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DALnet For Chatting, Not File Sharing
PFAK writes "DALnet IRC Network, formerly the world's largest IRC Network has announced that the IRC network has implemented a new "policy" that will phrohibit "Using a channel for the primary purpose of facilitating the transfer of files", as of March 1st, 2003. This will be another staggering blow for the formerly largest IRC network in the world, this comes after one of the many suprises on DALnet, such as the recent DDoS attacks against the network."
Then what's the point?
I thought it was for idling and sitting in DCC queues? What are these "chat" channels you speak of?
What do you mean, this will be another staggering blow? They're improving their service. IRC is for chat. I don't see how sending away warez kiddies damages their network, let alone how it deals them a "staggering blow".
I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
someone's too used to typing "ph33r" on DALnet...
As long as they leave #xxxpassworld up thats fine with me!
IRC sucks for file sharing anyway, so why would it be a blow to the network if they restricted it?
I fail to see the problem!
Free your mind!
It does not matter anyway cause any file server worth going on left dalnet a long time ago and they ain't coming back.
I don't know how you got +1 Insightful: they got DDoS'd before they restricted file trading. The log as to what happened right before the DDoS started is here.
Since when does anyone has the "right" on filesharing over IRC??
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
Well, if there was no point, why would the (arguably) largest IRC network have a very strict anti-warez rules? That's Quakenet, by the way - and yes, it is my choice of IRC network.
Clearly there is a demand for a warez-free (OK, no specific file transfer channel) network. And yes, I've just continued the trend and said "Don't worry, the IRC network I use rocks, even if Dalnet sucks!" ;)
Why is the word "policy" in quotation marks here? I assume these are supposed to be "sarcastic quotation marks", as in
or
or
But in this case, I don't see why you would sarcastically call the new rules a "policy". They are a policy.
(Oh, that's on top of misspelling "prohibit". Nice work, dude.)
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
As a former DALnet operator / administrator and a rather long time user I can say that DALnet is simply continuing to shoot at an already bloody and bullet-riddled foot.
Way back in the day there was a lot of talk about banning child pornography (which is something that everyone can actually agree is morally wrong, as well as illegal). It was decided not to, on what I think was good advice, because the second you become a moderator of content you open yourself up to legal trouble if you fail to properly moderate that content.
Now some might say that DALnet isn't actually moderating any content, because it's worded in such a way that it simply disallows the channels. However, to disallow these channels DALnet must explicitly moderate content. It must find this 'abusive' content and put an end to it, thereby making it a moderator.
It is, in fact, the official position of DALnet staff (or so I hear) that this is the belief on the network. That the way this clause in their AUP is written prevents them from being considered a moderator. I think this is a big mistake on their part, and will ultimately come back to haunt them.
That said, DALnet has a long history of being utterly incapable of enforcing their own policies, and this is just one more of them that will probably not ever see any real enforcement. For example, DALnet was (when people could get on it) the haven of mass advertising, not to mention a breeding ground for drones and IRC worms. Despite some futile attempts to stop these activities, DALnet has been basically completely incapable of doing any serious work on these fronts.
To add to this, DALnet and its sponsors have been beleaguered by kiddies with a massive array of DDoS weaponry. They have utterly failed to address the issues which have, in large part, led to their current troubles. The main issue is that DALnet harbors a group of extremely absuive operators who basically take enjoyment out of pissing off the kiddies because they feel "invulnerable." Instead of actually just removing these destructive individuals, DALnet has kept them on and "told them not to do it anymore." Basically tantamount to saying "we don't care, keep DDoSing us."
I don't think that the few people left on DALnet right now need to worry too much about this policy, it won't likely be enforced much, if at all.
you can take the road that takes you to the stars...
I'm a little confused by this step. Do they really think file sharing has anything to do with the DDoS attacks? Just who do they think DDoS-ed them all the time. My guess it's the kiddies that love file-sharing.
