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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!
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...
..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.
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
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!
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!!!!
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.
"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!
"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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
errm....because we're all dying to know.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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!!
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".
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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 ----
pfft - it's chan & op :P
-- Mod me down. I am not a karma tart. ffs,gag
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!
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.
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.
"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!
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.
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."
It is kinda true. Plug in an unpatched win2k/xp and odds are, within hours, you'll get blaster, sasser and variations of one of these magnificent pieces of engineering. If you don't have at least a software based firewall, within maybe a couple days some script kiddy took advantage of an unpatched hole and your PC just joined the army of zombies of spammer X.
I've done it. Put a PC on a diff subnet at home, don't allow traffic between subnets, and sniff what happens...
*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.
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))$h!t
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
Cut SETH SCHIESEL some slack. The press is still groping with Internet issues. A few years back, a "computer expert" at most papers was someone who knew how to fix the boss's M$ 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.
If your machine is unpatched, it's likely that you'll get infected with Sasser within ten minutes of connecting to the internet. On more permissive networks, like a university's, I've heard that (and seen) this happen in less than a minute.
There's some truth to that sentiment.
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.
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!
No, he's right. I was putting together a new computers for brother just before christmas. Here is what I did:
1) Installed windows 2000 from the CD, not connected to the internet.
2) Powered down the computer and plugged into cable modem, via ethernet.
3) Powered on computer and immediately ran Windows Update.
Before I could even select which updates to install, I had a windows messaging box (the Windows functionality, not MSN messager) pop up. Anyway, I finished installing all the updates, and then proceded to install a virus checker and spyware removal programs, and the virus checker indeed did find stuff (I forget what).
So within 30 seconds of connecting the computer to the internet, a virus had already exploited a flaw in Windows, and probably had already infected the system. But I had definately been infected within 30 minutes of connecting to the internet, because it took less time than that to install the updates and virus checker.
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
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--
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
I suggest irssi. Since you use Debian, apt-get install irssi-text. It's awesome.
And don't try EFnet, or DALnet, try Freenode and OFTC (irc.freenode.net, irc.oftc.net.) Good stuff.
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.
XChat is quite okay. As long as you don't irc as root you should not have any security problems (if you take other normal security precautions)
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.
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.
I've always wondered why Windows systems ship with any open ports at all.
That's one of the things that impressed me about MacOS X; I nmapped a machine after a fresh install and ZERO ports were open. You have to specifically enable any services you want.
Why can't MS do this? It's really not that hard!
-Z
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.
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
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."
And kick or ban, not boot..
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
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
Before I could even select which updates to install, I had a windows messaging box (the Windows functionality, not MSN messager) pop up. Anyway, I finished installing all the updates, and then proceded to install a virus checker and spyware removal programs, and the virus checker indeed did find stuff (I forget what).
This has squat to do with worms and viruses. Windows 2K+ ships with windows messanger service set to start up automatically. Messenger service is designed for sysadmins to send message to the network. This has been exploited by spammers to sent out message box popups to people who haven't:
1. disabled the service
or
2. Installed a firewall.
You should have installed a firewall *before* you connected to the web.
meh