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NYT Discovers Internet's Wild Side: IRC
maztec writes "The New York Times (free soul-sucking registration required) published an article today entitled The Internet's Wilder Side. Apparently, according to the article, 'the Internet has come to resemble a pleasant, well-policed suburb , [but] a little-known neighborhood known as Internet Relay Chat remains the Wild West.' In essence the article concerns itself with how IRC is the breeding ground of all the Internet's Evils, from animal pornography and illegal file sharing to virus making and computer cracking, it all starts here. I'd continue pointing out interesting quotes, but that'd be a waste. Go read it yourself. And if you're on IRC, remember, you're evil. Even if you're one of those do-gooders who uses Mozilla, LFS, or FreeNode servers for software development."
I can't wait to see what happens when they discover newsgroups. Man, their heads will pop. ;)
Wow. The New York Times has discovered IRC. What an amazing discovery. What are they going to discover next? Pennsylvania? I'd love to hear their hard-hitting expose about Pittsburgh.
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Next thing you know, they'll be raving about the wonders of Archie, Veronica and Gopher!
We better not tell them about Usenet, he might have a heart attack.
registration free link
I guess I need to work on a maniacal laugh or on holding my extended pinkie to the corner of my mouth. And there I thought I was just getting help with Gentoo and Fedora Core 2 Test 3...
And why does Dalnet get listed before EFnet? What's up with that?
..they haven't found bash.org yet!
Obviously, they're refering to usenet. I mean, I haven't seen a fatal shooting there in quite some time.
Hell, even TRON GUY hangs out on IRC. But I'm not telling you where.
- 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?"
Is not every place with free speech and relative stealthness a breedingplace for:s ts
-terrorists
-virusmakers
-worms
-terrori
-porn
-terrorists
?
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
I think this best sums up what is at play here:
...god help them if they find USENET.
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." -- Lovecraft.
IRC is still more difficult to use than AOL chat rooms and largely the domain of techies. Sure bad stuff happens there because it's not part of the mainstream, but I don't know that it's worse there than anywhere else...
Cheers!
SCB
IRC = IM's Big Brother
End Transmission....
EYE R SEE why IRC is so bad now.
:P
They(we) invented l33tsp34k
now they r bad.
[I can picture a world without war, without hate. I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it]
Time to go back to BBS for all the evil stuff.
IRC is the breeding ground of all the Internet's Evils
/list for the first time on efnet....
It was in 1996 that I developed my eye twitch. That was just after having read
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
I think its funny that file sharing is now on a par with animal pornography...
The vilification plan is almost complete.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
It was just another Wednesday on the sprawling Internet chat-room network known as I.R.C. In a room called Prime-Tyme-Movies, users offered free pirated downloads of "The Passion of the Christ'' and "Kill Bill Vol. 2.'' In the DDO-Matrix channel, illegal copies of Microsoft's Windows software and "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,'' an Xbox game, were ripe for downloading. In other chat rooms yesterday, whole albums of free MP3's were hawked with blaring capital letters. And in a far less obtrusive channel, a hacker may well have been checking his progress of hacking into the computers of unsuspecting Internet users.
Even as much of the Internet has come to resemble a pleasant, well-policed suburb, a little-known neighborhood known as Internet Relay Chat remains the Wild West. While copyright holders and law enforcement agencies take aim at their adversaries on Web sites and peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Napster, I.R.C. remains the place where people with something to hide go to do business.
Probably no more than 500,000 people are using I.R.C. worldwide at any time, and many of them are engaged in legitimate activities, network administrators say. Yet that pirated copy of Microsoft Office or Norton Utilities that turns up on a home-burned CD-ROM may well have originated on I.R.C. And the Internet viruses and "denial of service'' attacks that periodically make news generally get their start there, too. This week, the network's chat rooms were abuzz with what seemed like informed chatter about the Sasser worm, which infected hundreds of thousands of computers over the weekend.
"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance, a trade group that fights software piracy. "If they were only associating with each other and inbreeding, maybe we could coexist alongside them. But it doesn't work that way. What they're doing on I.R.C. has a way of permeating into mainstream piracy.''
Two weeks ago, the F.B.I., in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in 10 foreign countries, announced an operation called Fastlink, aimed at shutting down the activities of almost 100 people suspected of helping operate illegal software vaults on the Internet. The pirated copies of music, films, games and other software were generally distributed using a separate Internet file-transfer system, said a Justice Department spokesman, but the actual pirates generally used I.R.C. to communicate and coordinate with one another.
"The groups targeted as part of Fastlink are alleged to have used I.R.C. to have committed their crimes, like almost all other warez groups,'' the spokesman, Michael Kulstad, said in a telephone interview. Warez, pronounced like wares, is techie slang for illegally copied software.
When I.R.C. started in the 1980's, it was best known as a way for serious computer professionals worldwide to communicate in real time. It is still possible - though sometimes a bit difficult - to find mature technical discussions among the tens of thousands of I.R.C. chat rooms, known as channels, operating at any one time. There are also respectable I.R.C. systems and channels - some operated by universities or Internet service providers - for gamers seeking opponents or those who want to talk about sports or hobbies.
Still, I.R.C. perhaps most closely resembles the cantina scene in "Star Wars'': a louche hangout of digital smugglers, pirates, curiosity seekers and the people who love them (or hunt them). There seem to be I.R.C. channels dedicated to every sexual fetish, and I.R.C. users speculate that terrorists also use the networks to communicate in relative obscurity. Yet I.R.C. has its advocates, who point to its legitimate uses.
"I.R.C. is where all of the kids come on and go nuts,'' William A. Bierman, a college student in Hawaii who helps develop I.R.C. server software and who is known online as billy-jon, said in a telephone interview. "All of the attention I.R.C. has
they should see Ebay. There's some weird shit for sale there....
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
The article implies IRC is the cause of the evils. IRC is a medium, not a cause. It's just a way of organising so called "evils". You still have to want to get to the "evil" material in the first place.
I, for one, welcome our new evil IRC overlords...
But truly, you want to know something that is the epitome of evil, that represents fire and brimstone, and a general sense of Rotting.... Netsplits!
Oh the Horror!
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
President Bush sends US Marshalls into IRC to try to bring law and order.
"Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever" - Napoleon Bonapart.
While the submitter might be right in hinting that the New York Times, does not know jack about the internet, they do have a point. IRC _IS_ the breeding ground for all sorts of weird stuff, be that legal or illegal, and although many people use it for strictly legal purposes, it could do with some cleanup. The question remains though, should IRC be censored along with everything else (little by little, our precious internet is going mainstream), or should it remain as it is? Personally I am for the staying of IRC, yet I also share the concerns of the Times.
Talk about being late to a party. They are later than my girlfriend's period. zing!
I haven't been on any IRC stuff since like 1994/5. I'll have to go back and see what all the fuss is about.
:)
It'll be interesting to see, since according to the article and my conceptions of the time, it hasn't changed much in a decade.
-=fshalor
Um SlashNet
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Hrm.. maybe Goatse has escaped thier notice some how.... wonder the article they'd waste print on if they saw that along with his girlfriend Tubgirl.
The NYT has an article on us being 'evil'! Just saw it on Slashdot, go see it :-P
...
:-) That'll teach them to badmouth irc, thank god for that Slammer virus that let us build up those zombies!
<creat1ve> What?
<creat1ve> Damn.. they suck!!
<creative> hack-bot, DDOS nytimes.com
<hack-bot> Initializing DDOS
<l1ght> Haha, nytimes.com down
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
You mean the Discovery channel distributes on IRC? How many times have I seen two Rhinos doing the nasty with some British snooty guy narrating on PBS? Please, NY Times. This is nothing new. Heck, I even got a shot of flies getting busy on my balcony. You would think these New York City folk wouldn't be such prudes.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Wow, talk about your corporate motivated propoganda.
the Internet has come to resemble a pleasant, well-policed suburb
I guess the key here is well-policed, huh. Wouldn't want to offend.
The problem that the corporate world has with IRC is that it's a network of humans, exchanging ideas and conversing freely. And, to make matters worse, they aren't paying a monthly/weekly/hourly fee to do so.
I've read a lot of these "watch out for these free social based things on the internet, the only way to keep your kids safe is to stay on amazon.com with your credit card in hand" articles.
Meh, fuckit.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It never fails to amaze me how clueless ostensibly intelligent people can be. Um, hellooo? Reality called, left a message advising you get a clue! Noone put them on to the latest hardcore pron, they're likely to have a collective coronary. Liveing in their own little world...
The internet is nothing remotley like a suburb, it's the wild west all over again complete with brothels and shoot outs. IRC and USENET where the orginal storehouses of sub-legal activities before P2P came along.
Did I ever say that I was good anyway? ;)
It depends on where you go. Yes, IRC has that stuff available to you, so does Google.
Stay out of #10YROLDZ4FORTIEZ and #h4ck3rz4h1r3 and you will be fine. There are plenty of decent channels out there that serve their purpose without falling into this "Wild Wild West" attitude.
If I've run IRC servers for the past 8 years or better, does that make me more evil, or do I have to cite having run an NNTP server to get the prize? ;)
God damn it. I'm not a freaking elite pirate! I only use IRC for chatting about girls, food, movies, games! Honest! Hell, I don't even know what an FSERV is!