I'm not saying you should facilitate them but by pissing 'm off there's no way the DDoS attacks will stop. Ignoring just might be the way to go. But then again, that's just my 2 cents
/(bb|[^b]{2})/
These *illegal file sharing* channels to suddenly start saying they are Trivia channels, that just happen to share files secondary....
Because god knows every channel on Dalnet seems to have some lamo trivia bot or three....
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
Well good on them. This is one small step in right direction. Now all they have to do is figure out a way to prevent all that unregulated "chat" sharing and rampant free exchange of "information" and the internet will, once again, be free for democracy and automatic shopping by net "enabled" refrigerators.
KFG
Seriously, since when did DCCs impair or otherwise affect the normal operation of Dalnet? They don't run over the "dalnet", but apart from a few simple negotiation messages it runs completely separate of it. That D in DCC stands for Direct, you know.
And unlike Napster/KaZaA, IRC does not come with built-in search, a good file server, minimum shared, quotas or "ranking" of contribution. Nothing that should bring them at legal risk unless paper manufacturers gets sued for what you can write on the paper.
Also, will this mean that OPs will start logging DCCs and crossreference with the channels you're on to determine if a channel is being used to transfer files? Or is this some "Uh, yeah if we see 'em" policy? Because the first would be a rather big invasion of privacy, the second would simply lead to more hidden channels...
But I suppose everyone that cared about chatting has found a more stable home than Dalnet in the last month or two anyway (we did), why not scare off the file traders (that usually only care about making their sends/gets connected) too...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Everyone is starting to use bit torrent anyways. Sure, a lot of it goes on in irc, but also on websites, instant message etc.
"Computer games don't affect kids; I mean if Pac-Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms,
Well most of the warez channels have left the network anyway. I guess they decided to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce this policy, without being faced with thousands of existing channels to shut down. Although it does seem a little weird for a network that has lost 100000 users in the past year to start kicking channels off the network.
the servers on dalnet used to have a little message in their motd's about irc being an "unmoderated medium". apparently, this is no longer the case.
i can only speculate about why this policy is being enacted, but as far as the result, wd had it pegged. they're shooting themselves in the foot. if it's enforced at all, a good chunk of the users that stuck around despite the recent attacks will abandon it without a moments hesitation.
as well, this will undoubtedly upset someone with the means to launch an attack equivalent to the attacks they suffered recently.
this is a bad idea, and they know it.
as a side note, support for this policy on the (moderated) mailing list is overwhelming!
But the RIAA hasn't exactly taken the moral high ground in the file sharing wars. Did anybody consider that perhaps it was the RIAA or somebody hired by them to conduct the attacks on DALnet? I used to log in to DALnet when I could, and checked out one of the mp3 rooms and I could see where the RIAA would want to put a stop to them.
Man! The more I read stuff like this the more I long for a society where information can be free.
Just think where we would've been today if we were allowed access to all and any information. Well, it would probably be overrun by porn and spam.. Nevermind.
Anyhoo.. I don't chat on Kazaa and I don't download on Dalnet.
"I used to have that really cool,funny sig
Seriously, when was the last time you saw a "Public domain graphics" channel or "0-Day Open Source Trading". If I do a channel list to find interesting channels, I really don't want to have my list filled up with warez crap channels.
So use openprojects.net...always fun techie people to chew the fat with.
I suppose there is one reasonable assumption -- most of the DDoSes that go on are likely warez-channel related, so perhaps it'll reduce warfare on DALnet...
May we never see th
Give me your lagged, your bored, Your huddled masses yearning to leech free, The wretched refuse of your teeming network.
BTW: Not a troll, I enjoy DALnet too...
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
The people running it decide to enforce a policy against channels designed exclusively for file trading -- chat channels not being used for chat.
Because someone has once again made it a little harder for people to steal software and music and exchange pornography (much of it going to under 18 year old children) these people are threatening to leave an entirely free network?
DALnet is provided as a free service to thousands using not-free bandwidth and servers and other resources of those that run and support it. "If you don't like it, go somewhere else" seems appropriate to say here.
