Word: usenet
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...months Herz had been online every day, six hours a day, researching a book she was writing called Surfing on the Internet. She yakked with people on Internet Relay Chat, vamped in simulated worlds known as muds, foundered in E-mail and bombarded her brain with Usenet newsgroups carrying names like alt.alien.visitors. Finally, she couldn't take another bit. "It was the classic information overload, toxic-data syndrome," she says, with more and more messages to read and less and less time to read them. The Internet "stopped looking like some kind of theme park and started looking like...
Even staunch defenders of free speech admit that cyberspace has red-light districts unsuitable for young Elroy Jetson. And there's no bouncer to keep out minors. Sexual content is scattered throughout Usenet, the collection of more than 5,000 special-interest public forums on the Internet, and accessible as well to users of large commercial providers such as America Online. One of the best-read sections of Usenet is alt.sex, a newsgroup so popular it has spawned more than 60 offshoots, from alt.sex.bestiality.barney to alt.sex.woody-allen. Half a dozen other Usenet groups also store free, X-rated images that...
...seemed so exotic and cutting edge. But I quickly worked my way through the list of local BBSes. Brief stops at nearby fantasy- game systems, electronic porn parlors and digital meet-a-date services proved tiresome. A few weeks of arguing with cyberfeminists in alt.soc.women on Usenet taught me that all was not fun and games. Then I found the WELL, acronym for Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link. ``Hello,'' I typed in. ``I'm new around here and don't know what to do next...
...Good Laugh The exchange of jokes is unfiltered and thus occasionally unfunny in the rec.humor newsgroup. A finer repertoire, or so it is said, is in alt.humor.best-of-usenet, which is monitored...
...large commercial online ``communities'' like CompuServe and America Online expressly forbid the posting of any explicit sexual material. Since, by popular demand, they are providing increased access to the Internet, however, they do allow you (after many disclaimers) to add the alt.sex groups to your personal inventory of Usenet newsgroups. Besides, the ``private'' chat rooms on both these services are notorious cyber-fleshpots. In fact, the most unnerving encounter I've ever had took place in the CompuServe adult-chat area. I won't go into it in these pages, and I shudder to think about it. To this...