Alternative Newsgroups (ALT Newsgroups) are devoted to specific (sometimes controversial) topics. ALT newsgroups are rarely moderated and almost anyone can create one. A newsgroup is like a forum where participants can reply to previous posts and follow a newsgroup relevant to their interests by subscribing to it free of charge. Since ALT newsgroups are rarely moderated, participants can also create their own newsgroup about anything, from ranting or raving about a movie to informing others about a current political issue. Other Usenet users can access and react to the participant’s Read More

Usenet is a global Internet discussion system. It was created and implemented by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis in 1979. It comprises of a collection of newsgroups that are classified and structured on the basis of subject. Messages or articles are placed and read by users within these newsgroups. Usenet is considered the predecessor of today’s Internet forums. Usenet is distributed through an informally connected variable server mesh. It does not use the traditional central server setup nor does it have a dedicated server. In simple terms, Usenet permits newsgroup Read More

NZB stands for Newzbin, a popular file sharing format used on the internet. A NZB file is a file used to send a particular file through the Internet using the Newzbin application. What is Newzbin exactly? A popular online tool for many years has been Usenet. Usenet, created before the World Wide Web was even up, basically works as a message board. It allows people to post and reply to different topics, referred to online as newsgroups. Newzbin is a subsidiary of Usenet, a website that uses the Usenet application Read More

From: Anonymous (Pretending to be: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence) Subject: FAQ: Better living through forgery Date: 19 Mar 1995 02:37:09 GMT Anonymous netnews without “anonymous” remailers Inspired by the recent “NetNews Judges-L” events, this file has been updated to cover forging control messages, so you can do your own article canceling and create and destroy your own newsgroups. Save any news article to a file. We’ll call it “fakepost” in this example. Edit “fakepost”, and remove any header lines of the form: From some!random!path!user (note: “From “, not “From: “!!!) Article: Lines: Read More

NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) is the protocol used by Usenet news servers and clients (readers). Usenet is a huge shared message system which is used on the Internet. Usenet consists of newsgroups such as comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video and rec.collecting.sport.hockey. The NNTP protocol exists on the Application Layer of the OSI Model. NNTP utilizes TCP port 119; NNTP with SSL utilizes TCP port 563. NNTP Servers Popular NNTP servers include INN and Diablo. NNTP Clients Pan is a newsreader for the Gnome environment, which runs under Unix, Linux, Mac OS, and Microsoft Read More

Usenet messages consist of message headers and message bodies. The message header tells the news software how to process the message. Headers can be divided into two types, required and optional. Required headers are ones like “From” and “Newsgroups.” Without the required headers, your message will not be posted properly. One of the optional headers is the “Approved” header. To post to a moderated Usenet newsgroup, simply add an Approved header line to your message header. The header line should contain the newsgroup moderators e-mail address. To see the correct Read More