uunet ends newsfeed/newsreader in US

Sat Mar 31 06:55:48 UTC 2012

> It's not pr0n that's killing Usenet, the problem is spam
> junk mail, chain letters

I gather you haven't looked at usenet for a long time.  The spam and chain 
letters have followed the crowd.  I can't remember the last time I saw a 
chain letter, and there's surprisingly little spam.

> E-mail address harvesters (where you get bombarded with direct-emailed
> crap if you dare post a message to USENET).

Spam sucks, but I've been posting to usenet with my real unmunged email 
address since 1981 and my inbox remains entirely usable.  The idea that 
the way to avoid spam is to hide from spammers is so 1990s.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl at iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. http://jl.ly