Oldest IRC Server Going Offline

Matty_ writes: "Looks like the oldest IRC server in continued operation on the Internet is going to be turned off for good. According to the server's MOTD, the server will be shut off no later than January 1. Aparently the University of Colorado can no longer support the software and hardware, as well as provide the network resources, specifically the extra bandwidth required for the various DoS (Denial of Service) attacks from which EFnet servers still suffer. They chose not to accept the liability and decided to retire the server."

Comments

Shucks

[whmac33]

I guess we'll have to use the other IRC server now.

sad, sad

[TheM0cktor]

this is sad - for the first time the 133t cyber d00dz have won. Freedom->abuse of freedom.

What they don't understand

[The Great Wakka]

The server will be flooded from now to Jan1. People will want to just chat on it "one more time"; the costs will be much higher than normal.(Also the 5|41P7 81DD33Z will want one more go at it) Of course, that means that the University may pull the plug on it even earlier...

EFnet history

[Harumuka]

Four years ago, Jarkko Oikarinen wrote a history of EFnet. In late '9, irc.colorado.edu reached 1000 users. Interesting read for anyone interested in how EFNet became what it is today.

Re:EFnet history

[Daemon42]

Actually, I put together the EFNet history page on the-project.org and included that email
from Jarkko. Back when the colorado.edu server was serving 1000 clients that was a big
deal as it represented something like 10% of the total EFnet client load and that's when
we had almost 200 irc servers (before europe branched off). At other times in its history
it was a hub server connecting many of the servers in the western states, and at times
*.au, with up to 13 peer and leaf servers linked. Over time the network situation at CU
changed a bit and we could no longer be an open client server, or a large hub. Later
still, after some particularly heavy attacks the client access had to be restricted to
*.edu, and any ISP with Colorado or a few surrounding Mountain west states that
bothered to contact me. Limiting access helped quite a bit actually, but that's why
most people can't get on now.

Only the ITS management at CU know for sure why the decision to pull the plug on
the server was made. The DoS attacks have actually tapered off almost entirely
in the last couple months due to changes to the server, and to EFNet in general.
Oh well.

ian

it would be interesting if...

[Hercynium]

someone volunteered their bandwidth to host the machine... they could even get colorado.edu's sysop to update the DNS entry.

Other than that, I can't see much else to do with it. It's only worth nostalgiac value. I'll be watching eBay for when someone puts it on sale. *grin*

special treatment

[acm]

I don't understand why they can't just limit the server for use of the students of CU (hey, and maybe CSU too :).

I've tried logging in to that server countless times under the colorado.edu domain and have gotten rejected due to too many users logged in at ocne. You'd think they'd give some priority to their students.

Another network?

[autopr0n]

From what I understand, EFnet is a real mess because they don't use things like ChanServs/nickservs, etc, so stupid script kiddies will try to DDoS servers and users in attempts to take over channels (yes, extremely stupid)

I wonder why the colorado.edu people didn't just move to another network? Undernet, I believe, supports more advance authentication methods. There's slashnet :) and some others. They could also have tried going it alone, as a server for the local university.

I don't really think IRC is dying per-se, but these big networks are really becoming untenable. In my experience, it seems to be dividing up into niche community networks like slashnet, espernet (RPG stuff) with a few major rooms -- such as #slashdot and #kuro5hin on slashnet -- where most people hang out.

Also, in all this time I never knew what Efnet stood for, just finding that out was worth clicking the story :P

Re:Another network?

[realdpk]

"From what I understand, EFnet is a real mess because they don't use things like ChanServs/nickservs, etc, so stupid script kiddies will try to DDoS servers and users in attempts to take over channels (yes, extremely stupid)"

Not to mention that, at least for a time, many of the opers and admins were kiddies themselves. EFNet is just in bad shape all around. Chanserv/Nickserv would be great, but the mentality would live on somehow.

Dal.net hasn't sucked since I moved there. The best part about it is you can /server irc.dal.net and pretty much get connected every time, whereas with EFNet you have to hunt around for a server because they never figured out how to cooperate.

Re:Another network?

