Google Expands Usenet Archive to 20 Years

Paul Boutin writes "The Ghost of Usenet Postings Past has returned to haunt many more of us: Google just announced the expansion of their Usenet archive back to May 3, 1981."Check out the past on Groups.google.com

Oh dear

[Anonymous DWord (466154)]

Ahh, to be young and brash again... oh, wait. Noooooooo!! Glad I've changed my email address since those long-(best)forgotten days. It wasn't me, I swear!

Yes!

[Skyshadow (508)]

Awright! Just think of all the old porn that awaits my eager stare! No sleep for me tonight.

Re:Yes!

[jackal! (88105)]

Awright! Just think of all the old porn that awaits my eager stare!

Yeah, all the porn in ASCII...

MIME, PR0N, the good old days.

[Per Abrahamsen (1397)]

base64 is part of MIME from the start of the 90'ties, and wasn't really used on Usenet before mid 90'ties. Before that we used uuencode, however there was very little pr0n back then, and low quality. ASCII art comapred favorable to it. You couldn't upload much with 2400 baud modem.

We loved it, though!

That darn Google...

[edashofy (265252)]

I don't think ANYBODY should be held liable for Usenet postings they made when they were 14 years old...it's like having naked baby pictures of yourself stapled to your forehead when you walk around...

On the other hand, you can now go back and see who REALLY won all those flame wars you were involved in :)

Re:That darn Google...

[aussersterne (212916)]

*sucks in air*

No doubt. I just went and had a read at a whole bunch of posts from 10-15 years ago in which I was often a real prick [and strangely enough, in which I seem to have more technical/coding prowess than I have now!?!]. There's nothing like humble pie and complete red-eared embarrassment at three in the morning -- embarrassment first at how one was acting, and second at no longer being able to fully understand technical discussions from one's own teenagehood!

I'm in my late twenties now. I'm an author. My name is out there and is unique. Now, when people type my name into Google, they're going to pull up stuff I posted via free BBSs and tech bars when I was a prick of a teenaged punk-rocker in the '80s who [it would seem] really had a problem or two.

*cringe*

I'm going to go hide my head in the sand for a while, then quickly ink-jet myself a "live and learn" t-shirt.

[Then, as soon as the sun comes up, I'm heading downtown to change my name.]

St. Peter Effect

[mindpixel (154865)]

I think this should be called the St. Peter Effect... you see, cuz when we go to heaven, St. Peter will Google us, and pull back everything we have ever thought, said or did - ranked by relevance or date... Just be glad that mere mortals are limited to 20 years of newsgroup postings!

BTW: If you search on my name and find stuff about LSD, it was another Chris McKinstry.

Re:That darn Google...

[tetrad (131849)]

I just went and had a read at a whole bunch of posts from 10-15 years ago in which I was often a real prick ... Then, as soon as the sun comes up, I'm heading downtown to change my name.

Good news for reformed pricks, you don't have to change your name! Google lets you remove [google.com] your articles from its archive.

(Of course, the articles may still be in some other archive...)

Re:That darn Google...

[eXtro (258933)]

Being able to remove your own articles from a public forum beyond the "Oh shit! I hope I can cancel that before it propogates" devalues the archive and makes me lose a lot of respect for the people behind google.com. I've posted things I wish I wouldn't have on usenet before. Big deal. There was a bit of embarassment when my dad discovered how to search for my name on groups.google.com, but there were a lot more things that he was proud of. He didn't necessarily understand them, but he could see that they were well received.

If you do things in public then you shouldn't be able to excise them from the publics memory, even if the thing you did was make a spectacular ass of yourself.

X-No-Archive, my badge of honor

[Fencepost (107992)]

Hah, my claim to lasting online fame!

I'm pretty sure I get to take the credit for that one - something like it would certainly have existed eventually, but this [google.com] is the earliest discussion (by ~5 months) that even mentions anything like it, even if I did suggest it as X-NoArchive instead.

I just wish I'd saved the original email as well.

Hmmmmm....

[GoRK (10018)]

So that means that this [google.com] is currently THE first post!

Re:Hmmmmm....

[darekana (205478)]

More specifically:
First Hot Grits [google.com] Post

"hot grits (course ground hominy meal, made into a mush usually very thick)"

Nostalgia

[Lunastorm (471804)]

It's nice to browse through the archives and read my various posts [google.com] over the years. How I've grown. :)

It should be noted that not all groups are archived. I recently checked out one of my favorites and after the name of it, it said (This group is no longer archived). That's a shame, because I would love to read the older stories of alt.sex.stories.

I wish that one can access the Google Groups through a news reader such as Pan, because I really don't like the interface Google provides, and one reallly can't change any of their account settings for posting. I was hoping these things would be fixed in beta, but I guess it's OK as it is.

