Why Are Canadian Sympatico Users Being Banned On EFNet?

An anonymous reader asks: "After being away from IRC for over a year, changing ISPs and moving my physical self to another apartment, tonight I tried to get back on EFnet. With a brand new IP, and a brand new computer, I discovered that all over EFnet, all channels related to Linux are banning all Canadian Sympatico users, this includes high speed customers, dial up users, and business users. In fact, the ban is quite severe and bans the entire sympatico.ca domain. I've tried to message several operators in #linux, #linuxhelp, and #slackware, but nobody is responding. What's going on?"

Comments

Odds are

[leviramsey]

Somebody on Sympatico was being such an ass when a ChanOp had a bad day, managed to get a different IP, so anything from Sympatico was blocked.

Hmmm... banning subnets... where have we heard that before?

It's a protest...

[psyconaut]

The Canadian government has been working on a bill to make open source software illegal....only commercially sold and supported software will be legal as of June 1st 2003.

This all stems from the fact that the Canadian government has been in negotiations to sell British Columbia to Microsoft since 1999.

Re:It's a protest...

[psyconaut]

This was obviously humour....although there have been comments in the press before about Microsoft looking to buy B.C. ;-)

same thing from online.no

[bob@dB.org]

or at least it used to be. that covers quite a few hundred thousand norwegian uses as well (adsl, isdn and modem). i also tried messaging ops to find out what was going on, and never got a response. in the end i just figured; fuck it! do i really want to be on a channel with people willing to gag half a nation (online/telenor is the biggest norwegian isp) just to shut up a few noicemakers? my advice is to find yourself a channel with less braindead operators. shouldn't be hard :-)

Re:same thing from online.no

[arcade]

As a norwegian, and as chanop on efnet#norge, I know quite well how much noise a few idiot-users can generate. Wide bans are not that unusual.

*.no is getting banned from more and more channels on EFNet. That is not very strange, when you consider that online.no doesn't take IRC-abuse complaints very seriously. The same goes for many other norwegian ISP's.

As long as norwegian kiddiots act as they do, and the same goes for the canadian kiddiots, one cannot expect channel operators to take heed of one or two good seeds among the thousands of bad ones.

If you are that desperate to join a certain channel, buy yourself a server somewhere, or get a shell-account from a friend - so that you can bounce of that and onto the IRC-network of your choice. One moment though - make sure that friend of yours is a _Friend_ and not someone that allows everybody to get accounts on his box - or that IP is sure to be banned from several channels as soon as the first kiddie appears.

Oh, and "shut up a few noisemakers" .. are you aware of what amount of noise a "few noisemakers" can generate? And are you aware that EFNet just supports 25bans per channel? And that a single floodnet often is far more than 25 flood-klients?

Now, how would you solve that problem? Please, do explain, in detail.

Re:same thing from online.no

[bob@dB.org]

As long as norwegian kiddiots act as they do, and the same goes for the canadian kiddiots, one cannot expect channel operators to take heed of one or two good seeds among the thousands of bad ones.

It would seem that your definition of idiot is even broader then mine. Based on the above paragraph it seems you place about 99.9% of Internet users in this category. And you're a ChanOp on #norge? (for our international readers: norge is Norwegian for Norway).

If you are that desperate to join a certain channel, buy yourself a server somewhere, or get a shell-account from a friend - so that you can bounce of that and onto the IRC-network of your choice. One moment though - make sure that friend of yours is a _Friend_ and not someone that allows everybody to get accounts on his box - or that IP is sure to be banned from several channels as soon as the first kiddie appears.

This is elitist crap. Not everyone has the possibility to get an account on another computer, not everyone has the opportunity to pick and choose their ISP. Me, i work in the industry, and would have no problems finding a host that would allow me access, but you're missing the point...

Oh, and "shut up a few noisemakers" .. are you aware of what amount of noise a "few noisemakers" can generate? And are you aware that EFNet just supports 25bans per channel? And that a single floodnet often is far more than 25 flood-klients?

I think a have a fairly good idea about how much noise a "few" noisemakers can generate, yes! My point is that this is (to me) a completely unacceptable approach for controlling noise. On my list of really bad ideas, it's right up there with reducing SPAM by blocking all mail from Korea and China.

Now, how would you solve that problem? Please, do explain, in detail.

I really don't care enough about this to apply by brain to that problem. All I was saying was that I'd rather not hang out on a channel where thinks that blocking ~70% of all Norwegians is an acceptable solution to the noise control problem.

