3 ms·

It is great to see this from the source (or close to it). Some searches on the text of Thompson's message also led to these pre-existing sources (not linked fr

It is great to see this from the source (or close to it). Some searches on the text of Thompson's message also led to these pre-existing sources (not linked from niconiconi's blog) of a post by Jonathan Thornburg: https://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography-digest@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu/msg02776.html https://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography-digest@senator-bed... https://groups.google.com/g/sci.crypt/c/PybcCHi9u6s/m/b-7U1y9QBZMJ?pli=1 https://groups.google.com/g/sci.crypt/c/PybcCHi9u6s/m/b-7U1y... btw is there any public archive of ~old usenet (say, through 1999)? I was trying to remember things I learned from on alt.2600 but groups.google.com says it's "banned".

obi1kenobi 4y ago
When you say "searches" are you referring to regular web search (e.g. Google) or something more specialized? Just wondering if there's a good way to programmatically search "old" records like these.
- an1sotropy 4y ago
  sorry didn't meant to be obscure - it was just google searches, but I found that if I used quotes google was less useful than if I searched for a longer string without quotes (I think others on HN have noted the quality of google searches seems to be decreasing). In my case I searched for fyi: the self reproducing cpp was installed on OUR machine and we enticed the unix support group but without quotes. I know it's quixotic but I kind of wish altavista was still working (now yahoo owns the domain name).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
chris_st 4y ago
Someone (Uunet, maybe?) put out a bunch of usenet CDs back in the 90's... don't know how far they went back (or which groups they had. IIRC, it was pretty much everything except binary groups). It'd be challenging to find them.
Joeri 4y ago
Archive.org has a few usenet collections. Perhaps this one? https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical?tab=about https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical?tab=about
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- an1sotropy 4y ago
  Thanks for this pointer. I’ve gone through the alt.2600.mbox files and it looks like they only cover 2002-2013, so only after the more interesting times alas.
slyall 4y ago
There are some bits and pieces on archive.org and other places. Unfortunately the completer archives that people had (magtapes etc) got donated to dejanews (which later became google groups) or Google directly. This was about 20 years ago when Google was seen as a safe place to put that stuff. We know better now
- an1sotropy 4y ago
  We know better now The archive.org alt.2600.mbox covers only 2002-2013. Maybe after google gets broken up, we'll discover that this data is still preserved, and can be liberated. We can dream.

obi1kenobi 4y ago

When you say "searches" are you referring to regular web search (e.g. Google) or something more specialized? Just wondering if there's a good way to programmatically search "old" records like these.

an1sotropy 4y ago
sorry didn't meant to be obscure - it was just google searches, but I found that if I used quotes google was less useful than if I searched for a longer string without quotes (I think others on HN have noted the quality of google searches seems to be decreasing). In my case I searched for fyi: the self reproducing cpp was installed on OUR machine and we enticed the unix support group but without quotes. I know it's quixotic but I kind of wish altavista was still working (now yahoo owns the domain name).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

chris_st 4y ago

Someone (Uunet, maybe?) put out a bunch of usenet CDs back in the 90's... don't know how far they went back (or which groups they had. IIRC, it was pretty much everything except binary groups). It'd be challenging to find them.

Joeri 4y ago

Archive.org has a few usenet collections. Perhaps this one? https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical?tab=about https://archive.org/details/usenethistorical?tab=about

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
an1sotropy 4y ago
Thanks for this pointer. I’ve gone through the alt.2600.mbox files and it looks like they only cover 2002-2013, so only after the more interesting times alas.

slyall 4y ago

There are some bits and pieces on archive.org and other places. Unfortunately the completer archives that people had (magtapes etc) got donated to dejanews (which later became google groups) or Google directly. This was about 20 years ago when Google was seen as a safe place to put that stuff. We know better now

an1sotropy 4y ago
We know better now The archive.org alt.2600.mbox covers only 2002-2013. Maybe after google gets broken up, we'll discover that this data is still preserved, and can be liberated. We can dream.