Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

Andrew May wrote:
Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.


Well the domain is registered in Panama for what it's worth...

Tim

En el artículo , Andrew May
escribió:

Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

Your trick of using an 0 instead of O in the subject worked - I can see your
post there.

They certainly work very hard to hide who they are. A bit of poking around on
the website, including looking at page source, turned up nothing. I've got ad
blockers enabled (and an ad/malware blocking hosts file), so it's possible I
may have missed something.

An attempt to spider the site failed - they appear to block IP addresses that
make too many requests, and after that I couldn't access it again.

The site is hosted by SrvInt, who are located in Reston, Virgina, USA, though
this doesn't mean this also where the site is located.

There's a Plesk login page on port 8443. Plesk is a control panel available
on Windows-based hosting accounts and servers.

Whois shows they're using an anonymizing service located in Panama, which a
legitimate company would not do.

Domain Name: HOMEOWNERSHUB.COM
Registrant Name: WHOISGUARD PROTECTED
Registrant Organization: WHOISGUARD, INC.
Registrant Street: P.O. BOX 0823-03411
Registrant City: PANAMA
Registrant State/Province: PANAMA
Registrant Postal Code: 00000
Registrant Country: PA
Registrant Phone: +507.8365503
Registrant Phone Ext:
Registrant Fax: +51.17057182
Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email:

Bargepole time IMO.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) Windows 10: less of an OS, more of a drive-by mugging.
(")_(") -- "Esme" on el Reg

Lets try it here then...



If you have been using the Home0wnersHub web site, you may have wondered
why a number of posters seem rather confused by some of the messages you
have been posting. Hopefully this post will make clear why this is
happening.

Home0wnersHub (HOH) is one of a number of web sites that provide a
gateway to one or more USENET newsgroups. In this particular case it
connects to the USENET group "uk.d-i-y"

For details about this group, please read:

http://www.diyfaq.org.uk/about.html

For some background and links about usenet groups and how they are
normally used, please see:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/...up_access_tips


Like good comedy, Timing is everything
=======================================

Usenet groups are generally "ephemeral". Once a post has been sent to a
news server, it will be shared around the world with other news servers.
Depending on how busy the group is, and the storage space allocated by
the server to the group, each server may only store messages for a few
weeks or months before expiring them.

So when replying to a post, please take careful note of the date on
which it was posted. There is little point in making a response to a
post concerning a problem with someone's central heating, if the problem
occurred in 2006 - One, they have probably fixed it by now, and two,
most readers of your message won't be able to see what you are replying
to - so it will make little sense!

(Although many news servers won't retain posts to a group for an
extended period, once a post has been made and distributed to other
servers, you have to assume that its never going to go away completely -
there will always be a copy somewhere! You can't delete a message once
posted. There are also archives of past usenet postings, google for
example have groups.google.com that makes many years worth of posts to
this group searchable).


Quoting
=======

News reader software usually makes it easy to include in your message
parts of the post you are replying to. This is called "quoting". Careful
use of quoting - e.g. leaving in just enough of the original message in
place, will help readers follow the thread of the conversation. Note
that some users (especially sight impaired ones) will depend quite
heavily on this quoted content to make sense of postings. If you don't
include sensibly trimmed quoted content you will irritate many users who
won't know what you are replying to. (and including too much, will
irritate others!)


On 19/04/2016 10:05, Andrew May wrote:

Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.


--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 11:29:39 +0100, Mike Tomlinson wrote:

En el artÃ*culo , Andrew May
escribió:

Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

Your trick of using an 0 instead of O in the subject worked - I can see
your post there.

They certainly work very hard to hide who they are. A bit of poking
around on the website, including looking at page source, turned up
nothing. I've got ad blockers enabled (and an ad/malware blocking hosts
file), so it's possible I may have missed something.

An attempt to spider the site failed - they appear to block IP addresses
that make too many requests, and after that I couldn't access it again.

The site is hosted by SrvInt, who are located in Reston, Virgina, USA,
though this doesn't mean this also where the site is located.

There's a Plesk login page on port 8443. Plesk is a control panel
available on Windows-based hosting accounts and servers.

Whois shows they're using an anonymizing service located in Panama,
which a legitimate company would not do.

Domain Name: HOMEOWNERSHUB.COM Registrant Name: WHOISGUARD PROTECTED
Registrant Organization: WHOISGUARD, INC.
Registrant Street: P.O. BOX 0823-03411 Registrant City: PANAMA
Registrant State/Province: PANAMA Registrant Postal Code: 00000
Registrant Country: PA Registrant Phone: +507.8365503 Registrant Phone
Ext:
Registrant Fax: +51.17057182 Registrant Fax Ext:
Registrant Email:


Bargepole time IMO.