Re:same thing from online.no

[arcade]

It would seem that your definition of idiot is even broader then mine. Based on the above paragraph it seems you place about 99.9% of Internet users in this category. And you're a ChanOp on #norge? (for our international readers: norge is Norwegian for Norway).

I did indeed generalize, and I did indeed make the problem larger than it is. But the main point stands. If you're running, say, #usa or whatever - and three out of four norwegians that join the channel acts like idiots. What is the natural thing to do? Ban the damn country - of course.

The same goes if 3 out of 4 users from one ISP acts like idiots.

Norway unfortunately have far too many 13-year-olds online on IRC, which does reflect negatively on us. Our country get banned from far too many channels. I fully understand and support those that ban us however.

Not everyone has the possibility to get an account on another computer, not everyone has the opportunity to pick and choose their ISP. Me, i work in the industry, and would have no problems finding a host that would allow me access, but you're missing the point...

IRC is a priviledge, not a right. If you're having problems getting onto IRC, its YOUR problem, nobody elses. Maybe its elitist, in my eyes - you don't have a _right_ to join any channel, any network, nor a _right_ to join any channel. Its a priviledge, and it may be revoked for whatever reason those that run the channel finds appropriate. Wheter YOU find it appropriate is quite irrelevant.

I think a have a fairly good idea about how much noise a "few" noisemakers can generate, yes! My point is that this is (to me) a completely unacceptable approach for controlling noise. On my list of really bad ideas, it's right up there with reducing SPAM by blocking all mail from Korea and China.

If I don't want to receive email from those countries, then I block them. Which I've done on several on my accounts. I wouldn't implement it on a mailserver-wide though.

Why would _I_ want to receive any mail from Korea or China? If people I know there want to send me email, they may ask me to give them a shellaccount on one of my machines, which they can send their mail from.

I really don't care enough about this to apply by brain to that problem. All I was saying was that I'd rather not hang out on a channel where thinks that blocking ~70% of all Norwegians is an acceptable solution to the noise control problem.

Don't do that then. I'm sure you won't be missed. You're getting irritated because you're blocked, but nobody else really cares about it. :-) too bad.

Re:same thing from online.no

[bob@dB.org]

IRC is a priviledge, not a right. If you're having problems getting onto IRC, its YOUR problem, nobody elses. Maybe its elitist, in my eyes - you don't have a _right_ to join any channel, any network, nor a _right_ to join any channel. Its a priviledge, and it may be revoked for whatever reason those that run the channel finds appropriate. Wheter YOU find it appropriate is quite irrelevant.

You are of course correct, but once again you completely missed my point. I don't mind if channel operators ban online.no or sympatico.ca. I don't mind if they ban all Norwegians or all Canadians. Hell, for all I care they can start banning black people and muslims. But in my view, this demonstrates a degree of narrowmindedness (and in the later examples even racism) that I don't accept. So it doesn't bother be that I'm banned on these channels. I'm quite sure I wouldn't enjoy the company in any forum where such criterion are used for excluding people. And this was what I was trying to get across in my original post. Never mind that you're not allowed into #linux, you can find much better company elsewhere...

Re:same thing from online.no

[LordNimon]

It would seem that your definition of idiot is even broader then mine. Based on the above paragraph it seems you place about 99.9% of Internet users in this category.

Yeah, that sounds about right to me.

Re:same thing from online.no

[karnal]

"If you are that desperate to join a certain channel, buy yourself a server somewhere, or get a shell-account from a friend - so that you can bounce of that and onto the IRC-network of your choice."

What? ....

I thought the whole point of getting access from an ISP was that you had access to the resources on the WWW. Now, I can understand the politics behind not wanting to have to continually ban a few, but suggesting someone out there might go find resources elsewhere just to use something most others could use without problem?

It's a double edged sword, I tell ya.....

Re:same thing from online.no

[Glytch]

You would rather give someone an account on your machine than let them send you an email.

With braindead security ideas like that, I sincerely hope you don't work for my ISP.

Re:same thing from online.no

[tchuladdiass]

As far as getting access elsewhere, are there any isp's out there that will sell you a tunneled static IP? For a reasonable price? That way, if you have limited choices in broadband, you could get around this type of issue, along with issues of your broadband provider blocking inbound ports. Then, it's just a matter of getting the tunnel set up over something like https, so that the tunnel can't be detected.

