Download illegally and get sued?

Additional stuff about news server, internet and download.

A few of my friends got a warning letter from the ISP for downloading illegal materials from the internet. This is the risk of downloading using peer-to-peer method. One thing one should know is that it is often for the copyright owners like TV stations to work together with the ISP. ISP have the internet traffic information and can identify users who download illegal materials. ISP will then provide those information to the copyright owners so that users can be warned or sued.
However, if one download using a news server, one is safer. That is because news server will not provide any information about their client activities to the copyright owners. So, news server users are safer and get faster download rate. But, one have to pay for it.

If you are inside a network such as university network, you are a bit protected. This is because, normally, university has the privacy policy which means university cannot expose any information to the copyright owners. So, what university normally do is, say to the owner, we will monitor our network and take necessary action to prevent the downloading of illegal materials. ie, university will give warning letters and worst case banned the students from using the university network.

The last thing is about VPN. When you are downloading, make sure your VPN is disconnected. Otherwise, information will go through the university network and you can get caught. This thing happened to my mate. He downloaded using his PC at home but with VPN connected, and of course got a warning letter from the university.

The bottom line is, it is not a big offense to download illegally but it is a serious offense if you download illegal materials and then seed them to others.

So, is it worth to download illegally? you decide.

PS: please see other entries about news server under 'news server' label.

News Server Ports

I just noticed that some ISPs block a few news server ports. As a result, we can't download using that port. This problem occurred to me when my accommodation hall changed its ISP recently. This problem can be solved by using different port. ISP can't block all ports.

I used usenet for my news server. Basically, usenet have 3 servers :

• US (Atlanta): us.Usenet-News.net
• Europe (Amsterdam): eu.Usenet-News.net
• SSL encrypted: ssl.Usenet-News.net

Usually we use server which closest to us. The standard nntp port is 119. For EU server, we also can use port 443.

For the US server we can connect using the alternate ports 8000, 23, 25, 1720 or 3128.

For the SSL server we can connect using the standard nntps SSL port 563, or alternate ports 443 or 8080.

Note that to use SSL, we need to have a SSL enabled newsreader (Alt.Binz newsreader that SSL capability) or an ssl proxy installed on our client computer.

If you can't download, it means your ISP is capping the port you are using. You may then try to use an alternate port instead of the standard port 119 and 563. Try to use the SSL server.

Please consult with your news server provider if problem persist.

See also my previous posts about this issue:
1- News Server: An alternative to Torrent
2- Problems with news server

Problem with news server

I am writing this regarding my previous post about news server. I have found one problem with this method. Basically, the file that we want to download will be split to several files. Thus, there is high probability that some of the files may be missing or corrupted. Therefore, you cannot unzip the files back. I have encountered this problem twice. If this problem happen to you, what you can do is to find which file was corrupted and download that specific file again. Then, replace the corrupted file with the new one. However, this method does not work all the time. If you know another ways to overcome this problem, please leave your comment.

News server: An alternative to torrent

I'm sure most of you already know about torrent, a method to download stuffs using the internet. however, for students living in halls of residents, some of the ISP probably block any downloading using torrent client. So, another alternative to download is by using a news server. Since all the materials are downloaded from server, the download speed is fairly constant and fast. Fast here means the downloading speed will depend on your internet speed. Faster internet connection means faster downloading speed.

For instance, if your internet connection is 6Mbps, you can download 1 episode of prison break (normally around 350MB) in 2 minutes only. I'm not joking, this is real.

How to download using news server? First, you need to subscribe with a news server. Unfortunately, this service is not free. you have to pay for it. However, it is not expensive. It will cost you approximately GBP 12 for 100GB. If you live at private house and uses broadband, you can check whether your ISP has its own news server. for instance, telewest used to have a public news server and you can use it for free. the best way to check is by calling your ISP and ask them. you pay for their service, so you have the right to use their server as well.

Then, you need to have a newsreader client such as GrabIt, alt.binz etc. This is the software that you need to download files. It is similar with bitcomet, microtorrent or azureus for torrent.

Then, you can browse or search files that you want at newsgroups. if you use alt.binz newsreader, you can search files (files that you can download using news server has the extension .nzb i.e prison break s03e05.nzb) using the client itself. no need to go to nzb websites.

give it a go and then decide whether you still want to use torrent or news server. if you want to try it, just buy 2GB quota which will cost you GBP 1 only. If you live at private house and your ISP has a public news server, you have to make use of that service. You can download for free and high speed as well. not like torrent which rely on other people to upload files. Not many people know about news server.

If you want to know more about news server, go to this website

http://www.slyck.com/ng.php

It will guide you how to use it and if you still have problems go to news server forum and you can discuss problems over there.