A new Usenet provider by the name of UsenetExpress launched earlier today. It is the first tier-1 Usenet provider to jump into the industry in a very long time. The founder of UsenetExpress is no rookie to the Usenet biz. Earlier today he shared his past history on the site’s blog. He founded a Usenet company in the early 2000s that gained popularity before he sold it in 2006. It has continued to grow into one of the most popular Usenet providers in the world. Back to UsenetExpress, their team is launching the new service to compete with the small number of tier-1 Usenet providers on the market. Time will tell whether or not their strategy will be a success, but in the meantime they are looking for some Usenet enthusiasts to help test the new service. The UsenetExpress team is offering a free month of service to users who help them stress test the service.

If you would like to help test the new UseneExpress service, their team has kindly shared a coupon code with us that will give you a free month of Usenet access. We want to note that you will need to sign up for an account and provide payment information to receive the free month of access. If you do not cancel your account during the first 30 days it will bill at their normal rate of $10 a month. Even so, the promotion is a great chance to test out a new tier-1 Usenet network free of charge. To do so you will want to visit their site and click on the blue Signup Now button. On the pricing screen that follows you will want to select the $10 monthly plan. At this point you can enter the coupon code goldenticket to receive the first month free. As of the time of our post there is no field for the code. Instead you can simply type goldenticket without clicking on anything else. As soon as you hit the last letter the screen will present you with a message stating the code is confirmed as shown below.

Now that the coupon code is active, you can simply scroll down and enter an email address. From there you will choose between a number of payment methods. Regardless of which one you select, a message stating that “your coupon will be applied on the payment page.” will be presented. Then the payment page will show a message that let’s you know the subscription terms which include free service for the first month, then $10 for each month. Give UsenetExpress a test drive and let their team know what you think. As always we’re also interested in your impressions. Hit us up on Twitter and share your thoughts on the new Usenet service.

Earlier this week a concerned Astraweb member posted on Reddit to warn others that Astraweb is storing passwords in plain text. He included an email from Astraweb that included the username and password for all three accounts that were tied to his email address. What’s wrong with that? For starters no one should hold you’re password in plain text anymore. You may have noticed that when you forget your password and request help that most companies reply with a link to reset your password. Instead Astraweb replied with every username and password tied to the user’s email address. By storing passwords in plain text Astraweb is putting members at risk. This is especially true for those who reuse the same password on other websites.

There are a number of steps you can take to help protect your online accounts. The first is to use a different password for each account. Long gone are the days of using a single password and keeping it on a post-it note under your keyboard. You would think that practice ended long ago but I recently visited a company that specializes in website development and watched the office manager refer to a post-it note to log into a customer’s project. They proceeded to refer to the same note to log into other customer’s projects. Needless to say that didn’t leave a good impression. Most of us do a better job now a days but there is still plenty of room for improvement. Make sure you use strong passwords and never reuse them. You can use a free password manager like KeePass to help keep track of all your passwords.

The next step is to use multi-factor authentication whenever possible. You may already use two factor authentication to log into work while traveling or for financial institutions. The use of two-factor authentication has grown to include a lot of popular mainstream websites including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon and many more. Most of them use a software token like Google Authenticator. How does it work? You simply install the Google Authenticator app on your iOS or Android device and use it to log into your favorite sites. This keeps anyone from accessing your account. They would need both your password and the rotating code that is presented on your device at the time of login. This is far more secure than just using a password.

There are a number of other steps you can take to help protect your identity online. If you don’t already use a VPN service then we suggest researching them and adding one to help protect your privacy. This is especially true for those who use public wifi networks. Whether you enjoy grabbing a cup of coffee while browsing the Internet or traveling, a VPN is a must. It’s way too easy to log into wifi at a restaurant or hotel and not realize you’re communications aren’t protected. You can take of this by logging into a VPN before using public wifi. A good VPN will also help you avoid censorship and geo restrictions. It’s not necessary for downloading from Usenet. Most providers offer SSL encryption which we recommend enabling in your newsreader.