[ThatComputerGuy]

You're completely correct about EFnet being a real mess, and it is in large part due to takeover attempts. Check stories 1 and 2, posted on /. some time ago, for just some of the recent events.

I frequented EFnet all the time, but eventually left because I got tired of basically it's lameness. No nick/chanserv means people rely on their own bots to control their own channels. Once the botnet goes down thanks to some scriptkiddie's DoS, the channel is free to be occupied and the takeover is complete. Or you can hammer away at the irc server(s) the botnet sits on, causing a netsplit and once again allowing a takeover. There is usually some protection against this now, which means that during a netsplit nobody can gain OPs, but this can still lead to plenty of chaos.

At the time, I checked out DalNet and a couple of others that use nick/chanserv, but for one reason or another didn't like them (I mean, what the hell kinda name is DalNet?). I think Undernet is the more popular one for warez now, as it uses these server-side protection services.

I was involved in takeovers at one time, which meant I both gained and lost a number of channels-- at the time, either of the sides would likely have said that it was more of a contest, or a game, than just being assholes, since the chans involved weren't really that important, just hangouts. Of course, at that time we also didn't think twice about how much bandwidth we were chewing from the servers. Oh well.

Having said that, I usually only go back for warez now...

Oh, and I might as well say... ShannoW, you asshole, I liked that chan!

Re:Another network?

[toofast]

I remember when blackened.org went offline because of DoS attacks. They had the ability to serve up to 7000 IRC clients. One of the main reasons for killing the server, IIRC, was because of an evening where a bunch of idiots threw tons of garbage down blackened's pipes, causing the entire state of (arizona?) to be deprived of internet access. Although I cannot find Matt's original letter, I did find the config of irc2.blackened.com:

oldcharred.blackened.com: AMD K6-2 @ 333mhz, 128M of ram, 18G-10k rpm scsi primary, 9G secondary. This server houses the origional irc2.blackened.com EFnet server, the largest EFnet server in the world before it de-linked. Still running with the origional IRCD, I, O, C/N lines and TCM.

It's a pity that, in blackened's case, volunteer workers such as mjr are forced to abandon what they love to do, because of immature kiddies flooding the network with useless garbage.

Re:Another network?

[Xref]

Actually, on the contrary, EFNet has been on its way back up for quite some time now. After bottoming out due to DoS attacks and numerous servers losses at about 50,000 users, it's back up to an average of 75,000, and growing.

You are also mistaken in saying that EFNet does not use "things like ChanServs". A sort of channel services was in fact introduced on EFNet several months ago, and overall has been a great success.

I'll leave it at that, but suggest you (and anyone interested) checks out the most up-to-date information @ EFNet's unofficial web site - www.efnet.org.

Also realize that /. is very predictable in posting stories about EFNet's demise, but never about its successes (of which there are many). It's typical of mainstream media - bad news makes good news... too bad this is the route /. has taken.

Re:Another network?

[bopo]

At the time, I checked out DalNet and a couple of others that use nick/chanserv, but for one reason or another didn't like them (I mean, what the hell kinda name is DalNet?).

An old-ish saying from an EFnet channel I frequent: "DalNet is like the Special Olympics of IRC. A lot of drooling, and everyone is a 'winner'."

Re:Another network?

[zerocool^]

IRC is dying, but not dead.
In response to the stuff about EFnet configuration versus Undernet configuration, it is undernet that uses no nickserv or chanserv (per se). Nicks on undernet are first come first served. Undernet, for the longest time, used a much weaker channel service method, as well: They had two universal bots, X and W. The problem with this idea is that the bots were hosted on servers connected to hubs. So it wasn't hard to /map and see that cservice.undernet.org had 2 clients and was connected to baltimore-r.md.us.undernet.org - it gave the kiddiez a real easy target - take down the X or W server and there's chaos, and the only way to get ops is if you had your own bot or an oper with a global O:line opped you.

I'm not sure what they're doing now, but i think that X is a distributed channelservice now, that each server has a piece of X in them. My point was just that at least EFnet's administration, if not their administrators (not high opinion) had a better chanserv and actually had a nickserv (no split collisions). It was just that undernet, from the start, was less seedy.

