Giganews offers Encrypted Usenet Access

Giganews announced yesterday that they are offering SSL encrypted usenet access as of now. (which means your ISP will not be able to know which data gets exchanged) All existing users may upgrade their accounts for $5 and receive the ability to use encrypted access to the usenet and also 10 additional connections to Giganews. You do not need the additional 10 connections unless you have a really fast line at home. I always max out my 16 Mbit connection with ten connections already giving me speeds of 1.8 megabyte per second.

You probably do not know about the usenet and wonder why you would have to pay for accessing it. I would like to direct you to the following two websites that could give you an impression of the kind of files (and discussion) that you find on the usenet. Try Newzbin or Binsearch to discover the treasures of the Usenet. It is of course illegal to download copyrighted files like the latest movies, games and tv series - but no one would know if you would do which is different from P2P networks where you seed a lot and everyone is able to find out your IP.

You do need a program that connects to the usenet and supports SSL to be able to use this new feature. I use Newsbin which is a commercial software with many features but there are others that are completely free. Newsleecher is one for instance.