What the Timeline Missed...

[jackal! (88105)]

That's a neat timeline, but what it's missing that I'd love to see:

First Spam

First Metoo

First Flamewar

First MLM/chain letter

You know, the really important historical stuff.

If you doubt this is worthwhile...

[Boiling_point_ (443831)]

Remember when alt.sexy.bald.captains [google.com] still had Star Trek in it?? These days, it's all alt, sexy, and probably bald - but that's about it :(

Kinda cool

[bryan1945 (301828)]

Younger folks probably won't find this too interesting as it will be more like history to them rather than us old farts re-living younger days...

I went to the Google link where they have a list of firsts:

First mention of Microsoft; not even the oldest post!
IBM PC.
CDs, in 1982! Shit, now I realize how old I am!
C64, Lisa and Mac, AIDS (a purely homosexual disease?!?!- really weird 'cause I just found an old copy of Discover magazine that had a first mention of AIDS; blew me away due to difference in info we know now)

I love the "WorldWideWeb - Executive Summary" link under the Google link:

A bit of the text-
"
Making a web is as simple as writing a few SGML files which point to your existing data. Making it public involves running the FTP or HTTP daemon, and making at least one link into your web from another. In fact, any file available by anonymous FTP can be immediately linked into a web. The very small start-up effort is designed to allow small contributions. At the other end of the scale, large information providers may provide an HTTP server with full text or keyword indexing.

The WWW model gets over the frustrating incompatibilities of data format between suppliers and reader by allowing negotiation of format between a smart browser and a smart server. This should provide a basis for extension into
multimedia, and allow those who share application standards to make full use of them across the web.

This summary does not describe the many exciting possibilities opened up by the WWW project, such as efficient document caching. the reduction of redundant out-of-date copies, and the use of knowledge daemons. There is more information in the online project documentation, including some background on hypertext and many technical notes.

Try it
"

SGML! Does anyone remember this! "Try it" indeed! Wow, when I thought Usenet was the shit... hehehe!

Re:Kinda cool

[bryan1945 (301828)]

Just wanted to mention this after reading my post- I am not blasting gay people at all- it's just that back then AIDS really was first thought of as a "gay only" disease.

Also- you folks who weren't born at the time beginning of this archive... bah! You try and debug assembler!

Milestones on the page

[twilight30 (84644)]

Anyone notice the milestones listed on the page? I was quite charmed by the 'Stallman announces GNU' post -- mostly by the fact that like Torvalds on Linux, his tone is very modest (well, unlike what morphed later-- speaking in comparative terms only).

Anyway.

Disaster waiting to happen

[Rosco P. Coltrane (209368)]

Just imagine if someone creates alt.history.usenet_archive that would contain the archive of all usenet messages (including alt.history.usenet_archive, (including alt.history.usenet_archive, (including alt.history.usenet_archive, (including alt.history.usenet_archive ...)))) ...

Good thing Google made a Usenet archive without using a news server !

Re:Disaster waiting to happen

[IntelliTubbie (29947)]

Just imagine if someone creates alt.history.usenet_archive that would contain the archive of all usenet messages (including alt.history.usenet_archive, (including alt.history.usenet_archive, (including alt.history.usenet_archive, (including alt.history.usenet_archive ...)))) ...

There's an easy solution: just create an archive of all archives that do not contain themselves. Oh wait ... stupid set theory.

Cheers,
IT

well, I just submitted this, soo....

[Anthony Boyd (242971)]

Since my article submission is doomed for rejection, let me at least post some of extra stuff I had mentioned. First, check out the monolithic kernel debate between Andy and Linus [google.com] for yourself. Second, in my article submission about Google, I also mentioned that Alexa now archives the Web, too. Try their Internet Archive Wayback Machine [archive.org]. I found they had an archive of my old WEBsurf magazine from 1997 [archive.org]. Hilarious.

Just looked up to see how far back I posted

[firewort (180062)]

So, I did what any person does-
I went and searched on my name and now defunct emails to see how far back I go, how complete their records are, and what an idiot I was when I posted newbie questions on Caldera OpenLinux 2, apparently after having given up on RH 3x.

At least I learned my lesson. There also appear to be a few stray posts I made about BeOS, and trying to sell an old BMW.

If this is all I have to worry about staying on the internet forever, I think I'll be okay.

Wow

[jpatters (883)]

Now I can browse all of my anti-Mac rantings from the comfort of my Powerbook G4.

Re:Wow

[Sivax256 (221355)]

This comes within half a month of covering my whole life. That I think is very cool now I can go back when I am 90 years old and see what went on 15 days after i was born.

Straight to the point

[squaretorus (459130)]

Don't you love Google? This item took some decent reseach, holds genuine interest for many of us, is presented in a light format with no banner ads and is actually interesting.