Panama, huh?

Not run by relatives of our revered PM, then?


--
Windows 8.1 on PCSpecialist box

On 19/04/2016 10:05, Andrew May wrote:
Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

They have a Farcebook page on which the (ir)responsible being responds.

--
F

On 19/04/2016 17:10, F wrote:
On 19/04/2016 10:05, Andrew May wrote:
Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

They have a Farcebook page on which the (ir)responsible being responds.

I'm not on Facebook so can't investigate further but I think that the
HomeOwnersHub there relates to homeownershub.biz rather than
homeownershub.com. homeownershub.biz is a tradesman finder in the states.

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:29:06 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Home0wnersHub (HOH) is one of a number of web sites that provide a
gateway to one or more USENET newsgroups.

I don't like the smell of this. It's a short step from "gateways" to
*gatekeepers* - web forums are easy to moderate, Usenet not. It also
enables people who contribute ****-all to profit from the knowledge and
goodwill of others. So.... how about we all append a sig to our postings,
something like:

--

No part of this posting may be reproduced outside of the newsgroup
uk.d-i-y without the express written permission of the author.

================================================== ================

Or variants thereof...

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 22:38:20 +0000, Cursitor Doom wrote:

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:29:06 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Home0wnersHub (HOH) is one of a number of web sites that provide a
gateway to one or more USENET newsgroups.

I don't like the smell of this. It's a short step from "gateways" to
*gatekeepers* - web forums are easy to moderate, Usenet not. It also
enables people who contribute ****-all to profit from the knowledge and
goodwill of others. So.... how about we all append a sig to our
postings,
something like:

--
No part of this posting may be reproduced outside of the newsgroup
uk.d-i-y without the express written permission of the author.

================================================== ================

Or variants thereof...

Already do...

Cursitor Doom Wrote in message:
On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:29:06 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Home0wnersHub (HOH) is one of a number of web sites that provide a
gateway to one or more USENET newsgroups.

I don't like the smell of this. It's a short step from "gateways" to
*gatekeepers* - web forums are easy to moderate, Usenet not. It also
enables people who contribute ****-all to profit from the knowledge and
goodwill of others. So.... how about we all append a sig to our postings,
something like:

--

No part of this posting may be reproduced outside of the newsgroup
uk.d-i-y without the express written permission of the author.


And what do you expect that to achieve?

I really don't see why people get so worked up about this, the
people who run these sorts of sites could careless what we think.
Users who might come across them, if they see the mention of
Usenet probably think 'what are they on about' and move
on.

Just get on and enjoy uk.d-i-y while you can while there is still
life left in it.


--
--
Chris French

On 19/04/16 23:38, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:29:06 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Home0wnersHub (HOH) is one of a number of web sites that provide a
gateway to one or more USENET newsgroups.

I don't like the smell of this. It's a short step from "gateways" to
*gatekeepers* - web forums are easy to moderate, Usenet not. It also
enables people who contribute ****-all to profit from the knowledge and
goodwill of others. So.... how about we all append a sig to our postings,
something like:

--

No part of this posting may be reproduced outside of the newsgroup
uk.d-i-y without the express written permission of the author.

================================================== ================

Or variants thereof...

you can append it but it has no legal meaning. Once you post to usenet
its the property of no one and everyone.


--
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have
guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Josef Stalin

On 20/04/2016 05:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 19/04/16 23:38, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:29:06 +0100, John Rumm wrote:

Home0wnersHub (HOH) is one of a number of web sites that provide a
gateway to one or more USENET newsgroups.

I don't like the smell of this. It's a short step from "gateways" to
*gatekeepers* - web forums are easy to moderate, Usenet not. It also
enables people who contribute ****-all to profit from the knowledge and
goodwill of others. So.... how about we all append a sig to our postings,
something like:

--

No part of this posting may be reproduced outside of the newsgroup
uk.d-i-y without the express written permission of the author.

================================================== ================

Or variants thereof...

you can append it but it has no legal meaning. Once you post to usenet
its the property of no one and everyone.


Maybe. But where do they get all their old post from. They haven't been
running for ten years have they? Do they pair with an existing long
retention Usenet server? Or have they copied the whole lot from Google
Groups. That would be against Google's T&Cs. And Google have very deep
pockets if they want to get the lawyers involved.

On 20/04/16 10:30, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-20, Andrew May wrote:
On 20/04/2016 05:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

[20 lines snipped]

you can append it but it has no legal meaning. Once you post to usenet
its the property of no one and everyone.

Wrong.

Oh? It appears you are correct.
In many jurisdictions.


--
No Apple devices were knowingly used in the preparation of this post.

