some n00b questions

[turin]

Your news provider still knows what you download & upload.

So if anyone really really wants to bust you, then they can ask the news provider.

yes, but they are the only ones who knows. The ISP can not see what you are downloading with ssl, right?

[zot]

The SSL encryption used on newsgroups, 256bit, is very secure and highly unlikely to be broken by anyone - ISP, government, whatever.

But if you are suspected of something illegal, the g-men can always go to the usenet provider and order them to log what you download (they already log what everybody uploads) and then it makes no difference whether you have SSL or not.

But that said, there are still reasons to have SSL. ISPs are being pushed to start using software that will identify and filter out illegal stuff, like certain types of pictures (based on a list of banned filehashes)