1) In the extremely unlikely event that somebody was monitoring your usenet traffic it would be a criminal and the wouldn't care about what you download or your usenet login/password.
This is one of the things that makes usenet so much safer than bittorrent, but just because it's illegal to monitor your connection doesn't mean that it's impossible. SSL encryption is just a bonus in this case, and considering it comes with my chosen plan anyway I am going to use it.
2) If anyone were to potentially target usenet downloaders (I don't see this happening) they would first find out IP's from providers. Provider logs of downloaded articles are as good as IP's seen in a BT swarm. But again unlikely to ever happen for just downloading.
But they'd need a court order to get IP addresses from a usenet provider, and they'd need some kind of evidence to get the court order. If they can't monitor your connection (even illegally thanks to encryption), and there's no way of them simply "jumping in" like a swarm-based bittorrent system, they have no leg to stand on if they want a court order. Pure suspicion doesn't cut it.
3) I can hardly link to discussion of nuked articles on this forum, suffice to say it has happened to several in one group in frequent, they deleted all but the first part of each file. And I personally know three posters who have been warned by Giganews.
Good point, you can't link to that stuff on here. I totally forgot. My email address is in my trust though if you want to show me this stuff.
Still, in my year and a half on usenet I've not actually heard of people getting warned by providers or anything being nuked (unless for good reasons, i.e. a proper came out or it contained a virus).
4) There is as much proof with usenet as there is with bittorrent. Usenet has only escaped through obscurity and the ease of targeting bittorrent users (join a swarm, get the IP's, lookup who owns them and send an email). If they have already begun sending DMCA notices to usenet providers then users will be next.
I don't know how it works in America, but like I said, if you want to demand information on customers from a usenet provider you're going to need a court order first. As for usenet being obscure, usenet was practically the internet at one point so it's hardly obscure.
Its not irrelevant, not particularly needed now, but its nice to have for free and looking maybe towards the future. Its peace of mind like you lock your front door all the time, when you probably don't need to?
Bingo, as long as my usenet provider offers 256-bit SSL encryption I will use it. I gain extra security and don't suffer in any way for the benefit, it is all upsides and no downsides, so why not use it?
Call me paranoid, but thanks to the new system of EU laws taking priority you only need a company to illegally monitor your connection and then take it to a court where such evidence is admissable to get a court order against the provider. Whether such a court exists in the EU, I don't know, but why take the chance?
