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13. Posting to Usenet

Even though some remailers can post directly to Usenet, premail does not support that. Thus, if you want to post to Usenet, you should use a mail-to-news gateway.

To find a working mail-to-news gateway, check Don Kitchen's list. There are two basic kinds: sites that scan the header fields, and sites that include the newsgroup in the address.

Using the address-parsing kind, to post to alt.anonymous, you'd just send mail to alt.anonymous@myriad.alias.net (assuming, of course, that myriad.alias.net is still functioning).

Using the header-scanning kind, send mail to mail2news@myriad.alias.net, and include this header field:

Newsgroups: alt.anonymous

The header scanning kind has one advantage: you can cross-post to multiple newsgroups using one mail message.

One frequently asked question is: how can I follow up on a thread while posting anonymously? This is easy. Find the Message-Id: header field in the post you're responding to, and change it into a References: field in your outgoing mail.

Here's an example that ties it all together. Let's say you wanted to reply to this post:

From: Edward Brian Kaufman <ebk8@columbia.edu>;
Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.anonymous
Subject: A few questions about anon posts
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94L.960630113156@aloha.cc.columbia.edu>;

Hi,

I'd like to know what the best/easiest way to do anon posts is and
how to do them.  Thank you,

Ed

To post the reply anonymously, send this mail:

To: mail2news@myriad.alias.net ((chain))
Cc: Edward Brian Kaufman <ebk8@columbia.edu> ((chain))
Newsgroups: alt.privacy.anon-server, alt.anonymous
Subject: Re: A few questions about anon posts
References: <Pine.SUN.3.94L.960630113156@aloha.cc.columbia.edu>

If you have a Unix machine, using premail is the best way. To find
out how, read the manual.


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