Frog's Support for News
Glossary / Comparison
Glossary
Better make sure that you understand what the terms below mean.
(That is only if you want to understand and take part to threads).
Mail2News (M2News) (Mail To News)
A mail2news is a program (group of programs) which allows
to inject regular mail into Usenet (write-only, no read capability).
You use your regular mail client to send mail (usually on port 25)
------The address is xxx@yyy.zzz style
Mail needs to be sent to the mail2news address with a special formatting in its headers,
to tell the mail2news to which newsgroups to inject.
There are 2 main formats:
----'NewsGroups:' header added to the regular mail headers,
sent to the mail2news address
... To: mail2news@frogadmin.yi.org
... Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server
----'To: ' header naming the group to be sent to
(the address is parsed to extract the newsgroup to send to)
... To: mail2news-20040127-alt.test@anon.lcs.mit.edu (NAN style)
... To: alt.test@bigapple.dynalias.net (BIGAPPLE style)
Frog only supports the first syntax.
What you will really see on Usenet will depend on
---parameters set at the mail2news (list of NewsGroups, antispam rules, failures)
---connectivity of the injection point and all along the way(s) (list of NewsGroups, antispam rules, failures)
---connectivity of your reading point (list of NewsGroups, antispam rules,failures)
News Server
A NewsServer is a program (group of programs) which allows to read and/or post
to Usenet, using a regular NewsClient.
You connect to the NewsServer (usually on port 119)
------The address is xxx.yyy.zzz style,
and if you have the required privileges, you will be allowed to read/post the
newsgroups carried by the NewsServer.
Web2news (Web to News)
A web2news is a program which allows you to read and/or post to Usenet,
using your regular Internet Browser.
You connect to the WebToNews (usually on port 80)
------The address is http://xxx.yyy/zzz style
and if you have the required privileges, you will be allowed to read/post the
newsgroups carried by the WebToNews.
Propagation / Connectivity
Propagating news is a team work: you got to collaborate with others to send and/or receive news from others.
If you don't play with the team, you are just not playing at all.
NewsServers have arrangements (peerings) to suck (read) from each other, and
to feed (write) on to others.
Getting (and keeping) such 'good neighbourhood' relations is fundamental to go on playing.
One does not need to be directly connected to all fellow NewsServers on the planet though:
---connecting to one newserver which in turn will connect to another one... works
---it is still better to be connected to a few 'well-connected' ones
Posts, slower or faster, will be percolating through the whole network
The 'Path: ' header in the post shows the different NewsServers which had to collaborate to propagate a post to you.
In this example, a post injected by Frog was read on the NewsServer at news.cis.dfn.de:
I only knew about Nerim.net, while 9 NewsServers got involved!
Path: uni-berlin.de!fu-berlin.de!news-feed1.de1.concert.net!newsr1.ipcore.viaginterkom.de!btnet-peer1!btnet!isdnet!proxad.net!nerim.net!Nyarlatheotep-frogadmin.yi.org!not-for-mail
Message-ID
*All* messages on Internet, both mails and posts,
bear a Message-ID.
This identifier is supposedly generated in a *unique* way (and random generators
make that allegation mostly true)
The rule is: There shall not be more than one message
(post or mail) on a server, bearing same message-ID.
The late comer is deleted on arrival,
pure and simple.
That drastic rule actually ensures a smooth propagation of messages:
... because every NewsServer proposes what he has to all his neighbours
... there would be a never-ending loop and multiplication of the same message.
To take advantage of this rule, servers are usually careful
never to change a message-ID.
While anonymous remailers strip an incoming message from everything, including message-ID,
they are still careful to stamp the same message-ID
on the various emerging copies of the same message.
For example, if a message emerges from Xmailer:
... To: mail2news@frogadmin.yi.org, mail2news@dizum.com,mail2news@freedom.gmsociety.org
... CC: xx1@yy1.zz1,xx2@yy2.zz2
... Bcc: aa1@bb1.cc1,
All 6 messages emerging will bear the same message-ID,
randomly attributed by Xmailer.
More at 'Tale of a Post'
I said 'usually', that means that there are exceptions:
At least one remailer in the past (BillGates IIRC)
... was stamping the various copies of same message with different message-ID,
... inevitably resulting in duplicate posts
Brief Comparison
Back to News' Index or Root Index or Root Main Pages