I actually setup a company server IM using GAIM and IRC. It worked really well.
I wonder how many of these nar-do-wells are using IRC servers on port 80?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
In other news, the Washington Post discovers that they have the internet for computers now.
"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance, a trade group that fights software piracy. "If they were only associating with each other and inbreeding, maybe we could coexist alongside them. But it doesn't work that way. What they're doing on I.R.C. has a way of permeating into mainstream piracy.'' Ahhh the good old days before mp3 and P2P networking...you actually had to know something to find something....search engines like Google wouldn't turn up things on IRC (well some do now like packetnews and ircspy....but that's another story.)
What greater threat to Terrany is there
than freedom of speech?
Now even in IRC, the 1st admendment is under attack!
Why do people think being controlled by others is somehow 'Safer', when no-one controls the controllers?
No registration:. dll/article?AID =/20040506/ZNYT05/405060413/1051/NEWS01
http://www.goupstate.com/apps/pbcs
"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance, a trade group that fights software piracy."
rofl,im1337h4xx0r!iwill0wnj00rb0x0r!
I used to go to IRC quite a bit, and it really is the most "underground" you can go, cracking & warez mainly, it's just so completely unpoliced, but also it's wrong to paint the whole thing with one brush, many go just to chat, simple as that.
"Quite often, once they get their hands on a prerelease, they will use I.R.C. as the first distribution before it goes out into the wider Internet," Brad A. Buckles, the [RIAA]'s executive vice president for antipiracy efforts, said in a telephone interview.
One has to give the author credit for getting one thing right, though:
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
You think IRC is evil because people can share files easily? good thing they dont know about suprnova.... And thats part of the "well policed" part of the internet. It's the most ignorant thing ive ever read in a newspaper!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
where did they get their info?
"Probably no more than 500,000 people are using I.R.C. worldwide at any time..."
A totally biased article about a topic that they only cursorly researched. WareZ kiddies also use Hotline, Carracho (for Mac), and simply giving out FTP links over AIM. Nothing revolutionary, and a ton of hype.
My University blocks IRC.
Not easy without internet at home.
How can I convince them to allow access to this one server?
At the moment I have to use a java applet. I know, I should get a shell.
A blog I run for the wealth
I live on IRC and sure as 'hell' don't consider myself to be evil. This lame ass journo probably got flamed and didn't know what do to. IRC is better than IM and is used by anyone and everyone in the dev community. I can't imagine participating in any of the FOSS projects that I do without IRC - it just wouldn't be possible. /. specific channel on Freenode?
Speaking of which, is there a
IRC isn't "where animal porn comes from", animal porn comes from people who like animal porn. Failure to apprehend this fact smacks of gross stupidity. IRC is just a chatroom. It's exactly the same as an AOL chatroom or an ICQ chatroom. The room isn't the place, the conversants are the place. Conversations can happen Anywhere. Plus our Constitution (you know, that thing Dubya keeps trying to shred) GARUANTEES us the right to free speech and peacable assembly. IRC is not some magical source of villainy, it's every streetcorner in America rolled into one blank page awaiting words.
IRC isn't the problem. People are the problem. And we already have the solution. It's called the code of law. Not that the law is always the best law, but my point is that IRC is neither good nor evil, merely a tool. People who realize this can take the proper step, which is to try to fight the problem not the symptom. People who don't realize this make total asses of themselves in very public fora.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
"d'Oh!" - Homer
PS, I didn't RTFA because I'm too lazy. Did YOU rtfa? ;-) Okay, then flame on, but please post a link without registration so I can rtfa and flame you back. One.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
Am I the only one who thinks Godwin's law needs a new corrolary?
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to never-ever land.
Just calling them "chatrooms" makes me think you're full of shit.
google link here
7680 MB Disk,192 GB Transfer,
irc.aohell.orgc -2.ais.net
irc.colorado.edu
irc.ais.net
ir
irc.emory.edu
Ahh the good old days...
oh, don't forget
baltimore.md.us.undernet.org
That was also a quite popular one... hehehehe
One more established form of media just disparages another because it doesn't understand it, or because it fears it. It's a shame, because average newspaper readers inevitably equate, "IRC = bad," and continue to spread the hearsay when it comes up in conversation.
What are they smoking, anyways? The web is anything but a well-policed suburb. If anything, it's a middle school that is in perpetual recess. They just know if they were to apply these same arguments to the web that people would not stand for their bullshit.
Once again, social acceptability shows itself to be completely arbitrary.
Damn!
/me thought that irc is cool and it's only this afternoon that quite a few of my new friends were asking for the password of a certain user account named 'root'
They'd have published this article this morning itself
And now my system's behaving funny
wonder wha..
[Connection lost]
-asoap
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
If IRC is evil, then Yahoo! Chat is the 7th level of Hell. At least IRC has real moderators.
From the article: An official from the Recording Industry Association of America said that some hackers even obtain albums that have been recorded but not yet released.
So because I (HYPOTHETICALLY) got Amnesiac two months before it hit store shelves, I'm a hacker? I'm a terrorist? I trade child porn?
It's a real shame, I once took the NYT with a shred of credibility. I should have learned to completely ignore their bullshit after the whole Jayson Blair fiasco.
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
All I can say is, I can't believe it. Hopefully the media will start to realize they have to take this Internet thing very seriously. IRC == Evil. Popy Cock!!! What about MSN messenger then?? Why is that not evil, oh, sorry those are all IQ of Below 120, I forgot that minor detail. Can you till I'm a little angry about human stupidity. ;P
Read it here. Just cancel the print request... :P
true, true
I notice the "good" dog is tan, while the evil porno-loving dog in all the garbage is a bit "brown".
Now I'm not insinuating anything. That's just what I noticed.
Although my 65 year-old father has been using newsgroups for years for his cancer support contacts the mainstream media still doesn't have a clue about them. It's kind of amazing since these weenies don't have anything else to do other than dig up things to try and scare the public with.
:)
As for IRC I'm sure it's the pit of sin and mania that they describe but really, so what? Any communication stream will be used that way!
I've tried IRC a couple of time but have to admit I don't know how to use it properly. I've tried about five different IRC clients and still am completely lost when I try and do anything.
Maybe if I wait long enough it will be replaced by something that doesn't confuse me.
Hah, you guys are talking about how usenet will make their heads explode? Image if they found freenet? I don't know if a high percentage cryptomanics/cypher punks are sexual deviants or if the deviants are just attracted to freenet somehow, but that place is will make your stomach turn if you get offended by anything questionable.
Internet's Evils, from animal pornography
;)
If that's evil then I don't want to be good
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
/. every day without anybody else picking it up....
Finally, its good to see it in the NYT. It was starting to get old seeing it on
I apparently forgot that sig != uptime...
> I'd love to hear their hard-hitting expose about Pittsburgh
Actually I WOULD love to read that. Pittsburgh (The City Gov't.) is broke. The taxes are so high people are leaving in droves and no new business will open up shop here. So the higher taxes go, the less money they collect. It's a cycle with an ugly ending. The whole downtown area closes down by 6pm because it's deserted, nobody lives there, nobody to shop. People staying in the hotels walk outside and get that "spooky feeling". The politicians are petty self indulgent yokels. The population is the second largest concentration of senior citizens outside of Dade County Miami, and they vote like it. (They also fill the roads with meandering land yachts.) Young people flee like the plague is here. Suburban Sprawl / Walmart-itis is a real problem outside the city. It's a real shame, because it's absolutely beautiful here. The Portland Oregon of the Appalachians if you're just talking physical comparisons.
People and politicians here just spout rhetoric and infight. We have more "Young People's Action Groups" than we have young people. I love this town for so many good reasons, but it's getting harder and harder to justify staying here.
and "moderator" dont help
its called #channels and operators.
n00b
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
It's part of the natural dialectical process that the new cool kid on the block (us computer nerds and our hard-to-understand 50 We nerds should unionize. I'm not joking. Like MENSA but for slashdot surfing, beer loving, code-slinging geeks like you and me.
I'm not asking you to be with me. I'm asking Everyone to consider who they identify with.... their fellow nerd, or the Man serving, lie slinging spinmeisters who would rather see us be loyal to themselves before each other.
Think about it. Then flame the )(@#&%^ out of me, but don't forget what I said.
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
The suburbs is where all the s#!t happens that everyone *thinks* is limited to the "inner city".
Leading market for gang growth and presence? The burbs.
Leading market of drug users and drug spending? The burbs.
Leading market for pr0n? Burbs.
By far the leading market for SUVs (speaking of so-called evil)? Burbs.
Number one users of so-called Earth killing pollutants? Burbs.
The list goes on and on and on...
Why do so many entities (read: media) STILL portray the suburbs as some sort of pure, loving, pastures of solice? The suburbs are like a nice, ripe tomato: All shiny and pretty on the surface, but a disgusting mess 1mm below the surface.
This one gang kept wanting me to join cause I'm pretty good with a bo staff.
It is still possible - though sometimes a bit difficult - to find mature technical discussions among the tens of thousands of I.R.C. chat rooms, known as channels, operating at any one time.
