Newsgroups - no longer secure & Private ??? any news providers outsde USA ?

[Racehorse]

is anyone else concerned about the DICTATORSHIP which is now the USA gov't - dictating that all US ISPS track/log all downloading activity for Pirating of Copyrighted material - thus USA newsgroups won't be secure even when using SSL connections ?

are there any "NO Connection to North America" newsgroup providers ?

[Beck38]

None of the mp$$ sponsored bills have yet passed either house of Congress.

What is more disturbing is that only one internet company has come out FOR any of the proposed legislation.... Go Daddy.com

Several usenet companies use GoDaddy for their domain registry, and in some cases (Astraweb for sure) uses them for SSL certificates. Perhaps the folks using these services need to send emails to those companies asking them why they are supporting such companies from their back pockets...

[mjmacky]

I always saw godaddy as a bit of a whore enterprise.

[cola]

I like www.tweaknews.eu for block accounts. Not sure if you need unlimited.

www.cheapnews.eu is a tweaknews reseller, but their 20mbit unlimited plan is attractive.

[B18C5]

dictating that all US ISPS track/log all downloading activity for Pirating of Copyrighted material - thus USA newsgroups won't be secure even when using SSL connections ?

How do you figure? You think they're going to do man in the middle attacks? I see huge legal liability if they start intercepting SSL and getting people's credit card data for every transaction they make over net. If News servers started to use real certs, even this MiTM attack would be pretty easy to catch. Then you can switch to a VPN and do SSL through the VPN so, the ISP would have to crack 2 levels of encryption.

[temisturk]

I see huge legal liability if they start intercepting SSL and getting people's credit card data for every transaction they make over net.

You're completely wrong. And that's (part of) the point. Section 104 of the act grants legal immunity to anyone voluntarily taking action against sites "dedicated to infringement". Where "dedicated to infringement" means little more than site which the DoJ has obtained a court order against. And remember the broad range of domain names they were able to seize--it would be naive and dangerous to assume that "site" couldn't be construed to cover news servers.

[Beck38]

The whole point of these new 'laws' would be that the DOJ and whatever they set up to 'process' the complaints, would not need any kind of 'court order' whatsoever ('we don't need no stinking badges'), just that they 'say' there is 'infringing' activity going on.

And if proven wrong, there is no way the aggrieved site can sue either the gov't or the originator of the complaint, just like is is now with the DMCA (again, 'we don't need no stinking badges'), there isn't any way in the law to bring them to the bar of justice for making any 'mistakes' (the MP$$ has admitted in the recent past, in fact the last MONTH, to have issued DMCA 'takedowns' on things they didn't have or could prove 'copyright').

GoDaddy, after having some pressure applied has relented somewhat:

http://gizmodo.com/5870870/godaddy-n...-supports-sopa

[B18C5]

Section 104 of the act grants legal immunity to anyone voluntarily taking action against sites "dedicated to infringement".

If you snag my credit card because I bought a CD from Amazon and you expose it, you're liable. The immunity is for going after infringing sites, not snooping on normal customers. You can't snoop on SSL without snooping on all SSL. There's no way to distinguish until you look inside. Again though, you can always just use a VPN to get out of your ISP's reach. Now, you could argue that we have a two tier justice system in the US and that only the little people will go to jail. That I can agree with. So, even if they're liable, like the banksters, the government may just protect them.

This isn't something I'm going to lose sleep over. If it happens, I'll find some other hobby.

[temisturk]

What I would be liable for today is irrelevant. The question is what might service providers NOT be liable for tomorrow; and the proposed answer is: anything that helps the government and the copyright monopolists protect the status quo.

If you're not going to lose sleep over such an attack on your legal protections then you wouldn't, unfortunately for your sake, be the only one.

[sandman_1]

I guess this only affirms that our politicians are the best that money can buy. No wonder people believe our government is run by corporations. Time to route the rats out of congress...