OCTANEWS SHILLS
SOME BACKGROUND
alt.binaries.news-server-comparison is a newsgroup that was originally intended to be a
place where people could receive honest advice about news servers. Over time it sadly evolved into a private playground for newsadmins, who used
it as a public chat room. "Shills", people who characteristically exhibit blind loyalty toward one particular NSP and make posts
maliciously smearing competitors of that NSP, began infecting the newsgroup as well. Today, a good rule of thumb is to see what negative things
are being written about an NSP in alt.binaries.news-server-comparison and believe the exact opposite.
Giganews, throughout 2006 the NSP of choice which overwhelmingly dominated the market by offering unprecedented binary retention, unprecedented
text retention and unprecedented customer support, is a direct business competitor of Mike Horwath, the one-man-band who calls himself
"Octanews" and who controls a tiny closed-to-the-public
(see here) server called "Readfreenews" which
is religiously used by a number of Horwath lapdogs. Horwath needs Giganews for peering to survive, and so he can't personally alienate
Giganews. But that doesn't mean Horwath can't keep his hands clean by letting others do the dirty work for him!
What appears to be a classic campaign orchestrated by Mike Horwath shills to maliciously smear Giganews, surfaced in
alt.binaries.news-server-comparison on October 30, 2006. Examine this for yourself!
THE SMEAR
The justification for a smear job arises when Giganews, which previously only offered an
unlimited download plan for $24.95 per month, eats away further at what's left of Horwath's business by introducing a new plan for only $19.95
per month that has all the benefits of their $24.95 plan and includes SSL access at no extra charge
(see it here).
This move effectively lowers their prices, and the smear job now begins:
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1)
"Farkin Elle"
aka "Far Canal",
who blindly and consistently praises Mike Horwath, makes a post in alt.binaries.news-server-comparison through Mike Horwath's
"Readfreenews" server bearing subject line "Gigglenews ups prices"
(see it here).
2)
"Macarro",
a never-before-seen nym who is coincidentally posting from Octanews, suddenly appears in the thread to reply to Fart Canal and
claim Giganews' plan is "a joke"
(see it here).
3) Approximately three hours later
"Flying Rat",
yet another individual who blindly and consistently praises Mike Horwath, makes a post through Mike Horwath's "Readfreenews"
server to reply to Macarro. Flying Rat states "Giggle has always been pricey" and provides what
seems to be Giganews' wholesale vs. retail business model
(see it here).
4) Approximately three hours later
"Lenny Nero",
yet another inveterate Horwath-humper, makes a post through Mike Horwath's "Readfreenews" server to reply to Flying Rat.
"IMO giggle news only work if you want to check your groups once every few months," the anonymously-pseudonymed Nero says
(see it here).
5) Less than three minutes later,
"Flying Rat" already feels compelled to return and, through Mike Horwath's "Readfreenews" server, reply to the
post just made by Lenny Nero through Mike Horwath's "Readfreenews" server. "Giggle was OK for fills for me," he
says. "I'll just go and play with Octanews with some free accounts added in"
(see it here).
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And that's it, the smear job is now complete — after credit card processing fees
Horwath could stuff as much as $15.00 into his wallet for each potential new customer dumb enough to believe what was written. Still not much
revenue if you only consider this smear job, but the above individuals have consistently engaged in numerous similar maligning gangbangs over a
period of several years.
Shills can enjoy any number of rewards for their efforts such as unlimited server access to download as much as they want for free, or the ability
to keep posting copyrighted material with virtual impunity courtesy of a "friendly" newsadmin who keeps quietly establishing new posting
accounts for them under different fake names as the old ones get busted via DMCA takedown notices. Shills may also obtain access to inside
information shared privately amongst newsadmins in offline forums, cash kickbacks of a pre-arranged amount, or under-the-table
"commissions" for every sucker reeled in.
 These
types of smear-campaign shill tactics are the lowest of the low, typically done by bottom feeders desperate to make a dollar for themselves regardless
what it takes, regardless of truth, regardless of morals, regardless of ethics. You'll find smear campaigns par for the course in politics, but at
least politicians sometimes have the balls to do the smearing themselves as opposed to always having others do it for them.
Now put aside the kookspew of "Flying Rat" et al. and learn the real difference between Giganews and Octanews by viewing our UFF
October 2006 comparison of the two, which appears on the right. The comparison was based on information provided on Giganews' corporate site
(see it here) and Horwath's "Octanews" site
(see it here) and, not surprisingly, we discovered
Horwath couldn't even live up to the already-low figures he provided. Specifically actual Octanews binary retention averaged 8 days, not 9 (over
11% less than stated) with popular groups alt.binaries.dvd having only 5 days worth of retention and alt.binaries.nl having only 4 days when we
looked (the latter reflecting actual binary retention 55.6% less than deceptively advertised on Horwath's website). Text retention also was
considerably erratic and averaged significantly lower than the 95 days alleged with alt.config having 19 days of retention on Octanews,
alt.privacy.anon-server having 19 days, and alt.binaries.news-server-comparison having 60 days. Our figure of 33,600 active groups on Octanews is
indeed accurate (actually the precise number was 33,588) and it, like our actual retention figures, was based upon our S00P3R S3KRiT examination of
Horwath's server. Horwath didn't see fit to mention that newsgroups number anywhere on his Octanews site, probably because naive people wouldn't
give money to a "dedicated Usenet provider" that was only carrying 30% of the actual Usenet feed.