What the hell? How is it difficult to find mature technical discussions? What do you want to discuss? Windows? Type "/list windows". Linux? "/list linux". When the results are complete, click the channel you want. Simple. Use your head, if results come back "#linux_sluts - Sluts who get naked and slutty for linux guys XXX", then chances are that's not a good place to discuss the latest kernel.
These news articles are always reporting about unnecessary things. Why target IRC? AOL has the same type of shit. Take a look in the member created chat rooms... "m4m will swallow" "my dog, ur place" "azn m4 hamster" "canadian hookers" etc..
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
I remember in '95 when the regulars in #hottub were just starting to get the hang of /on join commands, and Oreo thought it was a good idea to have 6 sessions all protectin each other from the newly popularized autokicks.......
Simple as it was, it was amusin to kick them all out in the same alias.....
And nameserv actually worked,
-SabrTooth (formerly enm52910@uxa)
"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates"
Come on people... everyone knows it's 31337 !
Uh... it has? Are we using the same internet? The internet is full of spammers, annoying flash and pop-up advertising, worms, spyware, and all kinds of other undesirable things. If anything, it sounds more like the ghetto to me, not a well-policed suburb.
a little-known neighborhood known as Internet Relay Chat
Little known? I wouldn't call IRC mainstream, but it's certainly not obscure either.
Anyway, given the crap ratio of that quote, I don't think I'll bother to read the article. (Gasp! What's this, someone posting without reading the article?)
>And if you're on IRC, remember, you're evil.
First, that's Doctor Evil to you.Second, one wonders what sort of fit the NYT would have if someone ever tells them about Usenet.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
..."IRC: Making megalomaniacs out of little boys since 1985" :P
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I thought the whole point of the internet was to share files and exchange ideas. Once they take that away, I might as well just watch TV.
60 percent of the time, my comments are right everytime.
Of course, is used also for useful things, and even they will agree that the email should not be regulated or banned because some people do a bad use of it.
HERE is the link.
The soccer moms are going to freak out.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Don't believe IRC is evil? Just try logging on with an even remotely female-sounding nick sometime.
Countries across the world dislike the United States. We have no morals, crime runs rampant, etc, etc. It's because we have free speech of course. Countries like china filter the internet to prevent free speech, thus preventing the evil. Apparently now, the new york times also agrees that free speech only breeds evil. Only when everyone's thoughts can be controlled, and made to conform to what the people in charge think is the "right way" will evil cease to exist.
There's this binary lurking around in my /usr/bin
is it ok to run it!?!
I read somewhere that criminals and terrorists and child molestors and pirates also communicated on telephones!? Its not like people have the right to freely talk to eachother so lets restrict the telephone system. Maybe only approved people should be allowed phones?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Thank God I'm on Quakenet, all we got here is 15 year old gamers trying to get sponsors for their e-sports achievements.
Not a single one of those on LinkNet though.
this is not my signature.
becuase then people will just use other channels of communication. end result is a never-ending wack-a-mole game.
I use IRC pretty often, and I've been a chanop in quite a few places (including some on EFNet, #1 in all of IRC!). Certainly, a lot of pirating goes on, but it still pales in comparison to people just going on to hang out with people with similar interests and/or careers from around the globe and talk shop or shit. The NYT's look at things, however, makes one think that all us IRC users are criminals and terrorists.
But then again, what would you expect from such a fascist rag?
IRC is a great place to communicate with others or find stuff that isn't available elsewhere (like anime titles that haven't been licensed for distribution in N. America). Actual pirating is bigger outside of IRC, and many of these so-called 'elite' pirates would use something more secure than IRC to communicate with each other.
Simply put, the NYT has once again shown that it's not worth the paper it's printed on (or the electrons it's sending).
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
Ahh. The good old days.
Yes, IRC, along somewhat with newsgroups, form the sort of back streets and dirty alleys that people find sort of distasteful. And yes, pretty much anything you might care to want is there on IRC or USENET for the taking, whether copied games or copied media or porn.
Or, friends you never met, meeting nightly to commiserate and socialize, or to trade tips on their favorite games, or just to let common interests bring them together.
That's what this whole internet thing was built for in the first place - communication *between* *people*. (True, people at universities and in the military, but...) Not sitting passively in front of the computer having a corporate content pipe shoved down your throat.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Usenet
Person-to-Person chat (AIM, ICQ, MSNM etc.)
Private forums (almost every eeeeeevil cheat site has 'em)
VoIP chat (examples: Teamspeak, Ventrillo servers)
If the NYT wants to extend their search for compu-terrorist breeding grounds, this sort of stuff is also happening:
Via e-mail
In school cliques
at LAN parties
While eeeevil people are just hangin' out at home
Today marks the day I've lost all respect for the New York Times. Honestly, how could you take this rag seriously any more?
Thats why Jabber was invented. So the good people didn't have to use IRC.
case in point, the millions of websites (many of which are misspellings of popular legitimate sites) where if you don't have an ad blocker, you'll be closing shit for hours. Sure IRC has DoS attacks, but if you don't go out of your way to piss people off you're pretty much safe.
We use IRC every day for legitimate work. We're not the only ones. Don't take my word for it though. Check out this link. We progam, chat every day on IRC, and use source control tools to get our work done. This article while accurate in many ways was very unbalanced. That is a mark of poor journalism and is only done to sell newspapers. This is expected of publications like The Enquirer, but should not be the mark of the NYT.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
No kidding.
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
This makes it sound like all you have to do is plug a windows machine into the net and your in trouble. As much as I can't stand working with windows I find this to be over the top.
Sounds like yet another attempt to steer the 'general public' into lumping people together.
"Look at this, only bad people use IRC... Perhaps there should be something done about this"
Much as they are doing with P2P users, or even OSS people...
Before you laugh, look at the use of the term 'hacker' and how the media perversed it into a bad word... The 'media' has great power over the mindless general public.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
-- Homer Simpson, "The Internet King"
pfft - it's chan & op :P
-- Mod me down. I am not a karma tart. ffs,gag
I'm already working on rigging up the old 300 baud modem.
Of course, when the New York Times finds out about the innate evilness of the 300 baud modem, where will we go next?
My userid is prime!
I have a friend who started to use IRC a lot to acquire episodes of her favorite TV show(s) a few years ago, and she seemed confused/concerned when I described IRC as the "dimly-lit back-alley of the internet." I explained that IRC used to be where I went to chat with friends online, before all of these "Instant Messenger" clients became popular, but that now it seems to me that mostly what goes on there is trading of pirated software and TV episodes or movies.
In the end, she reluctantly agreed that my description was "somewhat accurate." I have nothing against IRC, but it is entertaining to see people who are unfamiliar with the landscape of the internet discover new places.
the Internet has come to resemble a pleasant, well-policed concentration camp.
Fixt.
I am NOT a number! I am a - oh wait, I'm number 761710. Look! 761710!
Just wait till they make the link from IRC to newsgroups, then newsgroups to Deja News, then Deja News to Google Groups... evil, evil, evil?
Suttree, a weblog about casual games development
Newb....and it shows....=P
I like articles like this because it scares the average Joe into NOT using whatever technology the article is about.
The surest way to kill the "elite" scene is to start adding average Joes. All of a sudden, those idiots are telling their bosses, neighbors, and whoever else will listen all about the free stuff they are getting on this "new" medium.
you've never been to Texas.
Tired of that free soul-sucking required registration? Check out http://www.bugmenot.com - they have circumvented required registrations by developing spoofed user IDs and passwords. As a matter of fact, the example they use on the home page.... http://www.nytimes.com ! Go figure
Acemakr
"In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft."
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The first rule of USENET: DON'T talk about USENET!
The second rule of USENET: DON'T talk about USENET!
Good thing I can run my C64 emulator on my PocketPC to connect to it!
In the US the "complete" newsgroup providers I know of have begun either denying posting access to certain groups, or just filtering out binary content altogether. Easynews especially seems to have been hit hard since that virus made its debut from one of their accounts. Every now and then you see a complaint from someone in the support forum because godzilla deleted binary content - their response is almost always "get over it, things have changed." That old paradigm about carriers of content not being responsible for the actual content seems to have gone out the window - lots of "police," self appointed and otherwise, sending in complaints. Once the complaint is made, the carriers have no choice but to delete it.
I use easynews and regularly READ (important note there) several of the "shady" groups. There's plenty of music and movies and stuff, but the kiddie fans and site crackers have ALL gone underground. LOTS of groups now flooded with PGP posts and encrypted RARs, locked away from everyone but the cliques that communicate elsewhere and use the groups as massive file stores. All that's left in the clear are stories about arrests and rumors of arrests - those folks are all running scared and getting busted even in places like Finland and Singapore. Even many of the bigger MP3 posters have left the building.
I do believe usenet is about to "grow up" the way the web did. Except newsgroups are useless to businesses for anything except support forums, so how this is going to affect things in the future remains to be seen.
Even most of the stuff in the DVD rip groups is intentionally mislabelled and you often hear about folks having their accounts cancelled due to their posts in the music and video groups. The only reason none of this affects me is because I don't post ripped movies or pop music (or illegal shit) - all my trading is done in the "international" and techno music groups where artists are more independant and copyright coverage a bit murkier.
That said, I think these folks must be late to the party. I'm sure there are plenty of newbs on IRC doing illegal shit, but nobody with more than half a brain would be doing it in the open on IRC where your IP can be grabbed in realtime. I'd say the NYT is, as usual, arriving VERY late to this party.
