Road Runner is a cable service run in the US with three million customers.

For the past couple of weeks or so, users of the $44.95 a month service have been complaining that the vast majority of newsgroups messages are “incomplete”, making them unreadable.

From the article on The Register...
"While, due to the nature of newsgroups, a certain percentage of incompletes are unavoidable, in a well-run system they usually account for less than 10 per cent. Road Runner customers have been faced with over 90 per cent incompletes and the problem appeared overnight, we have learned.

Since the rest of the Road Runner system appears to be functioning as normal and Time Warner has not reported any technical difficulties, it is reasonable to infer that the company is actively filtering messages in a bid to prevent the exchange of unprotected media files. "

And, also from the article,
"Road Runner has made downloading movies from newsgroups impossible by introducing a 10Mb limit on all messages. Even with modern linking computer files such as Par2, it would take an enormous number of 10Mb files to piece together to make a whole movie.

Reducing that limit to 2Mb in order to remove most MP3 audio files would unduly restrict the service from serving legitimate files. For that reason, it is believed Time Warner has introduced an automated filter to weed out MP3 files. It is not working properly however and has had the effect of wiping out the majority of messages posted.

While it could be argued that such restrictions are almost inevitable in an Internet service from Time Warner, the company gives no warning of the fact and states in its FAQ on newsgroups that Road Runner “provides an uncensored newsfeed. As such, Road Runner does not control the content of the newsgroups available to you.”

It admits to filtering binaries from non-binary groups and HTML from all groups except Microsoft and also filters for spam. However, this still leaves a large number of files unaccounted for."

Read the full article at:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/22/34034.html
~Code

The government doesn't even have to spy on us anymore. The RIAA is doing it for them.

This is out of control.

If Cox digital cable tries a stunt like that... All of Las Vegas will be pissed.

Any Road Runner custmers out there? Sounds like breach of contract for services. you're due a refund if it's true.

I have Road Runner and am downloading files from 3 different binaries groups at this moment. I don't know what groups these people are talking about but most of the MP3 sites I visit are as complete as they've ever been. Seems like a lot of speculation and not enough facts.

"I have Road Runner and am downloading files from 3 different binaries groups at this moment."

LOL What the kind of rag is The Register? I googled Andrew Orlowksi the other day and spent a couple hours reading about him. As I suspected, he has zero credibility. He is a hack of the worst kind.

Its no lie.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/35700

Spikester...great work!
http://www.broadbandreports.com/forum/remark,8352026~root=cable,rr~mode=flat;start=0

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/3570 0
" Roadrunner Newsgroup Filters
Anti-piracy tests cause headaches for users . Time Warner begins testing piracy filtering newsgroup technology that goes a little overboard. According to posts within our Roadrunner forum, many users began to witness incomplete or corrupted newsgroup posts over the last few days. One user claims an internal contact informed him that the company is testing out new piracy filtering newsgroup technology that's obviously gone awry. It's rumored the company's primary motivation is to filter the newsgroups of any material that falls under the fairly massive Time Warner copyright umbrella. "

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&group=alt.online-services.roadrunner

I guess all the customers are hacks "of the worst kind"...
but there are so many complaining...
hmm...conspiracy to make us all think there is problem with RR I guess....

So that's why all of these mpeg music videos have been missing so many parts for the last week or so!

Damn trying to put themselves out of business now aren't they?

"I guess all the customers are hacks "of the worst kind"... but there are so many complaining..."

Code - Did you read all the threads like I did? There is one guy claiming that he has a contact who told him that RR is testing filtering software. That is all. This may be true or not. Most posters are saying that it is just technical problems. One guy said that The Register article was based on those posts.

“That article provides no more concrete information than the string of posts here presented. They based their statements on unsubstantiated (I did not say true or untrue) conjecture from this group and now it will be used as proof by some in this group.”