For those of you who may still be unclear as to why a newsadmin might use shills to smear a business competitor rather than doing the dirty work
himself, it's not so much because he's afraid of looking bad as it is the fact that newsadmins need each other to survive. If you opened a
restaurant called "Restaurant X" and a business competitor down the road owned "Restaurant Y", your restaurant could survive
quite well even if you put a sign on your door saying "RESTAURANT Y HAS BAD FOOD". Not so for Usenet admins, however: Mike Horwath, the
one-man-band who calls himself "Octanews", needs to maintain a friendly peering relationship with Giganews because if Giganews gets mad
at Horwath and decides to stop sending Horwath their articles, Horwath's customers might no longer be able to download posts from Giganews customers.
Thus Horwath needs to appear to remain on friendly terms with Giganews, and would need to adopt the cowardly approach of using shills for
Giganews smear campaigns.
By the way you'll notice no Giganews admin ever bothered to respond to the smear thread above. Why, you may ask? Probably because they're too busy
signing up a few thousand more customers, and probably for the same reason we rarely respond to "anti-UFF" smear campaign posts — it
simply isn't necessary! The truth is what it is, and anyone with half a brain will see the forest for the trees. For those with above-average
intelligence, the primary impact these shill campaigns generally have is actually to illustrate that the newsadmin to avoid is the
newsadmin being praised! Bizarre, ain't it? Indeed it is, but that's how it goes!
Should you opt to drop by alt.binaries.news-server-comparison because you're in the mood for staged entertainment or have nothing better to do than
clip your toenails, by all means look for newsadmin shills and have yourself a hearty chuckle.
THE POST WE DIDN'T POST
Not all UFF posts get injected to Usenet, many are rejected by The UFF Council for a variety
of reasons. In this particular case a reply was composed to Fart Canal but the decision was made that it not be posted, we instead opted to let the
participants bury themselves with their own words and present our retort on our site. Here is the October 31, 2006 post we didn't post:
On Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:42:56 -0000, Farkin Elle <me@privacy.net> wrote:
>Giganews Announces SSL Support...
>Giganews Newsgroups now offers encrypted Usenet access over SSL. This
>means all NNTP traffic between your machine and their servers will be
>encrypted so anyone monitoring your traffic will be unable to determine
>what newsgroups or what content you are downloading. Giganews charges an
>additonal $5 per month for this feature and has a new tier of service,
>the Diamond Account, which includes SSL support and up to 20
>connections.
And the new Diamond plan being offered by Giganews features all the benefits of their
Platinum plan - for $5.00 per month LESS.
Gee, that sounds like a price _DECREASE_ to me.
SOOOOOOOOOO, Fart Canal - why did you choose "Gigglenews ups prices" as the
original subject line of the thread I now reply to?
From: Farkin Elle <me@privacy.net>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.news-server-comparison
Subject: Gigglenews ups prices <-----------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 04:42:56 -0000
Message-ID: <MPG.1faf932b86eb9bce989daf@allnews.readfreenews.net>
You wouldn't be trying to maliciously mislead newbies, would you?
Nah, not a truthful guy like you - you'd NEVER do something like that. <snicker>
>Octanews includes SSL for free
ROFLMGDAO!
Yes, indeed "Octanews" does offer SSL but it ain't free - to get it you have to pay
for an "Octanews" subscription. <G> More particularly, with "Octanews" the cost of
SSL is implicitly included in the pricing model for ALL monthly subscriptions whether
you use it or not, but at Giganews you have the option of only paying for SSL if you
want it.
AND, binary retention on Giganews is over TEN TIMES GREATER than "Octanews".
AND, Giganews has over ONE THOUSAND DAYS MORE text retention than "Octanews".
AND, Giganews offers TWENTY conconcurrent connections but "Octanews" only allows four.
AND, Giganews lets you download as fast as you can but "Octanews" is SPEED CAPPED.
And I typed "Octanews" in quotes because it's not a traditional business with numerous
employees like Giganews, it's a ONE-MAN OPERATION - with that one man being Mike Horwath.
Mike Horwath is the "Octanews Abuse Department", the "Octanews Complaint Department",
the "Octanews DMCA Division" and the "Octanews Graphics Design Team". When Mike Horwath
is in the toilet taking a pasty shit, the "Octanews Customer Support Crew" closes down
temporarily. <G>
Horwath has offered shelter to, AND rubbed elbows in public with, a pedophile who posted
a story about an 11-year-old girl getting raped by her father. Horwath was also fired
from Winternet, a Minnesota ISP, for failing to follow corporate policy.
