lee's announcement of the World Wide Web Project, or even this one where a then unknown Marc Andreesen announced the availability of a browser called Mosaic, which later became known as Netscape. Or perhaps an early mention of the Internet behemoth now known as Yahoo!.

Whatever your reason for trolling the past, one cannot but reminisce on the Internet in its early days, when it was so much different in character from what it is today. Don't get me wrong, I think the Internet is heading in the general direction it should be, but thinking of the past always brings back memories. Memories of the discussions which took place, of the friendships made online, later consumnated with face to face meetings as well as a snapshot of the character of any one person in time.Ego surfing thru the archives, I trolled out messages which I posted way back when I was an undergraduate at Universiti Sains Malaysia, an announcement passed along for an experimental service I was running providing Malaysian headlines to the Internet. Doesn't sound like a big deal in today's world of news portals and online magazines, but in 1993 Internet traffic from within Malaysia was limited to a few individuals from MIMOS, USM and ITM.

The Google Usenet archives serve as a very pertinent record of the history of this new medium, as it was being created by the very people who created it. Historians today marvel and cry out aloud in joy when they discover old manuscripts, parchments or records from times past. More often than not, these records where kept by scribes, documenting the times they lived in. Usenet archives are such a record, but they go one step further in that the documentors are the creators of the technology itself. One can't get any closer to the horse's mouth than that.

The presence of the archives also allows seekers of the source of Internet wisdom to understand why some unwritten rules of the Internet are what they are. Why is it that people frown when you POST AN ENTIRE MESSAGE IN CAPS ? Why is it bad form to quote an entire message only to give a one line reply ? Why spam is bad and should be wiped out ? It's all in there, answered and recorded by the collective wisdom that is Usenet. Many new users of the Internet today scoff and ridicule anyone who points these net rules out to them, but they are ignorant of why these rules were put in place. They lack understanding of how the Internet came to be, and of the sacrifices in time, effort and funds which were ploughed into the technology. What you are riding on today to read this is the result of years of work by thousands of people. And where where these people hanging out and exchanging their ideas ? Why, on Usenet of course.

Today, Usenet is still alive and kicking, though its days of glory are long gone. It still is a source of collective wisdom and of opensource technical support, but it has been bespoiled by the thrust of mainstream users walking in changing its time-worn ways. I may sound like a stick in the mud, but I cannot ignore this subset of the Internet which existed before the Web as we know it was even conceived. Carried as individual messages from server to server, Usenet posts made their way thru the labyrinth that was the UUCP network, only later to migrate to the TCP/IP network when NNTP was spec'ed out as the Network News Transfer Protocol. Traffic too has increased in quantity, a full Usenet feed today would set you back about 30 gigabytes from the hundreds of megabytes it was then.

Even today, I much prefer to read Usenet's discussion in my own time and offline, instead of browsing on to any one of the web based groups. There's something magical about it, a sentimental thread which holds me loyal to Usenet and the characters who inhabit its electronic walls. Come what may, Usenet has played a part in making me what I am today, both technically and personally, and I do owe it as much. The collective wisdom of Usenet, though peppered by some inanity, still remains high on quality and relevance in today's Internet.

One just cannot ignore such a collective of people freely doling out knowledge, helping each other and holding fort on discussions ranging from the crazily inane to the profoundly philosophical. Whatever your poison, Usenet has a newsgroup for it. One of the most wanted newsgroups is alt.binaries.erotica and its subgroups. No prizes for guessing what's exchanged in there. While Usenet servers of old exchanged information on mutual understanding, today's commercialized Internet means that while you may get your newsgroup feed from your ISP, they are probably shelling out some fees for receiving the feed. Most new ISPs, especially the smaller ones, do not even carry any news feeds, not understanding what it is and misgauging its popularity. In the dot my space, only the jaring and tmnet hierarchies are well populated and have high traffic, the others just lie dormant or just don't exist.

Perhaps in a few decades the very concept of Usenet may drift out of the Internet mindshare, as its last denizens leave this plane for the next. This would then signal the end of an Internet phenomenon, a phenomenon which held sway until it was surpassed by the WWW. Google's efforts in keeping the memory and the electronic history of Usenet alive is one which is much needed. If the user of today prefers the browser interface as his Internet window, then he should be able to use that to read the records of history. The gods of Usenet will be pleased, and all wll be welcomed and feted. News will still flow down the wires and the Cabal will be pleased.

After all, There Is No Cabal*.

©2001 Dinesh Nair

*You've got to be reading Usenet to get this one !

1.) Old Posts don't die -- they get archived - Dinesh Nair
2.) Flawed Internal Setups By Example - presto
3.) An Interview with the Father of the Internet - L33tdawg
4.) Exploiting Weaknesses In Intrusion Detection Systems - spoonfork
5.) Snort for idiots (and cheap people like me) - presto
6.) A short commentary on script kiddies - Anateus
7.) SOTHA Returns! - madsaxon
8.) Cold Fusion Server Security - madirish