Is Newzbin Coming Back?

If you visit the original Newzbin domain (newzbin.com) you’ll notice a message stating that the Newzbin1 team is coming back later this year.  The site claims they are working on some new, legal, services and to stay tuned for more details. That seems kind of odd for a number of reasons.  The first of which is a denial on the Newzbin IRC channel.  Along with the domain being hosted in Germany now.  We’ll keep an eye out though.

Here’s the message currently displayed on newzbin.com:

Newzbin.

The Newzbin1 team are coming back later this year!

We will have some new, legal, services.

Stay tuned for further announcements.

Along with a who.is search for the domain:

domain:                       newzbin.com
expiration_date:              2014-05-08 23:55:07
last_update:                  2013-06-11 14:05:11

nameserver:                   dns1.pointhq.com
nameserver:                   dns2.pointhq.com
nameserver:                   dns3.pointhq.com
nameserver:                   dns4.pointhq.com
nameserver:                   dns5.pointhq.com

registrant-organization:      WCIS Limited
registrant-type:              ORG
registrant-address:           Victoria House
registrant-postcode:          Mahe 000 000
registrant-city:              Victoria
registrant-country:           SC

admin-c-name:                 Marcus Dodds
admin-c-type:                 PERSON
admin-c-address:              Victoria House
admin-c-postcode:             Mahe 000 000
admin-c-city:                 Victoria
admin-c-country:              SC
admin-c-phone:                +248284110
admin-c-email:                Email Masking Image@googlemail.com

tech-c-name:                  Marcus Dodds
tech-c-type:                  PERSON
tech-c-address:               Victoria House
tech-c-postcode:              Mahe 000 000
tech-c-city:                  Victoria
tech-c-country:               SC
tech-c-phone:                 +248284110
tech-c-email:                 Email Masking Image@googlemail.com

zone-c-name:                  Marcus Dodds
zone-c-type:                  PERSON
zone-c-address:               Victoria House
zone-c-postcode:              Mahe 000 000
zone-c-city:                  Victoria
zone-c-country:               SC
zone-c-phone:                 +248284110
zone-c-email:                 Email Masking Image@googlemail.com

Information Updated: Mon, 8 Jul 2013 01:24:32 UTC

You can decide whether or not to believe the message on the site.  We will remain cautiously optimistic that the Newzbin team will find a way to return in the future.  Visit Reddit for more discussion on the topic.

Newzbin2 Closed : Finding Alternatives

Earlier today we noticed a message on the Newzbin2 site.  It appears that Mr. White and the Newzbin2 team are calling it quits.  We’re sorry to see the site close and wish them the best with any future projects.  The site mentions the possibility of launching a blog in the future.  For now I’m sure there are a lot of Newzbin users seeking alternatives.   A topic we recently wrote about when Mysterbin closed earlier this month.

With the closure of so many indexing sites lately we’re starting to favor Usenet clients with built-in search capabilities.  Newshosting is our favorite since they have a search feature built into their free newsreader.  You’ll need to be a member to use it.  The service is quite affordable though with unlimited access for $9,99 a month or $99 a yearEasynews is another option for those seeking an all-in-one Usenet service.  Members use their web interface to search, preview and download.  Easynews offers all new users a 14 day free trial.

There are also some really good premium Usenet clients on the market.  We call them premium clients because they do cost money in addition to your newsgroup service.  Newsbin Pro and Newsleecher are two of our favorites.  Each offers strong Usenet search features at a cost of around $4 to $5 a month.

There are still some free search engines and indexing sites as well.  The list continues to dwindle as more and more sites like Newzbin2 and Mysterbin close.  You can still check out Binsearch, Nzbmatrix and Nzbindex.

Visit Newsgroup Reviews to learn more about Usenet.  Follow us @NewsgroupRevs for the latest news.

Newzbin Editor Admin Goes Rogue

Mr. White from Newzbin2 recently posted a news item to let members know their user data (email addresses) have been stolen.  A group of Newzbin editors along with an editor admin went rogue.  Stealing user data including member email addresses to start a new rival site.  Those who have read about the transition from Newzbin know much of the original code was procured to launch Newzbin2.  This is a different situation.

Mr. White recently updated the post to mention that no passwords were taken.  It sounds like the group responsible was more interested in the financial gain of acquiring Newzbin2 users for their new project.

Here’s the full news post from the Newzbin2 site:

A couple of our ex-editors and a Editor admin have decided to start up a rival site. fine so far, we don’t have an issue with having rivals. They hope to make a lot of money, so they say. Again, fine: an honest business that succeeds deserves its profit.

Alas, the rival site is not honest.

These rogue colleagues abused our, and your, trust by scraping your email addresses from admin pages accessible only to them. We have not, and would not, disclose your email to a third party without your prior consent.

We apologise to those of you who have had these emails but please be assured that we were not responsible and it is only (so far as we can tell) your email address that they have stolen. We hope that if you are spammed by them you will treat their email in the way traditionally reserved for spam.

We hope you won’t join them and reward their theft but if you are tempted to just consider this: if they would screw us when we’ve befriended them & given them rewards, would you be happy giving them your email address and credit card details? And what would people like this do if the MPA/RIAA demanded your details from them?