Where is the legitimate complaint? They won't shut you down if you do a few exchanges of files (even if those files or that activity might be considered illegal by some). They are only shutting down channels that spew files and are not for the purposes of the network they built and offer. DALnet never claimed to be a file trading network and now they intend to lightly enforce their use policy. How is that unfair to the unpaying, leeching hordes complaining now?
Sounds to me like Napster whiners. Sounds to me what Kazaa users will be whinning about when it too is shut down.
Now... imagine; what if the usenet stopped allowing binary posts (ignore the technical aspect for a moment, assume it became a "policy" somehow). Ooohh.. I can hear the kiddies crying out as if a trillion posts were suddenly canceled.
DALNet has been heading down the tubes for so long now, the in-fighting amongst the server admins has become the stuff of internet legends, can't say I'm surprised or even worried. DALNet compared to other well run IRC nets, really is the pits, so many spammers and kiddies wasting everyone's time. Perhaps once those kiddies get onto other more strict networks, they will finally get slapped down and kept under control.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
"I kill you! You no good 56'ing!"
'warez speak' very much predates the likes of AOL, although its forms have varied over the years. However, it was not uncommon in the bbs days (and particularly in the warez/hpac scene) to see people typing things like 'l8rz', 'm8', etc. I also well remember programs which would cHaNgE yOur tYpInG To LooK LiKE ThiS. Then as now, the more discerning users frowned upon such practices and preferred to type 'normally', though a few of the abbreviations did enter into the common vocabulary.
I see this as a huge breath of fresh air, after having to inhale the fumes of chain-smoking file-sharing 31337 script kiddies who clog the network with absurd questions about how to lock down their channel from other "haxors", so they can share the latest Britney and UT patch file.
;)
Biased? Just a little peeved?
You better believe it.
I spent 6 years as an administrator on Dalnet, in the #1 help channel, often spending as much as 8-10 hours at a stretch JUST TYPING.
I have helped literally thousands of anonymous (nicknamed) people come and go about Dalnet, from 1994 - 2000, and have watched with sickening disdain how polluted it got over time.
It was bad enough to have the hordes of AOL users find Dalnet when they first got on the "real" internet, but these days, it's chock full of kids who have NO IDEA how online communities -should- behave.
Those that used BBS's in the day (anything after 1992 don't even bother posting.) will remember what I mean about netiquette and online communities.
I stand up, and applaud DalNet for taking this action. It's about time the filth that has clogged a valuable service has been flushed out of the system.
And I know you're curious as to what nickname I used on DalNet.
I am Duranos. I was one of the original help crew who volunteered their time in setting up #irchelp on Dalnet, still miss quite a few people to this day. I still check in from time to time, but have moved onto other avenues of internet life.
Flame away slashbots.
user@host$ diff
DALnet has operators and admins that just dont care.
/.
Lets go back in history some.
Everyone knows that there are some DALnet admins that were also packet kiddies.
these admins basically tell the existing kiddies "you are free to do what you want, just dont attack my server"
meanwhile, dalnet holds the largest kiddie population and they dont do anything about it.
a network that I have a server on was attacked by these same kiddies. naturally, I find them on DALnet staging attacks.
I have told the admins, opers and the EB of DALnet about this.
I just get ignored or in some cases, killed.
they dont want to hear it.
a lot of the opers and admins have 'made deals with the devil'
I am labeled as a threatening user because I hate packet kiddies.
NOW, as far as the trading if files, that will never stop.
what are they going to do about it?
they cant possibly close all of those channels
or stop all of those people from doing it.
looks like another DCC restriction.
if you are looking for a network to put a server, dont even think about DALnet.
I can get into many, many things but this would turn into a flame war.
if you want to know more contact me off
I can fill your inbox with logs, and incriminating information.
such as, admins that ARE packet kiddies.
and I will leave it at that.
http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/
users channels
1. EFnet 115877 42693
2. QuakeNet 112496 134879
3. IRCnet 110942 54206
4. Undernet 99825 43173
you may notice that for example, quakenet is just full of cr**(more channels than users, meaning theres just shitloads of channels with one person)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Now even more DALNet refugees will be joining my favorite EFNet and Undernet channels. As if it wasn't bad enough before with the once every five minutes (and usually repeating over and over in bold or colored text until answered) "What happened to DALNEt???" questions.
