Im receiving “502” errors! What is authentication?
When your computer needs to get new news messages, it must connect to a news (or NNTP) server. The news server is usually operated by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and supplies news to all of the ISPs customers. In the old days of the net, news servers were always unprotected and you could simply connect and receive all of the news you wanted. However, as the net evolved, ISPs started having unauthorized users connecting to their news servers trying to pull down large amounts of binary files. Since these unauthorized persons were not customers of the ISP, it would cause an unfair load on the ISPs server. Hence many ISPs started requiring authentication to access their news server, in order to ensure that only their customers were able to use the server. Authentication also serves the dual purpose of helping the ISPs to attack spammers, but that’s another story… To the point: If your ISP requires authentication, then SBNews must be able to transmit authentication information to
