NTL pulls plug on warez
Posted by Tom Warren on 31 January 2003 - 19:04 · 13 comments & 392 views
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(1 reply)
#1 Posted by brew crew on 31 Jan 2003 - 21:58
- I find it fascinating that they will drop warez groups from usenet (which actually is not new they have been doing this for years). But they continue to allow kiddie porn groups.
Everbody knows that pedos get most of their kiddie porn from Usenet. It is not a secret.
What kind of world do we live in, when it is wrong to trade illegally copywritted software but it all right to download and share illegal, distigusting and sometimes very disturbing pornography.
I guess this is what the New World Order is all about. You can hurt children, but not big business.
F U C K The New World Order
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#1.1 Posted by MikeS2k on 31 Jan 2003 - 22:29
- Agreed. I hope they don't drop the proper (lesbian etc) pornographic newsgroups though. I am a user of the NTL newsgroups, and while I don't mind if they drop the warez newsgroups, I had no idea they carry child pornography. Child porn is a much bigger evil than warez. Fuck the NWO.
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#2 Posted by WindowsXP on 31 Jan 2003 - 22:11
- My ISP (XtraMSN) is owned by Telecom NZ, and we have never had any of those groups, even before they teamed with MSN.
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(2 replies)
#3 Posted by ElGato on 01 Feb 2003 - 02:26
- Unfortunately this type of action rarely has the desired affect, it just drives the problem elsewhere. If certain groups become unavailable then other less obvious groups will be used.
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#3.1 Posted by briangw on 01 Feb 2003 - 02:28
- Or, people will just order HTTP based or third party NNTP services from other companies.
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#3.2 Posted by Dessimat0r on 01 Feb 2003 - 03:32
- Problem, you say?
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(1 reply)
#4 Posted by TC17 on 01 Feb 2003 - 02:31
- Who is this NTL? There is no single source for newsgroups that I'm aware of. By doing this, then that requires them to monitor every group, and every message.
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#5 Posted by Porkey on 01 Feb 2003 - 06:07
- if you use NTL (a UK ISP for #4) you will find out that the binary newsgroups have been under ALOT of stress recently. NTL pulled a few newsgroups a couple of weeks ago? and it was having the result they had hoped (less work on the servers / network) but they still had to reduce it more, hence pulling all of the servers that have been.. this is what ive heard ne way.. [url=irc://irc.barrysworld.com/#nthellworld]nthellworld IRC (needs mIRC)[/url] / [url=http://www.nthellworld.com]nthellworld homepage (NTL help site)[/url]
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(1 reply)
#6 Posted by bennyboyamo on 01 Feb 2003 - 08:03
- [quote]Taken from ntl.announce earlier. This may help slightly. Hi All, In order to try & stabilise the performance of the ntl news service the following groups are being removed from the feed. Apologies for any inconvenience. Also please note that newsgroup.requests@ntlworld.com is currently not accepting requests to add new binary groups. -- Regards Mike ntl:Acceptable Use Policy Team alt.binaries.anime.repost alt.binaries.cbts.repost alt.binaries.cd.genealogy.reposts alt.binaries.cd.image.dreamcast.repost alt.binaries.cd.image.playstation.repost alt.binaries.cd.image.playstation.reposts alt.binaries.cd.image.playstation2.repost alt.binaries.cd.image.reposts alt.binaries.dreamcast.repost alt.binaries.fullpost.magscans.repost alt.binaries.fz-reposts alt.binaries.games.reposts alt.binaries.gdead.highspeed.reposts alt.binaries.gdead.reposts alt.binaries.movies.divx.french.reposts alt.binaries.movies.divx.repost alt.binaries.movies.repost alt.binaries.movies.shadowrealm.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.anime.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.babylon5.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.buffy-v-slayer.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.male.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.repost alt.binaries.multimedia.reposts alt.binaries.music.shn.repost alt.binaries.nospam.coed.repost alt.binaries.nospam.scanners-post.repost alt.binaries.nospam.teenfem.repost alt.binaries.old.games.reposts alt.binaries.pictures.bluebird.repost alt.binaries.pictures.bluebird.reposts alt.binaries.pictures.comics.repost alt.binaries.pictures.comics.reposts alt.binaries.pictures.nude.celebrities.fake.repost alt.binaries.pictures.nudism.wolfpack.repost alt.binaries.pictures.suze.repost alt.binaries.pictures.zips.repost alt.binaries.repost alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.repost alt.binaries.vcd.other.repost alt.binaries.vcd.repost alt.binaries.vcd.svcd.repost alt.usenet.reposts alt.usenet.reposts.d free.alt.freedom.japan.repost alt.binaries.audiobooks.highspeed alt.binaries.cd.image.highspeed alt.binaries.cd.image.playstation.highspeed