Does anyone know of a way to access (for search purposes) the "hidden
header" information in archived groups.google.com usenet posts? 
Specifically, is there anyway to search the billion or so posts for
only those posts that originated from a particular IP address?

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Clarification of Question by hsthompson-ga on 15 Jun 2003 03:50 PDT

This post is part clarification and part calling for a Point-of-Order.
 First, I would like to search the groups.google.com archive of
newsgroup (usenet) messages (or maybe some other archive????) for all
posts that have an IP of 555.555.555.555 in their headers, or better
yet, to be able to search partial IP addy's such as 555.555.*.*. 
Ideally, I would like to search with an IP range such as 555.555.555.1
through 555.555.555.58.  This doesn't work in google's advanced group
search, and I can't identify any modifiers to allow searching access
to the hidden header fields.  The only way I have found to see the
hidden header info is once you have identified a particular post, to
click on the "view message in its original format".  About a year ago
I emailed the google team with a similar request, but I never heard
anything back from them.

My Point-of-Order is this:  Within minutes of posting my original
question, one of the experts (I hope he or she is an expert, anyway!),
locked up the question such that nobody else could respond, even if
they happened to know the answer off the top of their heads.  It has
now been locked up for 10-hours or so, and I sure hope that the person
has not been working away on this question for this period of time for
a measely $10!  How long can this person keep the question locked,
without answering it?  Is this normal and accepted practice around
here?

One last thing.  I want to play!  I have reviewed a fair share of the
questions in the Science section, and based upon my 20-years of
experience as a registered Professional Engineer
(civil/environmental), I could probably provide practical yet
documented answers to a decent size sub-set of the questions.  Also, I
know how to write good (teasing with the grammar, of course!).  Who do
I have to ..... contact?

Hello hsthompson,

Unfortunately, there is currently no way to search through the header
information of the Google archive of usenet posts. I also do not think
it likely that one will ever be able to do this, simply because the
negative uses of such a feature probably outweigh the positive. If you
were able to figure out what email address a person/organization with
a specific ip address was using, you could use that approach, but you
probably already know about this.

You could do a limited version of the ip search by subscribing to a
high retention/completion newsgroup provider such as Giganews.com and
downloading all messages (their average retention for text groups is
180 days). You could then search through all the downloaded messages
for the partial ip (using the search in Windows by searching for "a
word or phrase in the file") and get all the recent results.

Regarding your point of order: Whenever a message is posted containing
the word "Google", the question is unavailable to humanoid researchers
until someone at Google takes a look at the question and unlocks it.
Although it appeared that a researcher had locked your question, this
was not actually the case. Since your question was posted somewhat
late on a Saturday, it took a bit longer than usual for the question
to be released.

Regarding your desire to become a researcher, I am sure that you have
seen this section of the Google Answers FAQ:
http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#becomeresearcher If you
have any questions such as wanting to know when Google will be
accepting new researchers again, the place to ask would be
answers-editors@google.com

I hope this answer will satisfy you, even if it was an "it is not
possible" response. Let me know if you require any clarifications, and
I will do my best to further assist you.

tisme-ga

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Clarification of Answer by tisme-ga on 16 Jun 2003 12:18 PDT

Hello hsthompson,

Just letting you know that my answer was indeed "according to me". My
answer was based on the research that I did for your question.

I am however attempting to get an "official yes/no" from Google Groups
as to whether or not a header search is possible. I will post the
reply here for you when I receive it.

All the best,

tisme-ga

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Clarification of Answer by tisme-ga on 19 Jun 2003 17:46 PDT

Hello hsthompson,

As promised, I am following up with the reply from Google. I emailed
them on the 15th and received this reply today having asked "Is it
possible to search through header information for newsgroup posts?":

===============================================

No, but we appreciate your taking the time to contact us about a
feature
or function of the site you would like to see.

All suggestions are considered for future development.

Your comment has been forwarded to the appropriate team for review.

Sincerely,

The Google Groups Team

===============================================

If you want to email them yourself, the email address is
groups-support@google.com

All the best,

tisme-ga

"Unfortunately, there is currently no way to search through the header
information of the Google archive of usenet posts..." According to
whom? Or simply no way that you have been able to find?  Other than
that, your answer was quite complete, presented well, and was the
unfortunate answer I was expecting.  Thanks for the rest of the
information, as well.  Good work!