DALNet has always been the lowest on the IRC evolutionary totem pole, with all kinds of goofy restrictions on people, that's of course "for their own protection." Even before this you couldn't actually receive a file by DCC without first registering your nick, a process that was too long for me to bother with in the first place. Oh, and don't let me forget the asinine regulation added recently where only clients using identd may connect. Come on, please, what purpose does identd actually serve in 2003?
And if nickserv doesn't annoy you to all hell, the five hundred msgs from users of Turkish IRC scripts probably will. Literally, I've left my IRC client on DALNet idling for a little while and have come back with about 20 spam messages. And if you can somehow manage to bear the spam, you'll probably end up being annoyed by the other 50 morons trying to DCC you viruses, that, of course only affect Windows users.
Can someone explain to me what banning file-sharing channels over IRC actually does to make its quality any better? I seriously don't see the warez kiddies being the perpetrators of DOS attacks, that is until now. Warez on IRC isn't going to go away because of this regulation, it's only going to change form. Instead of offer bots you'll have individuals advertising their Hotline or Directconnect servers; I've already seen this on a certain unnamed Undernet warez channel.
People are talking about DALNet sucking now? It's sucked as long as I can remember. It's almost a perfect example of what happens when a government thinks improving life and security only occurs by creating more and more regulations (instead of changing the people themselves). What you end up having is a huge group of disenfranchised people who end up attacking you.
DALNet admins: can you make a splinter network especially for those people kicked off of DALNet, just so they don't fill up my queues on EFNet. Also, when I'm looking for movies to download I'd prefer to be able to actually read the offer bots, so can you inform your users that not everyone on IRC can view mIRC colors? Thanks, love you baby.
Oh, and if I offended any DALNet users out there, please try to resist the urge to begin your reply with "m/Turkish/25 ASL!!?!!???"
What does this have to do with "YOUR" Rights Online? It's THEIR network. I think this would have to do with DALnet's rights online.
/kill'ed with a 10 minute ban against relogging in), and banish any clients that automatically respond to anything.
I'm sure that DCC bots generate quite a bit of useless junk traffic on their network.. that sort of thing didn't exist when I was big time into IRC development.. in fact, DCC was a brand new capability, and didn't include file transfers at that point.
I was against even having the clients having the ability to script responses to certain things. Unfortunatly, people went through with it.
Next, they should make an idle time-out (anyone idle more than an hour gets
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Who is going to police this and how, its pretty hard to tell if a person is talking, transferring or a bot..
.. sort of hard to track, and sort of hard to complain..
Transferrs are done via DCC and dont even go thru their servers its direct client to client
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sure they have a right to do what they want with THEIR network.. They can censor it if they want, even though that does get into a sticky legal issue. Once you start, you are libel for content under your control.
Personally I think its a moral mistake to enforce their beliefs on others when they offer a free service, but that is their choice.
But you sir are an ass for your attitude toward people that do things other then simple chat.
Not all 'transfers' are illegal in all parts of the global network. If they are in your area, then consult your legislature, that's not my problem.
People that do use IRC for transfers don't leech any bandwidth, the key component to DCC is *DIRECT*, it does NOT load the IRC network at all. In reality they use LESS resources then a 8 hour a day 'chatter'.
Whiners? Not really, just people that would like to keep what they have now, ( or expand features )if you don't speak out you loose it, regardless of the topic.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sorry - I don't see how this is a 'moderation'
To me moderation in the technical sense means one of two things.
1) Messages are reviewed by a moderating team before being publicly posted such as mailing lists
2) Messages are freely posted but a moderating team montiors them and removes ones that do not abide by the terms of use.
Since when did restricting what services your users can use become 'moderation'?
