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A comment on I've skimmed 66520 newsgroups trying to find some life on the Usenet (2020). Parent comment

Re:I've skimmed 66520 newsgroups trying to find some life on... by bawolff on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @06:41AM (#36860411)
I think that is a silly definition, but doesn't usenet fit? It didn't start on the internet and supported rather arbitrary routing.
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Re:I've skimmed 66520 newsgroups trying to find some life on... by pjc50 on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @08:22AM (#36861213)
USENET very much depended on ISPs in practice, they ran most of the servers!

However, yes it was theoretically possible to have a route between two NNTP servers that wasn't over a BGP-routed chunk of internet but was "something else". Including posting a tape.

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Re:I've skimmed 66520 newsgroups trying to find some life on... by flyinghamster on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @10:11AM (#36862516)
Indeed, Usenet could go over dialup (or direct serial line) UUCP, not an IP address in sight.
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Re:I've skimmed 66520 newsgroups trying to find some life on... by bawolff on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @12:17PM (#36864688)
The last uucp service shutdown in 2012 according to wikipedia. So not just theoretically possible but was happening in actual pracitise much later than you would expect.
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Re:I've skimmed 66520 newsgroups trying to find some life on... by pyinstallwoes on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @10:18AM (#36862615)
In the original architecture yes it was closer to an ideal. If only Usenet became Xanadu. Unfortunately people gave way to the centralization of servers and thus lost control to the direction of the 'net. At least that's one take.
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