<ec693ba2b5fb7677a6c1d6c619ceea48@dizum.com>,<ttec64$18lss$1@news.mixmin.net>,<75ddd9b00fbf4e557dd6e19136bd82fb@dizum.com>,<2845f05b-2ff3-483e-9327-d49b3d600b02n@googlegroups.com>

T'as raison :) !

--
Key fingerprint = 67B7 EA66 920B A7F5 C59A C92E 34A6 155A 7803 7B2B

> T'as raison :) !

mail2news@neodome.net,mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net,mail2news@dizum.com

In article <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>
> > T'as raison :) !
>
> mail2news@neodome.net,mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net,mail2news@dizum.com

Sent with this template
Fcc: alt.privacy.anon-server
Host: fleegle
From: anonymous@anonymous.com
Chain: *,*,dizum; copies=3;
To: mail2news@neodome.net
Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server
Subject: Re: any m2n left ?
References: <20230302133802.iyfjbv2ojdulh3dx@kosmikdog.virebent.art>
<545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>

In article <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>
> > T'as raison :) !
>
> mail2news@neodome.net,mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net,mail2news@dizum.com

Sent with this template

Fcc: alt.privacy.anon-server
Host: fleegle
From: anonymous@anonymous.com
Chain: *,*,dizum; copies=3;
To: mail2news@dizum.com
Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server
Subject: Re: any m2n left ?
References: <20230302133802.iyfjbv2ojdulh3dx@kosmikdog.virebent.art>
<545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>

On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 21:07:00 +0100 (CET), Nomen Nescio
<nobody@dizum.com> wrote:

>In article <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
>Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>>
>> > T'as raison :) !
>>
>> mail2news@neodome.net,mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net,mail2news@dizum.com
>
>Sent with this template
>
>Fcc: alt.privacy.anon-server
>Host: fleegle
>From: anonymous@anonymous.com
>Chain: *,*,dizum; copies=3;
>To: mail2news@dizum.com
>Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server
>Subject: Re: any m2n left ?
>References: <20230302133802.iyfjbv2ojdulh3dx@kosmikdog.virebent.art>
> <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>

I'm the one who sent the templates.

So far the To: mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net post via QSL hasn't showed up.

The dizum and and neodome gateways did show up. Maybe mixmin isn't
working. We'll see if it shows up yet.

On 07 Mar 2023, Abe@flubber.org posted some
news:70ef0i1s90so64unko2smlk5jdkait33h5@4ax.com:

> On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 21:07:00 +0100 (CET), Nomen Nescio
><nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
>>Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > T'as raison :) !
>>>
>>> mail2news@neodome.net,mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net,mail2news@dizum.com
>>
>>Sent with this template
>>
>>Fcc: alt.privacy.anon-server
>>Host: fleegle
>>From: anonymous@anonymous.com
>>Chain: *,*,dizum; copies=3;
>>To: mail2news@dizum.com
>>Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server
>>Subject: Re: any m2n left ?
>>References: <20230302133802.iyfjbv2ojdulh3dx@kosmikdog.virebent.art>
>> <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
>
> I'm the one who sent the templates.
>
> So far the To: mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net post via QSL hasn't showed up.
>
> The dizum and and neodome gateways did show up. Maybe mixmin isn't
> working. We'll see if it shows up yet.

It's random and v e r y s l o w .

Posts via news.mixmin same.

On Wed, 8 Mar 2023 04:14:11 +0100 (CET), poster <poster@invalid.org>
wrote:

>On 07 Mar 2023, Abe@flubber.org posted some
>news:70ef0i1s90so64unko2smlk5jdkait33h5@4ax.com:
>
>> On Tue, 7 Mar 2023 21:07:00 +0100 (CET), Nomen Nescio
>><nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>>
>>>In article <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
>>>Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> > T'as raison :) !
>>>>
>>>> mail2news@neodome.net,mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net,mail2news@dizum.com
>>>
>>>Sent with this template
>>>
>>>Fcc: alt.privacy.anon-server
>>>Host: fleegle
>>>From: anonymous@anonymous.com
>>>Chain: *,*,dizum; copies=3;
>>>To: mail2news@dizum.com
>>>Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server
>>>Subject: Re: any m2n left ?
>>>References: <20230302133802.iyfjbv2ojdulh3dx@kosmikdog.virebent.art>
>>> <545c70ddccfdf8c144e99714802d40f5@dizum.com>
>>
>> I'm the one who sent the templates.
>>
>> So far the To: mail2news@m2n.mixmin.net post via QSL hasn't showed up.
>>
>> The dizum and and neodome gateways did show up. Maybe mixmin isn't
>> working. We'll see if it shows up yet.
>
>It's random and v e r y s l o w .
>
>Posts via news.mixmin same.