Please don’t disclose the name of the rival site in comments as we don’t want to give them link juice.

Update: no passwords were taken either.

The purpose of this post isn’t to pass judgement on the rogue Newzbin2 staff.  Although it would be easy to do given their actions.  We suggest you ignore any spam emails received from sites you haven’t registered to access.  Since it appears no passwords were stolen the incident should be limited to email.

Visit Newsgroup Reviews to learn more about Usenet search.  Follow @NewsgroupRevs for the latest news.

Newzbin.com Down : Site Moved to Newzbin2.es

For those who enjoy Newzbin but perhaps don’t use it that frequently or haven’t read the news you will want to pay close attention to their latest message.  As Newsbin has decided to close Newsbin.com.  More specifically they have decided to change domains and leave the .com domain behind.  The transition is expected to take a couple weeks.  Once completed Newsbin.com will no longer be available. Members will need to access Newzbin at their new URL – newzbin2.es.  When the .es site launches the .com URL will not be redirected.

In case the image isn’t clear enough here’s the Newzbin news post from Mr White:

Newzbin is leaving the American Internet. In a couple of weeks we will cease to use the newzbin.com domain and move to newzbin2.es.

We regret the need to do this but, thanks to the retards in the US Government and the MPA, a ‘.com’ address is no longer viable. Really, any domain controlled by the US government proxy Verisign isn’t viable.

For the next couple of weeks we are undertaking preparations for the move. We will switch shortly after that. For legal reasons the defunct ‘newzbin.com’ page will not do any redirects or give links to the new sites. If you wish you can start using the .es domain straight away.

As you may know we rent the domain name rather than own it. What the owners will do with it when we are gone is out of our control, but we will pay the rent for a few more months.

It sounds like members can start using Newzbin2.es right away.  Though we’re not sure if the site is 100% functional yet.  When you notice newzbin.com is down just point your browser to newzbin2.es.

Visit Newsgroup Reviews to learn more about Usenet.  Follow us @NewsgroupRevs for the latest news.

Newzbin Christmas Sale : Save 50% off Newzbin

December 21st update:  the Newzbin Christmas sale is officially underway.  Enjoy 50% by topping off your Newzbin account between now and January 4th.  Visit Newzbin.com for more details.

Newzbin will be offering their annual Christmas sale again this year.  This time around the sale will last 14 days.  Beginning on December 21st and ending January 4th.  So for those interested in topping off their Newzbin accounts this is the time to purchase.  As the price will be 50% off the normal fee.  Which works out to £0.15 a week.  Previous xmas promotions have allowed users to purchase up to 12 months of premium credits.

The normal cost for Newzbin is £0.30 a week plus s £0.50 transaction fee per purchase.  So those wanting to save the most will want to pick up a year of premium access during the Newzbin Christmas sale.  Bringing the total cost to £8.30 for the year.  At £0.15 a week * 52 weeks plus a £0.50 transaction fee.  Of course as always you can also make a donation.  As we’re sure many Newzbin users will do to help support their efforts.

Read our Newzbin review to learn more about the Usenet search engine or visit Newzbin.com between December 21st, 2011 and January 4th, 2012 to take advantage of this year’s 50% off Christmas sale.

Favorite Usenet Provider, Newsreader, Search Engine

A month ago we launched a few polls so visitors could vote for their favorite Usenet provider, newsreader and Usenet search engine.  The Usenet provider and newsreader polls were very close with no clear winner.  Nzbmatrix won big in the Usenet search poll.  Here is a breakdown of the most popular in each category.

Favorite Usenet Provider Poll Results:
Astraweb received 28% of the votes
Giganews received 24% of the votes
NewsDemon received 23% of the votes

Favorite Newsreader Poll Results:
Newsleecher received 17% of the votes
Alt.Binz received 17% of the votes
SABnzbd received 14% of the votes
GrabIt received 13% of the votes
Forte Agent received 12% of the votes
NewsBin Pro received 10% of the votes

Favorite Usenet Search Poll Results:
Nzbmatrix received 37% of the votes
Binsearch received 11% of the votes
Newzbin received 9% of the votes
Newzleech received 9% of the votes

Congratulations to the winners.  If your favorite service, software or search site missed the cut this time around stay tuned as we’ll be bringing more polls and interactive features to NewsgroupReviews in the near future.

Newzbin Trial : 20th Century Fox (MPA) vs. Newzbin

May 18th, 2010 update: Newzbin discontinued operations today.  According to their homepage:

Regrettably the Newzbin website has to close as a result of the legal action against us.

————————-

We will be posting daily trial updates from Newzbin.  The summaries are pulled word for word from newzbin.com.  Members can follow any link below to the original post.  You may also want to visit TorrentFreak or UsenetShack for more information including trial background and commentary.  DSL Reports also has an active trial thread.

20th Century Fox and Others vs Newzbin Ltd – Day 1 – Feb. 2nd

First day kicked off at 10:30am with the opposing barrister delivering his opening speech, which lasted about 3 hours. Apart from mostly being full of how evil we are, he explained, mostly for the Judge, Justice Kitchin, what Usenet is, what Newzbin is, what NZB files are, how they compare to hyperlinks [at great pains to try and convince him they are technically different], some accusations about our header fetching backend code [it’s apparently designed to go looking for copyrighted stuff on Usenet specifically].

