Using Usenet for the Unmentionable

This new file format and the rise of commercial high-bandwidth Usenet services -- such as NewsGroups and Usenet.com -- are fueling the revival of Usenet. Pirates now are discovering, to their surprise, that the old newsgroup system, patched with modern technology, outperforms most other P2P networks.

"The download speed butchers any other system you use to download data," said Gilgamesh, a U.K.-based downloader currently moving part of his operation to newsgroups. "A lot of new servers can shift data as fast as you're prepared to accept it."

Part of the performance boost comes from the way Usenet acts like a bulletin board system.

"With standard peer-to-peer, you're a slave to the peer who's making the file available," said Gilgamesh. "Sometimes you have to wait for them to be online. On a newsgroup, once the file is there, it's there all the time -- at least until it scrolls off the server."

And best of all, for pirates like Gilgamesh, Usenet kills the inherent socialism of P2P. While BitTorrent and eMule demand that you share data to download it, Usenet imposes no such restriction.

"You don't have to share anything," said Gilgamesh. "Everyone downloads. Everyone is a leecher."

[ Read more: Wired ]

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