Google stewardship in action.
Can we even go back to Usenet without Google Groups?
Can we even go back to Usenet without Google Groups?
Usenet was a decent shot at this problem but it lost to other solutions. Yes, all the current solutions are pretty bad but they aren't worse than Usenet. In particular Usenet had zero spam protection, Google stewardship or not.
Having said that, they must have been right, because spam has never dwindled away like Usenet News did. That may very well have been their fault, too.
Do a search for Free USENET and many will come up with instructions how to access without Google Groups.
No. Any group that doesn't have some kind of pre-post vetting idiom is going to have spam and abuse problems.
This wasn't always the case and I can't pinpoint exactly when the change happened or what it was.
The clients will all be hopelessly outdated, I imagine WinVN will still run but you probably wouldn't enjoy the experience much.
The big issue would be preventing the server/servers from filling up with AI entities. If you're attracting enough of a userbase to be worth influencing they will creep in unless you somehow find a way to guarantee that all users are real people, and that presents its own problems.
No accounts without government ID, no connectivity without it either, open access points illegal, and so on.
Governments and police would love this, and with AI, spam (as you elude to) is going to rise to a new level.
And there are already issues, with most of the net's citizens, unable to detect fraudulent posts.
Countries have already had civil wars, thanks to Cambridge Analytics, and disinformation will only make this worse.
Long story short, accountability is impossible with anonymity, and so to sue, to charge with crimes, I sadly think the internet will soon change.
That said, this is the same problem you have with loads of other accounts. Be it banks, trading houses, or just compromised meta, X, or whatever accounts.
Still, my point wasn't whether or not it would work, but merely that it will happen. Governments will become more and more frustrated with a deluge of propaganda, which makes what we see today seem inconsequential. And I believe this will be their response.
And it is already true in many countries.
I did say it makes me sad. Not happy.
Upon an attempt to log in at a service (using a phone with a companion app), a nonce signed accompanied by a certificate signed by the government root CA gets signed by the private key on card, and that as well as the signed personal data gets provided to the requesting service.
No accounts without government ID, no connectivity without it either, open access points illegal, and so on."
Or we see the rise of social networks that require a personal invite. In the extreme variant, with a personal meetup requirement. Probably both, with government ID accounts being the standard for the mainstream, while all the interesting stuff will be invite only.
All you need is something that implements a mix of a reputation system and a web of trust and you're good to go. Technically pseudonymous, not anonymous, but it would give you basically all of the benefits of tying online activity to real identities without any of the downsides. It would also be completely decentralized, which would prevent large players from manipulating the political landscape on a mass level.