Re:same thing from online.no

[MrResistor]

I couldn't agree more, and in fact I've never installed an IRC client on any of my own machines for exactly that reason.

There's an additional benefit, though. Now that the elitist assholes and the complete idiots are segregating themselves onto "cooler" channels (IRC and IM, respectively), usenet is actually becoming useful again.

Solicits a question...

[3-State Bit]

This brings up an interesting question, which is whether I can help out a friend by routing her IRC traffic or his for her/him, if I have a large server up a lot. I'm not sure I would do it open-to-the-public, but as something for a friend, why not?

2) Anyone who gets posted to slashdot and hangs out on IRC probably has enough techie friends that one of them would be willing to host such a service.

So, a better ask-slashdot might be:
How do I route around draconian ban-by-subnet IRC policies?

Philosophers ask WHY. Engineers ask HOW.

Re:Solicits a question...

[psavo]

Ever heard about SSH tunneling?
IMO screen + bitchx is a much better solution.

Canada is infamous for its script-kiddies.

[arcade]

Canada is infamous for its scriptkiddies. As long as its impossible to positively ID a particular person due to IP-jumping, ident-changing and so forth, the only solution is to set an ISP-wide or country-wide ban.

Blame it on the kiddies. If it gets too noisy due to a single country/ISP, then the only logical solution is to ban that country/ISP.

In addition, EFNet#linux and other EFNet channels are infamous for beeing non-friendly and not very helpfull. You would do much better using Openprojectsnet or whatever its named right now. Much more friendly.

Re:Canada is infamous for its script-kiddies.

[arcade]

Killing protesters kinda works for china, too. It is shocking to see how easily people fall back to uncivilized measures when their comfort might be reduced by the smallest amount ("People didn't understand the system"). Banning 99.9% innocent users is not a solution to a 0.1% problem, unless you desire a segregated net.

Not a good example from your side. Killing people is quite different from refusing someone access.

Why doesn't the US let anyone that wants enter their country? Isn't that _unfair_?

Why doesn't Canada let anyone that wants enter their country? Isn't that _unfair_?

Why doesn't Norway let anyone that wants enter their country (well, we almost do *sigh*)? Isn't that unfair?

And so forth.

No, its not unfair.

On IRC, on the internet - you can even start your own irc-server, or your own irc-channel, if you do not like the alternatives you have, or you're denied access to other peoples resources.

booohooo, i feel SO sorry for those that are refused. Booohoooo.

Re:Canada is infamous for its script-kiddies.

[bob@dB.org]

Why doesn't the US let anyone that wants enter their country? Isn't that _unfair_?

does the us deny entry for *all* norwegian just because *some* of us are idiots?

Why doesn't Canada let anyone that wants enter their country? Isn't that _unfair_?

does canada deny entry for *all* norwegian just because *some* of us are idiots?

Why doesn't Norway let anyone that wants enter their country (well, we almost do *sigh*)? Isn't that unfair?

does norway deny entry for *all* americans just because *some* of them are idiots?

i could go on, but i think most people see where i'm going.

based on your comments on this story, i used to think you probably just a bit immature. reading the comment above i now see that you're just plain stupid!

Re:Canada is infamous for its script-kiddies.

[arcade]

based on your comments on this story, i used to think you probably just a bit immature. reading the comment above i now see that you're just plain stupid!


Actually, you're just not well educated about the issue at hand.

You didn't even read the post you answered to. I didn't claim that the US denies entry to all norwegians. However, they are quite strict against certain other nationalities. Of course, there are exceptions - but EFNet supported +e (exception) a while ago. Not sure if they do it anymore though.

Re:Canada is infamous for its script-kiddies.

[WEFUNK]

How long has this reputation existed? I'd be interested to know if it's related to the high penetration of broadband in Canada (primarily Sympatico DSL and Rogers cable). If so, it's more than just disappointing that entire countries are being penalized for adopting high speed access and we should expect to see more of this (both script kiddie problems and overzealous blocking) as broadband is more widely adopted.

I suppose problems like this contribute to the growing list of ISP policies and practice against power users, static IP addresses, domain hosting, bandwidth limits, etc. To protect networks from being abused and banned, might we expect to see even stricter ISP controls (and decreased privacy) in the future, such as expanding the current lack of support for Linux to actually banning the use of Linux and other unsupported systems?