Here are some posts regarding the 10 mb limit:

“Interesting article, but completely full of it. I just dowloaded a piece of sw from a programming ng and it was almost 30 MB all in one file from a RR subscriber. I would take this with a grain of salt.”

“I just downloaded a 75MB home video clip (Train) day before yesterday.”

“Enormous? Hardly! They are often broken into pieves that small already. The guy's conclusion is totally bogus

A couple posts regarding the credibility of The Register:

“Since when has "The Register" been considered a reliable news source. Their better known as the "Enquirer" of the IT world.”

“Very true But even the Enquirer writes a true story every now and then. Not often I give you, but sometimes they do ”

And I stand by my statement that Orlowski is a demagogue and a hack. Do some homework on the guy and see what you find. You don't even have to do homework, just read his articles! : )

Reading some more about Orlowski's poor journalism, I came across this blog which points out that Orlowski misquotes Larry Lessig and builds an article around the misquote. Then he gets busted by Lessig. : ) There are links in the blog to The Register article and Lessig's blog, where he points out the misquote.

http://www.guydickinson.com/sheep/archive/000718.html

I have a bunch of links criticizing Orlowski's "journalism". Here is one where he went after Tim O'Reilly and O'Reilly responded at the link below. O'Reilly said:

"So one thing struck me immediately: Orlowski didn't do any real journalism. He got a complaint from a speaker who didn't get included, and made that complaint the basis for a rant. He didn't talk to anyone at O'Reilly. He didn't make any effort to get background or hear the other side. He wrote a flame, not a story.

I now know that Orlowski has defined himself as a gossip columnist, not a real journalist. I had thought better of him. I will take his stories with a heaping dose of salt in future."

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3100

This quote sums up what I have been reading about Orlowksi pretty well:

"His articles are of varied quality - some genuine insights conflict with some dramatically unprofessional ranting with little justification. His current bugbear appears to be weblogs, which (simplistically) he appears to be "anti". He's also highly suspicious of Google and has a conspiratorial mindset. His grammar and spelling leave much to be desired and he has a tendency not to fact-check and to actively mischaracterise other people's opinions in order to support his position."

http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/wiki.pl?Andrew_Orlowski

I read about his criticism of google and it seems that many of his facts were wrong. Then he uses these incorrect facts to make his argument.

You know hell with just going against the RIAA let just boycott on every issue that we think that is unfair. Pretty soon USA would be another Iraq.


If I were a witch I would turn every last one of them tiny balls men into frogs.

Thats one legal thing that people actually do download lots, promo music videos. With what timewarner is doing to the newsgroups, not even thats possible now for them.

Ya know, either the story is or is not supported by facts/ I see enough reports from broadbandreports.com that indicate people are having having such problems, and that is enough validation for me. I think the attacking of the veracity and merit of Mr. Orlowski is really futile if there enough independent facts to support the story. Regardless of any variance of his accuracy in the past, if that does exist, if he wrote that there is such a country as China, I would not dismiss it as untrue, since I have access to sufficient reports from other people, that would suggest there is such a country. I'm done with this.

It is true that people are having problems. However, there is no evidence that RR is filtering except for one anonymous claim. The Register article is completely irresponsible and without merit.

And this is what is irresponsible:

"Since the rest of the Road Runner system appears to be functioning as normal and Time Warner has not reported any technical difficulties, it is reasonable to infer that the company is actively filtering messages in a bid to prevent the exchange of unprotected media files. "

Reasonable to infer filtering? On what planet??!! This is why The Register is a rag.

Not to mention this:

"Road Runner has made downloading movies from newsgroups impossible by introducing a 10Mb limit on all messages. "

As was noted, there is no 10Mb limit.

Not to mention the LEAD SENTENCE:

"Media giant Time Warner appears to be censoring subscribers to its Road Runner Net access service"

"Appears to be"?! There is NO EVIDENCE except for 1 anonymous claim! No responsible media outlet would print this article.