We're all doomed if they discover bash.org :)
Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me
"It is still possible, though sometimes a bit difficult, to find mature technical discussions..." Oh, come on! Which is it? Is it careening toward almost impossible, or do you just not know how to use IRC or what to look for? Then they have Bill Beer^h^h^h^h Bierman from U. of Hawaii who talks about how the "kids" use it to "go nuts." Girls Gone Wild - IRC!! "...seem to be ...dedicated to every sexual fetish!" Love this article! It's got everything! Violence, fear, sex, depravity. You have to admit - this kind of thing will sell newspapers.
C'mon New York Times, you're usually not too behind the curve on technology stories. IRC being a wild west? Yeah, I guess, but it hasn't really changed much in the last 6 years. It's always been a wild west environment, and hopefully it always will be. The Internet needs some unpleasantness. The Internet needs script kiddies. Sure, they're a hassle and they occasionally do something disasterously stupid, but it's part of the fun of the internet. It's amazing that something as important and complicated as this all-powerful international communication has become is still legitimately threatened by some 14 year old in his bedroom. I know it seems rather threatening, but I hope it stays that way... I like the idea of the little guy still having an impact now and then. I doesn't happen with Television, it doesn't happen with Radio, it doesn't happen with Film... it's only online that there's even a chance.
God bless IRC.
--
RumorsDaily
Well, I'm making a living right now because of that, so in a way I'm glad it's actually true. If you plug a Windows box directly into a high-speed Internet connection without updating everything first, the probability that you will be ownz0r3d rapidly approaches 1.
If no firewall/NAT router is present, then it's absolutely inevitable that you'll get nailed on a Windows box. If the Windows box is pre-configured with a software firewall that's enabled, and fully updated, your odds of survival are good.
I spent much of yesterday cleaning up things for a single client who had bought a new Dell a few months ago and put it directly on a SDSL connection. It was literally riddled with nasty stuff. She had called me when it started the Sasser-driven shutdown process - until that happened she had written off the computer's misbehavior as normal.
And I have a lot of users in similar situations. Basically, most computer users buy it and expect it to work. They don't know about or care about security, and frankly shouldn't have to.
But I can't complain, because Windows helps put food on my table. When they finally get it right, it'll be time for a new career!
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
*snarls and kicks maztec in the 'nads*
In my 8+ years on IRC, I've helped countless users with PC problems, helped hunt down a script kiddie that was beating on a IRC network (that will go unnamed), founded a dozen or so channels that have gone and done quite well for themselves after naming a successor to (this is true!), I either single-handedly or helped saved 3 fellow users from killing themselves due to personal or financial problems.
You go download a IRC client, sign onto ANY IRC network, hang around for a month on a channel, then you tell ME that IRC is evil.
With groups or people, there will always be evil, but the balance of good always seems to outweigh evil in certain aspects.
IRC has simply unleashed the power of international relations upon each other. So we are unwittlingly amabassadors for our own state or country.
So make the best of it folks, the author and the poster needs to get on IRC and experience it first-hand for a year, THEN make his or her report.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
If Outlook Express came with an IRC client this would have happened a long time ago.
Yes IRC is a hotbed of illegal activities, it's where I have always gone to get my goods, from the days of helping to start #cablemp3z on dal.net (I hear dal.net doesn't allow any file channels anymore, last time I was on there was pre-2K) with some friends way back when to full dvd rips now. The thing that seperates irc from p2p is (in my case) I usually know the people I am dealing with, often to the point of having phone numbers for them or even having crashed on their couch at some point. So I know when they say "hey I got " it really is and not some fake file. No RIAA spies writing down ip addresses, because anyone who enters our little world that we don't know gets booted before they can say !list. We chat and hang out and if someone gets something cool they share it with the rest.
It isn't the wild west, it's utopia.
That said, irc is like any other tool, I can choose to hit you in the head with my hammer, or I can build you a house, the fact that the hammer can be used to smash your brains in doesn't make it evil.
I also have a private irc server I use for customer support and my techs all stay in a private channel so when we're dealing with tech issues we have a whole group ready to help us solve problems, makes my helpdesk a lot more efficient when any of my techs can ask me a question and get an answer the next time I bring irc to the foreground rather than wait on an email, plus it's a social thing as well as a release mechanism, customer acting a fool? Just bitch in the channel, let it all out and then answer them.
--- www.f-theocean.com
If you are calling it leetspeak you are already demonstrating your non-involvment in the genesis of |<405 73>
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
If I behave rude on a IRC Channel, the worst that can happen is me being kicked or banned from the server. It's trivial to reenter with a new identity. Since annoying people do not have to face any consequences of their actions, they have no reason to behave more civilised. And that is why Chats are full of idiots.
A civilised system should have some of the following properties:
- A reasonably high entry barrier, there should be some work involved in being able to connect to the system. Probably showing some authentication (like a GPG key)
- Motivation to behave reasonably. For instance, new users might just be allowed to post to specially reservered Areas. Once they proofed worthy, they gradually get more rights.
- Penalties for misbehaviour. There should be a dependable way to block misbehaving people for a limited time from the service. People being blocked must have the right to defend themselve.
I think this way we could end up with a much more cultured Internet society. A place where it is fun to interact with people.*Sameer joins #nytimes Welcome Sameer to the "new" world of IRC" Duh! * nytimesOp set mode +o Sameer See now you have @ sign in front of you just like me Duh! I think we are all evil /chanserv mkick #nytimes
You have been owned!!! ;-D
Those of us who have been on IRC since the good-old-days have known for YEARS that IRC is evil.
To quote our most favorate scoundral, and smuggler....
/. didn't you? ADMIT IT! You did didn't you?
Where did you dig up that old FOSSIL?!?!?!?!?!?!
Where in the galaxy, (far, far away obiously) did this writer come up with this information? The WEB a "Plesent and well policed suburb"?!@?!?!?!?!? Has this SETH SCHIESEL even been on the internet? What about popups? What about Adware? What about that damn "comet cursor"
Where the heck has this SETH SCHIESEL been?
I can see it now... An Interview with SETH SCHIESEL by Xystren
Xystren : "We would like to welcome SS, foremost NY Times expert on the internet. Welcome SS"
ss : "Thank you, it's a pleasure being here, and more importantly, to provide information about the internet. There are many bad areas in the internet, just like there are bad neighbourhoods in larger citys"
Xystren : "Oh? Is that so? You sound surprised that the internet can be a dangerous place?"
ss : "Well of course, it's not like a policed suburb, we are talking a bad, industral area type thing, you know, where gangs, drugs, and the underground types hang out, ready to mug or hijack you at the earliest opportunity"
Xystren : "Where exactly have you been going to find these nice "suburbs" as you have put it.
ss : "Well, at my work computer (I don't have the internet at home, you see), I go on the internet and search for things. It's really quite a wonderfull tool to tell the truth. All the NY times stories and such. It's really a wonderfull and safe and informative place."
Xystren : "so your saying that you've only gone onto the internet, via the NY Times article search?"
ss : "Exactly!"
Xystren : [trying to contain laughter] "Are you aware that would be condsidered an "inTRAnet" and not the "inTERnet??"
ss : "Uhh, well, they sound the same, aren't they the same thing?"
Xystren : No, they aren't the same things. [turning head shouting] "John, I thought you screened these people, Where did you dig up that old FOSSIL?!?!?!?!?!?! SS doesn't know jack about the internet.[Sorry Xyst, we had time we needed to fill]
SS : Old Fossil? what does that mean?
Xystren : "Why don't you go look it up on google, yahoo, or lycos??"
SS : "What are those?"
Xystren : "What are those!?!?!?!???? What do you mean what are those? They are some of the Internet's most common and popular search engines! Are you even the least bit familar about the internet at all? Have you heard of popups? have you heard about malware? infact, do you even know what browser is???
ss : "Well uhhh, no...."
Xystren : "Where did you even get your information for you research??"
ss : "well, uhh, ummm..."
Xystren : "I can tell, you got it from
ss : [sheepishly replies] uhh, yeah...
Xystren : "So there you have it, another non-NERD trying to use "News for Nerd - The stuff that matters". This is the real danger of the internet people, BEWARE!
What more can I say???
ss : "I still don't get this 'old fossil'"
Xystren : "it's ok ss, your not a nerd, your not ment to get it"
---
if you can't dazzel them with dexterity, baffle them with bu))$h!t
Am I the only one that thinks NYT just done IRC a great service by printing such a great advertisement for IRC? Watch how those 500,000 people soon turn into *pinkie to lip* BILLIONS of users!
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
Cut SETH SCHIESEL some slack. The press is still groping with Internet issues. A few years back, a "computer expert" at most papers was someone who knew how to fix the boss's M$ desktop.
Many things said were encouraging.
Give him some time and the scales will fall off his eyes and his attitude will change. He's already noticed that it's hard for to exchange files with his friends, even though he pays big bucks for "broadband". Sooner or later, he will discover that http is also a text based protocal that takes little horsepower to run and is easy to set up in the home. When he realizes this he will start to question why he can't run his own and everything will fall into place.