Didn't stop them from taking down irc2.att.net - at&t's undernet server which rocked - had the best ops, most bandwidth (att-duh) and better hardware - they could sustain 10,000 connections and frequently went higher than that. Now delinked.
~z

Re:Another network?

[ThatComputerGuy]

As funny as that is, it fucking horribly sucks... most @home users were banned from most EFnet servers a couple of years back... "use your own @home server", that's what they'd tell us. But then, irc.home.com also sucked fat, juicy ass, so we couldn't use irc very easily.

Re:Another network?

[FeeDBaCK]

No nick/chanserv means people rely on their own bots to control their own channels. Once the botnet goes down thanks to some scriptkiddie's DoS, the channel is free to be occupied and the takeover is complete. Or you can hammer away at the irc server(s) the botnet sits on, causing a netsplit and once again allowing a takeover. There is usually some protection against this now, which means that during a netsplit nobody can gain OPs, but this can still lead to plenty of chaos.

When was the last time you were on EFnet? There is a new service called JUPES which automatically gives back ops to the "proper" ops given the case of the channel becoming opless. It uses an average of who is opped over time to know who are the "proper" ops. Combine this with the inability to gain ops on a split and you have a fairly good deterrent to takeover. EFnet is based on the idea of not having services.

Re:Another network?

[Lumpy]

since the chans involved weren't really that important, just hangouts.

cince when has ANY channel in irc a vital or important channel?

I dont believe that IRC has been used for anything important cince the late 80's.

I may be wrong, but when I last touched IRC back in 1998 it was nothing but a copy of the mess we have on the CB radio spectrum.

LISP IS AT FAULT

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that LISP is the main reason for the downfall if this particular IRC server. Someone obviously spent too much time trying to come up with a solution to this DOS attacks with LISP, which left almost no money for MUCH more important programmers and network admins. DAMN you LISP!

Well...

[Vegeta99]

I'm surprised they lasted this long. IRC itself is on a long spiral down, thanks to the ungrateful bastards that DoS the servers. People can't afford all that extra bandwidth. Where will the skript kiddiez go after the Big 3 die? MSN Chat?

DDOS Attacks and IRC

[NatePWIII]

What is with IRC and DDOS attacks? If you abuse it you lose it... What about this do the DDOS attackers not understand, they are only hurting themselves, if the whole internet gets shut down because of their antics then what? Don't they see they are only hurting themselves?

Re:DDOS Attacks and IRC

[Osty]

What is with IRC and DDOS attacks? If you abuse it you lose it... What about this do the DDOS attackers not understand, they are only hurting themselves, if the whole internet gets shut down because of their antics then what? Don't they see they are only hurting themselves?

Most of them don't realize 100% what they're doing. They're stuck in the old "IRC war" mindset, where most people were on dialups, or if they were lucky on a faster connection at college. It didn't take much to packet a person off when they were at 28.8 or less. As broadband has become more widespread, however, it gets harder and harder. That means the kiddies need more bandwidth to do the same thing (hey, sounds like a drug addiction ...). At a certain point, it became easier to attack the servers themselves than the people and bots in a channel you wanted.

That's only one scenario, of course. There's also many kiddies that somehow feel they have a personal (real or imagined) beef with an IRCop, and so they attack that opper's server. They don't realize they're hurting more than the single person they have a problem with.

Few kiddies can see past their own personal anger to the actual damage they're doing. They have the bandwidth (countless compromised machines with broadband connections -- thank you, @Home), and they have no qualms about using it. Part of the problem could be solved simply by getting people to fix all those compromised machines, or more drastically by getting rid of broadband altogether (not a realistic course of action, and not one I would condone even if it were realistic). The deeper problem lies in the mindset of the kiddie -- they're often your typical angsty teen, and this is a way they can gain power. It's very sad, but what can you do?

Re:DDOS Attacks and IRC

[CMiYC]

This is just something that is a result of society. We can see things like this in a number of places. DoS attacks are just another example of vandalism. "Hey, its not mine, who cares?" Its not that the people doing the attacks are immune to understanding what they are doing. It is they just don't give a flying fuck. Its very sad. Until someone destorys something they work to maintain, they won't understand.

