MyNews - Firewalls, Hackers and Paranoia


If you are already using ICQ then you can read THEIR WARNING - just to see what can happen. ICQ is a service which can be compared with MyNews - and has a few million users...

MyNews is a news server and by definition a very secure thing. It delivers messages from the Usenet - or from private newsgroups - to you and perhaps to your friends. No internal computer information is ever delivered. Just the messages are available. It is not possible to gain control about your computer with MyNews.

If you hide behind a firewall (perhaps in a local network) - or have a firewall program installed on your PC - then MyNews cannot deliver messages to your friends. You still can use MyNews to read newsgroups. And you can still contact other shared MyNews servers, but you will not be able to send out own messages to other MyNews servers.

Hacking into a MyNews server is a senseless thing. It is not possible to 'telnet' MyNews - and all a potential hacker can get from it are some newsgroup messages. And this is usually what MyNews is mainly designed for: Giving newsgroup messages to others.

If you are a little paranoic about security, then you can still evaluate MyNews: Switch off the 'sharing' during the basic setup - or change the Security Configuration and activate "Dont start server automatically". Then MyNews acts as a complex news reader and nobody (not even yourself) can access it from 'outside'.


You find more information about security in the online manual section.