Seth, you should try a copy of Mepis sometime. It has all of the software that the big boys use to run websites, Apache, mySQL and PHP. It also has excellent and easy to use html editors such as Mozilla's composer and Bluefish. If all you want is static image galaries, just use the KDE file browser's one click generator. Mepis configures itself from a CD on boot and has a GUI installer that works. Mepis is easy and will hasten your enlightenment.
The world of ends is waiting for you. It needs you. You can be part of the solution, not the problem. THE INTERNET IS THE NEW PRESS. IF IT IS NOT FREE THERE IS NO FREE PRESS. Kiddie porn is best fought by busting kiddie porn makers, not by regulating presses. It would be a shame if only a few "respectable" well regulated companies were alowed to publish on the web as the New York Times does.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Animal pornography is not evil.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
We got the lizard doing everything from making love the Linux Penguin to F**king Bill Gates and Microsoft in the a$$.
Bestiality has never before been released under the MPL license.
OpenSource fornication... the way of the future.
I'm just glad they didn't mention one of the *nix clients 'BitchX'. Who knows where they would take that one. Linux would be made evil *AND* misogynistic!
"We need a fourth law of Robotics: Stop Fingering My Wife"
I remember laughing watching their tease. Went something like: A local company YOU could be doing business with is involved with child pornography. Tune in at 11. Cut to picture of non-descript door with corporate logo pixelized so you had to wait, but in the final seconds the pixelization was mistakenly removed revealing the Voicenet logo at which point we all started laughing. Local news sucks! Thankfully sweeps doesn't last forever.
I don't see any major difference between media. Paper, Stone, WWW, IRC, CD, DVD, VHS... These can all be used to store and distribute information. I don't understand why any of them should have laws governing their use in a way that is inconsistent with the others.
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
Thanks a bunch pal!
-terrorists
-virusmakers
-worms
-terrori
-porn
-terrorists
Umm, I believe that those things exist whether there is free speech or not. And you can be stealthy anywhere. It all depends on what you/media/government want to attribute those things to...
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I just emailed the NYT with the following:
"You think IRC is bad? Just wait until you see what Slashdot.org is saying about you and your article!"
Next up in tomorrow's edition of the NYT, an 'in-depth' analysis of the Slashdot editorial ethics and comment threads.
What a fucking annoying and useless comment.
VoC (voice over copper) might have its legal uses but it is also one of the preferred meeting places of pimps, drug dealers and maybe even terorists. And don't think you are protected, as most homes are known to have a VoC access points, connected in the same network with public ones that can connect you with unthinkable villainry for as low as 50c. Fortunately, the FBI has been working on getting VoC surveillance rights that will ensure your safety, so hang on tight, you will be completely safe soon!
A little long, oh well, you can't be banned from Slashdot? Right? Right..? :/
:/3 1u its/06chat.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5062&en=a1bb0d2c7d 187e80&ex=1084420800&partner=GOOGLE :/ :/ :D :| :P
00:57 (NeGz) god I hate media FUD like that NY Times article on IRC
00:57 (NeGz) just saw it then
00:57 (@Yavin) yer its crazy
00:58 (@Yavin) "this just in, there is a secret BBS on the intarweb!!!!"
00:58 (@Yavin) "crossing LIVE to Trishia Takinawa, with a report on the hotline protocol!"
00:59 (@Yavin) wtlw NYT!
00:59 @Yavin gets all angry
00:59 (@Devar) lol Yavin
00:59 (@Nevyn^) what _are_ you on about
00:59 (NeGz) but you read this shit and you understand why some people will never bank over the net and such
01:00 (@Yavin) this Nevyn^: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/06/13252
01:00 (NeGz) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/technology/circ
01:00 @Yavin moderates NeGz -1, Redundant
01:00 (NeGz) sif
01:00 (NeGz) direct link to article
01:00 (NeGz) +5 Informative, every time
01:00 (@Yavin) hehe
01:01 (NeGz) rah
01:02 (NeGz) need an educational campaign
01:02 (NeGz) GAMFUD - Geeks Against Media Fear, Uncertanity and Doubt -_-
01:02 (@Yavin) or we could hire a bus, deck it out in wifi and tour the countryside. paint "The Clue Bus" on it and inform people on why tech isnt evil
01:03 (@Yavin) or we could idle on irc and bitch about stuff
01:03 (NeGz) have the headline of gamfud.org as PEBKAC
01:03 (NeGz) yeah, idling sounds good
01:03 (NeGz) also sleep
01:03 (@Yavin) give articles such as that NYT piece the bigg rubber stamp of FAILURE
01:04 (NeGz) I'm amazed that there are guys in my network security classes at Tafe that won't bank over the net
01:04 (Ultima84) I bank over the net...
01:04 (@Devar) rofl, they wont? man i fucking do everything over the net hey
01:04 (@Yavin) haha yeah
01:04 (NeGz) all you need is enough knowhow to check that you're not being phished/DNS spoofed and that the damn site's SSL cert is legit/secure
01:04 (@Devar) i even applied for an E*TRADE account on the net >_
01:05 (NeGz) I don't like shopping elsewhere -_-
01:05 (@Devar) mind you i dont have the $1000 minimum to actually OPEN it
01:05 (@Devar) but who cares
01:05 (Ultima84) I bought crap off eBay
01:05 (NeGz) I've got no car, so going places that aren't on the train line is TME
01:05 (@Devar) hehe NeGz yeah
01:06 (NeGz) should post this convo to slashdot -_-
01:06 (@Yavin) +5 insightful
01:07 (@Devar) haha NeGz go for it, edit it correctly and it'd probably be modded up since its in context LOL
01:08 (NeGz) bags the karma
What like they make p0rn for animals? Sorry but my dogs a prude, besides he has a problem with the remote control.
She had called me when it started the Sasser-driven shutdown process - until that happened she had written off the computer's misbehavior as normal.
Basically, most computer users buy it and expect it to work.
Is it just me, or do those statements seem to contradict each other?
The shareholder is always right.
So how exactly does the FBI police a foreign server? On the other hand, the US hasn't had a great track record lately about honoring the autonomy of other countries....maybe it's all part of the plan.
-Chris
--an unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys--
In high school in the early 80s, we had a K-12 academic timesharing system called MECC Timesharing System (which is kind of a proto-GNU acronym structure).
Anyway, this timesharing ran on CDC Cyber series mainframes and had several pre-Internet multi-user applications that were wildly successful among anyone who could get access to the system:
XTALK: Similar to IRC; the output is virtually identical. Supported a series of public channels, private channels, and some admin commands for booting users. Biggest annoyance was the way the Cyber handled lower case letters; they used more bits than uppercase letters and conversations often got cut off. The buffer accepted the typing, but the output got clipped. No binary file transfer or any of that sort of thing. (At 110 baud, what would YOU have wanted to transfer?).
Scepter/Milieu: MUD, pre-mud. Persistent characters, spells, monsters, the whole nine yards. When MTS shut down in 1984, the source got leaked and a high school friend (who is now PhD in Csci and works at google) ported the application by manually re-typing it into a Sage IV micro (Pascal based, as was the original source). That copy got ported to VAX 11/780 by another friend. The original Milieu author ran a payware multiuser BBS that supported a later varient of Milieu after MTS demise; dunno whatever happened to any other versions.
Combat: A text-based space combat game. This was tactical, not strategic and required you to interpret your ships placement versus other ships based on a one or two line numerical positions. When you died, you got kicked back to the command line with the phrase "Congratulations, you just bought the farm.", which became something of a catch-phrase. Quite hard, actually. I sucked at it and couldn't compete with the members of AGCP (A Group of Combat Players).
Email/newsgroups: The email system (which I can't remember if it was written by the college students who admined the system or was a CDC product) was quite good, and feature a multi-topic bulletin board system in addition to private email.
The MTS community, since it was exclusively based in Minnesota, also had a real-life social element to it, with MTHPs (MECC-Type H____ Parties, the H was made up to meet whatever the event was -- House, Hayride, etc). It kind of died off once MTS died off in 1984. There was a multi-user BBS started right after that offered some metro-area die-hards to hang out, but after that it kind of dissolved into the local BBS scene.
Anyway, when the Internet came around for me in 1990 or so, it all seemed so *derivative*, since I'd experienced a multiuser computing phenomena already.
It appears that any given internet outlet that isn't sanctioned and approved by 5 governmental regulatory bodies or involve their parent corporation will eventually be vilified by clueless reporters. Note the little "i" in internet. I've seen writeups where they don't understand that the computer needs to be *on* for someone to use it..
The first law of clueless technology reporting appears to be "include 'possibly' wherever possible".
Now where'd I leave my reporter kicking boots..
You're reading Slashdot. Of course you like Linux and pc hardware
I used to practically live on IRC via AmIRC on my Amiga, but haven't been back in years. apt-cache search irc gives a list of IRC clients, but what are the good GUI ones? Which ones should be avoided at all costs? Which can I use without being 0wn3d in 5 minutes after my first connection?
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
That's the point ;-)
They buy it, plug it in, expect it to work and to be sufficiently secure. When it misbehaves, they write it off as "something they screwed up" because "computers are hard to use".
