A death on Usenet: Sharon Lopatka and the strange case of “consensual murder”

http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/16932/usenet-sharon-lopatka-consensual-murder/

by nickcobb • 10 years ago

8 5 10 years ago

kernelmag.dailydot.com

weinzierl3• 10 years ago

She also took to Usenet newsgroups. In 1996, these newsgroups were the internet’s social backbone, a primitive and more tribal forerunner of Facebook.

Oh, irony. I know what the author means but to someone that knows Usenet from 1996 and Facebook from 2016 this must sound like an insult.

espadrine• 10 years ago

As someone that did not live through pre-Eternal September Usenet, what did it have that Facebook and Reddit do not?

weinzierl3• 10 years ago

I can't comment on the pre-Eternal September Usenet because I only joined 1995.

I wouldn't compare Usenet back then to Facebook, not even to Reddit. If I had to compare it with something we have today it would be HN and Stackoverflow. A place where one could interact with interesting people and a place to satisfy ones thirst for knowledge.

rwmj• 10 years ago

It wasn't a million miles away from what HN and Reddit are today, or perhaps more select sites like LtU[1]. People used their own real names, and even real physical addresses and phone numbers(!), partly because most had access through a university or company which might enforce[2] that, but partly because the risks were low and/or not well understood. I spent many, many happy hours reading through postings on comp.unix.wizards when I should have been working. Oh and nobody ever top-posted (yay!)

[1] http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/

[2] Very loosely - it was possible, indeed simple, to spoof postings.

weinzierl3• 10 years ago

Similar to the case of Armin Meiwes and Bernd Brandes.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/04/germany.lukeha... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

A death on Usenet: Sharon Lopatka and the strange case of “consensual murder”

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