Re:DDOS Attacks and IRC

[Glytch]

That means the kiddies need more bandwidth to do the same thing (hey, sounds like a drug addiction ...).

Sounds like an arms race, too.

Re:DDOS Attacks and IRC

[FeeDBaCK]

thank you, @Home

Luckily, with the demise of @Home, most of these machines are at the very least getting new IP addresses.

Re:DDOS Attacks and IRC

[borud]

1. "kids" don't care
   
2. "kids" are unable to see the kind of damage they do. the real damage is gradual acceptance of (among other kids) and escalation of destructive practices over time.
   

I've been running an IRC-server for almost a decade and a lot has changed during that time. the number of users has exploded, and the severity of abuse has skyrocketed. many years ago most types of common abuse would only affect other IRC users. security/system administration staff would usually adopt a "this is an IRC-related problem and we don't care what goes on on IRC" attitude, which was fine back then. Annoying to IRC users, but still fair enough.

in the last 5-6 years the attacks have become a lot more serious. even ignorant people can launch attacks that effectively render the network unusable for hundreds of thousands of users; if not millions, and they do not even need to understand what they are doing -- on a technical level or otherwise.

however the willingness and ability to address the problem has not really improved that much. most ISPs don't care about being a good neighbor and I have even experienced cases where ISPs would look the other way because an abuser was a personal friend or coworker of people in the abuse-department of that ISP.

the attitude of many ISPs has contributed to legitimizing denial of service attacks to some degree by not taking any responsibility for keeping their back yard clean.

ironically enough this attitude will just end up hurting the ISPs themselves, since the erosion of boundaries between what is acceptable and what is not ultimately ends up costing them wasted bandwith, time and effort.

also, as someone else mentioned: IRC admins are not totally free of blame. most of the good ones don't really have enough time to deal with all the bullshit -- and as for the not so good admins and opers: well, what do you expect when most of them are in it just to have a sense of power?

finding good admins is hard. I've been trying to pass along the baton for some years now so I could quit maintaining the IRC server, but whenever I try to recruit opers and prospective future admins I either end up with good people who can't spare the time or I end up with a bunch of people who are just after that sense of "power".

IRC as such stopped being fun many years ago. The biggest tragedy is that although we probably should just stop offering the services altogether in order to put a stop to the waste of resources, we aren't. even though the usefulness of IRC has been diminished there will always be those who will keep it alive in some shape or form which means that to the feeble of mind the service will never "die" and thus they conclude that it is okay to keep doing whatever they do to wreck it.

Re:DDOS Attacks and IRC

[multipartmixed]

> It's very sad, but what can you do?

Legalize marijuana.

Re:EFNet DoS

[ThatComputerGuy]

Yeah, the lamers DoS the irc network, and us /.ers DoS the network's webpage... yeah, aren't we just great?

Copyright Liability?

[EchoMirage]

While reading the MOTD, I noticed this:

They [the University] can no longer accept the liability of running an IRC server

Given IRC's tendency towards being a haven for piracy, especially software and music, and given recent attempts by the RIAA/MPAA/$FOO_EVIL_ENTITY to prosecute servers and ISPs who host pirated files, one has to one if this server being taken down is a response to or a preemption against legal threats...

Where have you guys been?

[MrPerfekt]

Some peoples comments here have been a little misinformed/out-of-date but, I'll spout some knowledge for your enjoyment.

Chanfix, a sort of ChanServ, has been put into operation on EFnet. Making packeting for channels relatively pointless. As of late, I've noticed less DoS, but I may just not be feeling it.

There is no, and probably never will be, any variation of NickServ. The "nicks/channels aren't owned" philosophy that EFnet was famous for is dying out. But, I don't think it will ever die out so much as to put in some type of NickServ solution.

As for EFnet politics, they're still there. But some progress has been made. The efnet.org website is the most official, functional website the network has ever had. There's been attempts to put comittees together for various area's, such as CoderCom. The voting site is functional and got some use where I had access to it, I don't know about it now.