Re:Canada is infamous for its script-kiddies.

[j-turkey]

How long has this reputation existed? I'd be interested to know if it's related to the high penetration of broadband in Canada (primarily Sympatico DSL and Rogers cable). If so, it's more than just disappointing that entire countries are being penalized for adopting high speed access and we should expect to see more of this (both script kiddie problems and overzealous blocking) as broadband is more widely adopted.

I've never heard of this reputation -- but sympatico.ca was one of the first domains that I've ever summarily banned from any network.

I've detected repeated hack attempts and port scans coming from sympatico.ca. After sending abuse reports via email to sympatico and receiving no response, I just decided that I'd be beter off not allowing any traffic from sympatico.

Is it fair? no...but what's the alternative?

--Turkey

*sigh* It's called a bouncer

[DrSkwid]

http://mind.riot.org/muh/

IRC Politics

[Komarosu]

Channel politics are flakey at the best of time, all it takes is some idiot in a country to say summat wrong to a chanop and there banned. Another widespred ban on few networks is *.aol.com, as people on technical channels dont belive that "technology wise" people could possibly use AOL. It's these generalisations that end up with domain bans due to a few users spoiling it for the rest.

As for banning ISPs, all it takes is a few "scriptkiddies" to come onto a technical channel with there MP3 scripts and l33tsp34k to annoy a few ChanOps and boom...perma-ban

For further note, i am a Chanop on various channels on the HashNet network, and yes people do get domain banned for stupid reasons. Maybe this will just give you more of a insight.

The biggest offenders: .ro, .ca, .no and .mx

[pvera]

Don't just blame draconian ops, it is more of an act of desperation. In undernet we take so much crap from kiddies that 99% of the time happen to be coming from .ro, simpatico.ca (its so bad we call them simpaticrap, go figure), .no and .mx . I have personally banned .mx and .ro temporarily a few times from #asp on undernet because once a kiddie puts his/her mind into making you miserable it will take minutes to max out the ban list. Only reason we cannot ban .no and .ca is that too many innocent people will get hit.

Same on DALnet

[iamplasma]

I'm not a sympatico user, I'm a DALnet user and channel operator instead. While I've never set such a broad ban myself, I know of many channels which have banned sympatico. Apparrently there was an extremely major spammer on sympatico, who kept jumping IPs, simply to the point that operators were forced to ban the entire domain.

So there is a reason for it, though I do agree it is a bit severe.

here we go politics

[jjshoe]

to start with, #linux is a completely different channel then #linuxhelp by far. you can NOT get in to #linux without ident while you can get in linuxhelp assuming you dont meet one of the following trojan stopping bans.

*!~*1@*.*

*!~*2@*.*

*!~*3@*.*

*!~*4@*.*

*!~*5@*.*

*!~*6@*.*

*!~*7@*.*

*!~*8@*.*

*!~*9@*.*

these bans are to stop a set of what looks like some type of automated scripts finding trojan'd and wingate type machines to join the channel and spew two lines off garbage and part.

.no is not ban in linuxhelp no matter how badly i wish it was. EVERYONE i have delt with .no speaks very bad english and throws a fit if you say they need to re-word something. if they have a problem they want you to hold their hand through the entire problem (MOST other people want their hand held, but ALL the .no want their hand held) and when you tell them you wont they throw a giant fit.

optonline.net is the only massive ban enforced in #linuxhelp due to constant trollage.

Change ISPs.

[Guspaz]

People might say it's not that easy, but it really is. There are several ISPs that operate EVERYWHERE that Sympatico does, and offers their services at a SUBSTANTIALLY lower cost. I switched over to iStop (http://www.istop.com) a few months ago, and I'm loving it.

I suggest you inquire in the newsgroup can.internet.highspeed about a good ISP in your area, I'm sure Bob Carrick will point you towards his excellent ISP website.

If you're wondering why iStop doesn't offer 3.5mbit residential atm, it's because Bell raised the price for all new lines, and iStop decided they'd rather stop offering the service for new customers than charge old customers way less than what they charge new customers. Ralph Doncaster, owner of iStop, has said that he fully expects Bell Nexxia to once again offer the lower prices for 3.5mbit lines, so he'll be able to offer it again in the future.

Re:Probably because the ISP is lazy...

[schon]

I'd imagine that if, when you called, you asked them to take stronger actions against those who do damage to the symaptico.ca name, their representative would say: "Huh? What's IRC? Have you plugged your modem in, sir?"

