Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.
blog.mibbit.com
blog.mibbit.com
I mean, a day after the post they "magically" have their own web client up that they would rather you use.
I had a look at the qwebirc client they implemented, default installation right now (looks like it was just thrown up) no ads yet, wondering how long before that changes?
EDIT - well it seems that in part some of the argument from freenode's perspective is about money.
(00:44:02) axod: nenolod: and please explain what incentive I would have to falsify such information
(00:44:17) nenolod: axod: assistance with ban evasion in exchange for money
(00:44:26) axod: nenolod: seriouslly?
(00:44:30) nenolod: axod: seriously.
(00:44:33) axod: lolhttp://blog.freenode.net/2009/06/new-freenode-webchat-and-wh...
Honestly, freenode is loaded up with tech savvy users. This will solve nothing. If users want to cause strife on channels, the tool they use is inconsequential. Below are two scenario's off the top of my head.
Scenario #1 - people will be using proxies and using freenode's webchat client = banning mibbit was pointless
Scenario #2 - people will be using their own irc clients and using open proxies = banning mibbit was pointless
So banning of mibbit hasn't actually solved the problem, but like I theorised above, has the potential to funnel revenue to freenode and given the timing of axod's post about revenue, with the banning of mibbit only a day or so after followed by the awfully convenient default webchat installation that freenode put up, it smells a little fishy (even if it's tin foil hat territory, you still have to admit it's bad timing on freenodes part).
EDIT - Scenario #3 - lowtech, just reconnecting off your router to refresh your IP and connect from home = banning mibbit was pointless
Scenario #0: people will keep using mibbit, because it's convenient and what they used before, and harass IRC channels on other networks instead.
(Sure enough, freenode's web client looks like basically a teletype in a web browser, while Mibbit's is big and flashy and web 2.0-ish. It's the HN to Mibbit's Digg.)
Well then let's break it down to its most simplistic form, the Operating System, seeing as that affects every service.
How do you account for Windows and OSX, seeing as most of your trolls would come from Windows based machines and yet most people would agree that OSX has the superior/most attractive GUI?
Just curious.
I also disagree that comparing operating systems is "simplistic". What operating system a person is using today is based on a huge number of factors, of which "attractive" is but one tiny piece -- a far more complex issue than what web chat you use.
What you're observing is what I'd call the same effect. People are lazy about sticking with an interface they know. AOL opening up USENET meant a bunch of jerks could screw things up, using the same interface they'd had. Digg/Reddit predate HN, and the jerks there aren't going to learn a new interface to be jerks to a smaller crowd here. Similarly, you're not going to change OS (and with it, interface) easily, so other effects dominate, and I'd expect most jerks, overall, to be using the most popular OS, overall. I don't know if that's true, but it fits my mental model.
When things start getting crowded, people start generally becoming rowdy - it seems to be human nature. You can have a small home party with 10-20 people and it's fine. Throw in a hundred gate crashers and it becomes a nightmare.
The thing with the internet is the anonymity that is afforded by such communities means that there is less of a barrier for people to become jerks. Look at YouTube or 4chan.
Youtube has a huge population and the comments are filled with volatile diatribe. Conversely, look at Vimeo - it's a much nicer interface, yet it doesn't have the same community issues that Youtube has.
Now let's look at 4chan. It has a simplistic user interface, but with extreme anonymity and a large enough population, it's the cesspool of the web.
I just don't think your "pretty interfaces = bad" argument has any merit.
Digg wasn't half bad when it FIRST came out, but as more people flocked to it, the quality went down. Ask a few of the old HNers and they'll argue the same about HN since it has grown in size, they argue that the quality has gone down. I mean, we see a thread complaining about it almost every other week it feels like.
Scenario #1 + #2 - the proxy will be banned or the user refused connection. There is no distinction because they can trust the code they're running to report the IP correctly. Scenario #3 - "ah crap, you mean I have to reset my router instead of just refreshing mibbit?"
From freenode.net/policy.shtml : freenode may block access to users whose IRC clients run on hosts with open proxies, IIS servers or other categories of software determined to present special risk to our server environment.
That is absurd.
njan: Xenos, for what it delivered, mibbit i)
disrupted a large number of our network users, and ii)
used a disproportionate amount of staff time.
njan: Xenos, we chose a solution that fixed those two
problems - using staff time and disrupting our 50k users
- whilst giving the mibbit users an alternative.That's a ridiculous statement. I was in the #freenode channel for a few hours, I saw many people (other than the people coming from #startups) who were logging in to ask why Mibbit wasn't working.
This is what you would call spin....
I too saw the same complaints.
It's not our responsibility to account for, be accountable to, or be concerned for outliers.
Otherwise, there's the freenode web IRC interface.
[edit]
I see Mibbit fans are downvoting any negative comments en masse, not to mention the vitriolic dialog with freenode staffers on IRC. Yeesh.
The Freenode client is freenode-specific, and only works with freenode. It also lacks a lot of Mibbit's features, from the sound of it.
It seems more likely to me that there is some sort of objection to 'web clients' because desktop clients are the 'one true way' to access IRC. Note that I say this as someone that prefers to IRC from console clients like BitchX and irssi through a screen session.
