News
EU Data Retention Drive's Fight
While Congress considers highly controversial bill surrounding Internet privacy and monitoring, some unsuccessful and some still ongoing, groups from the UK and the United States have lobbied in managed to get the European Data Retention Directive adopted. Originally adopted in 2006 it sets up very invasive monitoring of the Internet and other telecommunication systems, the storage of the data, and virtually no judicial oversight of the handling of the customers data. But the directive has been met with a lot of resistance throughout the European Union.
Sign Up for DogNZB Bitcoin
PayPal no longer takes payments for DogNZB.cr, but that’s no reason to give up on joining the site. The folks at DogNZB have started taking bitcoin payments, which provide not only an alternative but, for many users, likely an improvement in payment options for signing up at the site. The site isn’t currently allowing existing users to send out invites due to the PayPal freeze, but DogNZB plans on having a new payment system set up in the next month. In the meantime, the bitcoin option is definitely worth exploring.
UsenetServer Announces New VPN Service
UsenetServer has a new partner service that increases your online privacy. The company is now offering a VPN service along with their USENET access service, or as a standalone product. The bundling option is convenient for people who want privacy friendly USENET access and VPN access without having to hunt around for multiple providers.
Eweka Celebrates 10 Years with Free VPN Offer
Eweka has been around for a decade now and, to celebrate, they’ve teamed up with IPVanish to offer something to their subscribers. If you have an active account with Eweka, you get free IPVanish VPN service as part of the celebration.
Newshosting Black Friday Usenet Deals
While we have been running a special post just for the purpose of letting the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals out, we felt that this special offer warranted some level of special attention. From now until Monday December 2nd Newshosting is giving their UsenetReviewz readers an additional 40% off of the regular annual sign on fee of $99.99. To break it down a little better, that’s $5 p/mo when purchased annually.
The Best USENET Black Friday Deals
When you were a kid did you try to sneak a peek at the presents you were getting for Christmas? Many of us did, and with the holiday season in full swing, we are starting to feel the excitement of anticipating all the great Usenet deals the providers have to offer.
UsenetServer Special Discount for Fall
As Halloween has come and gone, and officially kicked off the Holiday Season, UsenetServer kicks off the season as the first provider on our list to make a seasonal offering. The “UsenetServer Fall Special” offers prospects 50% off the normal access price of $10 for the first month. That’s $5 for unlimited speed and downloads, encryption, and up to 20 concurrent connections.
NZBMatrix Closes-Usenet Search Options
Last month we saw 2 Usenet search icons, Mysterbin, and then Newzbin2, finally close their site forever, and a few days ago it was announced on the NZBMatrix website that they were following suit. According to their letter they suffered failing finances, and innumerable DMCA takedown notices that just couldn’t be handled by what little staff they had left.
Cryptocat App Questioned By DHS
The developer of a new secured chat application, Cryptocat, was detained at the US/Canada border by US Department of Homeland Security agents and questioned as to the inner workings of the application he developed. Cryptocat offers users a 256 bit AES secured communication application that works from most web browsers.
NewzNab – Build Your Own Index
We mentioned before in various places about the imminent closing of NZBS.org, the USENET indexing website. Well, if you are having problems finding a good NZB index, or just always wanted to build your own USENET index, private or published on the web, NewzNab is probably the index building software you need. Most of the most popular USENET indexing sites use this as it allows for creation on a modest server. If you wish to keep your index private it is possible, but there is always room for a new public indexing site.
CISPA and USENET
Over the last few years it has become almost routine that new legislation being introduced into Congress that potentially invades the privacy of the US citizen. Often these bills narrow the gap between law enforcement and corporate interests. In the most recent attempts the SOPA and PIPA bills attacked Internet piracy and copyright infringement. Often this is the case, but in this instance, the CISPA bill is being heralded as national security legislation. And while there are many large Internet corporations that are backing this bill like Facebook and Google, there are many privacy rights organizations that say this bill is arcane.
Merlin’s Portal Finally Closed Completely
For a long time, years literally Merlin’s portal was one of our most popular USENET search engines. At one time having a huge following, large enough to keep the NZB search site open. But, like many sites of this nature, much of the following was due to Merlin’s offering, while another large portion of the following enjoyed the camaraderie of the administration. After the site founder, m3rl1n, vacated the site another user, SiD, took over the site and administrative duties.