DALnet is still an unmoderated medium for CHAT - you can say what you like, organise a bank heist, tell all your l33t friends about the latest hijacked webserver your using to serve your warez. Nothing in this policy implies any moderation of speech.
I can speculate why they are enforcing this policy. When you run a community service where time, money, resources and effort are donnated by a large number of people for a certain purpose and a large number of the users use it for an entirely differnet purpose, costing you a lot of resources, and then also attack the service so that user you want to support can't use it, I guess I personally would be a little pissed.
The users they want are the users that want the services DALnet was originally designed for.
Do you think losing lots of hangers on is really going to worry them - every user on the system costs some supporter of DALnet money somewhere, its not like a membership site where they get revenue. Explain to me if I run a DALnet server why exactly I should be worried about losing users that use my box to swap warez, p0rn or coordinate a Sub7 attack on another machine?
When I find my webserver compromised and used as a warez server, are you saying I shouldn't lock it down because this will " undoubtedly upset someone with the means to launch an attack equivalent to the attacks {I} suffered recently"??
DALNet is a free service, they are not required to provide YOU with what YOU want, they are not a government aganecy or a paid membership site. YOU have a choice of IRC servers, and if you don't like any of them go ahead and set your own up.
I used to love to chat. On my 2 node BBS back in '92 to around '96 I used to frequently get paged by a few of the regular users just to shoot the breese.
I never liked IRC from the moment I first tried it. Happen to get into an argument with someone who is buddy-buddy with the admins in a channel? Wham, bam... banned. If you can play by the rules and not upset anyone (or you're lucky enough to be in a channel that actually has some mature admins), you'll probably enjoy IRC.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Excellent points. I too am an avid fan of underground electronic music as well as a bedroom DJ. Having collected records since 97, I can tell you that its hard enough to find these tracks on press, and once their gone its usually years before someone represses the tune again, if ever. The chance of it coming out on CD is virutally Nil, so that leaves only one other avenue to aquire the music: File Sharing.
..
I've got hundreds of tracks in my bin that were regional to the area that I lived at the time (Florida) and outside of the southeast, probably have never been heard. Just for fun, during the height of napster and AG popularity I would plug in various names of groups and producers that I'd like and I'd maybe get a handful of hits , say 5 or so for even big run stuff on vinyl.. Now, with Soulseek I don't get anything..
IRC was kind of a saving grace in a way once AG disappeared. I could turn to there and get the tracks that I wanted (most of them at least) and even better, I could download the stuff that i REALLY wanted to get, even moreso than individual tracks: Live sets.. THAT was the true benefit, being able to hear your favorite DJ's throw down live
This is a big blow to electronic music..hopefully Efnet won't follow suit . .
Could somone explain to me why the warez kiddies are (were) on DALnet in the first place after all this time?
... you had to wait in line for hours to get a DCC "slot", and when you did, the server usually transferred to you at 56k modem speed.
... "bring the files to the masses!" ... But now that there are clearly more efficient ways to move the bits around, it seems like a relic.
IIRC, the last time I checked out a DCC channel, it seemed like the most inefficient and slowest possible way to transfer files amongst people
Hasn't Kazaa/eMule/Overnet/etc. made the whole IRC file-sharing thing completely depreciated? I mean, sure, back when the only way to get warez was to have access to a private FTP site or a BBS, the public warez movement on IRC made sense
Are we talking about kiddie porn, then? And if so, good riddence!
nlh
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
And for a variety of reasons. Other posts have mentioned the benefit you get in bandwidth from kicking out the MP3 hogs. But I also think there's another motivation for DALnet, one that will push other networks to follow suit.
Legal Action.
Surely, the RIAA knows about the abundance of MP3 and warez sites on IRC. They've gone after everyone else. It stands to reason that they'll come after IRC sooner or later. And like Napster, they have a central authority they can go to in order to take action.
This policy is a smart pre-emtptive move on DALnet's part.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
If you can't swap in a channel, then have them sign on to AIM, or MSN, etc...