I gave up on mixmin a long time ago. Dizum and neodome work fine - so
far.

Abe@flubber.org writes:

>>It's random and v e r y s l o w .
>>
>>Posts via news.mixmin same.
>
> I gave up on mixmin a long time ago. Dizum and neodome work fine - so
> far.

Two entry points is not really enough to consider network
reliable. Should be at least three, IMHO. That's why Neodome m2n was
created back in the day.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_modular_redundancy>

Hopefully someone will create another m2n while Mixmin is absent.

On 3/7/23 11:43 PM, Neodome Admin wrote:
> Two entry points is not really enough to consider network
> reliable. Should be at least three, IMHO.

Agreed.

> Hopefully someone will create another m2n while Mixmin is absent.

How can this be done without exposing a mail-to-news (m2n) gateway and /
or the news server that it's using to abuse?

If I knew how to do this safely I'd consider doing it.

Would there be any interest in a mail-to-news gateway that allowed
registered sending addresses to use it?

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Grant Taylor wrote:
>On 3/7/23 11:43 PM, Neodome Admin wrote:

>> Two entry points is not really enough to consider network
>> reliable. Should be at least three, IMHO.
>
>Agreed.
>
>> Hopefully someone will create another m2n while Mixmin is absent.
>
>How can this be done without exposing a mail-to-news (m2n) gateway and /
>or the news server that it's using to abuse?
>
>If I knew how to do this safely I'd consider doing it.
>
>Would there be any interest in a mail-to-news gateway that allowed
>registered sending addresses to use it?

Accept only exit remailers' mail host connections
and ask for a valid Hashcash token.

In article <18464066209acf686d871bd35e22e597@dizum.com>
Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> wrote:
>
> Grant Taylor wrote:
> >On 3/7/23 11:43 PM, Neodome Admin wrote:
>
> >> Two entry points is not really enough to consider network
> >> reliable. Should be at least three, IMHO.
> >
> >Agreed.
> >
> >> Hopefully someone will create another m2n while Mixmin is absent.
> >
> >How can this be done without exposing a mail-to-news (m2n) gateway and /
> >or the news server that it's using to abuse?
> >
> >If I knew how to do this safely I'd consider doing it.
> >
> >Would there be any interest in a mail-to-news gateway that allowed
> >registered sending addresses to use it?
>
> Accept only exit remailers' mail host connections
> and ask for a valid Hashcash token.

Good suggestion.
Grant, it would be very kind of you, if you would
run a m2n-gateway under these conditions.

On 3/9/23 6:58 AM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
> Good suggestion.
> Grant, it would be very kind of you, if you would
> run a m2n-gateway under these conditions.

I do nothing with any form of crypto currency. As such Hashcash is a
non-starter for me.

Thus I still have the concern of how do I safely allow mail-to-news
without compromising any of my systems or their reputation.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

On Thu, 9 Mar 2023 09:09:28 -0700, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> said
in Message-ID: <tud0c1$c0t$2@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>:

> On 3/9/23 6:58 AM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
> > Good suggestion.
> > Grant, it would be very kind of you, if you would
> > run a m2n-gateway under these conditions.
>
> I do nothing with any form of crypto currency. As such Hashcash is a
> non-starter for me.

Hashcash is not a crypto-currency. Hashcash is a proof-of-work system used
to limit E-mail spam and denial-of-service attacks. Hashcash was proposed in
1997 by Adam Back and described more formally in Back's 2002 paper
"Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure".

Hashcash predated Bitcoin by more than a decade.