If only Google could take over the WWW as well as usenet we'd all be better off!

Lesseee Here!

[Jeremiah Cornelius (137)]

Every post from alt.pave.the.earth [google.com]
and
alt.culture.electric-midget [google.com]

This is the stuff that really bears the test of time! Not to metion the great AOL flood of 1995 [google.com], and the annual rites of September [google.com].

What else? 20 years of tjames [google.com] and kibo [google.com].

1.1 Why pave the earth?

There are several advantages of a paved Earth over a non-paved Earth, the only really important one is the ease of driving though. Today roads are narrow, you have to turn, and most governments frown at ground travel over Mach1. With endless blacktop in every direction, there will be no restriction to your movement, and rocket powered hypercars will whiz in all directions. We will be able to amuse ourselves with endless driving at incredible speeds while drinking beer and eating wonderfully juicy burgers.

A trip down Slashdot memory lane

[IntelliTubbie (29947)]

It appears that this is the first message mentioning slashdot.org [google.com].

This one is the first post by Rob Malda [google.com].

First mention of Jeff "Hemos" Bates [google.com].

First mention of CowboyNeal [google.com] (is it the same guy?).

Awww, you guys...

Cheers,
IT

Can Google be declared historic landmark?

[Anthony Boyd (242971)]

Now that Google has a historian's wet-dream of actual writings by actual humans as they experienced historic events, such as the falling of the Berlin wall [google.com], what are the odds that someone at some point moves to ensure that this information is preserved? I think Google may be thinking very smart here. Their product could become so important that people might actively try to preserve the company, too.

Oldest one

[Legion303 (97901)]

From: bl3003@arpa
Subject: Booya!
Date: Jan 01, 1981
Newsgroups: alt.flame,arpanet.general

First Post!

--

Ah, those were the days.

-Legion

some thoughts about it in comparison to ./

[dario_moreno (263767)]

like almost everyone else, I typed my "real name"...and found 293 articles dating back
to april 1992. Excepted for my most private
and personal life, you could guess almost
exactly who I am, what is my career, hobbies
and so on... On ./, anonymity and disguise
seem to be more prevalent than on Usenet.

Amazing also to see that before 1994 or so,
there were only educated, polite, informative
people on the face of the earth (and I looked
like a bad-taught puppy in comparison to them).
At this point, with AOLers and non-academics
appearing, something definitely changed.

!mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko

[wirefarm (18470)]

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned this one yet.
Still a favorite of mine:

USSR on Usenet [google.com]


Of course, now nobody thinks twice when they see a Russian address, but back then it was a big deal.
(To the younger readers: They were the bad guys back then, the "Evil Empire"...)

And now, let's open a flask of Vodka and have a drink on our entry on
this network. So:

NA ZDAROVJE!

Cheers,
Jim in Tokyo

Re:!mcvax!moskvax!kremvax!chernenko

[Dahan (130247)]

Well the original kremvax (in the post you refer to) was an April Fool's joke [tuxedo.org]... although when the USSR did get on the Internet years later, someone named a machine kremvax in tribute :)

IRC

[ThePilgrim (456341)]

I just thank god no one seems to have archived IRC :-)

Re:IRC

[Tackhead (54550)]

> I just thank god no one seems to have archived IRC :-)

Coming in 2008... "google.nsa.gov"

Say thanks

[augustz (18082)]

Hey Folks,

A lot of fun and a great job. Christ it's a laugh to look up first mentions of things.

Why not send a little thanks to google and the folks listed on their page that THEY give thanks to. For the lazy:

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Doesn't take but a few minutes... So go on and drop them a note. Probably matters more than you think :)

Spoiler Alert!

[fastdecade (179638)]

It should be safe to read these now :-)

• Return of the Jedi Spoiler [google.com]
• ET Spoiler [google.com]
• Cocoon Spoiler [google.com]
• Ultima II Spoiler [google.com]
• BTF Spoiler [google.com]

I FOUND IT!

[someone_took_my_nick (542977)]

The famous post, i have seen it quoted so many times. So here it is in the flesh, posted by Linus Benedict Torvalds himself to comp.os.minix, 08:53:28 PST 5th October 2001. Subject: Free minix-like kernel sources for 386-AT http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&th=8ed1169d0 b48c9b8&rnum=2

A bunch of collective dumb-asses

[Sabalon (1684)]

Man...I was just looking at some of my old posts (which I don't even remember how I made them).

I think we can have a collective opinion that when we were younger, we were a bunch of dumbasses.