Will is shut DALnet down? certainly not! I've learned more on IRC than I have in most of my computer classes. People will still use it, as long as there are dorm rooms.
thelikesofwhich.com
And it won't just be the warez kiddies leaving in droves. Their friends, friends of their friends, and people just looking for the 'popular' IRC network will find themselves somewhere other than DALnet.
Trying to get fuckers on IRC to switch networks is like pulling teeth. They act like you've asked them to switch blood type. A few people might leave, but people on IRC are so lazy, shiftless, and stupid in their network-loyalty that getting them to move would require tactical nuclear devices, not simply the removal of a few large fserv channels.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Why is this post under "YRO?"
Using DALnet (or any other IRC network) isn't a RIGHT. It's a privilege.
DALnet is simply saying, "This kind of behaviour is not what we want on our systems."
Now, if they can ever get out from under the DDoS attacks, we'll see if this makes a difference anywhere.
"Sometimes the truth is stupid." - Lawrence, creator of Prime Intellect
Seems to me someone with a few name morphic bots and access to some extensive chat logs, you could spoof this easily... ie scan a chat log establish a bot log on for the top 5-10 msg generating ID's in the log and then have them doll out the chat log along with the other 'occasional' msg's advertising FTP server access etc...
In fact someone could simply mimick the chat going on in several channles at once and make it semi-sensible if they bothered to figure out a conversation following algorythm.. but purely random would work too for the most part for anything but close scrutiny..
I don't ask you to be me. I only ask you not expect me to be you.
I think you are talking about this:
http://grc.com/dos/ grcdos.htm
"Obscenity is the crutch of the inarticulate motherfucker." - cloak42
Because of recent difficulties maintaining a connection to Dalnet, and because of the (understandable) wish for discretion on the part of Dalnet management, some of the assertions in this posting are unconfirmed and unsupported. This nonwithstanding, the following speculation is offered in the hope of illuminating to the best of my ability to percieve it, what's been really going on:
At about the middle of January this year, Dalnet servers were hit with a wave of massive DDoS attacks, quantified as greater than 1G per second per server with sweepingly damaging results.
There never were that many Dalnet login servers to begin with. The attack wave was successful in disabling all of them, and keeping them out of service entirely for over 7 days.
To complicate matters further, there have been credible reports on ircnews.com, irc-junkie.org and elsewhere of a certain degree of dissention within Dalnet, and the senior sysadmins and management of the companies providing server hosting. I mention this with reluctance, because the problem is bad enough anyway, but it is nevertheless true that the operational list of Dalnet servers available at this moment is quite different from the array online before the attack wave began, and that some of the defections are permanent, including some of the largest hubs.
Dalnet have commented officially on their website newsletter that the volume of DDoS garbage going into their hosts' servers was sufficient to not only knock Dalnet offline, but bad enough to interfere with the hosts' other (revenue earning) internet services.
At present also, login servers are resolving under slightly different names, making joining problematic for large numbers of users still, but as of last week at least, the expectation of a reasonably reliable login is plausible.
Dalnet is probably correct in having determined that their attackers method of acquiring zombies is by the use of worms, trojans.......use your favorite term - by sending files like XXXSallyXXX.GIF.vbs, or whatever, and that these OwN3d systems are the ones being enlisted to carry out DDoS waves.
They note with equal accuracy that a handful of filesharing channels are some of the most crowded on their network, and may be not carefully enough managed, and have hypothecated these as being most likely sources of widespread damage and infection, to several thousand users' systems, to Dalnet, other IRC networks and the internet overall.
The sociology of a filesharing channel is also a factor in this policy change. Where else in the world wide world would a user be so inclined to accept, click on and tinker with a file they acquired five minutes ago from an anonymous stranger with absolutely no verification? Windoze users are requested to NOT post lengthy replies babbling on and on about their firewalls. They're meaningless in this context. The file transferred and was run. Think about it.
All Dalnet have done, is announce they intend to shut down these channels. They had to do something.
Does this mean they're trying to ban filesharing via Dalnet alltogether? No. Even if the IRC protocol permitted this, which it doesn't, their response at server level is thought through and restrained in scope, and respected here accordingly.