Giganews is a professional corporation with 24/7 help and an average customer support
response time of 10 minutes, whereas one user complained Octanews could not be reached
because Horwath's beeper was out of range. When Horwath fucks his wife, "Octanews"
customers won't get support until he ejaculates. When Horwath goes to bed, "Octanews"
customers won't get support until he wakes up. If Horwath lands in the hospital, ALL
bets are off!
For those of you tuning in to usenet, here's Mike Horwath in action..............
From: drechsau@visi.com (Mike Horwath)
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.news-server-comparison
Subject: Re: Okay... of all the news servers
Date: 11 Aug 2003 02:04:05 GMT
Message-ID: <3f36f995$0$165$a1866201@newsreader.visi.com>
For the record, you are full of shit. Yep, I said that, and I am not
taking it back.
Free technical help...what a fuckhead you are. I did not ask for
'technical help' you ignorant wet bag of cat feces.
I can see why the SN people treat you like they do, you are a silly
fucking cockbite.
What's the use of SSL when a newsadmin like that has your real-life particulars and is
at the other end sniffing? ROFLMAO!!!
Most of the trolls who infect these groups regularly post through "Readfreenews", the
free server Horwath now keeps open for his lapdogs but now keeps CLOSED to the public.
It's amusing that you're posting through Horwath's "Readfreenews" server and that the
only others who have so far posted in this thread - "Flying Rat" and the never-before-
seen-nym "Macarro" - have also conveniently seen fit to flame Giganews...........with
Flying Rat posting his flame through Horwath's "Readfreenews" server, and "Macarro"
posting through Octanews. <chuckle>
So yes, Fart Canal - if you want SSL, AND you want a 90% decrease in binary retention,
AND a speed-capped feed containing only 30% of available newsgroups, AND a lying vulgar
newsadmin who was fired for failing to follow corporate policy, harbors malicious
lackwits, befriends pedophiles and refers to people as "fucking cockbites", then yes -
Octanews is for you.
http://www.uffnet.com/library/exhibits/2006/octanews.1031.htm
If you want binary retention that's roughly TEN TIMES GREATER, however, and if you want
roughly ONE THOUSAND DAYS MORE worth of text retention, and if you want FIVES TIMES AS
MANY conconcurrent connections, and if you want SSL from a LEGITIMATE business, and if
you DON'T want to be speed-capped, and if you DON'T want a one-man-band newsadmin who
refers to people as "fucking cockbites", then Giganews is for you - and _ALL_ of those
perks versus "Octanews", _with_ SSL included, will cost a whopping _$3_ per month more.
http://www.uffnet.com/library/exhibits/2006/giganews.1031.htm
As Cheney might say, that's a no-brainer. <G>
But OH how conveniently you neglected to mention all of those tidbits, eh? Considering
Horwath just bitchslapped you yesterday, I'd wager you're braindead or you're getting
money under the table from Horwath to maliciously smear his peers - OR both. <snicker>
Message-ID: <4544caf7$0$34573$892e0abb@auth.newsreader.octanews.com>
What is positively known, though, is that you've wasted away YEARS of your life in
alt.binaries.news-server-comparison belittling others and acting like you're an 3133+
Usenet E><P3r+ when in reality I wouldn't deem you qualified to shine my shoes
You've also wasted away even MORE years of your life in alt.free.newsservers, belittling
even MORE people and trying to see what few precious pennies you could save.
So that's YEARS wasted pretending to be something you're not and saving pennies, as
opposed to being truthful and earning dollars.
That's the REAL irony, Fart Canal - you don't have to be a doctor or a lawyer, all you
need to be able to do is place meat on a grill. Because if you had instead spent that
time working at McDonalds flipping burgers for minimum wage, even a degenerate piece of
shit such as yourself would today have been able to afford a Giganews subscription.
Now you be a good little obedient horwath-humper like the lapdog you are and keep
licking that slimy sloth's balls in public a little more, sweet pea - I've no doubt that
you will.
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-=- Usenet Freedom Fighters -=-
Liberty and Justice For ALL
Please read "Vapid and Vulgar"
http://groups.uffnet.com/groups?selm=horwath@vulgar
Don't Be a Thumper...and DON'T LET THEM THUMP YOU!
-=- "Since 1998!" -=-
From: S_John_S <appleseed@oorchard.net>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.warez.ibm-pc.d
Subject: Re: Are you GuiltY of having some sordid off-topic thoughts?
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2002 21:44:14 -0500
Message-ID: <r59msugj5gl06eg7jtqf73h247uqj3j6r9@4ax.com>
Blind obedience is hard to come by or for that matter not often
expected. And when you see it, big old red flag SHOULD go up.
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