{"rid":"storage/eternal-september-free-nntp-read-write","card":{"rid":"storage/eternal-september-free-nntp-read-write","eid":"eternal-september","topic":"storage","slug":"eternal-september-free-nntp-read-write","provider":"Eternal September (news.eternal-september.org) — free NNTP read/write","url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/","domain":"eternal-september.org","category":"messaging","tier":null,"verdict":"fails-quota","vorder":6,"grp":"rejected","confidence":"reported","binding":"per-object-cap","identity_kind":"country-phone","identity_basis":"stated","needs_card":0,"needs_phone":1,"needs_id":0,"needs_institution":0,"country":null,"crypto":null,"interfaces":"rest","egress_metered":0,"per_object_bytes":1000000,"retention_days":160,"verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","verified_basis":"inherited","checked_on":"2026-10-21","stale_on":"2026-11-04","n_evidence":5,"usd_month":null,"usd_per_tb_month":null,"summary":"No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all *text* newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. ...","duplicate_of":null,"n_unknown":5},"record":{"topic":"storage","slug":"eternal-september-free-nntp-read-write","provider":"Eternal September (news.eternal-september.org) — free NNTP read/write","url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/","category":"messaging","free_tier":{"stated":"No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all *text* newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt.*, 90 days for other hierarchies'.","unit":"mixed","metered_on":"unstated","source_url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/","read_on":"2026-10-21","notes":null},"per_object_cap":{"stated":"per-object-cap: 'No articles larger than 1000 KB","bytes":1000000,"source_url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/","notes":"not stated"},"retention":{"stated":"Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt.*, 90 days for other hierarchies'","days":160,"source_url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/","notes":"not stated"},"egress":{"terms":"Free; server has a 1 Gbit connection to several backbones and peers with 40+ sites. Articles are world-readable and propagate to every peer, so egress is effectively subsidised by the whole Usenet mesh.","metered":false},"interface":["rest"],"interface_detail":"rest","tooling":"Standard NNTP (RFC 3977) on port 119/563. Every Usenet client works: tin, slrn, Gnus, Thunderbird, Pan; programmatically via nntplib (Python) or any NNTP library. No bespoke wrapper needed. The docs give exact per-client auth config for ~10 clients.","chaining":"Per-record unlimited is the theoretical shape: a text article can carry base64, and there are 8,728 alt.* groups x 1,284 free.* groups x unlimited articles each. The multiplier would be 'groups x posts', which is effectively unbounded. BUT the per-record cap (1000 KB) and text-only rule kill it as a bulk store — see limits.","limits":[{"kind":"retention-clamped","value":"Retention: '3 years","source":"https://www.eternal-september.org/"},{"kind":"retention-clamped","value":"Retention: 90-160 days","source":"https://www.eternal-september.org/"},{"kind":"per-object-cap","value":"per-object-cap: 'No articles larger than 1000 KB","source":"https://www.eternal-september.org/"}],"limits_note":"per-object-cap: 'No articles larger than 1000 KB' — hard 1 MB per article, and 'no binaries in text-only groups': binaries are only allowed in alt.binaries.* / de.alt.dateien.*, which this server does NOT carry ('no binaries'). Request-rate: anti-spam gates — no more than 3 distinct From: addresses per 24 h, 5 per 7 days, 8 per 30 days ('Excessive nymshifting'), with cancellation at 12 nyms/60 days. Retention: 90-160 days for most hierarchies, 3 years only for de.*.","identity_cost":{"kind":"country-phone","detail":"derived from the record's prose, not from an identity field, and no signup was executed: access to all *text* newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 da","country":null},"reliability_note":"Two technical blockers found by probing: (1) NNTP ports are unreachable from this network — TCP to news.eternal-september.org:563 timed out and :119 also timed out, so the transport may be firewalled depending on where you run; (2) accounts are auto-closed after 18 months of inactivity. Also note the server deliberately does NOT honour Cancels/Supersedes from other servers ('an article stored on our server can neither be deleted by a Cancel nor be overwritten by a Supersedes'), which is a rare retention *plus*.","confidence":"reported","confidence_note":"One page read moves it to documented.","evidence":[{"url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'free read and write access to all text newsgroups'; 'no binaries'; retention '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt.*, 90 days for other hierarchies'"},{"url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=terms","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"'No articles larger than 1000 KB'; 'no binaries in text-only groups'"},{"url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/index.php?showpage=faq","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"nymshifting limits (3/24h, 5/7d, 8/30d); 'Accounts with Eternal-September will be automatically closed after 18 months of inactivity'; Cancels/Supersedes deliberately not honoured"},{"url":"https://www.eternal-september.org/hierarchies.php","date":"2026-10-21","proved":"281 hierarchies; alt.* 8,728 groups; free.* 1,284 groups"},{"url":null,"date":"2026-10-21","proved":"probe: TCP news.eternal-september.org:119 and :563 -> both timeout (blocked from this network)"}],"verdict":"fails-quota","verified_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00.000Z","notes":"No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all *text* newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt.*, 90 days for other hierarchies'.","extras":{"dead_end":{"failure_class":"retention","why":"No byte quota. Free read AND write access to all *text* newsgroups after online registration. 281 hierarchies, alt.* alone is 8,728 groups, free.* is 1,284. Retention: '3 years for de.*, 160 days for the Big 8, 130 days for alt.*, 90 days for other hierarchies'.","retry_when":null,"first_recorded":"2026-10-21"}},"binding":"per-object-cap","binding_note":"the per-object cap sets the shard size and therefore the object count; it bounds the total more tightly than any headline quota"},"claims":[{"path":"$.free_tier.stated","kind":"free-quota","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[0].value","kind":"limit:retention-clamped","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[1].value","kind":"limit:retention-clamped","num":null,"unit":null,"per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"unparsed"},{"path":"$.limits[2].value","kind":"limit:per-object-cap","num":1000,"unit":"KB","per":null,"currency":null,"usd":null,"fx_date":null,"parse":"ok"}],"unknown":[["$.evidence[4].url","private-url"],["$.extras.dead_end.retry_when","process"],["$.free_tier.notes","process"],["$.per_object_cap.notes","not-extracted"],["$.retention.notes","not-extracted"]],"history":[],"drift":[]}