Chapter 3: Navigating Newsgroups

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Overview

We live in a rainbow of Chaos.

—Paul C zanne

Before the Web offered point-and-click access to information, Internet users shared information through Usenet (Unix User Network or Users Network) newsgroups. Newsgroups provided a place to swap scholarly talk about mostly academic and scientific topics, but eventually people created two previously vetoed newsgroups: “Sex” and “Drugs.” To complete the trilogy, a programmer named Brian Reid added a third newsgroup called “Rock and Roll”:

From: mejac!decwrl!reid (Brian Reid)  Message-Id: <[e-mail]>  Date: 3 Apr 1988 1754-PST (Sunday)  To: [e-mail], [e-mail], hoptoad!gnu  Subject: Re: soc.sex final results  In-Reply-To: Gene Spafford <[e-mail]> /Sun, 03 Apr 88 18:22:36 EST.               <[e-mail]>  To end the suspense, I have just created alt.sex  That meant that the alt network now carried alt.sex and alt.drugs.  It was therefore artistically necessary to create alt.rock-n-roll,  which I have also done. I have no idea what sort of traffic it  will carry. If the bizzarroids take it over I will rmgroup it or  moderate it; otherwise I will let it be.  Brian Reid  T5 (5th thoracic) 

To some Internet historians, the creation of these three “alternative” newsgroups sparked the beginning of anarchy within the previously tame world of newsgroups. Unlike the traditional newsgroups, which offer academic or friendly discussions, many alternative newsgroups skirt the boundaries of the law, letting people swap everything from copyrighted audio and video files to live viruses and hacking tools. Because of the relatively underground nature of these alternative newsgroups, you can often find rare bootleg recordings of your favorite artists lurking around newsgroups that you might never find anywhere else on the Internet.

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