Our opening argument was blissfully short by comparison and stated only that we dispute nearly everything they say and we’ll cover it in the evidence to come.

The second part of the day consisted of witnesses for the claimants, which for the most part were pretty insignificant – a couple of FACT agents who didn’t have much to say under cross-examination apart from they did a half-assed job analysing our site.. Some junior lawyers who confirmed they had harvested data from our listings but didn’t bother to check how much of it was actually under any form of copyright.

Their star of the show, an expert witness was cross-examined for the last hour, covering topics including the dangers of auto-opening NZB files [he admitted a malicious NZB file might be a virus and auto-opening it in a browser could lead to a user being infected by a virus], discussing the various reasons that binary headers and text-digest headers are treated separately in the backend [performance reasons, and they’re handled differently until repors are created at the final step, at which point the two types of reports converge into one common database again].

Thankfully the Judge Justice Kitchin is remarkably on the ball and switched on – if nothing else this will be a very fair trial and already the opposing barrister has been pulled up on several points of contention – this Judge certainly won’t blindly eat everything he’s told by the MPA. on the other hand it doesn’t mean he’ll accept our arguments easily either.

Court adjourned at 4:30pm. The trial continues..

20th Century Fox and Others vs Newzbin Ltd – Day 2 – Feb. 3rd

Today’s update is very brief – cross examination of the MPA’s witnesses has now finished. Questioning of Newzbin witnesses has started; Freaky first followed by Caesium. We can’t say any more at this time due to witness rules. More information hopefully tomorrow.

20th Century Fox and Others vs Newzbin Ltd – Day 3 – Feb. 6th

There have been bizarre side issues which have emerged. To be fair to the MPA (god, we never thought we’d ever say that!) it was out of their control and down to internal Newzbin issues. Combined with Caesium falling ill during cross-examination by the opposing barrister, this has caused a delay and things are a bit of a shambles at the moment.

Quite what happens next week when the trial restarts is unclear and there may be more delays. Times are getting interesting: in a Chinese sense.

20th Century Fox and Others vs Newzbin Ltd – Day 4 – Feb. 9th

A refreshed Caesium finished cross examination today.

There have been/are huge procedural complications caused by Newzbin’s internal issues and this may cause delays in the case being concluded this week.

It would be fair to say that the picture painted in court of Newzbin has not been an entirely positive one. Whilst it is hard to double guess Mr Justice Kitchin, Newzbin may have some difficulties in the near future. Caesium was accused of lying massively and repeatedly under oath and ‘concocting’ a phoney defence: ‘Bollocks’ we said, a technical latin legal expression, but nonetheless a problematic accusation.

We may be being paranoid, but at the moment our hunch is that things are looking less positive for us than last week. We hope we are wrong.

Newzbin Legal

[Update1: for clarification ‘internal issues’ does not refer to dissent within the company between people: everyone gets on just fine]

[Update 2: MPAA are now even attempting to use these news updates against us in court!]

20th Century Fox and Others vs Newzbin Ltd – Day 5 – Feb. 10

[Brief update for obvious reasons. We feel it is important to keep users up to date with events in court even if the MPA do try to use the news & user comments against us.]

The MPA resisted Newzbin’s application for an adjournment so we could hire extra lawyers. They failed: the case has been adjourned for a couple of weeks while we instruct fresh counsel. We expect closing submissions in very early March.

20th Century Fox and Others vs Newzbin Ltd – Trial Finished

The trial restarted on the Tuesday the 2nd March and finished yesterday the third. It’s always difficult trying to guess what a judge is thinking as his questions and comments, where probing of either parties submissions, may be no more than professionally required scepticism. Nonetheless, here is our guess.

Our hunch is that they will fail on some of their assertions but will probably win on others. They may not be able to prove damage or loss from copying, but they may convince the court we have facilitated others in obtaining their works.

If they win then, as we said in a previous news story, Newzbin will not be shut down. In all probability there will be ‘enquiry as to damages’ (the legal expression) and a new mini-trial over the terms of an injunction compelling us to block material of the Claimants. For example we may be required to develop filter mechanisms. At the moment we remain unfiltered and we would fight for the current notice and take down system that we already use. Again this is just our best guess and we may be well wide of the mark.

The second point is user privacy. One thing the Claimants did complain about was that Newzbin “deliberately arranged it’s systems so that no user details were available: even if we got an Anton Pillar there would be nothing to seize as no logs were kept”. They were correct on that. No user needs worry about their privacy being violated by logs. Equally, since the site has lawful non-infringing use (our hunch is that the judge accepted our arguments on this: he seemed receptive to our submission that GPL, Creative Commons & non-copyright works were on the Indexes) a mere membership of Newzbin proves nothing against any user: the Claimants didn’t contend this anyway.

We do’t know when judgement will be handed down but our guess is very shortly before or after Easter. We will let you know.

March 29th, 2010 – link to verdict