How "safe" is Usenet

It would be nice to live in a country where Cease and Desist letters have absolutely no effect at all, wouldn't it? If I was ever sent one, I could sue the one who sent the letter for harassing me. God bless the laws of this (Nordic) welfare state.
 
Once traffic really starts getting throttled for usenet by ISP's i'd imagine newsgroup providers could just change the port to a nonstandard one. That along with SSL will make it very hard for ISP's to throttle or know what's going on (aside from the high data usage), but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for that :)
 
Everyone should know the present system is living on borrowed time. Money makes the world go round. Several parties want a bit of the money cake too.

Therefore, t's only time before the bigger funded mobs get their way.

However, I would guess this war will rage on for at least 30 year as there is too much to be done before you could even contemplate defeating piracy, with the systems as they stand.

Additionally the entire world is skint so them keeping hold of their market share is a problem in itself, never mind hangin' wee Joe Public out to dry.

Analytically sound?

Don't worry.Be happy.
 
Depends on where the server is located.

In the US, usenet servers have been under 'common carrier' laws and provisions for a VERY long time, just like the telcos (internet carriage by the cablecos is rather recent, and there is some question there as to common carrier status).

By saying that, they are completely immune to being sued, although there is some question as to DMCA provisions which may (and some parts of it already have) been found by the courts as going against the common carrier laws (over 150 years old).

In other words, just like the telcos can't be sued for 'carrying' 'perhaps' illegal messages (up to and including bomb threats, for instance), they can't be held accountable for anything else.

Now, IF they can obtain records, or 'tap' your line (another hazy part of the law in the US at present), is another thing. Obviously, if you use SSL, it's remote/impossible.

Some usenet server operations have been 'erroring on the side' of the DMCA, although again, it's 'hazy', and have erased files on nothing more than a 'takedown' letter from the *paa's. But that's just one server, and there are dozens.

I would venture to say that any server operations that 'gave up' the uploader (name, ip, etc) would be out of business the next day.
 
Sili said:
Once traffic really starts getting throttled for usenet by ISP's i'd imagine newsgroup providers could just change the port to a nonstandard one. That along with SSL will make it very hard for ISP's to throttle or know what's going on (aside from the high data usage), but there are plenty of legitimate reasons for that :)
Click to expand...

Mine has been doing that for years now.
 
Really, the BIGGEST #1 contributor to all of this is cheap rentals.

There is a big acknowledgment of this when the studios bought off Netflix in the U.S. to give them an expanded 'window' between when a disc is out for sale and when it becomes 'available' for rental.

However, the more independent rental outfits have not gone along, so there are loopholes. And of course, if one simply waits a bit...

As far as the internet, especially for those in more restrictive countries, I think we'll see a rapid rise in the use of VPN providers.
 
Beck38 said:
As of a court ruling just today in the U.S., ISP's can limit, delay, or cut you off if you d/l from somewhere they don't 'like', including completely legal sites that don't pay the ISP 'connect' or 'transfer' charges.

It all came about over torrents, of course, where the ISP's said it was 'within their network management prerogatives' to mess around with the traffic.

That escalated into some ISP's blocking connections to commercial sites that didn't pay the ISP's 'up front' to carry their traffic (to, it must be said, their 'customers' who paid for the connection).

'Double-Dipping'. Now totally legal. 'Network Neutrality' is DEAD.
Click to expand...

I never said that your ISP won't care about how much you download, but its not like they're looking at your usenet traffic going "uh oh, he's downloading LotR.
 
cola said:
VPN wouldn't protect you, and why would you need a VPN to download?
Click to expand...

Rethink your statement. Most of the ISP's (particularly those that use 'shared/partyline' systems (like cablecos) have pretty strict AUP's (acceptable use provisions) that specifically target P2P, Newsgroups, ect. They can (and have) blocked and messed around with both ports and traffic they see going to and from known IP addresses of (for usenet) large servers.

Of course, for that they don't block, they do have limits/caps, particularly on 'consumer' level accounts (Comcast, for instance, is universally at 250GB/Month); most of the other cablecos and even some DSL providers are MUCH lower (Frontier has a 5GB/Month cap).

VPN's completely and totally hide BOTH the actual traffic (like SSL) but ALSO the destination/source addresses, except, of course, the VPN providers, who constantly rotate their IP addresses.
 
Back
Top