On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:18:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 20/04/16 10:30, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-20, Andrew May wrote:
On 20/04/2016 05:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

[20 lines snipped]

you can append it but it has no legal meaning. Once you post to
usenet its the property of no one and everyone.

Wrong.

Oh? It appears you are correct.
In many jurisdictions.

As a general rule in most Western countries, copyright is always the
property of and resides with the author *except* when expressly given
away. This website (whoever they are) may decide to ignore our wishes and
take a chance we won't be arsed to take court action over it, and maybe
most of us would not. BUT, if they're reproducing reserved content it
renders their site worthless from a commercial standpoint. No potential
buyer's going to place a valuation on something built on straw. That'll
do for me.

Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-20, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:18:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 20/04/16 10:30, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-20, Andrew May wrote:
On 20/04/2016 05:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

[20 lines snipped]

you can append it but it has no legal meaning. Once you post to
usenet its the property of no one and everyone.

Wrong.

Oh? It appears you are correct.
In many jurisdictions.

As a general rule in most Western countries, copyright is always the
property of and resides with the author *except* when expressly given
away.

Precisely.

This website (whoever they are) may decide to ignore our wishes and
take a chance we won't be arsed to take court action over it, and maybe
most of us would not.

And the damages would be risible, since their use of your postings hasn't
cost you anything.

BUT, if they're reproducing reserved content it
renders their site worthless from a commercial standpoint. No potential
buyer's going to place a valuation on something built on straw. That'll
do for me.

Precisely.



Buyer? Why on earth do you think they might want a buyer? All they're after
is traffic through the site. Our postings are just "bait" to lure folk into
thinking it's a useable forum. Registered users and traffic is all that's
being aimed for surely?

Tim

--
Trolls AND TROLL FEEDERS all go in my kill file

On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 19:09:55 +0000, Tim+ wrote:

Buyer? Why on earth do you think they might want a buyer? All they're
after is traffic through the site. Our postings are just "bait" to lure
folk into thinking it's a useable forum. Registered users and traffic is
all that's being aimed for surely?

Tim

High traffic gives them increased clout in winning advertisers. We don't
know what's in their minds, but commercial gain is one obvious motive.
Get an income stream going and wouldbe buyers may become interested in
acquiring what has become a business - unless of course we reserve our
content in which case it won't be worth a sh*t.

On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 23:36:15 +0100, Chris French wrote:

Assuming the buyers would give more of a **** than the existing
site owners.

Oh, I'm pretty sure they will. ;-)

Cursitor Doom Wrote in message:
On Thu, 21 Apr 2016 19:09:55 +0000, Tim+ wrote:

Buyer? Why on earth do you think they might want a buyer? All they're
after is traffic through the site. Our postings are just "bait" to lure
folk into thinking it's a useable forum. Registered users and traffic is
all that's being aimed for surely?

Tim

High traffic gives them increased clout in winning advertisers. We don't
know what's in their minds, but commercial gain is one obvious motive.
Get an income stream going and wouldbe buyers may become interested in
acquiring what has become a business - unless of course we reserve our
content in which case it won't be worth a sh*t.


Assuming the buyers would give more of a **** than the existing
site owners.
--
--
Chris French

On 19/04/2016 18:07, Andrew May wrote:
On 19/04/2016 17:10, F wrote:
On 19/04/2016 10:05, Andrew May wrote:
Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

They have a Farcebook page on which the (ir)responsible being responds.

I'm not on Facebook so can't investigate further but I think that the
HomeOwnersHub there relates to homeownershub.biz rather than
homeownershub.com. homeownershub.biz is a tradesman finder in the states.

No, it's the nuisance we're referring to.

Just noticed that someone on here (Allan Swallow?) has had a dig at
them. Perhaps we should join in?

--
F

F news@nowhere wrote:
On 19/04/2016 18:07, Andrew May wrote:
On 19/04/2016 17:10, F wrote:
On 19/04/2016 10:05, Andrew May wrote:
Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

They have a Farcebook page on which the (ir)responsible being responds.

I'm not on Facebook so can't investigate further but I think that the
HomeOwnersHub there relates to homeownershub.biz rather than
homeownershub.com. homeownershub.biz is a tradesman finder in the states.

No, it's the nuisance we're referring to.

Just noticed that someone on here (Allan Swallow?) has had a dig at
them. Perhaps we should join in?


Um, just be sure you're in the right FB group. The one related to
h0meownershub.com is Home Owners' Hub, not Homeowners Hub (which is linked
to the biz site).

Of course they my be related but I wouldn't assume that.