First mention of slashdot

[jonearth (257681)]

First mention of slashdot

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=slashdot&hl=en &s coring=d&as_drrb=b&as_mind=17&as_minm=1&as_miny=19 97&as_maxd=11&as_maxm=8&as_maxy=1997&rnum=5&selm=5 cr9je%24j2i%40mirrors.cellnet.com

:P

First (and only?) post by Bill Gates

[toast- (72345)]

First post (and not even under his own account) can be found here.

Maybe other celebrities can be found in the archive..

Find the article
here [google.com]

Fascinating -- check it out!

[drix (4602)]

This is really fascinating, almost like a time capsule! Can you even imagine a time when everyone in the entire online world didn't know what an emoticon was?! Witness this extraordinary paragraph:

Recently, Scott Fahlman at CMU devised a scheme for annotating one's messages to overcome this problem. If you turn your head sideways to look at the three characters :-) they look sort of like a smiling face. Thus, if someone sends you a message that says "Have you stopped beating your wife?:-)" you know they are joking. If they say "I need to talk to you :-(", be prepared for trouble.

You read these phrases like, "A company called Microsoft," or "A new virus called AIDS"; what a throwback. Very cool!

Re:700 million messages!

[Lunastorm (471804)]

It doesn't have binary files on there. The only pr0n (why not just spell it as porn?) they have on there is erotic literature.

But I didn't download...

[4mn0t1337 (446316)]

So, with so much of our past now logged, will this be the "I didn't inhale" of the Teens and '20s?

"Why yes, I did occasionally scan alt.pictures.binaries.bestiality, but I didn't *download* anything..."

Re:Good thing?

[Guybrush1 (126293)]

You don't have to dig. Google has already given you links to a lot of good, historical posts.

http://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_annou nc e_20.html

Re:Good thing?

[by Anonymous Coward]

Their list is great to browse through, but there are some real gems off the beaten path as well...

For instance, google points you to: "October, 1991 Linus Torvalds's Linux announcement" [google.com]

But you can also find a quite interesting, more preliminary announcement from him a few months earlier: "What would you like to see most in minix?" [google.com]

You can also read about Rob Malda's "Weird Problem while booting..." [google.com], which is also the first time he calls himself 'Commander Taco' on Usenet. (October 1995)

Post your interesting finds!

Re:ok, so how do we delete our posts?

[dair (210)]

Read the FAQ [google.com], or use the Automatic Removal Tool [google.com].

-dair

Re:Slashdot archived for historians?

[Peter Dyck (201979)]

Is it right that Usenet authors will contribute their ideas without their consent and without compensation from those who profit from their work?

This is the standard practice in all sciences: information is to be shared freely. I don't see any problem with this. How could I "own" my Usenet posts anymore than I could own a public domain program I released on the net?

But then again the world seems to be breeding more and more people who wouldn't let other people pick up their dog's feces lest they should profit from it.

Re:massive copyright violation

[vscjoe (537452)]

You have just blabbed away your right to gripe when the RIAA and MPAA attempt to time-limit your use of "their" copyrighted material.

I don't see why. First, there is a difference between personal use and commercial redistribution. Second, if the RIAA and MPAA rules are the law of the land, I expect Google to play by them as well when it comes to my content.

This very question of the copyright status of public postings has been tried and precedent has been set: Your Usenet posts aren't really copyrighted.

Oh? Would you care to share the case law?

Adjust your expectations of privacy downward.

I have, as have most other people. But the on-line world is poorer for it, because if every word is "on the record", people either post anonymously or they don't engage in informal discussions. You just can't have informal on-line conversations with friends if everything is recorded.

Re:massive copyright violation

[Tassach (137772)]

No. But I do expect other people not to make money from my postings, and I do expect that people don't engage in massive copyright violation and redistribute large collections of postings with expiration dates of a few weeks after 15 years.

Stop whining. You posted your comments to a PUBLIC forum. The fact that someone has found a way to make money off of a archive of public messages does not give you any kind of legitimate grievance. There's nothing stopping you from doing the same thing if you wanted to. If you really feel so strongly that your copyright has been infringed, put your money where your mouth is and file a copyright infringement suit against Google.

If you spray-painted a bunch of grafitti around your town, then someone came around and took pictures of it and published a coffee table book of your art, you would have a VERY hard time convincing a court that you were due a cent. While IANAL, I would be suprised if there was not ample precedent saying that by placing your original work in a public forum you are releasing it to the public domain.

Hey, Linus -

[wirefarm (18470)]

The card I have is a VG-2000 by DFI
with 512kB video ram, supposed to be able to do almost anything (well
1024x768 16 colours anyway). The problem is - it doesn't.

Hey, buddy, quit bitching and just use it in VGA mode, like everybody else.
If you don't like it, why don't you just go write your own drivers? While you're at it, why don't you go write your own Operating System???
(Heh heh... Sure told him a thing-or-two...)