I known plenty of people that have used IRC that don't 'know' what IRC really is other than how to use the graphical elements of their client to access things for the 'chat room'.
And in this case you are not 'providing' IRC accessibility. Mibbit is providing that. The only thing that you're doing is restricting accessibility by banning Mibbit. Now if Mibbit were banned by default on your IRCd and you had to 'grant access' to them you could argue the other case.
I wouldn't demand AOL expend any effort whatsoever to support my 3rd party AIM service without remuneration, and regardless of remuneration offered, it would remain their perogative to say "no".
Why is Freenode, as an independent market actor, not allowed the same prerogative? Is it because Freenode operates as a non-profit, while Mibbit is a small startup?
I'd suggest that freenode's arguments seem to be fairly hollow given that freenode as a network is populated by tech savvy users and if they want to cause strife on the network, then the client they use wont make much different, they will find a way.
I personally find it incredibly convenient that axod writes a post about mibbit's revenue that is posted to HN and then the next day, mibbit is banned from freenode but that's ok, freenode has implemented their own webchat client that you can use. Great timing no?
Given we've established that people trolling freenode will find a way to do so regardless, that could be construed as a little fishy, no? Especially since it's just a default installation of an open source client - it wouldn't surprise me if ads pop up on the freenode webchat client in the next few months.
I also find it interesting that even though axod was in channel asking the #freenode ops what he can do to fix the issues and the general response was "sorry, it's done now" - stonewalling him only lends weight to my argument.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for freenode trying to make money to support their servers, but at least be transparent about it.
The point is, isn't this entirely their perfectly reasonable prerogative as free actors? Given that my own minimal channel 'work-load' has increased due to Mibbit, I'm inclined to take their position at face value.
However, if I were to entertain the notion of a secret plot for IRC monetization, I still wouldn't begrudge them that choice.
... freenode as a network is populated by tech savvy users and if they want to cause strife on the network, then the client they use wont make much different, they will find a way.
Mibbit's user base is relatively self-selecting. I don't believe it's inconceivable that the Mibbit user base is much more inclined to cause strife.
Whenever I go hiking in a relatively populated area, I always am bemused at how litter and graffiti disappears just a mile or so down from the trail head -- it seems that anyone willing to leave behind beer cans and spraypaint trees is also generally unwilling to walk more than a couple miles to do it.
I think people are taking issue with them being secretive about it. "We're banning Mibbit users because they abuse our network" vs "We're banning Mibbit users because we want them to use our client instead so that we can make money" are a little different from each other. If the latter is true, then they should at least be open about it.
<nenolod> jtrucks: because mibbit users are retards and they think mibbit is the only way
//edit: don't care much about karma, but I am curious as to how pointing out that not everyone knows what they're doing on IRC gets me downvoted.
I remember using Freenode early on when I discovered open source. It was a fantastic vibrant place with hackers all over the place. openprojects, lilo, great...
Unfortunately, maybe it's got too big. The atmosphere has changed for the worse IMHO. In my opinion, the staff no longer represent the community.
Today, they put their own ideals ahead of their users. Their objections to Mibbit have been
* It's not open source
* It makes money
So, IMHO, a sad day for Freenode and all that they used to represent, but an opportunity to create a new haven for hackers.
Working with Mibbit clearly costs freenode time and resources that they would rather not spend. Since Mibbit makes money, perhaps you should consider entering into a contractual relationship to provide them with financial incentive and other guarantees, in exchange for their investment in supporting your service?
The 'abuse' reason I believe is a red herring. Abuse is easy enough to deal with, and them operating their own web client won't change how often people abuse using a web client.
The abuse from Mibbit has been the only reason (in months) that I've had to set myself as an operator and ban users. As a user, I don't feel this is a 'red herring'.
So, IMHO, a sad day for Freenode and all that they used to represent, but an opportunity to create a new haven for hackers.
I'm perfectly happy on Freenode, and our IRC channels are quite vibrant. I hope you can reach a resolution with the Freenode staff.
I also offered to help with the abuse. I've asked several times for details of abuse. I haven't been able to get concrete details on what abuse happens, when, what they have to do etc. The staff are incredibly secretive - unlike other networks, they don't link servers, their staff run everything, and I believe this was one of the reasons - they want complete control over everything including web clients.
Out of 500 or so people @peak times, I think the abuse level was really low. Also it's easily solved with a WEBIRC setup which we have with a large number of IRC networks (Which we never hear from, because abuse is handled by WEBIRC and their own systems as with direct connections).
I hope freenode will decide to reconsider, but they clearly want people to use their own web client, rather than mibbit. It would have been nice to at least give people some notice rather than just shut off access.
In fact, we were planning to have mibbit links to freenode#perl showing up all sorts of places in the perl community to try and make it easier for people to get onto IRC and ask questions when they got stuck with things. I've notified the guys working on that to hang fire until we work out what the hell is going on.