Elsewhere on this thread it has been suggested that this decision is motivated by the desire to take away IRC users' freedom. I refute this with the comment that the freedom to unknowingly download a trojan to allow your billyware to be used in DDoS attacks is an unfortunate and unsuitable choice for a cause to defend in the name of liberty.
give me a
Sure they have a right to do what they want with THEIR network.. They can censor it if they want, even though that does get into a sticky legal issue. Once you start, you are libel for content under your control.
It's not censorship if the government doesn't do it, but your point is well made - if they decide they're going to crack down on illegal file traders, they become responsible for all illegal file traders. Thing is, they don't care if it's illegal or not, so I don't think that applies. You could be trading pictures of kittens, homemade kitten.mpg movies you made of your kitten playing with string, they'd still boot you off (sadly so).
Personally I think its a moral mistake to enforce their beliefs on others when they offer a free service, but that is their choice.
Your pronoun use is a little ambiguous, but I take this to mean that it's a moral mistake for Dalnet to enforce their beliefs on others when they (Dalnet) provide a free service, which doesn't make any sense, because, to be cliche, 'beggars can't be choosers' - if you want to use the network, use it for what it's provided to you for. Perhaps you meant something else, but who knows.
People that do use IRC for transfers don't leech any bandwidth, the key component to DCC is *DIRECT*, it does NOT load the IRC network at all. In reality they use LESS resources then a 8 hour a day 'chatter'.
Except that file sharing channels, if you've ever been to one, are always flooded with text. I find it hard to keep up personally, and I only go to the smaller ones. The larger ones are even worse. Combine that constant advertising of your fserve with the trivia bots, and send that to a dozen or a hundred or two hundred people (depending on the channel), and that's a lot of traffic, a lot of memory for the servers to store userdata for, a lot of bandwidth to share that user data around whenever a netsplit occurs (you can send gigs of traffic a day just syncing, since the new link has to carry data about half the users one way, and half the users another way, and then the two servers have to route it to every other server on the network).
Whiners? Not really, just people that would like to keep what they have now, ( or expand features )if you don't speak out you loose it, regardless of the topic.
Whiners? Definately. They don't pay for it. They don't contribute financially. They just use bandwidth and cpu time and memory of people who felt like being nice and linking servers to Dalnet to provide a service to people. You'd have to be a pretty big jerk to throw that in their face because they're not giving you enough for free. Take the service as it is given, or don't take it at all, but no one is 'entitled' to anything on Dalnet any more than they are entitled to anything in my home. It's a private domain, not a public one, and that's all there is to it.
--Dan
Disclaimer: I opered on an IRC network once, and got a little bitter about people demanding that I fix what was 'wrong' with the network, or insisting they had 'a right to free speech'. IRC networks are private property, you're not entitled to anything, and you have no rights.
Unfortunately you don't understand the technical aspects of what it takes to run filesharing channels.
1) each person logged into the room takes up bandwidth on the irc server.
2) Each broadcast to the channel saying "I'm a fileswapper trade with me" requires bandwidth.
3) Now multiply this many times due to the fact that the "person" logged in is actually a bot thats designed to do all of this automatically and can keep doing this indefinitely for weeks.
A single person chatting does not take up as much bandwidth as a bot being a bot, but a bot that is on 24/7 saying the same thing over and over takes up more daily bandwidth than all but the most hardened IRC chatters.
Some irc servers actively drop people who "idle" on channels all day as well so that they don't waste bandwidth even though they don't want to be disconnected.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
The mark of a good troll is that you can't tell if it's really a troll. With that in mind: How do you think a DCC connection is negotiated? By telepathy? A DCC request is a private CTCP, which is encoded as a private message. DCC, by definition, does use the server.
"We didn't deal crack out of your house; we just met here several times a day to arrange our crack deals, and the crack deals wouldn't have gone through unless we met here first-- but we have a right to use your house." Why do people persist in claiming they have the right to use private property (like a DALnet server) to do something the owners don't want?