Yes, and if the IRCOps got a similar response, then that's why the block is in place.

If an ISP isn't willing to take action to curb malicious use by it's customers, it deserves to be blocked.

Disclaimer: I work for a small ISP in Canada, and have dealt with this sort of thing before (although with email, not IRC.)

*sigh* tell me about it.

[Second_Derivative]

This isn't just a problem in IRC channels, on messageboards you'll often get a few trolls hell bent on crap flooding the forums (wait... this is Slashdot why am I saying something that's gotta be freaking obvious. Achem)

Anyways, what I certainly think might be nice is to have an RBL-like system somewhere that scans for open proxies and automatically blacklists them. When your server recieves a connection, it just sticks .rbl.openproxy-rbl.org or whatever on the end of the IP and sees if there's a response. If there is it drops the connection like it's carrying the plague (or Code Red as the case might be). Simple, and easy to cache seeing as you can just have a local BIND running to cache results for hosts who commonly connect.

Re:*sigh* tell me about it.

[MonMotha]

Many EFNet IRC servers (though not all) already scan for open proxies (checking tcp ports 23, 8080, etc). However, not all do, and invariably you end up with a huge crapflood net on a single server (as was running around on EFNet a while back when they set their new max usercount record).

Unfortunately, there's not really much you can do about this. Some channels have bots that scan for open proxies when you join, but generally by the time this scan is complete the spam/crapflood has already taken place.

Also, not all of these are open proxies. You'd be amazed how many compromised windows hosts there are out there (what with code red 2 leaving cmd.exe laying around and all) that end up running proxies on oddball ports or even specially made IRC crapflood drones. Again, not much you can do about this (other than bitch out the sysadmin at the other end, who if they haven't noticed and corrected the situation by now probably doesn't care).

Official Response from #linux

[raduga]

*** poptix is poptix@techmonkeys.org (· Matthew S. Hallacy ·)
*** on channels: @#linux #icons_of_vanity
*** on irc via server irc.secsup.org (Insert Tagline )
> poptix: do you have an official response to the Slashdot story I can send them?
> speaking on behalf of efnet #linux operators?
<poptix> radtuna: sure 'Canada sucks'
<poptix> ;)

#linux policy

[Anonymous Coward]

As an operator in #linux on EFNet I feel I should chime in. We do not have a ban on *sympatico.ca, the only ban we have related to sympatico is Kitchener-HSE-ppp*.sympatico.ca. It is far more likely that you attempted to join on a system account or do not have identd working. A quick search on google will find our homepage with channel rules and howto's, including why we require identd and resources on installing it. And lets not forget that #linux is not a bunch of operators who are power happy. We volunteer our time to help people with linux. We help hundreds of people every day, and our "draconian" rules are what keep the channel flowing. It is not easy to work in a channel with 125 people doing whatever they want to do, so make sure that people follow some basic rules. If we see repeated abuse from an ISP our policy is to contact that ISP and work towards a resolution that does not require the banning of a large group of people. If we cannot work something out we will ban that ISP, however, usually a few weeks of getting banned from the channel on join will discourage the most pissed off kiddie, and when that ban is no longer in use it is removed. I would also like to state that most of the people I have heard complain about our policies are those that join the channel for a bit of handholding. If you join please remember that we are not paid to help you, and demands are not appreciated. We take special care not to ban out of hand, so if you are banned you did something wrong. http://www.efnetlinux.net/rules.html

Re:#linux policy

[mnmn]

The very method of banning people using their ip or domain is wrong. Ive been behind multiple domains that have been banned by various channels and irc servers because ONE person did something undesirable. In Pakistan, there is a government-run ISP that hosts hundereds of thousands of people behind ONE ip address. Dont expect anyone from Pakistan at least to be a part of your channel.

As a result of such banning practices, Ive quitted using IRC in the first place. Most of my discussions are through yahoo messenger, newsgroups and mailing lists. IRC's technology, or at least its operators' mindsets arent keeping up with the technology....

And please dont give me I'm not running an ident server. I tried various ident settings, fake and real, and even tried using a personally-registered domain.. but either they ban blocks of IP or reverse domain resolutions dont work for personal domains unless you fork out $600 per month for a business internet account. Go check out other channels related to linux and ask the people in there why they arent in your channel

You could try a proxy...