The team at Xennanews is giving away free test accounts for their Usenet service. You can connect to their test server in Germany and use the service for free. There are a few limitations. The first of which is speed. You can use up to 10 connections but the speed is limited to 10 Mbit. The test accounts forbid posting and account sharing. The final limitation is binary retention. While the account page doesn’t mention retention we’re hearing that the available retention is somewhere around a month. So you can expect about 30 days of retention and 10 Mbit speed. However, just remember the account is free so you have nothing to lose.

As you can see Xennanews is down to about 550 free test accounts early in the morning on Friday, January 27th. I recommend you get one quickly because they will surely run out fast. All it requires to sign up for the free test account is an email address. Simply enter your email and click on the “Get” button to sign up. There is no cost and you will be immediately taken to a screen that shows your account details. That means you can hop right into the xennanews server. The server address is test.xennanews.com and available ports include 119 for non-SSL and 563 for SSL connections. Remember the free account is limited to 10 Mbit and 10 connections.

Cheers to the Xennanews team for giving away free test accounts. We hope you get in on the action. The account is a good one to have as a backup and for fills on newer content. I recommend Eweka as a primary Usenet service in Europe. They offer our visitors unlimited access to over 3,000 days of binary retention and speeds up to 100 Mbit for just €7,50 a month. You can read our Eweka review for more details and to save on unlimited Usenet access.

Dec. 7, 2016 – News Service (NSE) as they won their appeal against BREIN. In short the Amsterdam Court of Appeal found in favor of NSE. They found that NSE did not infringe on copyrights and did not act unlawfully. NSE already had a notice and takedown (NTD) procedure in place to allow copyright holders to request content be removed. Even so the court ruled in BREIN’s favor which forced NSE to close in 2011. We hope the latest ruling will lead to compensation for the lost revenue NSE sustained over the past five years and beyond.

Here are some more details from the press release posted to the News-Service site on Dec. 7th:

The Amsterdam Court of Appeal today set aside the decision of the Amsterdam District Court in the case filed by piracy fighter Stichting BREIN in 2009 against Usenet provider News-Service Europe B.V. (NSE). This means that NSE won on appeal.

The Court of Appeal ruled that NSE had not infringed copyrights, that as an intermediary, it is not liable for the infringements made on its platform by others and that NSE did not act unlawfully. Moreover, the filter imposed on NSE by the District Court in 2011 is contrary to European legislation (Article 15 of the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC). This article stipulates that an intermediary cannot be obliged to exercise general monitoring.

Patrick Schreurs, former CEO: “Finally, justice! At the end of 2011 it was clear to friend and foe that the decision of the District Court could not be upheld. Even so, Stichting BREIN did not wish to await the outcome of the appeal lodged by NSE, the result being that a successful Dutch company had to cease its activities unnecessarily. That still hurts. After the appeal proceedings dragged on for over five years, the Court of Appeal has now finally ruled that we were right all along.”

However, the Appeal Court did order NSE to implement an effective notice-and-takedown procedure (NTD procedure). Such a procedure can point out to a provider the presence of unlawful material on its platform, so that it can take action and if necessary, remove the contested material. In line with the aforementioned prohibition of general monitoring, the initiative to this procedure lies not with the provider, but with the person making the report.

The order is striking because NSE already offered an effective NTD procedure before the legal proceedings were issued. In an earlier interlocutory order, the Court of Appeal denied that NSE’s NTD procedure was not effective. Moreover, offering an effective NTD procedure is one of the conditions on which an intermediary can successfully rely for exclusion of liability (section 6:196c(4) of the Dutch Civil Code). Since the Court of Appeal ruled that NSE complied with all the conditions, it had effectively labelled NSE’s NTD procedure as sufficiently effective. The court order is apparently a mere palliative.

Wierd Bonthuis, former CFO, on the judgment: “I am very satisfied that we have won on appeal in this dispute between our company and Stichting BREIN. If this judgment had been handed down by the District Court, NSE would have had no reason to cease its business activities. That, however, became inevitable when, despite the fact that we had filed an enforcement dispute, BREIN decided to enforce the judgment and left NSE with the damage.”

Aug, 19, 2014 – In a case that’s been ongoing for years the court of appeals in the Netherlands ruled in favor of News Service.  NSE was a Dutch Usenet service that closed down after an unreasonable court decision in 2011.  The appeal took nearly 3 years but Mr. Schreurs and everyone else involved in the case can be pleased by today’s appeals court ruling that Usenet providers like NSE don’t have to self police their networks.

