News server question

G.T.

Werehatrack wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 11:26:09 -0400, Sheldon Brown
> <captbike@sheldonbrown.com> may have said:
>
>
>>Is there a reasonably priced News server I could subscribe to that would
>>offer a good choices of Newsgroups, and would allow me to use the same
>>passwords/logins regardless of how I was connected?
>
>
> Huh? Configure your newsreader to login with an ID and password
> regardless of where you're connected, and it should not care about
> that.

Some ISPs allow access to their news servers only for clients on their
subnets, with no authentication. Once you're outside of their network, no
access.

Greg

David L. Johnson

On Tue, 20 Apr 2004 21:30:57 -0500, Patrick Lamb wrote:

> Alas, Comcast uses a partially disabled Giganews account that only
> allows access from within Comcast (and probably only within a certain
> region).

I imagine that is fairly common. My U server does the same thing. In
fact, it only allows access from a *.lehigh.edu computer, which is a pain.
For a while I*ran a forwarding account through my office machine, but
have since decided to just use comcast from the home machine, remotely
displaying the newsreader (with X windows this is trivial)*if I have to
see it from somewhere else.

--

David L. Johnson

__o | The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you're
_`\(,_ | still a rat. --Lilly Tomlin
(_)/ (_) |

HardwareLust

Dane Jackson wrote:
> Bah! tin forever!
>
>

Good lord, Sheldon. You've managed to rile up the *nix zealots. God help
us all now! ;-)

Werehatrack

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 02:02:33 GMT, "Matt O'Toole" <matt@deltanet.com>
may have said:

>Werehatrack wrote:
>
>> Huh? Configure your newsreader to login with an ID and password
>> regardless of where you're connected, and it should not care about
>> that. Some hotel broadband nets block port 25 to keep spammers from
>> using them as access points, but I haven't run into one yet that keeps
>> me from using my usual nntp host...and your existing Earthlink account
>> should give you access to news.earthlink.net from *anywhere*. (But
>> their retention stinks.)
>
>I don't know about Earthlink, but most ISPs won't let you connect to their NNTP
>or SMTP servers from outside their own network.

I've been able to access both Earthlink's server and the one I had
with my prior ISP from network connections at various locations, the
difference being that with the old ISP, a login was required only if
accessing from outside the network. Now *both* require a login, which
is a development that should be more common than it is. If no login
is required for in-network connections, a news server can be flooded
or spammed via any open proxy on a customer's system, and the average
broadband network has hundreds or thousands of customers running such
proxies.

Of course, ISP news servers generally have shallow spools and spotty
group coverage, so a third-party service is still a better idea if the
budget can support it. (As should be obvious, that's what *I* do.)
It also has another advantage in that it requires slightly less
address munging in order to protect against harvesting. If you're
posting from a news server within the same domain as your email
address, spammer harvesting bots will routinely attempt to demunge
your addy by taking the username out of the "From:" field of the
headers of your posts, and the domain name from the message-ID, and
combining them. If you munge only the domain in your address, you'll
still get harvested in that situation. If you munge both halves, you
won't. If you post from a different domain than you use for email,
the matchup won't score a hit on *your* address even if you munge only
the domain.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Werehatrack

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 03:18:11 GMT, "HardwareLust" <noone@nowhere.com>
may have said:

>Dane Jackson wrote:
>> Bah! tin forever!
>>
>>
>
>Good lord, Sheldon. You've managed to rile up the *nix zealots. God help
>us all now! ;-)

Don't fear the penguins, even if they are stealing your sanity one by
one!

(obligatory multiple pop-culture reference)

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

sittingduck

Sheldon Brown <captbike@sheldonbrown.com> wrote:

> Sorry to be O.T. but this is the main group I use, and I feel entitled
> to ask a question for a change.
>
> I schlep my Ti Powerbook back and forth all the time. At home I have
> Comcast cable; at the shop I have a DSL connection. When I'm out of
> town I use Earthlink dialup or sometimes various hotel based isps.
>
If you haven't figured this out yet, there is another good option, Tera news
offers a free account after a 3.95 setup fee. If I were you I would sign up
at news.individual.net as well, since it is free.
http://www.teranews.com/