When Using Usenet/Newsgroups.....

Do you downlaod or upload. I hear people saying that you upload from newsgroups. Isn't that how you get caught by the fools. Also isn't newsgroups straight downloading. Another questions, what are headers. I also hear people talk about headers, but I don't know what they actually mean. One last thing, so I could understand how newsgroups work. Let's say newshosting is like optimum online and you are paying for the services. Optimum is the speed and newshosting is the newsgroups. So when you use a newsreader such as newsleecher or grabit, you put the server name so you could find files or posts. If that is true then how would you find out what people post besides the files such as how was the recent movie that is showing in theaters. With optimum newsgroups, you set it up with microsoft outlook so you can see the posts. How would that work tih newsgroups. Sorry for the long thread and any help will be appreaciated. thanks.

You download from newsgroups.
You can upload to them. But only if you wish to.

Headers are the remnants of the old way of browsing through newsgroups. They are simply the subject or in the case of a file the filename.

edit: I have no idea what you mean in the rest of the post.
You do know what NZBs are right?

nzb files are almost like torrent files. You find them by using newzbin and then using newsleecher or nzb-o-matic to download. So when you get the message ids and open to newsleecher or nzbomatic, you are downloading straight from the source, right? And you are not uploading? thanks. The rest was a way for me to understand newgroups. thanks.

Yep. You are downloading straight from your usenet provider, and not uploading to anybody at the same time.

Then why in newzbin when you click on a post, it says upload time, upload speed, and upload rate. Shouldn't it say download instead of upload. I am confused by that.

That is a record of how long it took the original poster to upload the files to usenet and what was the speed of the conenction they were using.

It has nothing to do with you uploading. Post don't appear automatically and you could jump on something that is still being posted.