What the real use of ssl ?

Hi everyone !

I was wondering since with usenet you basically connect to a server why should i use secure connections ?

What's the real use ? Or is it just paranoia security to use it ?

mostly to overcome ISP throttling

The main reason is to bypass ISP throttling and/or blocking of Usenet traffic. The other paranoid side of the argument is to encrypt all headers and transfers between your PC and the Usenet server so that nobody really knows what you're leeching.

Either way, SSL is compromised with a man in the middle attack so if your ISP was required by law to "decrypt" your transfers, it wouldn't really matter that you're employing SSL on your traffic.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by link2009

The main reason is to bypass ISP throttling and/or blocking of Usenet traffic.

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Pretty much this, I'd say. They can however still see you downloading a ton of "gibberish", and some shapers also look for that. Another reason to use SSL could also be preventing others from easily seeing your NTTP login if you're stealing Wi-Fi from an unsecure network.

Comcast will shape SSL traffic, but they use protocol agnostic shaping based on congestion.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by link2009

The main reason is to bypass ISP throttling and/or blocking of Usenet traffic. The other paranoid side of the argument is to encrypt all headers and transfers between your PC and the Usenet server so that nobody really knows what you're leeching.

Either way, SSL is compromised with a man in the middle attack so if your ISP was required by law to "decrypt" your transfers, it wouldn't really matter that you're employing SSL on your traffic.

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Ya know, I don't think it is paranoid to have it where you don't want people, especially your ISP, knowing what you are downloading, especially since the Record and Movie companies are trying to get ISP's to do just that know what you are downloading. SSL does have its issues though. Also if an ISP wanted to really throttle you, SSL wouldn't be able to save ya.

Thanks a lot for the info guys , i will turn it on then ;)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by link2009

Either way, SSL is compromised with a man in the middle attack so if your ISP was required by law to "decrypt" your transfers, it wouldn't really matter that you're employing SSL on your traffic.

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I thought one of the main 'selling points' of SSL was that it prevented MITM attacks(?)

How do you turn it on?

There's nothing to turn on. You should just have to simply change the port number to take advantage of SSL. Just ask your newsprovider for the port numbers to use. Mostly likely it will be 443 or 563 instead of the standard 119.