Professor Steve Bellovin at the computer science department at Columbia University in New York City writes in his blog about early design decisions for Usenet. In particular he addresses authentication and the factors taken into consideration given the technology available at the time. After considering the infeasiblity of many options at the time, they ultimately threw up their hands.
That left us with no good choices. The infrastructure for a cryptographic solution was lacking. The uux command rendered illusory any attempts at security via the Usenet programs themselves. We chose to do nothing. That is, we did not implement fake security that would give people the illusion of protection but not the reality.
For those unfamiliar with it, Usenet is a text-based, worldwide, decentralized, distributed discussion system. Basically it can be likened to a bulletin board system of sorts. Servers operate peer to peer while users connect to their preferred server using a regular client-server model. It was a key source of work-related discussion, as well as entertainment and regular news. Being uncensorable, it was a key source of news during several major political crises around the world during the 1980s and early 1990s. Being uncensorable, it has gained the ire of both large businesses and powerful politicians. It used to be an integral part of any ISP's offerings even 15 years ago. Lack of authentication has been both a strength and a weakness. Professor Bellovin sheds some light on how it came to be like that.
Despite weaknesses, Usenet gave rise to among many other things the now defunct Clarinet news, which is regarded to be the first exclusively online business.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 13 2018, @03:51AM
Actually, an ISP (at least one that I'm doing business with) owes me the services agreed upon in the contract/agreement between me and the ISP. This assumes that I hold up my end of the contract (by paying the bill).
In my particular case, there are *at least* four ISPs that can provide me with internet connectivity. The one that I use doesn't block ports or have abusive TOS.
The issues with local government corruption are long-standing and well known. In fact, if you search my posting history, I've addressed that specific issue more times than I can count.
What's more, such corruption doesn't make what I said here [soylentnews.org] untrue:
So, I'm not exactly sure what you're going on about.
All the same, if it makes you feel better to go on an uninformed rant, knock yourself out.
P.S: If the subject line was supposed to get a rise out of me, I'm sorry that didn't work out for you. Don't stop trying though. I have faith in you!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr