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> Maybe ISPs would include a Unix account on their servers where you could set up your .plan file and things like 'finger' and 'talk' and ... Around 20 years o

> Maybe ISPs would include a Unix account on their servers where you could set up your .plan file and things like 'finger' and 'talk' and ... Around 20 years or so ago, many did. At least, the ISPs that I used back then certainly did. It wasn't extremely common but it wasn't all that unusual either.

kolinko 8y ago
Yup, I had access to these on my shell that was given to me by my dial-in ISP. I think what killed these services was a potential for abuse and spam. If you have your name/details attached to an e-mail account, it's super easy for marketers to scrap that, and then spam you if you meet certain criteria. Centralised services (with all my distaste towards them) prevent that, because they block spammers, and limit access to such data quite nicely. For a similar reason I think many people stick with gmail - because it's centralised, it can use ML to filter out spam much better than any other mailing services. It's also more secure - the Google's budget on maintaining security of their services is far higher than that of any other provider.
- mattnewport 8y ago
  I hear this claim a lot (that Gmail's spam filter is so much better than others) but that hasn't been my experience. Spam was not a problem for my corporate email account at my last job that used Exchange and after switching from Gmail to Proton Mail last year (with the same email address on my own domain) I haven't noticed any real difference in the amount of spam than makes it to my inbox. It may have been true that Gmail did a much better job than most other services when it first launched but I don't think it's been true for several years now.
  - hackbinary 8y ago
    MS Exchange on-prem does not include an anti-spam solution. You have to buy one like Symantec security cloud or MS Exchange online security. Exchange is not a 'hosted' solution. Gmail by contrast is only a hosted/cloud solution, and comes with a security solution as part of the service. I can compare Symantec Security Cloud sitting in front of an Exchange solution to a Gmail solution, and say that hands down Gmail is far and away better with exactly zero phishing emails making it through compared to numerous attacks able to get through Symantec Security Cloud to our Exchange users. Comparing Exchange to Gmail is like comparing kwiwis to radishes, in my view.
    - mattnewport 8y ago
      I'm just saying that my experience as a user of email is that spam is not a problem for me on services other than Gmail. You telling me that it is doesn't change the fact that it hasn't been in my experience. We'd need some sort of actual data to advance the discussion productively.
- ColinWright 8y ago
  > ... gmail - because it's centralised, it can use ML to filter out spam much better than any other mailing services. For me, GMail is worse than useless as a spam filter. I don't know if I have especially unusual email or what, but there's so much ends up in the spam bin I need to wade through it all anyway, so it costs me time. At least, it did. I've given up on it.
  - ColinWright 8y ago
    I'm baffled - I have no idea why this would be downvoted. I know that 88k karma and $5 will buy me a $5 coffee, and to that extent karma is completely irrelevant, but it says that somehow, to someone in the HN community, this comment is of negative value. As I've said elsewhere[0], as an engineer at heart, a model-maker and problem solver, it's like sandpaper on the brain when people act in ways that mystify me, and for which I have no effective, working model. Baffled. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007328
    - avar 8y ago
      I usually don't comment on these sorts of comments, but since you're a very active user I'l bite. I downvoted you because this type of commentary is the least useful thing you can read on HN. Nobody learned anything useful from knowing that some guy with a GMail account isn't pleased with the spam filter. What was this supposed to achieve? Some long side-thread with people sharing anecdotes about whether or not GMail worked for them? This is the sort of thing that gets made fun of at n-gate.com. Also: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - ColinWright 8y ago
        Thank you for the response! That gives me something useful to be going on with. In contrast to your comment, I've always found the personal experiences of HN users to be incredibly valuable data points, which is why I shared my own. I'll re-evaluate that. WRT the guidelines, I'm painfully aware of that one. While I appreciate its wisdom, it means that one can never learn from the otherwise anonymous downvotes, so to my mind it's worth taking the risk. In this case I really have learned something. Again, thank you.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jiveturkey 8y ago
not extremely common, but it was common. in the days when internet access was for the most part SLIP/PPP.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
And if you create an account on telehack.com you can finger me over at intelca where I was hanging out in 1984.