In 2009 Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland (BREIN) took News-Service (a major Usenet reseller in Europe) to court.  BREAIN claimed that NSE was responsible for the content on their network and should have to proactively remove copyrighted content.  The court sided with BREIN and required NSE not only to remove copyright content from their network but also to filter future posts without any request from the rights holder.  The unreasonable demand caused News-Service to shot down on November 4, 2011.

The appeals court still has some decisions to make but the main issue of whether or not Usenet provider’s will be expected to proactively police their servers for copyrighted content has been answered in the News-Service appeals court victory.  Dutch providers will likely need to respond to takedown notices from copyright holders.  Much like they do with DMCA requests in the United States.  That’s far better than proactively policing your network which is impossible given the massive volume of content added to newsgroups every day.

Cheers to News-Service on their court of appeals victory.  It’s been years in the making.  It has to feel good to Mr. Schreurs and everyone involved to have the court understand the technical details of the case better.  As a result the appeals court ruled in the Usenet industry’s favor.

Here are some more details from the press release posted to the News-Service site on Aug. 19th:

The court may not make it compulsory for Usenet providers to filter their message traffic. This follows from today’s judgment by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal in the case between News-Service Europe and BREIN.

The district court had previously found News-Service Europe guilty of copyright infringement. The court did not answer the question of whether News-Service Europe could successfully rely on the statutory rules that protect intermediaries such as ISPs. This ruling forced News-Service Europe to cease its activities.

In today’s judgment, the Court of Appeal reversed the judgment of the lower court. As an intermediary, News-Service Europe is not liable for possible copyright infringements by consumers. The earlier judgment of the lower court boiled down to a requirement to install a filter. The Court of Appeal has said that no such obligation may be imposed because it would mean that News-Service Europe would have to monitor its network continuously. This is contrary to settled case law of the European Court of Justice, according to the Court of Appeal. Patrick Schreurs, former CEO of NSE: “We are extremely pleased with this judgment. The Court of Appeal rightly found that a Usenet provider such as News-Service Europe cannot be expected to exercise preventative supervision of the notices posted by others.”

Interlocutory judgment
In this interlocutory judgment, the Court ruled that an intermediary such as News-Service Europe is, however, obliged to implement a so-called notice-and-takedown procedure. News-Service Europe has always said that it already had such a procedure in place. The next step is for the parties to explain to the Court of Appeal how the procedure should work and what other measures might be taken in this regard. “We look forward to this in full confidence”, said Wierd Bonthuis, NSE’s former CFO.

You can visit our Usenet providers section to learn more about newsgroup services around the world.

Leading Usenet providers are celebrating a new milestone.  As Newshosting, UseNetServer, Easynews, Eweka, NewsDemon, ThunderNews, Astraweb and more pass 3,000 days of binary retention.  We join in celebrating the accomplishment as they continue to innovate and bring quality service to Usenet fans.  When NGR launched we discussed retention in terms of days.  It’s hard to believe that services now support over right years of binaries and growing.  Leading providers continue to set themselves apart with efforts like these.

Those of us who regularly enjoy Usenet now have access to over eight years of binary newsgroup posts.  At 3,000 days you can access newsgroup posts from more than eight years ago.  As 3,000 days ago was August of 2008.  Back then the highest retention to be found was 240 days, which is around 8 months.  Now we can all explore 100 months of Usenet posts for a fraction of the 2008 price of newsgroup access.

The quality and value offered by Usenet providers has also progressed since 2008.  Back then services offered unlimited Usenet for $20-$30 a month.  Fast forward to 2016 and the price is half that much.  Not only has the cost dropped significantly.  Users now enjoy free extras.  Including faster speeds and additional features like newsreaders, Usenet search and VPN access.  All for under $10 a month.

We look forward to celebrating for years to come as providers continue to grow retention.  Leading providers will have pass nine years in just a few months.  As always continue enjoying the best Usenet has to offer.  Visit Newsgroup Reviews to learn more about Usenet. Follow us @NewsgroupRevs for the latest offers.