USENET
/yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ [from `Users' Network'] n.
A distributed
bboard (bulletin board) system supported mainly
by UNIX machines. Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve
Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke
University, it has swiftly grown to become international in scope
and is now probably the largest decentralized information utility
in existence. As of early 1991, it hosts well over
700
newsgroups and an average of 16 megabytes (the equivalent
of several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles, news,
discussion, chatter, and
flamage every day.