kolinko 8y ago

Yup, I had access to these on my shell that was given to me by my dial-in ISP. I think what killed these services was a potential for abuse and spam. If you have your name/details attached to an e-mail account, it's super easy for marketers to scrap that, and then spam you if you meet certain criteria. Centralised services (with all my distaste towards them) prevent that, because they block spammers, and limit access to such data quite nicely. For a similar reason I think many people stick with gmail - because it's centralised, it can use ML to filter out spam much better than any other mailing services. It's also more secure - the Google's budget on maintaining security of their services is far higher than that of any other provider.

mattnewport 8y ago
I hear this claim a lot (that Gmail's spam filter is so much better than others) but that hasn't been my experience. Spam was not a problem for my corporate email account at my last job that used Exchange and after switching from Gmail to Proton Mail last year (with the same email address on my own domain) I haven't noticed any real difference in the amount of spam than makes it to my inbox. It may have been true that Gmail did a much better job than most other services when it first launched but I don't think it's been true for several years now.
- hackbinary 8y ago
  MS Exchange on-prem does not include an anti-spam solution. You have to buy one like Symantec security cloud or MS Exchange online security. Exchange is not a 'hosted' solution. Gmail by contrast is only a hosted/cloud solution, and comes with a security solution as part of the service. I can compare Symantec Security Cloud sitting in front of an Exchange solution to a Gmail solution, and say that hands down Gmail is far and away better with exactly zero phishing emails making it through compared to numerous attacks able to get through Symantec Security Cloud to our Exchange users. Comparing Exchange to Gmail is like comparing kwiwis to radishes, in my view.
  - mattnewport 8y ago
    I'm just saying that my experience as a user of email is that spam is not a problem for me on services other than Gmail. You telling me that it is doesn't change the fact that it hasn't been in my experience. We'd need some sort of actual data to advance the discussion productively.
ColinWright 8y ago
> ... gmail - because it's centralised, it can use ML to filter out spam much better than any other mailing services. For me, GMail is worse than useless as a spam filter. I don't know if I have especially unusual email or what, but there's so much ends up in the spam bin I need to wade through it all anyway, so it costs me time. At least, it did. I've given up on it.
- ColinWright 8y ago
  I'm baffled - I have no idea why this would be downvoted. I know that 88k karma and $5 will buy me a $5 coffee, and to that extent karma is completely irrelevant, but it says that somehow, to someone in the HN community, this comment is of negative value. As I've said elsewhere[0], as an engineer at heart, a model-maker and problem solver, it's like sandpaper on the brain when people act in ways that mystify me, and for which I have no effective, working model. Baffled. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007328 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007328
  - avar 8y ago
    I usually don't comment on these sorts of comments, but since you're a very active user I'l bite. I downvoted you because this type of commentary is the least useful thing you can read on HN. Nobody learned anything useful from knowing that some guy with a GMail account isn't pleased with the spam filter. What was this supposed to achieve? Some long side-thread with people sharing anecdotes about whether or not GMail worked for them? This is the sort of thing that gets made fun of at n-gate.com. Also: Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading. -- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - ColinWright 8y ago
      Thank you for the response! That gives me something useful to be going on with. In contrast to your comment, I've always found the personal experiences of HN users to be incredibly valuable data points, which is why I shared my own. I'll re-evaluate that. WRT the guidelines, I'm painfully aware of that one. While I appreciate its wisdom, it means that one can never learn from the otherwise anonymous downvotes, so to my mind it's worth taking the risk. In this case I really have learned something. Again, thank you.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jiveturkey 8y ago

not extremely common, but it was common. in the days when internet access was for the most part SLIP/PPP.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

And if you create an account on telehack.com you can finger me over at intelca where I was hanging out in 1984.