Please see the following sites for more information:

* http://www.cypherspace.org/hashcash/

* http://www.hashcash.org/

On 3/9/23 5:27 PM, The Stuff of Legend wrote:
> Hashcash is not a crypto-currency.

Okay.

> Hashcash is a proof-of-work system used to limit E-mail spam and
> denial-of-service attacks. Hashcash was proposed in 1997 by Adam
> Back and described more formally in Back's 2002 paper "Hashcash -
> A Denial of Service Counter-Measure".

Given how work can be distributed and made to become extremely
economical, to me, that doesn't do anything for making people do the
work themselves.

Nor does proof of people doing work do anything for identifying the
source account causing problems so that I can terminate it.

I'll require a per user account. If I'm to do anything.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

>> Hashcash is a proof-of-work system used to limit E-mail spam and

> Given how work can be distributed and made to become extremely
> economical, to me, that doesn't do anything for making people do the
> work themselves.

That's what Laurie & Clayton said:
https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/proofwork2.pdf

In article <20230310002743.BA56912C1A4@fleegle.mixmin.net>
The Stuff of Legend <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]>
wrote:
>
> On Thu, 9 Mar 2023 09:09:28 -0700, Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> said
> in Message-ID: <tud0c1$c0t$2@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>:
>
> > On 3/9/23 6:58 AM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
> > > Good suggestion.
> > > Grant, it would be very kind of you, if you would
> > > run a m2n-gateway under these conditions.
> >
> > I do nothing with any form of crypto currency. As such Hashcash is a
> > non-starter for me.
>
> Hashcash is not a crypto-currency. Hashcash is a proof-of-work system used
> to limit E-mail spam and denial-of-service attacks. Hashcash was proposed in
> 1997 by Adam Back and described more formally in Back's 2002 paper
> "Hashcash - A Denial of Service Counter-Measure".
>
> Hashcash predated Bitcoin by more than a decade.
>
> Please see the following sites for more information:
>
> * http://www.cypherspace.org/hashcash/
>
> * http://www.hashcash.org/

I recall adding hashcash to headers.

On 10 Mar 2023, Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> posted some
news:7a9d622a243b67d3635c32e7004638b3@dizum.com:

> In article <20230310002743.BA56912C1A4@fleegle.mixmin.net>
> The Stuff of Legend <Use-Author-Supplied-Address-Header@[127.1]>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 9 Mar 2023 09:09:28 -0700, Grant Taylor
>> <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> said in Message-ID:
>> <tud0c1$c0t$2@tncsrv09.home.tnetconsulting.net>:
>>
>> > On 3/9/23 6:58 AM, Nomen Nescio wrote:
>> > > Good suggestion.
>> > > Grant, it would be very kind of you, if you would
>> > > run a m2n-gateway under these conditions.
>> >
>> > I do nothing with any form of crypto currency. As such Hashcash is
>> > a non-starter for me.
>>
>> Hashcash is not a crypto-currency. Hashcash is a proof-of-work
>> system used to limit E-mail spam and denial-of-service attacks.
>> Hashcash was proposed in 1997 by Adam Back and described more
>> formally in Back's 2002 paper "Hashcash - A Denial of Service
>> Counter-Measure".
>>
>> Hashcash predated Bitcoin by more than a decade.
>>
>> Please see the following sites for more information:
>>
>> * http://www.cypherspace.org/hashcash/
>>
>> * http://www.hashcash.org/
>
> I recall adding hashcash to headers.

17 bits m2n OmniMix.

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> If I knew how to do this safely I'd consider doing it.

I'm not sure if it can be done 100% "safely". However, you can try to
pass only messages signed with PGP key registered within your
system. Registration can be done by sending email with public key to
your email address. Not sure how popular and useful such system might
be, but in theory it looks not very difficult to implement.

The downside: people *will* try to force you to ban users that they
don't like, and they *will* use your ability to ban specific users as an
argument, and if you don't comply, they'll accuse you of supporting
political beliefs of your users, whatever they might be.

> Would there be any interest in a mail-to-news gateway that allowed
> registered sending addresses to use it?

On 3/14/23 2:17 AM, Neodome Admin wrote:
> I'm not sure if it can be done 100% "safely".

That's my concern and why I've not done anything more than think and
talk about it a few places.

