Background Research
What is Usenet
It is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved
from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. It was
conceived by Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott
and Jim Ellis in 1979. The server holds articles for a particular
news group which the client can request by number or article
ID. The client may also, if the server permits it, post an
article of their own into a specific news group, optionally
referencing to a previous article within the group.
Uses of Usenet
Many different people use Usenet, for many different reasons,
ranging from discussions of various topics, requests for help
or to trade media, which is often seen as the ‘dark
side’ to Usenet — the abuse of public news groups
to trade copyrighted or offensive material. Thankfully however,
those that use Usenet responsibly far out weight the few who
use it as a tool for piracy etc.
Many of the people using and contributing to Usenet are people
who work with computer technology. These people often use
Usenet to seek help with a piece of software or suggest improvements,
indeed one of the early functions of Usenet was to help users
identify and report bugs found in software.
Unfortunately, the massive growth seen within Usenet has
also made it a difficult medium to keep track of, the great
variety and number of articles can take considerable time
to filter through in order to find those of interest. There
have been a variety of software applications created to help
deal with this problem and many are freely available for personal
use.
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