From Newsgroup: comp.misc
"putty" makes it easy to use telnet to communicate with host servers that accept tor connections . . . as with any newsreader (i use 40tude dialog), using localhost on port 119, local proxy on port 9150, tor browser always
running in the background, usenet newsservers (nntp/network news transfer protocol) are accessed more securely than unprotected tcp/ip . . . "putty"
is compact (1.62mb) and portable, "puttytel" (1.07mb) is ideal for telnet:
(using Tor Browser 15.0.9)
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
PuTTY: a free SSH and Telnet client
The latest version is 0.83. Download it here. >https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/latest.html
...
putty.exe (the SSH and Telnet client itself) https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/w64/putty.exe
...
puttytel.exe (a Telnet-only client) >https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/w64/puttytel.exe
...
https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/docs.html >
https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/0.83/htmldoc/
...
Windows HTML Help: putty.chm https://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/putty.chm
(x:/putty/putty.chm, right-click > properties > unblock)
...
(.../putty/puttytel.exe > help):
PuTTY User Manual
Chapter 4: Configuring PuTTY ... 4.16 The Proxy panel >...
If a Telnet proxy server prompts for a username and password before commands >can be sent, you can use a command such as:
%user\n%pass\nconnect %host %port\n
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ <-works great! (set it and forget it)
This will send your username and password as the first two lines to the proxy, >followed by a command to connect to the desired host and port. Note that if you
do not include the %user or %pass tokens in the Telnet command, then anything
specified in ‘Username’ and ‘Password’ configuration fields will be ignored. [end quoted excerpt]
after configuring "puttytel" to work with tor proxy, recommending testing several popular newsservers, e.g. session > hostname > paganini.bofh.team
on port: 119, click "open", and the terminal window should look like this:
Will use SOCKS 5 proxy at localhost:9150 to connect to paganini.bofh.team:119 >Looking up host "localhost" for proxy
Connecting to SOCKS 5 proxy at ::1 port 9150 >200 paganini.bofh.team InterNetNews NNRP server INN 2.6.4 ready (posting ok)
if you don't press enter (cr) within about ten seconds, the remote server
will automatically disconnect with a message "connection closed by remote host", that's normal . . . just run puttytel again and press enter within
ten seconds after connecting, the server will respond expecting a command:
500 What?
type "help" and press enter:
help
100 Legal commands
ARTICLE [message-ID|number]
AUTHINFO USER name|PASS password|SASL mechanism [initial-response]
|GENERIC program [argument ...]
BODY [message-ID|number]
CAPABILITIES [keyword]
COMPRESS DEFLATE
DATE
GROUP newsgroup
HDR header [message-ID|range]
HEAD [message-ID|number]
HELP
IHAVE message-ID
LAST
LIST [ACTIVE [wildmat]|ACTIVE.TIMES [wildmat]|COUNTS [wildmat]|DISTRIB.PATS
|DISTRIBUTIONS|HEADERS [MSGID|RANGE]|MODERATORS|MOTD|NEWSGROUPS [wildmat]
|OVERVIEW.FMT|SUBSCRIPTIONS [wildmat]]
LISTGROUP [newsgroup [range]]
MODE READER
NEWGROUPS [yy]yymmdd hhmmss [GMT]
NEWNEWS wildmat [yy]yymmdd hhmmss [GMT]
NEXT
OVER [range]
POST
QUIT
STARTTLS
STAT [message-ID|number]
XGTITLE [wildmat]
XHDR header [message-ID|range]
XOVER [range]
XPAT header message-ID|range pattern [pattern ...]
Report problems to <usenet@paganini.bofh.team>.
.
the first command listed is very popular with usenet researchers, finding
articles by unique message-id, especially useful when only the message-id
is known, but no other information about that usenet article is available (sans a newsgroup to search, message-id must be exact match, no "pattern")
article retention varies by server, e.g., neodome (~787 days / 2.2 years), netfront (~2159 days / 5.9 years), paganini (~2486 days / 6.8 years), and
csiph (~3962 days / 10.8 years), blueworld is mostly everything from 1981 forward (44.x years at this writing) . . . after connecting to the server,
copy and paste a message-id after the word article, "article <message@id>" in the terminal window (right-click mouse) and press enter, if message-id matches any newsgroup article on that server, the complete article should appear with full headers, but if not, the server reports "no such article"
the "xpat" command allows searching overview headers in any one newsgroup
for matching patterns by using "wildmat", e.g. asterisks "*" as wildcards, question marks "?" as character placeholders, "[0-9]" matches any numeral, "[a-z]" matches any letter, etc., plus other features of utf-8 "uwildmat" (refer.
https://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/noble/en/man3/wildmat.3.html)
most usenet searches involve only simple syntax, e.g., subject has "*abc*" or message-id has "*\@news\.*" wherein the backslash "\" escapes the next character even though the at sign "@" has no special meaning in a pattern, "*@news\.*" is thus valid; white spaces between patterns permit more than
one pattern per command, e.g., "xpat from 0001-1000 *aol* *com*" requires
both "aol" and "com" in the "from" header in that range in that newsgroup
the "group" command, e.g. "group news.software.nntp" displays the current lowest and highest article numbers in that newsgroup on that server, e.g.
"211 5749 6139 11972 news.software.nntp" shows the "211" code, successful response, lomark, estimated article count, and himark, for that newsgroup,
so specifying a range of "5749-" is the same as all articles, "5749-11972"
the "listgroup" command will list every article number within a specified
range in that newsgroup, e.g. "listgroup news.software.nntp 11900-" shows
each article number from 11900 to the current high number 11972, which if
no articles in that range were expired or removed, 73 total article count
these are only basic examples of how using telnet with tor proxy to query newsservers can enhance usenet research beyond the traditional newsreader,
by making overview searches more efficient, then using your newsreader to download articles more selectively, and most common newsreaders have some
type of newsgroup filtering/scoring that demotes, ignores, moves, deletes unwanted messages based on overview header rules . . . conversely promote scores for helpful (whitelisted) contributors to retrieve messages, watch threads, etc., but unknown aliases are automatically scored with "ignore",
like whitelisting incoming phone caller ids to thwart "agency" operatives, once in a blue moon a caller is non-robot, so too with usenet participant
that can be selectively unignored, even watched, at the user's discretion
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2