> However, you can try to pass only messages signed with PGP key
> registered within your system. Registration can be done by sending
> email with public key to your email address. Not sure how popular
> and useful such system might be, but in theory it looks not very
> difficult to implement.

How many people use a mail-to-news gateway from their (known) email
address? Verses how many people use a mail-to-news gateway from an
anonymous source, e.g. a remailer, as part of their efforts to be anonymous.

I think the former would be much more willing to do things to be able to
use a mail-to-news gateway. I think the latter would strongly object to
any from of self protection that the mail-to-news gateway would use.

Sadly it is the latter that have thus far prevented me from offering
services to the former.

> The downside: people *will* try to force you to ban users that they
> don't like, and they *will* use your ability to ban specific users as
> an argument, and if you don't comply, they'll accuse you of supporting
> political beliefs of your users, whatever they might be.

Ya.

That's one of the reasons that I prefer traditional accounts with
usernames and passwords.

There's always "my server, my rules". If you don't like them, there's
the door. I'm free to implement any arbitrary rule that I want. I
should publish them so people know what they are.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> On 3/14/23 2:17 AM, Neodome Admin wrote:
>> I'm not sure if it can be done 100% "safely".
>
> That's my concern and why I've not done anything more than think and
> talk about it a few places.
>
>> However, you can try to pass only messages signed with PGP key
>> registered within your system. Registration can be done by sending
>> email with public key to your email address. Not sure how popular
>> and useful such system might be, but in theory it looks not very
>> difficult to implement.
>
> How many people use a mail-to-news gateway from their (known) email
> address? Verses how many people use a mail-to-news gateway from an
> anonymous source, e.g. a remailer, as part of their efforts to be
> anonymous.

I didn't do any actual research, but it seems that very few people are
using m2n gateways if they're not using remailers.

Main reason seems to be that posting via m2n is kind of thing of the
past. I did simple Google Groups search and apparently people used it
more often in early 2000's and even earlier. I even vaguely remember
that back in those days some ISPs didn't count email traffic against
total traffic consumption of their users, so there were services that
would email you HTML page if you email them the http address. Of course
this is not an issue now, and all those services are probably long
gone. I guess you can apply same logic here.

As to mail2news, as far as I know, there are only two of them in
existence: Dizum and Neodome, and, what's more important, virtually no
newsreaders that support posting via mail2news. I know of only one: Gnus
(which is, surprisingly, most sophisticated newsreader out there even
though it was not updated in many, many years.) Of course, there are
ways to overcome that with some local newsserver and custom scripts, and
it's not even that complicated, but there's no need to do that as long
as there are many free newsservers that just allow you to post without
jumping through all these hoops.

I do not think you will be able to enforce Thunderbird, Pan, or any
other "popular" newsreader to post via mail2news without involving plugins
or some other external software, even though newsreader that support
replying via email should definitely have no problem with replying via
mail2news. There is simply nothing that would techinically be a
problem. It's so simple that it can be implemented right now in any of
them, and it won't require any maintenance, but it's not being done
because there's no demand. Maybe you can achieve it using something like
Neomutt, but let's be honest: how many people nowadays post to Usenet
using Gnus or Neomutt? Especially Neomutt. It's probably zero. Like,
literally zero.

On 3/15/23 8:36 PM, Neodome Admin wrote:
> I didn't do any actual research, but it seems that very few people
> are using m2n gateways if they're not using remailers.

I suspected ~> assumed that is the case.

> Main reason seems to be that posting via m2n is kind of thing of the
> past.

I don't know what the use case is for normal, non-abusive, interaction
with Usenet that /needed/ a mail-to-news gateway. If you don't have
access to post, you probably don't have access to read either.

That being said, I have set up news-to-email for a couple of newsgroups
for a friend of mine. He wanted to read messages but not bother with a
news client. So he asked if I had that capability and I said that I did.

> As to mail2news, as far as I know, there are only two of them in
> existence: Dizum and Neodome, and, what's more important, virtually
> no newsreaders that support posting via mail2news. I know of only
> one: Gnus (which is, surprisingly, most sophisticated newsreader out
> there even though it was not updated in many, many years.)

Interesting.