But there still is work to be done. I personally haven't seen much in the way of enforcement of most things that were "voted" on by the admins. But this could be my not-in-the-know fault. All in all, EFnet and IRC in general is surviving. EFnet has remained at a stable, if not very slightly growing, lower to mid 70k users. Other networks have grown to surpass us, last I checked DALnet had over 100k users and they're doing quite well.
IRC is far from dead. All servers delink eventually, it's just the way of things. But the network is still the same stuborn machine it's always been and will continue to be.

Re:American Efnet server list?

[vax]

Efnet as well as Dalnet and a few other major IRC networks are bombarded by script kiddies on a daily basis, dalnet almost shut down like last year because of it. a bunch of morons with stolen cisco routers were flooding them with dos attacks. which made chatting on the network about as fun as sending one line e-mails at a time. the problem isnt the servers its the morons who are against them. IRC is a free service and if people dont start to respect it, its eather going to slowly leave or start charging. I dont know about you all but i use it regularly and i would personally like to give these 12 year old h4X0rs a peice of my mind. or perhaps a visit from the fbi might help change thier ways eh? well iam not wasting my time tracing a bunch of wanna-bes but something certainly needs to be done.. perhaps a new irc protocall wouldnt be a bad idea.. following the example of ssh perhaps, making it secure and allowing the servers hosting irc to reject all the DoS crap they get daily.
just a thought
VAX

.

Re:Colorado has some issues...

[travisd]

On the PtP issue: do what other groups have done: Bandwidth limit the PtP prototcols. This way they're not censoring it, and bandwidth is preserved. Many even open up the pipes during otherwise low-traffic hours.

Oh yeah, one more followup comment.

[MrPerfekt]

This is the one of three remaining .edu servers. US EFnet at one point in time was made up over 50% edu's.

A list of dead EFnet servers can be viewed at http://outcaste.shits.in.the.pigpond.com/dead.html

Notice that .edu makes up about 50% :) IRC got it's start with colleges, that is a fading trend however as major ISPs are mostly the ones holding the torches. This does seem to parallel the Internet itself though, doesn't it? Starting with educational institutions and then being supported by commercial endeavours.

Re:Good

[TheDisciple]

EFnet's official website is http://www.efnet.org/ They have a server list that is updated automatically like once every 10 mins. Enjoy.

what about irc.eff.org?

[tcc]

I thought that was the oldest server, when did they appear?

I think I started chatting back in 92 AFAICR... I do remember typing irc.eff.org :) but 9 years of beer really wears a brain out...

Anyways, it's really a shame that these servers are going offline one by one, I guess it's more like "we don't have anyone that wishes to administer our irc server but we don't want to look like [insert any unjustified insults here] so we'll go out with a comment that will put more preasure agains those lame script kiddies, diverting the real issues", I'm sure most DDoS exploits can be patched easily, so it's probably the lack of people that wishes to administer the server. We can't blame them for that, I mean, most of us used the service, but how many would actually give away a box and bandwidth for it?

Of course, having the power to /kill is worth it... but I guess it grows old :)

Re:what about irc.eff.org?

[TheDisciple]

You have no idea what you are talking about. I respect the fact that you were around during the infancy of efnet, however it is not that easy to patch against DDoS attacks. There isn't a whole lot you can do when you have 3gbit coming down a 100mbit or 1gbit pipe. The cluephone is ringing... pick it up, I'm certain it's for you :P Disciple @ EFnet

Re:what about irc.eff.org?

[rtaylor]

Block it at the firewall.

/me runs!

Re:what about irc.eff.org?

[ckd]

I thought that was the oldest server, when did they appear?

Despite the perceived similarity in names between EFF and EFnet, it was not the first, main, or only EFnet server in any way. irc.colorado.edu both predated and postdated it.

And it was never "EFFnet".

Re:what about irc.eff.org?

[tcc]

>The cluephone is ringing... pick it up, I'm certain it's for you :P

Ever configured a Router? :)

Re:what about irc.eff.org?

[WWWWolf]

I thought that was the oldest server, when did they appear?

I thought the oldest IRC server, in pedantic sense, was tolsun.oulu.fi, a SUN box that now sits in University of Oulu computer museum...

...and mind you, that machine was not taken down because of network abuse - there were two reasons for its ruination, actually: 1) it could easily be replaced with a 386 running Linux to increase its general performance, and 2) some idiot lost the power source wiring diagram when they took it down for maintenance one day.

