94 Snoozenet The software came to be called “news,” because the intent was that people (usually graduate students) at most Unix sites (usually universities) would announce their latest collection of hacks and patches. Mostly, this was the source code to the news software itself, propagating the virus. Over time the term “netnews” came into use, and from that came “Usenet,” and its legions of mutilations (such as “Abusenet,” “Lusenet,” “Snoozenet,” and “Net of a Million Lies.”1) The network grew like kudzu—more sites, more people, and more mes- sages. The basic problem with Usenet was that of scaling. Every time a new site came on the network, every message posted by everybody at that site was automatically copied to every other computer on the network. One computer in New Hampshire was rumored to have a five-digit monthly phone bill before DEC wised up and shut it down. The exorbitant costs were easily disguised as overhead, bulking up the massive spending on computers in the 1980s. Around that time, a group of hackers devised a protocol for transmitting Usenet over the Internet, which was completely subsidized by the federal deficit. Capacity increased and Usenet truly came to resemble a million monkeys typing endlessly all over the globe. In early 1994, there were an estimated 140,000 sites with 4.6 million users generating 43,000 messages a day. Defenders of the Usenet say that it is a grand compact based on coopera- tion. What they don’t say is that it is also based on name-calling, harass- ment, and letter-bombs. Death by Email How does a network based on anarchy police itself? Mob rule and public lynchings. Observe: Date: Fri, 10 Jul 92 13:11 EDT From: nick@lcs.mit.edu Subject: Splitting BandyHairs on LuseNet To: VOID, FEATURE-ENTENMANNS, UNIX-HATERS The news.admin newsgroup has recently been paralyzed (not to say it was ever otherwise) by an extended flamefest involving one bandy@catnip.berkeley.ca.us, who may be known to some of you. 1From A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge (Tom Doherty Associates, 1992).

Netnews and Usenet: Anarchy Through Growth 95 Apparently, he attempted to reduce the amount of noise on Lusenet by implementing a program that would cancel articles crossposted to alt.cascade. A “cascade” is an affectionate term for a sequence of messages quoting earlier messages and adding little or no content the resulting repeated indent, nugget of idiocy, and terminating exdent is evidently favored by certain typographically-impaired peo- ple. Most of us just add the perpetrator ("perp" in the jargon) to our kill files. Regrettably, Bandy’s implementation of this (arguably worthy) idea contained a not-so-subtle bug that caused it to begin cancelling arti- cles that were not cascades, and it deep-sixed about 400 priceless gems of net.wisdom before anyone could turn it off. He admitted his mistake in a message sent to the nntp-managers mailing list (what remains of the UseNet “cabal”) but calls for him to “publicly apologize” continue to reverberate. Someone cleverly for- warded his message from nntp-managers to news.admin (which con- tained his net address), and someone (doubtless attempting to prevent possible sendsys bombing of that address) began cancelling all arti- cles which mentioned the address… Ah, the screams of “Free speech!” and “Lynch Mobs!” are deafening, the steely clashes of metaphor upon metaphor are music to the ears of the true connois- seur of network psychology. All in all, a classic example of Un*x and UseNet lossage: idiocy compounded upon idiocy in an ever-expanding spiral. I am sorry to (publicly) admit that I succumbed to the temptation to throw in my $.02: Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Splitting BandyHairs Distribution: world I’m glad we have nntp-managers for more-or-less reasonable discussion of the problems of running netnews. But as long as we’re wasting time and bandywidth here on news.admin: People who have known the perp (God, I hate that word) also know that he's been ... well, impulsive in the past. And has paid dearly for his rashness. He's been punished enough. (What, you mean sitting in a bathtub yelling "Be careful with that X-Acto blade!" isn’t punishment enough? For anything?) Some say that sordid episode should remain unchronicled (even by the ACM -- especially by the ACM) ...