Google Groups has been the major source of Usenet spam for months now.
So many people, both News administrators and individual users, have been
so fed up with it that they taken the drastic step to filter anything
coming from Google Groups. This is easy to do, given that Google Groups
adds a header unique to articles injected through it.

Ray Banana, News administrator of news.eternal-september.org, and
four other people have been creating NoCeMs to counter Google Groups
spam. Unlike cancel messages, a NoCeM is not a control message but pattern
matches for filtering. Unlike cancel messages, it cannot be abused. The
News administrator must affirmatively process them.

The process of creating NoCeMs involves SpamAssasin, which is typically
used for email spam but because Usenet articles and email messages share
a common format but with a different set of required headers, Usenet
articles can be fed through SpamAssasin.

There have been a handful of false positives. In the last few days,
they've affected Ed Stasiak and Rich.

SpamAssasin has a filter that looks for patterns indicating the use of a
different email address in the comment section of the From header. This
is where one's full name or pseudonym is placed, and it's derived from a
username field at Google Groups.

Google Groups munges email addresses. If the user leaves the username
field blank, then Google Groups uses a munge of the email address.
SpamAssasin sees two different email addresses.

If you fill in the username field at Google Groups with something that
does not appear to be an email address, then your articles won't trip
this SpamAssasin filter.

Listen to me. The people writing the NoCeMs, for which no one is paying
them, are going to get fed up with doing so at some point. Google Groups
has never had any interest in eliminating spam that originates with
them, and it's been a problem off and on for years.

More and more News sites are going to filter everything from Google
Groups. Your articles will appear in fewer and fewer places.

If you want to participate on Usenet and you want your articles to
propogate, stop using Google Groups entirely. Just stop. Become a user
on a genuine News server. Use a genuine newsreader as the client, not
your browser.

Otherwise nearly no one will be able to read your articles.

Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
server to subscribe to.

Google Groups ending support for Usenet
https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626

On 12/14/23 7:10 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

> Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
> server to subscribe to.
>
> Google Groups ending support for Usenet
> https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626

Google should have spun GG off years ago, once it was clear they weren't
going to do anything with it.

Short of that, this move is long overdue.

All that said, Usenet is basically dead regardless. Reddit has pretty
much supplanted it.

Ian J. Ball <ijball@mac.invalid> wrote:
>On 12/14/23 7:10 PM, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
>>server to subscribe to.

>>Google Groups ending support for Usenet
>>https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626

>Google should have spun GG off years ago, once it was clear they weren't
>going to do anything with it.

They're keeping the archive.

>Short of that, this move is long overdue.

>All that said, Usenet is basically dead regardless. Reddit has pretty
>much supplanted it.

Web forums are rather different than Usenet.

To the extent we have participation, I'm still enjoying what we have.

On 15 Dec 2023 at 04:10:15 CET, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

> Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
> server to subscribe to.
>
> Google Groups ending support for Usenet
> <https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626>

I know this may be controversial for some people, but on my usenet client, I
set a filter on message id that will delete if it comes from a Google Group
since lately there has been too much spam from it.

I know not all spammers come from Google Group, but still, I cannot see
legitimate posts that I want to see in the group because of it.

So, in the end, I decided to delete all of it.

--
-alien-
~ Work like you don't need the money. ~
~ Love like you've never been hurt. ~
~ Dance like nobody is looking. ~

> Ian J. Ball
> > Adam H. Kerman
> >
> > Google Groups ending support for Usenet
> > https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626
>
> Google should have spun GG off years ago, once it was clear they weren't
> going to do anything with it.

Indeed, as I mentioned in a thread I started about this before seeing this thread was up,
Google completely squandered the opportunity to further develop web-based Usenet
access (and profit off it) when they bought DejaNews (which was great) way back in 2001.

It's really a shame, because Usenet is what "social media" was supposed to be; free and
open discussion by people all over the planet of any and every subject, all conveniently
organized and just a mouse click away and most importantly, free of censorship by
corporate or government entities (and individual busybody wanna-be dictators).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Groups

> Short of that, this move is long overdue.

Yeah, it's been shit for a long time now and even I've become annoyed with the spam.

> All that said, Usenet is basically dead regardless. Reddit has pretty
> much supplanted it.

Reddit is corporate owned and heavily censored, they will shadow ban you and
eventually (about a year later...) inform you that you've been officially banned,
with no explanation at all.

alien <alien@invalid.address> wrote:
> On 15 Dec 2023 at 04:10:15 CET, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>
>> Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
>> server to subscribe to.
>>
>> Google Groups ending support for Usenet
>> <https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626>
>
> I know this may be controversial for some people, but on my usenet client, I
> set a filter on message id that will delete if it comes from a Google Group
> since lately there has been too much spam from it.
>
> I know not all spammers come from Google Group, but still, I cannot see
> legitimate posts that I want to see in the group because of it.
>
> So, in the end, I decided to delete all of it.
>

It’s not controversial for me. I killed anything on RAT from Gmail sometime
ago.

And yesterday they struck back.

I forwarded something of interest to an old client and it bounced
instantly. His main address is Gmail. So I showed it to him and we looked
into it, and it turns out that Google (motto: “be evil“) now requires
address authentication (three kinds of it!) for anything being sent to a
Gmail address. Of course, they aren’t actually telling people with Gmail
addresses about this. So they just suddenly aren’t getting Mail anymore.

--
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.

On 12/15/2023 8:27 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
> alien <alien@invalid.address> wrote:
>> On 15 Dec 2023 at 04:10:15 CET, ""Adam H. Kerman"" <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
>>> server to subscribe to.
>>>
>>> Google Groups ending support for Usenet
>>> <https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626>
>>
>> I know this may be controversial for some people, but on my usenet client, I
>> set a filter on message id that will delete if it comes from a Google Group
>> since lately there has been too much spam from it.
>>
>> I know not all spammers come from Google Group, but still, I cannot see
>> legitimate posts that I want to see in the group because of it.
>>
>> So, in the end, I decided to delete all of it.
>>
>
> It’s not controversial for me. I killed anything on RAT from Gmail sometime
> ago.
>
> And yesterday they struck back.
>
> I forwarded something of interest to an old client and it bounced
> instantly. His main address is Gmail. So I showed it to him and we looked
> into it, and it turns out that Google (motto: “be evil“) now requires
> address authentication (three kinds of it!) for anything being sent to a
> Gmail address. Of course, they aren’t actually telling people with Gmail
> addresses about this. So they just suddenly aren’t getting Mail anymore.
>
I got about 3 emails on my gmail account. That's about what I usually
get, though somedays it's only one.

On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 9:10:22 PM UTC-6, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
> server to subscribe to.

Hard Pass, Putin destroys usenet

>
> Google Groups ending support for Usenet
> https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626

Woke Ken <jgrove24@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 9:10:22 PM UTC-6, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

>>Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
>>server to subscribe to.

>Hard Pass, Putin destroys usenet

I guess we'll miss your malapropisms.
>>Google Groups ending support for Usenet
>>https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626

On Friday, December 15, 2023 at 12:57:57 PM UTC-6, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
> Woke Ken <jgro...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >On Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 9:10:22 PM UTC-6, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>
> >>Please pay attention. You must start using a newsreader and find a News
> >>server to subscribe to.
>
> >Hard Pass, Putin destroys usenet
> I guess we'll miss your malapropisms.
> >>Google Groups ending support for Usenet
> >>https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638381921477344227-87081626

Oh get ready and fasten your seat belts. I'm leaving in full Thelma & Eunice fashion.