What is the purpose of the "activation" e-mail? Is it only to verify your e-mail, or is it supposed to prevent spambots from posting to the newgroups? If the latter, it's not working — I was able to create a new account and post immediatelly without activation.

I still have not seen this e-mail. I rather suspect my ISP's "auto-delete spam" feature ate it (useless though it is against real spam).