This just in, from my CAD Google group, of all places.
Verizon has gotten permission from the New York Attorney General to block its subscribers from large portions of the Internet, in the name of "child-porn blocking". The Chinese-style access-controlled internet is fast on its way...
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TOPIC: Attn: comp.cad.pro-engineer http://groups.google.com/...
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Date: Thurs, Jun 19 2008 11:01 am
From: jusford
Thought this may be of interest:
Dailytech.com
Per a recent child-porn blocking agreement with the New York Attorney General's Office, Verizon announced Thursday that it will block subscriber access to a large number of decades-old Usenet structures, including the entire alt.* hierarchy. According to a CNET report, Verizon subscribers will lose access to all newsgroups that don't fall under the "Big 8" family of officially- sanctioned Usenet hierarchies, including important-but-unofficial newsgroups such as microsoft.windows, us.military, and symantec.customerservice.general.
The "Big 8" hierarchies include comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, talk.*, and humanities.*. alt.*, short for "alternative," was created in rebellion of its more orderly counterparts.