[pilot1]

If your using mIRC 6, you can go through a proxy to change your IP address, I know of a few proxys that Efnet, Dalnet and Quakenet don't detect. I'm not sure if Efnet and Dalnet allow it,Q uakenet doesn't allow it, but you can still do it. Here is one that Quakenet can detect, i'll give another one out to you if you email me, but if I gave it out publicly I doubt it'd be fast anymore. fll-vodsl61-cust204.mpowercom.net and use port 3128

Re:You've obviously never run an IRC channel...

[bob@dB.org]

i'm quite fed up with this thread. for some reason you refuse to understand that i don't give a fuck about your bans. all i was trying to do was point out a silver lining for the person posing the original question.

that beeing said, your signature (below) sums up my feelings about these wide bans quite nicely.

-- -Merrow "For every action, there is an unequal and opposite overreaction."

Try a bit of elbow grease, so to speak

[Dark Nexus]

Baning an entire domain is the lazy way out.

A lazy but otherwise good Op is almost as bad as a regular bad Op.

Broadband Relays

[Nishi-no-wan]

- I'd be interested to know if it's related to the high penetration of broadband in Canada (primarily Sympatico DSL and Rogers cable).

I think that the rise in 24 hour connected broadband access by the masses has given rise to 24 hour connected relays that script kiddies from other countries may utilize.

Judging by the large number of formmail.pl attempts that my servers get, QWest (aka USWest) gets my vote for most (infectiously) deployed proxy servers out there. .cn domains (of course they might not be remote controlled) come next, then South America, and finally Canada.

I have noticed that the spammers are trying harder to stay under the radar more lately. A few months ago, the hosts they infected with their relay software would spam thousands of targets a day. Now they seem to distriute the load a bit more, returning after a few days to a week to try to not look so obviously infected.

Re:You don't act like it

[willfe]

This "solution" (banning a whole ISP/country) surely seems like cutting one's nose off to spite one's face. You don't see Best Buy closing its doors because one in every hundred people walking in off the street are there to shoplift. I know that's not a perfect analogy, but c'mon, we're bombing a country to stop a few (defined as over EFnet's apparently limit of 25 and fewer than what you'd need to make that ratio 3 of every 4 visiting Norwegian being abusive work for you) noisemakers.

I was stunned when I read the real technical reason why abusers can't just be banned -- twenty five bans per channel is all you get? Something needs to change on the technical side, then, not on the "whiny lamers who complain that they can't get onto channel #xyz because a few people from their domain/country pissed us off once" side.

I completely recognize the challenges faced by the average IRC channel. IRC is, by design, a public interface, so keeping out someone who's determined to get in is difficult. I understand that banning thousands or tens of thousands of users/IPs/whatevers can be cumbersome for the humans involved and painful for the machines who have to parse the lists whenever someone wants in, but please, 25 bans and you're done?

Why can't the EFnet IRC daemons automatically ban just the IP address where massive floods come from (massive meaning more than a few hundred lines -- you shouldn't be punished for accidentally pasting the output from "select * from user;" apart from the brutal tongue lashings from your fellowes :)? Or even a subnet? More importantly, even if nothing else could be changed about EFnet's software, why oh why can't people be "whitelisted" back in?

This kind of thing probably wouldn't annoy people so much if they'd at least get a response from a channel operator or an explanation from the server itself. To simply ignore someone from a specific domain, specifically inquiring (in a polite fashion) about gaining access to your channel, is rude and infuriating. I know, for every ten "polite inquiries" you receive, nine of them are probably from l33t skript kiddi3z trying to smooch their way back in to make your life hell, but such is the way of the IRC channel operator's life.

I've dealt with my share of nuisances, but then again I've never run into a cap on the number of bans I can apply either (admittedly, I don't use EFnet, so it could just be a difference in IRC daemon software or something). It's a bitch, but that's what I get for donning the cap of a channel op.

I don't mean to insult or offend, here; I'm just seriously trying to offer insight into why people get so damned angry about stuff like this. I probably wouldn't get too irritated if I were suddenly banned as the result of a mass-ban. I'd probably try to get in contact with somebody who might be able/willing to help, engage them in conversation if they're willing to talk, and go away if they're not. I know it's hard for both sides -- hell, I bet the abusive ones are annoyed too (*grin*) -- but the whole IRC thing would probably work a bit more smoothly if people weren't always so eager to switch into Complete and Utter Bastard(tm) mode.