EFnet is the first "separate" IRC network, yes, but the old IRCNet is still up and running, and is one of the most popular mostly-European networks. (Some say that's infortunate...)

(Well, at least irc.oulu.fi works just fine for me =)

Re:what about irc.eff.org?

[rtaylor]

Ugh.. apparently the /me runs wasn't enough of an indication that it wasn't meant to be taken as truth but was a dumb comment intended to bring the weeds out of the woodwork.

Say, perhaps it worked?

Huh?

[Grendel Drago]

skr1p+ k1dd1ez0rz are Luddites? Puh-leaze. They're vandals, pure and simple. They like breaking shit because it commands fear and respect among their peers. Nothing new here, folks. Same shit stupid kids have been doing for ages to get attention.

-grendel drago

sigh..

[amed01]

irc, believe it or not, is how i defined my "internet identity" so to speak, and i know many people who agree that it definitely somethign special. its entirely to sad to see the one network that offered the most freedom to its users get a leg chopped out from underneath.. the way i (and we) grew up on irc is a far cry from how kids are growing up on other forms of internet communication (aol instant messenger and icq, etc). hell, i remember when irc meant one of three things: dalnet, efnet, or undernet. "Time is simply a way you humans meausure your own decay!" -Thundercleese

Re:Is IRC going into a commercial future?

[SCHecklerX]

No,

Those of us sick of the crap simply start running our own servers. I used EFNet to hang out on a single channel. When everything started going to shit, and since I had cablemodem access (now DSL), I simply put up my own small server, and notified everyone where the channel's new home would be. Problem solved.

I really do miss the early days of IRC though. Before the 'net became flooded by the damned AOL kiddies. #flirt and #ircbar on EFNet were a riot. Oh well. We've lost this culture just as we've lost ascii art, since email clients all have HTML now. Usenet will be next, I fear. You even have people in the mozilla group posting shit with HTML. *sigh*

Re:Colorado has some issues...

[MaufTarkie]

This is exactly what we do at my University. We went with Packeteer and have never looked back. Before we limited p2p clients, they were utilizing 80-90% of our T1 pipe, and hardly anything else could get through. Now that they're limited, the students (and professors) don't complain that the network is slow all the time. Those that use p2p clients don't seem to mind -- they're still getting their warez and illegal music, just not as fast.

Some new IRC-like services that are available

[Cardhore]

There are some other services like IRC now that are secure and highly available, and have some features that usenet and irc don't have.

Freenet 0.4 is shaping up; expect the final 0.5 release shortly. Try downloading the newest nightly to get on. For those who aren't in the know, freenet is a peer-to-peer encrypted datastore. Each node shares part of that datastore, and freenet efficiently routes and stores data that you insert. Also it is anonymous as you can not easily tell who inserts data and who requests it

Now build on top of that is a program, Frost , that acts like Napster and a message board, a la Usenet. There are different message boards, and all messages are send & recieved anonymously.

Now both of these programs are in beta, but they do work, although large files tend to get lost in Freenet as of yet.

The final project is IIP, or Invisible Irc Project, available at http://www.invisiblenet.net/.

Also available there is a nifty program called "Psst" which allows for encrypted instant messaging. You can use it in conjunction with your normal IM program, and it's really easy to use and install.

One final note is that all of these program are cross-platform, open source, and binaries are available for windows & linux.

Disciple....Honestly

[Electrawn]

How many "clients" on EFNet are bots and how many are actual users.

I'd put money on the fact that the actual user count has gone way down since inception, EFNet is about 75% eggdrop bots holding channels or nick holders.

And 25% of those are probably Mark's bots.

Quantity never equalled quality. While EFNet may never die, Opers on EFNet need to wake up to some cold hard facts:

1) Channels have owners.
2) Nicks have owners.

When Opers maintain a policy of not getting involved in such disputes, parties involved will go to war to maintain control, turning EFNet servers into a battle ground.

Finally, as the servers start dying out and the leftist liberals running them can no longer maintain the anarchy of script kiddies, warez and kiddie porn, the only way to save the network is to run services that keep order.

