From: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Date: Sat, 6 Jan 1996 05:17:52 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Idiot's Guide to News via Compuserve
Message-ID: <2.2.32.19960105181132.006a4c74@panix.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Idiots Guide to Reading Banned Newsgroups via CompuServe

CompuServe (alone among the Big Three) gives all subscribers a PPP
connection to the Net through any CIS node (including those in Germany).
This is a real Net connection that makes it possible to use CIS to fully
access all the Net's resources including "banned" newsgroups.

A Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) connection makes your computer just another
machine on the Net for the time you are connected.  Anything that any
Net-connected machine can do, you can do.  The CompuServe Dialer (formerly
CompuServe Internet Dialer) software that has been included with WINCIM at
least since version 1.4 gives you a PPP connection but you need additional
newsreading software to dodge CompuServe restrictions.

So for real beginners, here is how you can use your CompuServe account to
access  banned newsgroups as well as the rest of the Internet.  These
instructions are for Windows users.  MAC users can do the same things but I
don't know the available MAC software.

1)  Get the latest copy of WINCIM.  GO WINCIM (hit Ctrl-G and type WINCIM in
the dialog box) from within CIS.  Download is free.  Install it according to
the instructions and make sure that you can log on to CIS.

2)  Next, let's get a copy of Freeagent which is a free usenet newsreader
which works with CompuServe's own Internet connection software.  Log on to
CIS.  GO FTP or:  Click the Internet icon, click the File Downloads (FTP)
icon and proceed to the main FTP screen.  Click the Access a Specific Site
button.  

3)  Enter ftp.forteinc.com in the Site Name box and /pub/free_agent in the
Directory box.  Click OK and you should see some site login information.
Click OK again and you should see a check box next to the file name
fagent10.zip.  Click the check box and then click the Retrieve button.
Wincim will show you that it will save the file in the Compuserv\download
directory on your hard drive.  (Remember where it's going.)  744279 bytes
later, you will have a copy of Freeagent.

4)  Move the file fagent.zip into a directory by itself (C:\AGENT for
example).  Unzip it with Pkunzip or one of the many zip utilities available
on CIS.

5)  What you are going to do is to connect directly to the Internet via
CompuServe and read usenet newsgroups using Freeagent.  In order to do that,
you will need to find a site somewhere on the Net that will let you read
Usenet News for free or you will have to obtain an account on another
Internet-connected machine.

6)  Community ConneXion (c2.org) will give a month of free service to
CompuServe members suffering from censorship.  For information send email to
uncensored@c2.org.  After your free month, c2.org costs only $7.50 a month
for accounts accessed via the Internet.  

7)  There are some news servers out there that are open to the public.  A
news server is just a machine connected to the Internet that stores and
forwards Usenet news.  The IP addresses of two of the open news servers are
198.70.185.5 and 205.139.39.1.  Once you become a sophisticated user of the
nets, you can use your Web Browser to pick up a longer list of open news
servers at http://dana.ucc.nau.edu/~jwa/open-sites.html.

8)  Now back to Free Agent to grab those banned newsgroups.  In your WINCIM
directory (maybe in a subdirectory called \cid), click cid.exe to start
CompuServe (Internet) Dialer or find the phone-shaped dialer icon in your
CompuServe group window.  Inside the Dialer, hit dial to log on to the Internet.

9)  Start Free Agent.  Click Accept to accept the license agreement.  It
will prompt you to enter various information including the address of the
news server you want to use, your email address, and other info.  All that
you have to enter is the address of a news server.  In the box labeled "News
(NNTP) Server:" enter one of the IP addresses of open news servers
(198.70.185.5, 205.139.39.1, or another from the list) or the address of the
news server of a system you've opened an account on (news.c2.org, for example).

10)  Freeagent will ask you if it's OK to retrieve a list of news groups
from the server.  Click Yes.  Free agent will then tell you that it is
Retrieving complete List of Groups.  Once that's finished you'll be ready to
read all the newsgroups you want and neither CompuServe nor the Bavarian
prosecutor will have anything to say about it.

"The Internet belongs to no one except its users."