USENET


Use

User's Network. USENET is some what of a virtual email system where the recipient is a news group. One can both read and post messages to the group. Binary files (i.e., programs, pictures, etc.) can also be posted and downloaded if first encoded as text (uuencode).

News Groups

News groups are arranged in a hierarchical maner. The main top level groups are:
  • alt: alternate
  • comp: computer
  • misc: miscellaneous
  • news: news
  • rec: recreational
  • sci: science
  • talk: debate issues
  • soc: social
However, there can be many more top level groups that are carried locally, such as
  • mbl: MBL stuff
  • whoi: WHOI stuff
There are currently more than 20,000 news groups.

Protocol

NNTP: Network News Transfer Protocol.

MBL News server is: netnews.whoi.edu
The status of this server can be ascertained at CIS: Usenet Information Page
This news servers (as most) can only be accessed when within the WHOI domain (128.128), as MBL is.

URL

news:newsgroup

Example: news:sci.bio.ecology

Groups of Interest

News Readers

Other Info

  • Deja News allows posting via web, as well as the ability to search news groups. Quite powerful.