Tim

--
--
Trolls and troll feeders go in my killfile

On 22/04/2016 10:16, Tim+ wrote:
F news@nowhere wrote:
On 19/04/2016 18:07, Andrew May wrote:
On 19/04/2016 17:10, F wrote:
On 19/04/2016 10:05, Andrew May wrote:
Can anyone find any contact details on the site? They have a web form
but no information about where the company is located, or which legal
jurisdiction they operate under.

They have a Farcebook page on which the (ir)responsible being responds.

I'm not on Facebook so can't investigate further but I think that the
HomeOwnersHub there relates to homeownershub.biz rather than
homeownershub.com. homeownershub.biz is a tradesman finder in the states.

No, it's the nuisance we're referring to.

Just noticed that someone on here (Allan Swallow?) has had a dig at
them. Perhaps we should join in?


Um, just be sure you're in the right FB group. The one related to
h0meownershub.com is Home Owners' Hub

That's the one I've been referring to. It has the relevant web address
listed on it, along with the comments from someone on here.

--
F

On 20/04/2016 21:43, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 11:18:59 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

On 20/04/16 10:30, Huge wrote:
On 2016-04-20, Andrew May wrote:
On 20/04/2016 05:34, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

[20 lines snipped]

you can append it but it has no legal meaning. Once you post to
usenet its the property of no one and everyone.

Wrong.

Oh? It appears you are correct.
In many jurisdictions.

As a general rule in most Western countries, copyright is always the
property of and resides with the author *except* when expressly given
away.

Copyright is that of the individual or entity that created the IP.

The rights to copyright property is another issue. By knowingly placing
a post on a Usenet server it becomes pretty much a lost cause. Once it
is in the public domain there is very little one can do to remove it
from the public domain.

If a website claim to be a conduit for a usenet group, I don't see what
you can do about it, irrespective of any signature. The only case I
recall in such instance is Godfrey vs Demon where libel was the issue,
not copyright.

On 22/04/2016 11:03, Fredxxx wrote:

Copyright is that of the individual or entity that created the IP.

The rights to copyright property is another issue. By knowingly placing
a post on a Usenet server it becomes pretty much a lost cause. Once it
is in the public domain there is very little one can do to remove it
from the public domain.

If a website claim to be a conduit for a usenet group, I don't see what
you can do about it, irrespective of any signature. The only case I
recall in such instance is Godfrey vs Demon where libel was the issue,
not copyright.

Is this something that could be accomplished using contract law. I post
to Usenet and my posts state that anyone may reproduce it but by doing
so they are entering into a contract in which they agree to pay me for
doing so. I can then go after them for breach of contract rather than
infringement of copyright.

IANAL

On 22/04/2016 10:16, Tim+ wrote:


Um, just be sure you're in the right FB group. The one related to
h0meownershub.com is Home Owners' Hub, not Homeowners Hub (which is linked
to the biz site).

Of course they my be related but I wouldn't assume that.


Ahh. As I said, ~I don't use Facebook. It was just the .biz page that
came up on Google.

On 22/04/2016 11:14, Andrew May wrote:
On 22/04/2016 11:03, Fredxxx wrote:

Copyright is that of the individual or entity that created the IP.

The rights to copyright property is another issue. By knowingly placing
a post on a Usenet server it becomes pretty much a lost cause. Once it
is in the public domain there is very little one can do to remove it
from the public domain.

If a website claim to be a conduit for a usenet group, I don't see what
you can do about it, irrespective of any signature. The only case I
recall in such instance is Godfrey vs Demon where libel was the issue,
not copyright.

Is this something that could be accomplished using contract law. I post
to Usenet and my posts state that anyone may reproduce it but by doing
so they are entering into a contract in which they agree to pay me for
doing so. I can then go after them for breach of contract rather than
infringement of copyright.

I should make it clear that this is a hypothetical question not
something that I actually do.

"Andrew May" wrote in message
...
On 22/04/2016 11:03, Fredxxx wrote:

Copyright is that of the individual or entity that created the IP.

The rights to copyright property is another issue. By knowingly placing
a post on a Usenet server it becomes pretty much a lost cause. Once it
is in the public domain there is very little one can do to remove it
from the public domain.

If a website claim to be a conduit for a usenet group, I don't see what
you can do about it, irrespective of any signature. The only case I
recall in such instance is Godfrey vs Demon where libel was the issue,
not copyright.

Is this something that could be accomplished using contract law.

Nope, because there is no contract involved.

I post to Usenet and my posts state that anyone may reproduce it but by
doing so they are entering into a contract in which they agree to pay me
for doing so.

That is no contract.

I can then go after them for breach of contract rather than infringement
of copyright.

Nope, because there is no contract.

IANAL

That's obvious.