I always assumed that people would compose a new email message with some
special lines and send the email to a mail-to-news gateway address. I
never thought about a news reader using email to send while reading news
a more usual way.

> Of course, there are ways to overcome that with some local newsserver
> and custom scripts, and it's not even that complicated, but there's
> no need to do that as long as there are many free newsservers that
> just allow you to post without jumping through all these hoops.

Ya.

> I do not think you will be able to enforce Thunderbird, Pan, or any
> other "popular" newsreader to post via mail2news without involving
> plugins or some other external software, even though newsreader
> that support replying via email should definitely have no problem
> with replying via mail2news. There is simply nothing that would
> techinically be a problem. It's so simple that it can be implemented
> right now in any of them, and it won't require any maintenance, but
> it's not being done because there's no demand. Maybe you can achieve
> it using something like Neomutt, but let's be honest: how many people
> nowadays post to Usenet using Gnus or Neomutt? Especially Neomutt. It's
> probably zero. Like, literally zero.

ACK

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

Grant Taylor <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> writes:

> I don't know what the use case is for normal, non-abusive, interaction
> with Usenet that /needed/ a mail-to-news gateway. If you don't have
> access to post, you probably don't have access to read either.

Apparently it was a thing back in old days. People were using read-only
server to read Usenet, and then using m2n or some other server to post
to Usenet, and it was considered absolutely normal.

If you want I can dig through my files and find Gnus config file that
allows you to read from one server and post via mail2news or some other
server.

>> As to mail2news, as far as I know, there are only two of them in
>> existence: Dizum and Neodome, and, what's more important, virtually
>> no newsreaders that support posting via mail2news. I know of only
>> one: Gnus (which is, surprisingly, most sophisticated newsreader out
>> there even though it was not updated in many, many years.)
>
> Interesting.
>
> I always assumed that people would compose a new email message with
> some special lines and send the email to a mail-to-news gateway
> address. I never thought about a news reader using email to send
> while reading news a more usual way.

There were always two ways to send message to Usenet via
mail2news. Let's say you're replying to a message posted to
"comp.os.linux,alt.politics.flame". One of the ways is that you compose
normal email message, but include Newsgroups header, and set To header
to m2n address:

To: mail2news@neodome.net
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,alt.politics.flame

Second way is when newsgroups are included in the To header, something
like this:

To: comp.os.linux=alt.politics.flame@m2n.neodome.net

First way is the way Dizum and Neodome work. Second way is the way
Mixmin used to work, you can see exact specification here:
<https://www.mixmin.net/banana/m2n.html>

And that's it. Basically all you need to post to Usenet via email is
ability to create one custom header (Newsgroups) or modify To header
according to your needs. The only other Usenet-specific header out there
is References, but I think email clients are creating it anyway. Maybe
not the same way Usenet clients do, I don't remember, need to refresh my
memory on that. All other headers are completely interchangeable (in
other words, they don't really matter in this case.)

I know back in old days there were some m2n services that would accept a
message where first lines of email body would be something like this:

## Newsgroups: comp.os.linux,alt.politics.flame
## References: <asd@fgh.jkl>

And that would be Usenet-specific headers that m2n would cut from the
body and insert into headers. But I don't think there were any m2ns in
the last 10 years that allowed you to do that, and I don't think there
were any newsreaders supporting anything like it. All such messages were
probably composed manually and then sent to m2n service using normal
email client.

I think I remember there was one person in this group asking me to
support something like that. As far as I remember, it was only him, so I
decided to not complicate things. Maybe I was wrong, I don't know.

On 3/15/23 11:38 PM, Neodome Admin wrote:
> Apparently it was a thing back in old days. People were using read-only
> server to read Usenet, and then using m2n or some other server to
> post to Usenet, and it was considered absolutely normal.

Interesting. That makes sense. I guess that was a more common before I
started using Usenet.

> If you want I can dig through my files and find Gnus config file
> that allows you to read from one server and post via mail2news or
> some other server.

Na. I don't need to see the config to trust that it was a thing. Thank
you though.

> There were always two ways to send message to Usenet via
> mail2news.

Both of those makes sense to me.

--
Grant. . . .
unix || die