Where do newsgroups "live"?

[LordJezo]

Where is all the data stored?

I connect to the Verizon news server so is that just a gateway to some other site or does it all live on the Verizon servers?

 

[iwearnosox]

It "lives" on your news service's servers, but expires kind of like sea monkies do. It propogates in real time, from provider to provider, based on a master list amongst the servers.

 

[chin311]

in my pants

 

[iwearnosox]

Originally posted by: chin311
in my pants

I vote you for village idiot.

 

[LordJezo]

Originally posted by: iwearnosox
It "lives" on your news service's servers, but expires kind of like sea monkies do. It propogates in real time, from provider to provider, based on a master list amongst the servers.

So why dont newsgroup providers get busted for having gigs and gigs of illegal software and files on their servers?

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: chin311
in my pants

Right, because in reality you can't really see newsgroups, they're just a figment of imagination.

 

[chin311]

Originally posted by: iwearnosox

Originally posted by: chin311
in my pants

I vote you for village idiot.

OMG REALLY??! *blushes*

 

[iwearnosox]

Originally posted by: LordJezo

Originally posted by: iwearnosox
It "lives" on your news service's servers, but expires kind of like sea monkies do. It propogates in real time, from provider to provider, based on a master list amongst the servers.

So why dont newsgroup providers get busted for having gigs and gigs of illegal software and files on their servers?

Because they've effectively been cleared of responsibility from earlier legal challenges. Odd, I know, given the current p2p climate.

I don't think they're pursued further because of some "grandfathering," and how "difficult" it is to extract copyrighted material vs. typical filesharing applications.

 

[LordJezo]

Originally posted by: iwearnosox

Originally posted by: LordJezo

Originally posted by: iwearnosox
It "lives" on your news service's servers, but expires kind of like sea monkies do. It propogates in real time, from provider to provider, based on a master list amongst the servers.

So why dont newsgroup providers get busted for having gigs and gigs of illegal software and files on their servers?

Because they've effectively been cleared of responsibility from earlier legal challenges. Odd, I know, given the current p2p climate.

I don't think they're pursued further because of some grandfathering, and how "difficult" it is to extract copyrighted material vs. typical filesharing applications.

That's strange.

They could shut down Napster because it stored things on its severs, a list of files, but newsgroups store the actual games and movies for people. Seems much worse to me.

Oh well.

 

[Aves]

Originally posted by: LordJezo
That's strange.

They could shut down Napster because it stored things on its severs, a list of files, but newsgroups store the actual games and movies for people. Seems much worse to me.

Oh well.

SHHHH! Don't attract attention!

 

[Antisocial Virge]

Originally posted by: aves2k

Originally posted by: LordJezo
That's strange.

They could shut down Napster because it stored things on its severs, a list of files, but newsgroups store the actual games and movies for people. Seems much worse to me.

Oh well.

SHHHH! Don't attract attention!

Exactly. Newsgroups seem like DOS. New computer people don't know about it and do not want to bother to learn it.

 

[optoman]

Originally posted by: Antisocial-Virge

Originally posted by: aves2k

Originally posted by: LordJezo
That's strange.

They could shut down Napster because it stored things on its severs, a list of files, but newsgroups store the actual games and movies for people. Seems much worse to me.

Oh well.

SHHHH! Don't attract attention!

Exactly. Newsgroups seem like DOS. New computer people don't know about it and do not want to bother to learn it.

That is better for us old timers. 😉

Lock this thread so the ultimate secret does not get out. :Q

 

[royaldank]

To answer the question, I think each group has a server. They are all shared to a master list of some sort and the large providers pull the message for the day. I think I remember seeing a guy that was running a newsgroup server in his kitchen. So, I think there are individual owners of the newsgroup on an individual machine. Several companies hit it, and spread it on down the chain. However much storage your provider has is how much retention you get. I'd guess the master server probably only keeps the message for 24 hours. Maybe that is how it's sliding under the law right now. No one really has the stuff since the provider is dropping it every so often.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: royaldank
To answer the question, I think each group has a server. They are all shared to a master list of some sort and the large providers pull the message for the day. I think I remember seeing a guy that was running a newsgroup server in his kitchen. So, I think there are individual owners of the newsgroup on an individual machine. Several companies hit it, and spread it on down the chain. However much storage your provider has is how much retention you get. I'd guess the master server probably only keeps the message for 24 hours. Maybe that is how it's sliding under the law right now. No one really has the stuff since the provider is dropping it every so often.

No, there are not separate servers for each newsgroup.

It's a distributed system. You post new messages to your local server, and your local server connects to other servers and they connect to even more servers, and they replicate between each other in a very chaotic, nondeterministic manner.

Yet somehow it all works.