Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 18/02/2019 00.15, arlen holder wrote:
On Sun, 17 Feb 2019 14:29:54 -0800, Mike Easter wrote:

I have no interest in that question and I'm under no obligation to even
consider it worth discussing.
The question is actually very simple & rather easy to comprehend Mike.

Knowledgeable users who know the answer can add to our knowledge.

I hate your mania of saying that phrase.

Q: What's a free proxy for the specific purpose of free Usenet posts?


I don't have the foggiest idea what an nntp proxy would be in your
context, what would it be useful for.

An nntp proxy would just be an nntp server that forwards to another nntp
server - which by definition converts it into another nntp server, not a
proxy. It would not necessarily anonymize the user.


There is an nntp proxy, I use one - but it sits in my very own computer.
It is called leafnode - seek it up in the wikipedia. It is not used for
anonymity: its original creation purpose was for use with dial up modems.

A user would connect the modem and fire up the "fetch news cycle":
leafnode collects all new messages on the groups it follows (not all
groups). Then the modem would disconnect. The user or users would read
the posts, write answers using any normal nntp client software, which
for all purposes would think they were connected to a normal nntp server
on Internet. Finally, the machine would fire up the modem and send all
pending nntp posts in a few seconds of connection.

This would happen daily, hourly, or any period the admin would define
with cron. This was/is on Linux, maybe there were other tools for Windows.

The current advantage now that dial up modems are not used is that the
clients read posts much faster. It also allows automatic connection to
several upstream nntp servers: if one doesn't work, it goes to another.

I can also search for a text on a group or bunch of groups, because the
"server" is in my machine and I have access to its files.

There aren't that many "account-free" newsservers.

AIOE is one.

The only reason you'd feel some advantage from
"hiding your address", would be for the purposes of
defeating Paolo's address filters. Which are his only
defense on an account-free server.

USENET is chaos, a peer-level network with simple transfer
protocol between nodes. A new entrant to USENET, contacts
administrators on the various servers to obtain "feeds". This
allows messages with World distribution, to be offered to
other nodes. It can take anywhere from seconds to 24 hours
for a message to reach some other server (depending on how
many hops it took).

A well-connected server might have 70 other feeds connected to it.

The message ID on each message, manages transfers, in that
if I offer you "message 1234" and you already have it, you
deny needing it.

OK, so what other properties does it have. Well, in effect,
there's a "Cabal". If you do something bad enough, your
account can be cut off. OK, well, what about a server administrator?
Yes, they make "evil" ones of those too. And the cabal can
communicate via email with one another, and arrange to "isolate"
a bad server. However, all it takes is one administrator to
offer an asshole a lifeline, to keep him connected.

Good administrators are aware of the need for being responsive
on abuse reports. For example, the AIOE admin wants to keep
his 70 feeds. He gets a bad name, every time one of his customers
has a freakout. I would think the general opinion was, it
wouldn't take much for the rest of the community to pull
the plug on him (they know he doesn't use Accounts to
ride herd on his users).

OK, now let's fit a proxy into the picture. The cloud side
of the proxy connects to a server using an account. Let's
say the proxy starts pumping abuse into its hosting server.
The server admin yanks the proxy account and the proxy is
dead in the water.

Lets say the proxy works with feeds. If word gets around
(as it likely would), about some "cowboy device" that was
making a nuisance of itself, the feeds would get yanked.
Especially if the feeds had just been set up, and the
operator of the proxy "was on probation". Some new admins
will inevitably be clueless (or appear so), and probation
means figuring out whether the server you granted
access, is an asshat or just a dumbo.

OK, so we got this great idea for a "proxy", whatever that
is. It's not leafnode, because leafnode uses a regular
account on the server it connects to. If "abuse" was coming
up the pipe from leafnode, that user would just get cut
off like that (account TOSsed).

There have been other devices, but at least some of them
have disappeared. There were some web to NNTP gateways
("leeches") that were invented. There's still a couple
of those running (the other ones must be well underwater,
as they no longer show up in google searches). The people
running the leech sites, had to add extra protection to
the Compose window, because some of their users were injecting
"signature spam", like using a four line .sig with Chinese
counterfeit shoe advert URLs. When that got shot down (message
dumped if .sig spam present), that cut down a lot on
the nuisance "+1" spam coming from them.

Basically, for every distortion, there is a response.

When there was a severe problem with a flood, it took
at least three months, maybe more, to fix it. Someone
set up a cancelbot, as part of the defense mechanism.
That required some amount of cooperation from Cabal
members. (Maybe even the assholes helped out.) As time
passes, and administrator interest in day to day ops wanes,
it's harder to get that kind of effort from the community.
But rest assured, it's like evolution. **** with it,
and be cast out. Think of it as being a kind of immune
system built out of software. You can't wall off every
pest, but you can certainly try.

The highest level of alert, is the UDP. And amazingly,
there's an article for the term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet_Death_Penalty

And I'm not going to weaponize the OP by providing
any more "stories". The above are the basic mechanisms.
There was one other little incident about helping
someone, where blowback occurred. So enough said.

Where ever this hypothetical proxy is connected,
there will be trouble. The killer T-cells have
been dispatched.

Paul