That contradiction is what creates a market for freelance IT folks like me. Once they realize they're screwed, they call someone. Then, hopefully we get their house in order and set it up so they're properly protected. The business model there is that hopefully the happy, safe user will call for occasional maintenance and help with other tasks.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
A few issues ago, the letters section in 2600 included a peculiar missive from some schoolchildren, attacking 2600 for running an IRC server. They apparently learned in that class that IRC is the tool that perverts use to meet young girls. (Please mod down the idiot who'll take this opportunity to make allegations about Emmanuel.)
/. today. There's no excuse for this kind of "journalism" and worse yet, it's being taught in schools as well. What can we do to fight back?
Anyway, the editorial response was fairly dry, but the reader reactions in the next issue pretty much said what's being said here on
who caught the irony of all the "...said in a telephone interview" parts of this?
They're investigating a communication medium, yet can't even be bothered to use that medium to interview people related to it?
wtg NYT!
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance, a trade group that fights software piracy. "If they were only associating with each other and inbreeding, maybe we could coexist alongside them. But it doesn't work that way."
...
I direct the readers attention to the quote in the above: "If they were only associating with each other and inbreeding, maybe we could coexist alongside them."
So, people on IRC need sex0r each other, and the fedz will leave 'em alone, right?
{Osama_In_The_House} y0 what up d00d
{TalibanHQ_Cmdr} hey where u been
{Osama_In_The_House} i g0tz to keep it on the d-low, that redneck Bush is after my a$$
{TalibanHQ_Cmdr} yah i saw that shizz... but lately i thnk hes been too busy taking it up the ass from tony blair LOL
{Osama_In_The_House} LOL
{Osama_In_The_House} so yeah i dunno when ill be back... im at a webcafe in brroklyn
{TalibanHQ_Cmdr} oh coo d00d you got anything goin down
{Osama_In_The_House} well i got mad box cutters reaedy t go.. just waitin to see who shows up l8r
{TalibanHQ_Cmdr} i hear akhmed is in ny somewhere
{Osama_In_The_House} oh sweet il have to check him out... welll gtg my $5 almost up
{TalibanHQ_Cmdr} peace bro catch you
{Osama_In_The_House} l8r mohamm
IRC is a niche thing, so I don't think it is very silly the NYT "discovers" it now.
It can only have been in the last few years with popularization of the internet that non IT people would be on the net enough to hear the term "IRC"...enough for it to move into a reporter's vocabluary.
Earlier ( and still many present clients ) irc clients had very unfriendly interfaces.
Now there is chatzilla and gaim which make it friendly enough for ordinary people to venture into it.
I still run into many IT people who never heard of IRC or even USENET.
Regarding their other point which people made fun of, usenet is wild if you look at decorum, but its not wild if you think that one time you had to know something to use it and now anyone with a browser can go to Google and read it like a blog.
The streets are paved there.
Steve
There's a fairly good piece on it in John McPhee's "The Curve of Binding Energy" , which gives some information on the topic; I believe that's where I first saw the salad bowl reference.
Most of the ideas behind how to build a bomb are fairly simple. Critical mass and how to calculate it, implosion versus gun type bombs, the effects of reflectors, and so forth. I learned most of the basic math before I dropped my Nuclear Engineering major. Of course, there's no practical way for anything but a large government to make a fusion bomb; ignition temps usually need a fission primer charge. However, it's easy to get something that will cause fission and make a big boom, if you have the fissiles and use some simple approximations ("assume a spherical cow").
Without the detailed computer modeling, you don't anywhere near as big a boom for your kilo of fissile U-235, Pu-240, or U233 (if you're getting exotic). What you get instead is a less efficient reaction, and more of your fissile material goes into the fallout directly rather than fission. Where 40 kilos or so could be optimized to probably around 100 kilotons, a quick-and-sloppy back of the envelope approach would give probably only 1 kiloton. So, yeah, a couple of aluminum salad bowls could be turned into a quick-and-cheap reflector for your bomb, but you would get as big a bang as if you used well machined berylium hemispheres.
The hard part is getting the right material. Stealing fissile material is the easiest for anything besides a government-- isotope separation isn't trivial. And even in the Soviet dis-Union, bomb grade stuff is somewhat guarded. Much better would be some of the FRIGGIN HUGE non-fissile radioisotopes that are essentially just plain missing over there, and could provide a weapon nearly as effective. Stealing one of them, powdering the source (sometimes already done), mixing the powder with a standard fertilizer truck bomb, and blowing it up in a major city would be almost as effective as blowing up a nuke. True, there wouldn't be the lasting sheer "duck and cover" level of hysteria of "someone else has the bomb!", but it would be fairly high. The blast wouldn't level the city, but it could render the bulk of it unusable for a century or so.
While terrorists of Bin Laden's ilk wouldn't hesitate to use a nuke that fell into their hands, they won't concentrate their construction efforts on fission or fusion weapons. Radiological weapons are a much more practical ambition for them to be seeking.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Actually, it's not over the top at all. There are a number of worms that will infect a Windows box as soon as it's plugged in. I've seen a new XP install get infected within 20 minutes of first bootup.
Actually, I just managed to get my home machine infected in under 10 minutes last week. I reformat and reinstall my Windows Server 2003 partition every 3-4 months. During my most recent reinstall, I made the mistake of leaving my computer plugged into my DSL line. While I was installing my firewall, I became infected and had the joy of watching my my computer shut down. I solved the problem by rebooting into Linux, and a few days later wiping the Windows partition and reinstalling again. This time I was careful to have a firewall up before I hooked up the DSL.
Atanamis
Yep they (WPVI) called me about his one and after listening to their pitch to be on camera I said no. Glad I did - though I always turn down anything that is a sleazy topic like this. Rather be talking about the tech stuff than the sleazy stuff The reporter didn't have a clue about newsgroups when they were talking to me and he kept pushing for me to talk about porn. But that's most local and national news outlets these days....
If you plug a Windows box directly into a high-speed Internet connection without updating everything first, the probability that you will be ownz0r3d rapidly approaches 1.
From the SANS Infosec reading room, Windows XP: Surviving the first day (PDF). A little dated but good information for the not in the loop crowd.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
As someone who used to hang on IRC (EFNet as well as Undernet), I can tell you it's an extremely addictive thing... I've met numerous people from IRC and made numerous friends from it, so it can be a good thing too. If you only leave it at chatting but don't do much else, it's kind of stupid and you're wasting your time.. I used it as a forum to get together with my countrymen whom were also here in the United States.
Overall, objectively speaking, if you have some other way of using your time in a constructive manner, you're better off doing that than wasting time on IRC. While this may be hard to do, it's usually the wisest thing to do.. Go write some open source software or what not... Much better use of your time.
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
They made it look a bit like I.R.A don't you think?
Not all channels are evil, for sure. :)
I myself spend most of my day... and night, in the lockergnome chat room, helping people and providing support to people in trouble. I also do this on a few other channels.
The network g4tv has it's official chat on IRC, too, #g4tv on irc.gamesurge.net
You will be baked, and there will be cake.
Pfft, this is old news. Every Finn out there already knows that IRC is not good for your health, like all other drugs. I mean, it was portrayed in a documentary series each episode featuring different kind of drug. Come to think of it, IRC was propably the worst one, because it was the introduced in first episode.
The show was very creditable and informative. It even had elite hackers compiling kernels just to make a lot of green text roll trough fast. It even featured an anonymous coward telling how he made it out of the hook, but his friend couldn't make it...
Honestly, this is probably just a PR-Hit from the Business Software Alliance written word for word by them and put in the paper by a lazy NY Times hack.
Half of the "news" is PR hits. PR firms write the story, even include a trivially opposing view (for balance) then distribute it to reporters at all of the major news services hoping that natural laziness will kick in and they will run the premade story.
A lot of the TV news is the same way. They call it a "Video News Release" they basically film the story with the PR firms own "reporter" - they send the smaller stations the polished footage and most of them just run it, the major networks get raw footage so they can edit in their own newsperson (I hesitate to call them reporters) asking those probing questions...
Radio..same thing...
It's very easy for the big PR firms to get hits. Once you get it into a major news services it gets picked up and repeated by hundreds of papers, almost none of them tell you that the story was written by XX's PR firm.
Government does the same thing. Remember the Medicare Testimonials PR release?
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
WTF do they have against animal porn anyway? I mean, animals have libidos too, don't they?
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
slashdot2001/slashdot2001 should still work...
must be a very popular login, if NYT ever checks the logs.
The purpose of life is to find the purpose of life.
Apparently Penny Arcade agrees that people plus an audience plus anonymity equals a breeding ground for people to do stupid stuff.
-jdm
IRC is great.
digital darwinism, survival of the fittest.
The way life is supposed to be.
screw the self-richeous do-good-ers.
More chaos is whats needed not less.
I've heard this before on the John Walsh show i was supposed to be a part of... ended up not accepting the offer to go to NY and over-slept my live chat with john walsh for the show.. besides the point, some lady on said show called IRC the "Dark Underbelly of the Internet"...."It's where pedophiles give lessons to luer children" And those are real quotes! Real Stream of said show Here I'm the "Oea" mentioned in the show... long story, but weird indeed.
Excuse me, I don't mean to impose, but I am the ocean
I happen to like evil.
