Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!porthos.rutgers.edu!pleasant From: pleasant@porthos.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: The Rape of Usenet Keywords: The wholesale capturing of Usenet by GEnie Message-ID: Date: 23 Dec 89 03:35:32 GMT References: <946@crash.cts.com> <1019@wsu-cs.uucp> <33939@mips.mips.COM> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 52 In article <33939@mips.mips.COM> kevin@mips.COM (Kevin Kuhn) writes: > I think this whole situation is a lot like sattelite technology. Any > business owner is free to purchase a sattelite dish and show pay > channels in their bar or restaurant, as long as the sattelite owner > doesn't use a descrambling device to decode information. USENET is > like the sat broadcaster sending out signal into the public domain. Given that the GEnie link has already been severed some might wonder why I am bothering to respond to this message. Since I've seen this type of argument before, I'm hoping to shoot it in the foot :-). The premise above is false. What's the difference between satellite technology and USENET?!? Satellite technology broadcasts its signal from a source and immediately loses control of it unless it is encrypted or the source has made prior arrangements to keep the material private through contract. Secondly, receiving nodes tend to be end nodes. With USENET, each node is a receiving node from its upstream site(s) and a source node for its downstream site(s). Each node controls who it will and will not feed based upon local policy and general agreement, if so willing, with other existing nodes. ERGO, USENET IS *NOT* A BROADCAST MEDIUM!! USENET *only* simulates broadcasts through many point-to-point links. With coming software technology, this may not always be the case but in the vast majority of situations right now, it certainly is the case. The minimal price, or shall I say cost, that a downstream site must pay for a connection into USENET is permission-for-connection from its upstream site. Without it, the downstream site is dead in the water. If downstream sites choose to become upstream sites for new downstream sites, and as upstream sites they choose to follow prinicples which `appear' to exist within USENET, then those principles exist by definition and will spread as long as the process continues to repeat itself. The effect of all of this is that no one site can come onto the network and do exactly as it pleases. To continue to co-exist within USENET one must maintain the permission of at least one upstream neighbor. In this case, GEnie's feed was convinced that the one-way outgoing link was a bad idea because it curtailed the *exchange* of information. Given that the feed site recognized and acted upon the argument, and given that we've seen this argument made many times before and effectively upheld in many cases, the `exchange of information' concept with other networks has become a principle of USENET. And by consequence, GEnie is not able to `do as it pleases.' Now, I am not making the claim that GEnie intended to resist sharing or exchanging information with USENET. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the concept was simply overlooked. I am using this episode to illustrate that USENET does have principles (if only from time to time) and is not a true broadcast medium as put forth above. -- Mel Pleasant {backbone}!rutgers!pleasant pleasant@rutgers.edu mpleasant@zodiac.bitnet