Electrawn

Electrawn

Milestones

[bnitsua]

This has happened many times before.
irc.blackened.com went down for similar reasons.
It was the first IRC server to break 5,000 clients among other firsts.
At one point, the packeting got so bad the entire state of Arizona's bandwidth was effected (or something to that effect.)
For a good resource on EFNet history, I recommend
the EFnet history page at the-project.

Intefering ops, lame admins, DoSsers...hassle!

[Alioth]

I have the capability to run an IRC server if I really wanted. I enjoy using irc (#alt.fan.elite on Starchat), and I have met good friends through IRC (in real life, as in go out have a beer etc) but as for running a server, I've decided that I'd rather try skiing through a revolving door before I ever bothered running an IRC server.

Why? Firstly, the politics. IRC is supposed to be fun, but the politics amongst the routing teams, opers, network admins etc. is just lame. Half of the friggin' admins like to think they are God.

Secondly, running an IRC server is like painting a huge DDoS bullseye on your server. Normally, IRC doesn't take up /that/ much bandwidth. But one DDoS attack could easily put you into excess bandwidth charges - as well as knocking your server offline.

IRC is supposed to be fun but the combination of lame admins and lame lusers make it an unpleasant chore. So I'll stick to being a mere user in an out of the way channel that's mode +s.

As for Starchat, at least they've done some things to protect themselves from DDoS attacks - they've made it non-trivial to find out the actual names of all the servers and the way they are linked (/map etc. are disabled), IP addresses are masked so users won't get DDoSed, ChanServ and NickServ are implemented. StarChat's still relatively small so they aren't the big DDoS target the large networks are. But even with this network, there's more than enough lameness to go around.

Looking at the bigger networks - look at the application process for adding your server to DALnet. The process seems about as fun as an IRS tax audit. Half the time, the IRC networks are their own worst enemies. I think a lot of the problems with IRC could be solved if there was no such thing as ops (instead, server-side /ignore if a user was being a pain in the ass). In our channel, we solve it the other way - everyone gets ops. It runs remarkably smoothly that way.

Re:Intefering ops, lame admins, DoSsers...hassle!

[mpe]

Half the time, the IRC networks are their own worst enemies. I think a lot of the problems with IRC could be solved if there was no such thing as ops (instead, server-side /ignore if a user was being a pain in the ass).

IIRC some IRC networks do offer such an ignore. Also the original idea of channel ops was to stop the server admins being bothered by problem users. But you then end up with the very human problem that having channel ops is highly attractive to "jerks".

Re:What's the appeal of IRC?

[Glytch]

Ah, yes, because god knows ham radio fans are never full of themselves.

Re:Steve Gibson - help!

[CheeseMunkie]

People do maintain ircd. See the various recent vintages from:

• QuakeNet
• Undernet
• DALnet
• OpenProjects

As far as I know, IRCnet is the only major network that uses an ancient ircd, and I assume even that one gets updates occasionally. I don't know Hybrid's homepage offhand (that's EFnet's ircd), but I assume it also has some active development.

Re:Colorado has some issues...

[David Price]

Maybe they should take some of their $13.5 million Fiesta Bowl payout and buy a fatter pipe.

Wouldn't that be a lark - your IRC experience, sponsored by the Colorado Buffaloes football team.

Oldest IRC server

[jaywee]

Seems the poster doesn't know IRC history.
First IRC server on the world, has been obviously tolsun.oulu.fi. This server is *still* running as part of IRCnet (The other side of The Great Split).
Saying "Oldest server on EFnet going offline" is correct "oldest in world" isn't.
JV

Re:Colorado has some issues...

[Whelkman]

Or you could do what Rutgers University does and threaten students with nasty emails promising account revocation if you exceed 200 megabytes of traffic per day.

Re:Colorado has some issues...

[laserjet]

That would certainly help, but from my experience at universities, it seems that bandwidth expands to whatever your capacity is. Funny, I remember at my universiy we doubled the bandwidth coming in and out, and within several months we were back up to nearly 100% saturation. It never stops!

Re:Colorado has some issues...

[Upsilon]

200 megabytes?! I've done Debian updates that have taken up more than that...