-SATAN
<1:34> <borg> http://slashdot.org/articles/04/05/06/1325231.shtm l?tid=126&tid=95 :D :^D ;^)
:^)
<1:58:pm> <Spoom>|<zZzZz> damn wireless network keeps dying out here
<2:31:pm> <@LD|Zz> "Probably no more than 500,000 people are using I.R.C. worldwide at any time" <-- this made me laugh
<2:34:pm> <ZeroByte> "I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance <-- this would have been better in l33t
<2:34:pm> <ZeroByte> or at least if elite was changed to l33t
<2:34:pm> <@LD|Zz> hehe, i'm a 1337 p1r4t3
<2:36:pm> <borg> haha, now im convinced that BSA are a bunch of idiots
<2:47:pm> <Spoom> bwahahaha, they think that networking is used JUST to hide ip addressed
<2:47:pm> <Spoom> addresses*
<2:47:pm> <Spoom> we can do that on one server thank you very much
^^ IRC reaction to this story (noted between my rounds of uploading 0 day warez of course)
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
But I can't complain, because Windows helps put food on my table. When they finally get it right, it'll be time for a new career!
People used to say that about SCO back in the eighties, actualy they're still people saying that about SCO except the getting it right part. Lots of legacy apps out there that only run on obsolete OSes.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
>>"....(free soul-sucking registration required)"
Why is every story Slashdot steals from the New York Times prefaced with the same smarmy parenthetical dig about registration? Why no similar slaps at Slashdot's very own registration?
I registered with the NYT a long time ago. Guess what? Nothing bad happened.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Nnnggg... brain... collapsing...
SPELL CHECK!!!!
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Install XP. Then, before plugging in any network of any type: start -> control pannel -> network connections.
Find your connection medium, and click properties. Click the advanced tab, and check the ICF box.
Now connect up windows machine, and run windows update. I assue you, with the ICF active, you are not as big of a target as one might think.
Best get a better firewall first before running windows update, as ICF is one way traffic [incomming] protected only.
NeoThermic
Use my link above, or to view my server, NeoThermic.com
"Basically, most computer users buy it and expect it to work. They don't know about or care about security, and frankly shouldn't have to."
They should care at least about the basics - don't click on attachments, use a firewall/antivirus, don't install everything they can download for free or everything shiny, learn to disable services they don't need, or even update their systems regularly, etc. They care about security, but it's just too hard because nobody taught them, or too lazy, or they don't know where to start. They should care about security because half of it relies on them to keep their computers safe. The vendor can only do so much, but in MS' case "so much" is lame. This increases the users' responsibility to keep their systems secure; thus, this increases cost despite MS' propaganda.
Ask them if they care about security for their car, and you'll notice they don't leave keys in the car with windows down and/or unlocked doors.
Seeing how you're benefiting from all this, it's obvious you want users to keep security on 0 priority.
hehe i was worried that i was going to log on and read an article about how IRC is completely evil, and instead i am treated with virii infections and how In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. let's here it for the NYT!!!
dude...learn some english. ok?
Just because you use the word "Burbs" does not make you a cool guy on slashdot.
Will your keyboard break down if you add Su?
Also, avoid that bold lettering. Makes you look like a 13 yr old kid(if you are not one already; figuring from your userid).
Apparently, I'm being targetted for my opinions in previous posts.
I've got the karma to burn in asking this.
Weird Shit
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Amen, except for the last sentence (I pasted your whole message because it's otherwise an AC/0). I am benefiting from this, but I try and instill a security consciousness in my customers. I want them to be happy and not need me too much - and I'd rather they pay me to help make their computers more productive than pay me to squish worms.
The simple fact is this: people like the readers of this thread Get It when it comes to securing their desktop. Another person in this thread said that best practices dictate starting up the new XP box, then turning on ICF before plugging in the chosen network connection. Great idea, but people like us already know that. The "average user" doesn't, and until they call me or someone like me they don't get that information by default. Nor are they even aware they should learn it. If Dell (or other vendors) pre-configured their new systems like that people would use ICF, but they don't so they don't.
You use the car metaphor for security. If securing a Windows PC was as simple as locking a car is, people would secure their PC's. But it's a lot easier for a car salesman to show them how the remote keyfob works when a car is delivered than it is to teach someone how to use ICF, a NAT box, and Windows Update to get an XP system off the ground safely. If I sold hardware that'd be part of the checklist - but I only sell services so they call me after the fact.
I want security to be a priority, actually - it's just that I can't force the issue. I can and do preach the security gospel to my customers, but they pretty much ignore it as geek ranting until they get burned. It's amazing what a worm hit will do to change people's attitudes...
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I had to check my calendar when the author mentioned Napster as a big, evil file sharing network. Maybe this article was written in 1998 and just got lost in the shuffle.
Meanwhile I don't share those concerns at all! I have "lived" on IRC for the past 8 years or so now. If I went looking I could find pirated things to download, sure. I could find animal porn, whatever. All of this I could also find on P2P or web. Why is IRC so different ??
.. my girlfriend had her life saved a number of years ago by a friend she knew on IRC. She was a member of a channel for supporting who were losing their vision due to retinitis pigmentosa. She was not coping well with impending blindness and has gone into an alcholic coma while online. Her IRC buddy from california called my girlfriends local 911 and they found her in time. Its about community!!
.. like the rest of the world, you find what you are looking for.
Well for me, it provides realtime and interactive community that works well with a screenreader. I have found friends all over the world. I met my girlfriend (who actually lives locally) on IRC.
Like any community there will be the good, the bad and the ugly. Just to comment for a moment on the GOOD tho
I have trouble seeing the entire negative viewpoint of that article
There are good sides and bad sides to irc. You just have to figure out how to get on the good side.
AcmeShells.com The cheapest Eggdrop
Not only am I an IRCOp, but I also run a private IRC server (the family use it to stay in touch - we're kinda scattered all over the globe).
I guess that must make me Satan then....
How would you like not being able to even read the SD headlines unless you registered?
IRC is just a tool for communication. Just like every other communication tool it could be used for both good and bad things.
Newspapers are for some reason considered inherently good, TV stations too... although I could post quite oposite example.
In Serbia, under Milosevic regime *all* classic media (TV, radio, press) were actually his main tools for spreading nationalistic (fascistic) euphoria. Naturaly, there were some independent media, but they were always under heavy preasure.
Maybe such misuse of classic media is always the case when some country goes to war without proper reason?
In 1996, eight months after Serbia was connected again to Internet, mass scale protest against rose in Belgrade and other cities due to obvious electoral fraud. Web, email and IRC were main tools for us to stay informed and to spread the correct information. IRC was remedy for many of us to remain normal in such desperate situation (regime's represion was very tough in that particular period).
Two years later, during NATO bombing, while wondering wether to hate more those who bombed me or those who had caused the bombing, IRC was tool for expressing thoughts and spreading hope. And for those who like emotional scenes, I will never forget one situation when I was online in the moment when air strike alert started. One by one, people reported that. Really scary, when you see list of towns and cities reporting, just like a flood. There is no other medium that in real time could represent some situation happening to so dispersed persons.
Or just in one sentence: there is no inherently 'good' or 'bad' media, they are all good but easily misused.
Sig for today: "Don't blame me for posting as AC."
Monday, my normal ADSL line, through a firewall, was down (because of Sasser? don't know).
So I plugged my XP notebook on the other SDSL line which is normally only used for servers, and forgot to enable ZoneAlarm.
20 minutes after the switchover, I saw the characteristic message signaling the presence of Sasser, and the computer shut down.
Took me 2 hours to make sure everything was cleaned up: reboot in safe mode, cleanup "Run" in the registry, do an AV scan of c:\windows, reboot, search the net for details, manually check the relevant places, and finally do a complete av scan, and take the opportunity to let it delete the ~200 viruses in Eudora's attachment directory (around 20 a day; I guess that's the average for most people around here).
So yes, from my experience: all you have to do is plug a windows machine into the net and your in trouble within 20 minutes.
Who would even want to be part of the "record"? The NY Times is a moribund old fool. I want to know about what is "new"...not what is "new to the NY Times". What a piece of garbage....they're doomed.
Hilarous!
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Mainly because it is yet another ploy to get you to tag yourself so they can track you and file you in yet another database.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
He'll have an aneurism!
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
To correct your implication, you can read the NYT's headlines quite well without registering. Registration is required to read the text.
Since you asked, I wouldn't object to registering to read Slashdot headlines. That would equate to registering to even see the site. I wouldn't pay for anything published on Slashdot, registration or no.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Find a Chinese GBA ROM site in wich the release number is displayed in URL and make a keyword bookmark in Mozilla.
I don't have the bookmark I made right now, but with all those Chinese sites it shouldn't be too difficult to find a proper one.
Dont be a fucking jew.. im not registering to read a fucking article.. you can read everything on slashdot without registering.. if slashdot made you have to register to read.. well id probably still read slashdot since slashdots registration WORKS.. NYTimes DOES NOT WORK IN OPERA..i create an account and the next day it doesnt work, im sick of it.. fuck NYTimes, and fuck you you fuck fuck fucker fucking fuck fuck
And kick or ban, not boot..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
I've been shopping for a new dedicated server provider lately, and I'v ebeen paying close attention to the AUPs.
...so, I run a Jabber server, instead...
In general, they look like this:
1) No spamming
2) No cracking
3) No IRC
Haven't read the article but...