alt.binaries.cd.images.dreamcast.highspeed alt.binaries.games.kidstuff.highspeed alt.binaries.gdead.highspeed alt.binaries.gdead.highspeed.reposts alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime.highspeed alt.binaries.vcd.highspeed z-netz.telecom.modem.highspeed zer.z-netz.telecom.modem.highspeed alt.binaries.nl alt.binaries.cd.image.xbox unidata.binaries.grid.grib alt.binaries.vcd alt.binaries.boneless alt.binaries.x alt.binaries.dvd alt.binaries.vcdz alt.binaries.cd.image.playstation2.dvdiso alt.chello.binaries alt.binaries.svcd alt.binaries.cd.image.xbox.repost alt.binaries.vcd.svcd.repost alt.binaries.cd.image alt.binaries.korea alt.binaries.etc alt.binaries.mpeg.video.music alt.binaries.movies.divx.french alt.binaries.cd.image[/quote]
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(1 reply)
#7 Posted by Osiris on 01 Feb 2003 - 11:31
- news groups, who the hell uses newgroups do these things even exist in australia?
Many of the groups being dropped are for reposts, though it's fairly obvious what NTL had in mind when it dropped alt.binaries.dvd for instance. The fact that the announcement came from the Acceptable Use Policy Team, better known as the department which deals with abuse, should give you some idea what is going on.
The announcement goes further in saying that requests to add new binary groups will not be accepted. Is this the start of a real campaign against the less-than-leet warez crowd? Will NTL kill off more binary groups as time goes on? Just what was it that prompted this purge?
We're still waiting for NTL's PR bunnies to get back to us as we go to press so you might have to wait a while before you find out what's really going on.
Given that a patch was available, Microsoft should not have both feet held to the fire. Gates and company are extremely serious about removing the stigma attached to the level of security in its products. With customers looking to cut costs and Linux initiatives cutting into Microsoft's dominant share across multiple markets, having a reputation for defective, insecure products is not helpful in convincing customers to stay the course.
As part of the year long focus on security, the company claims that it retrained 11,000 developers--at a cost of more than $200 million in lost productivity--to make its products more secure. Tools like the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer, which scans systems for common misconfigurations across most of the company's products, are popping up.
But it's the customers who are also stuck with escalating costs to deal with vulnerabilities from Microsoft and many other vendors at a time when cost reduction is crucial IT priority. Sticking customers with the cost of maintaining the security of products is unacceptable. System administrators who fail to apply patches are certainly to blame in cases where a fix was available, but it's not that simple.
Applying patches can have unintended consequences. Because patches that fix one problem can create new ones, system administrators are understandably conservative when it comes to deploying patches without rigorous and time-consuming testing. Microsoft is trying to address the problem with its Software Update Services (SUS), which allows customers to download relevant patches to a SUS server and test the patch before deploying it in a live environment. But the cost of running those compatibility tests is borne by the customer, and the test isn't going to replicate exactly the live production environment in which the patch must live.
And, as Microsoft's own problems with the Slammer worm point out, keeping up with the stream of patches required to stay ahead of hackers is not easy, especially in an environment with downsized IT departments. In light of this situation, I have simple proposal. Microsoft makes products that have defects. It may be the result of a complex eco-system in which making millions of lines of code invulnerable to hackers is a Sisyphean task. Still, the cost to implement patches is a financial burden to Microsoft's customers.
With more than $40 billion stashed away, waiting for a good use besides providing a dividend for shareholders, Microsoft should use a small amount of those cash reserves to pay customers for the cost of testing and installing patches that address specific vulnerabilities. You don't pay to have your car repaired when a manufacturing defect is found.
Microsoft may be the biggest culprit because of the huge Windows market, but it's obviously not alone. The Red Hat Network, for example, routinely posts patches to address security vulnerabilities with its Linux distribution.
Any vendor whose products need patching due to security vulnerabilities can cut you a check for the labor associated with installing patches. And who should foot the bill for downtime and lost business due to a security breach in a specific piece of software? Maybe the vendor should help to pay your hacker insurance premium.
It will take time to sort this out, but the cost of keeping your network and systems secure should be a shared burden, not just a cost of doing business.