It IS accurate to consider IRC as underground, and the world wide web as the mainstream. Apart from the fact that the mainstream crowd has never heard of IRC, there are many more underground stuff happening. I don't know about sex-related stuff but there is definitely more software/music/movie/etc piracy.
The internet world is just immitating the "real" world. Just like how the mainstream knows nothing about illegal drugs/guns/satellite dishes/etc that can be purchased in the underground, they also know nothing of IRC. You know... 90% of the population probably never even knows where the underground black market for a particular product is--they never come into contact. Similarly, 90% of hte population probably never ever comes in contact with IRC...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
It was a great "boogyman" story though ...
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Oops, brainfart.
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
Well it is moderator when the channel is moderated (+m), though that probably wasn't what they were talking about.
Here's some of the evil and immorality I've participated in as a direct result of IRC:
- Downloaded porn and software from people who rightfully owned it... and wanted to give it away for free!
- Joined the Church of Satan!
- Discovered my local BDSM chapter!
- Met my wife under dubious circumstances, and then lived in sin for two years!
- Conspired to commit terrorist acts!
- Participated in group sex!
Without IRC, I would never have accomplished any of these evil, evil acts. Instead, I might have had to go outside and even talk to real people in person in dank basements while we plotted our evil. (Not that we didn't do that too, but IRC made it easier to organize our circles of evil.)
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The Internet's Wilder Side
By SETH SCHIESEL
Published: May 6, 2004
T was just another Wednesday on the sprawling Internet chat-room network known as I.R.C. In a room called Prime-Tyme-Movies, users offered free pirated downloads of "The Passion of the Christ'' and "Kill Bill Vol. 2.'' In the DDO-Matrix channel, illegal copies of Microsoft's Windows software and "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time,'' an Xbox game, were ripe for downloading. In other chat rooms yesterday, whole albums of free MP3's were hawked with blaring capital letters. And in a far less obtrusive channel, a hacker may well have been checking his progress of hacking into the computers of unsuspecting Internet users.
Even as much of the Internet has come to resemble a pleasant, well-policed suburb, a little-known neighborhood known as Internet Relay Chat remains the Wild West. While copyright holders and law enforcement agencies take aim at their adversaries on Web sites and peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Napster, I.R.C. remains the place where people with something to hide go to do business.
Probably no more than 500,000 people are using I.R.C. worldwide at any time, and many of them are engaged in legitimate activities, network administrators say. Yet that pirated copy of Microsoft Office or Norton Utilities that turns up on a home-burned CD-ROM may well have originated on I.R.C. And the Internet viruses and "denial of service'' attacks that periodically make news generally get their start there, too. This week, the network's chat rooms were abuzz with what seemed like informed chatter about the Sasser worm, which infected hundreds of thousands of computers over the weekend.
"I.R.C. is where you are going to find your 'elite' level pirates,'' said John R. Wolfe, director for enforcement at the Business Software Alliance, a trade group that fights software piracy. "If they were only associating with each other and inbreeding, maybe we could coexist alongside them. But it doesn't work that way. What they're doing on I.R.C. has a way of permeating into mainstream piracy.''
Two weeks ago, the F.B.I., in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in 10 foreign countries, announced an operation called Fastlink, aimed at shutting down the activities of almost 100 people suspected of helping operate illegal software vaults on the Internet. The pirated copies of music, films, games and other software were generally distributed using a separate Internet file-transfer system, said a Justice Department spokesman, but the actual pirates generally used I.R.C. to communicate and coordinate with one another.
"The groups targeted as part of Fastlink are alleged to have used I.R.C. to have committed their crimes, like almost all other warez groups,'' the spokesman, Michael Kulstad, said in a telephone interview. Warez, pronounced like wares, is techie slang for illegally copied software.
When I.R.C. started in the 1980's, it was best known as a way for serious computer professionals worldwide to communicate in real time. It is still possible - though sometimes a bit difficult - to find mature technical discussions among the tens of thousands of I.R.C. chat rooms, known as channels, operating at any one time. There are also respectable I.R.C. systems and channels - some operated by universities or Internet service providers - for gamers seeking opponents or those who want to talk about sports or hobbies.
Still, I.R.C. perhaps most closely resembles the cantina scene in "Star Wars'': a louche hangout of digital smugglers, pirates, curiosity seekers and the people who love them (or hunt them). There seem to be I.R.C. channels dedicated to every sexual fetish, and I.R.C. users speculate that terrorists also use the networks to communicate in relative obscurity. Yet I.R.C. has its advocates, who point to its legitimate uses.
"I.R.C. is where all of the kids come on and go nuts,'' William A. Bierman, a college student in Hawaii who helps develop I.R.C. server software and who is known
they haven't got into IIRC yet.
I guess they mean "legitimate" technical discussions, such as discussing the finer points of Outlook Express usage or who has the biggest registry. The other type aren't legit. I mean, it's just a bunch of open source losers doing useless garbage like developing the GIMP, which is clearly evil because it will put photoshop out of business, doesn't help SCO collect royalties, doesn't make a penny for MS, *and* it uses the GPL, which as we all know is unconstitutional. We certainly wouldn't want to condone *that*.
There are many open source projects using usenet forums and lots of companies do that on closed NNTP servers - but that ain't usenet. Use of NNTP does not equate with USENET. There's something to be said for product support (which I already pointed out) but a company would be supremely stupid to develop their new proprietary products in an openly accessible USENET discussion group.
IRC used to be cool.... When I was 15!
Now it's all 'H@y D00d, |)CC M3 s0m3 31337 W@r3z r I wIlL H@x0r y0ur B0x'
It's run by script kiddies.
Invisible IRC
You make me physically ill.
This is how people get arrested. How do you know you can trust the proxy? If you are connected to a box cracked by a worm or some script kiddy, odds are it's some windows box on a cable modem. It's likely to have ZERO security and if it has a relatively new OS on it it would take about thirty seconds to crack into it and get a list of ALL the machines with active connections to it. If it's an older machine then, darn it, you gotta take an extra minute or two to upload a toolkit.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
And what if it's not a script kiddy box at all, but a share on some vigilante's honeypot?
Trusting proxy servers while doing illegal shit on IRC - if you don't really, really, really know what you are doing - is just a fast pass to the local lockup.
Wanna guess why? Not some conspiracy - just because no one used the thing. So what if you have an "invisible mesh of servers" if there are only 1000 users? Doesn't take long to nail down 1000 IPS when they're all connected to one another 24/7. We discussed this in the support forum many times and, so far as I can recall, nobody ever came up with a reasonable solution to prevent people from disconnecting and reconnecting. Do that enough times, pretty soon you've got everyone's address.
Actually a lot of IRC is used as a chatroom. Granted, mostly it's for piracy. I've used IRC to keep in contact with a couple friends in that a re in the army. Also, I know tons of guilds in like Everquest have their own IRC channel to chat on. /shrug
Let's get serious and make them accountable for what they print. Get them to print a retraction. Everyone e-mail them, and RUN to the lawyers. let's fight fire with fire. The Hot Shots do it as they fight forest fires why can't we. Ooops, wait I forgot their the bully and I'm the little Jehovah boy who fought back, oooh no I'm being fined $332 and 90 days probation......oooh well fat chance.
Oooh, I dunno, this one is a bit more incriminating...
[insert witty comment here]
So, Slashdot and OSDN just throw all that registration data away?
Why are people so paranoid about a website knowing that you've been there? Do you all wear disguises and use phony identities when you shop, buy gas, write a check, get a mortgage....
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Typical anti-Semitic moron. Thanks for showing your true colors. Better go shave your head and polish your boots.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Average Joes already pollute IRC. The new elite use MUC.
All I've used IRC for is (a) providing technical support to customers, and (b) holding bored, er board meetings for a non-profit I'm a member of. Yawn. Very boaring, er, boring.
Chris Behrens, an I.R.C. software developer in Arizona known online as Comstud, said: [...]
A "/whois Comstud" on efnet gives:
So it's all true!! it's nothing but child pr0n and communism!!
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Pssh, we all know Usenet is the "Unmoderated wild side" of the internet. I knew it the first time I read the server list and spotted such horrors as 'alt.binaries.pictures.child'.
Is that a new Microsoft application?
compared to what lies for the NYT once they find out about /.
coffeehouses with wifi internet access
i know it's where i like to do my dissention (and debugging) *evil laughter*
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Did he forget to put on his brain on before writting that article? and on top of that...everyone knows those things, else you're a newbie...its no news people have been trading files for ages there...ive been in IRC since back 1996 and this guy seem to forget that there is also good things happening in there (i met lots of good friends and my actual boyfriend there) And yes i agree with that post saying that google is all you need, one time they banned me access to irc/p2p in a network...and google was enough to find everything i wanted:P I cant wait to see when they apply DCC2 on IRC, that will be fun:)
I've been using IRC since 1989 or so, and set up the first IRC server in Minnesota - was the op for it until 1994 or so. At my current employer, I set it up as an IM tool for the development teams in geographically distant offices to stay in touch. IM (e.g. MSN or Yahoo) are also in use. Of course, for urgent things we meet f2f or use the phone :)
But IRC is an excellent workplace mechanism and alternative to email, enabling lots of people near or far to communicate asynchronously and ask questions of each other, etc. And chat logs or screen shots are great for recording those hard to remember answers or cut/pasted code bits that get passed around.