Most annoying, whoever's fault it is (and being an argument on the internet I'm going to default to "everybody's, and especially mine, even if I wasn't involved" :)
freenode deals with a lot of closed source and for profit projects, the idea that the ban is purely for those reasons is "very" far fetched.
the freenode admins have said multiple times that they will be happy to reverse their position as they have in the past
the entire problem seems to be down to a lack of communication between mibbit and freenode, and both sides have blamed each other for the miscommunication.
after witnessing axods attempt at communicating, and seeing freenode communicating find with a large number of other partners, Its fairly reasonable to assume axod needs to the communication issues sorted at his end.
Freenode's position seems to be that they will never trust any third party, no matter what that third party does. The most oft-repeated argument on #freenode was not about the hassle of dealing with bad users (everyone, including axod, agreed with the sentiment of mibbit and freenode working together to resolve those), but that it was actually not possible for mibbit to do anything to resolve that problem.
I'm sure you don't like to hear that, but I sat on that channel for a long while reading what was being said, and Freenode were behaving like a bunch of power-tripping bureaucrats. Every time axod, or anyone else, asked "what can mibbit do, concretely, to make you happy?" the answer was either "make mibbit open-source" or "nothing", or, "axod should have discussed this with us a year ago, it's too late now".
It's a real shame for an IRC network with the legacy of freenode to behave like that. I had a lot of respect for freenode prior to this, but I don't have much left after today. The sad thing is it wouldn't take much effort on the part of freenode to regain that respect... so I'm hoping you and your freenode colleagues come to a saner decision and work with axod to resolve this in an amicable fashion.
There seems to be a bit of miscommunication between mibbit and freenode here, where freenode believes that they tried extensively over at least a year to resolve this with mibbit and mibbit says they had no clue. I'd certainly be suspicious and not necessarily feel welcome to forgiving immediately if something like that happened.
And as for trust - I don't know either group. But from the patient way in which the freenode staffers explained what was happening and their rationale to everyone who entered #freenode to demand their mibbit back for (I think) the better part of twelve hours, that leaves me with far more respect for them than for axod at the moment, assuming certain things about his actions fit together like it seems.
As someone who is an ircop on another network with a few thousand users that also blocks Mibbit, abuse is not a red herring at all.
The last time Mibbit was unbanned on the network, it was used repeatedly for users to evade channel bans and harass users. Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a valid answer to this problem.
IMHO, its a sad day when a single, relatively new client (that displays ads/produces income for), feels that it is important enough for a network that has been around much longer to bend its policy to work around. And then have the gall to accuse the network of wanting to make a profit itself?
WEBIRC is the standard solution to this, and it existed long before Mibbit did. It's also about as simple and obvious as a protocol could be: the web server simply forwards the user's IP address on to the ircd at the start of a session.
We currently have WEBIRC setup with 454 IRC networks, representing around 200k users. I hardly think that's a "non standard protocol that only mibbit seems to use" is it now. All modern IRC servers support it out of the box.
I don't think I indicated freenode was planning to make a profit out of their client, you'd have to ask them about that. I wish them all the luck.
This isn't about me, or money, etc. This is about them cutting off users, who used mibbit to connect to freenode. IMHO that's a bad decision, and not a nice open friendly thing to do.
It'd be like hackernews blocking opera users if some spam submissions were submitted by opera users.
I'm not claiming Freenode was standing to make a profit from this; you did: "* It makes money" — I also mentioned that you stand to lose money if a major network doesn't let users use your client. I'm not claiming this is your motive for wanting people to use Mibbit. I don't know what you think. Just that from an outside perspective, its a possible thought.
And I don't see the Opera comparison. Opera doesn't force users to proxy through their own servers. Its a completely transparent tool, right out of the box. Users have to actively set up a proxy for Opera to use it. With Mibbit? It uses the proxy by default, no way around it for the users.
I think that you should re-read that unless you are saying he said that Freenode "Isn't open source" as well...
No, it would be like HackerNews blocking a 3rd party HN client that:
* Required that HackerNews trust the third party client service to provide user identity.
* Had a significantly higher level of abuse as compared to standard users.
* Required a disproportionate amount of resources to support for the given user base.
* (Least important) monetized HackerNews via advertisements.
To be fair, I was the first one making that accusation (not axod) and I clearly indicated that it was a tinfoil hat moment - time will tell, but the banning of mibbit and the implementation of their own webchat client (well, currently a default installation of an open source client) is awfully convenient given axod wrote a post on mibbit's revenue only the day before.
I'm not a freenode staffer, but I was in the channel while this discussion was ongoing. What they did say was that:
1) the WEBIRC protocol, which mibbit pushes heavily, is fundamentally not trustable unless you know exactly what code is running
2) there are additional incentives for a commercial enterprise to potentially abuse any level of trust given to it
3) that this discussion was a tangent from the actual issue, which was that mibbit has not been, for over a year, open to discussion and working with freenode.
Their own client is not less capable of preventing abuse, because they can integrate it into their network better (which I take to mean things like actually presenting a guaranteed IP address and similar things), which means that they can then reliably block abusive users using the standard IRC techniques.
EFNet for example was more than happy to setup WEBIRC. So are hundreds of others. For Mibbit, it's the cleanest, least hassle solution. It needs no management. The networks own security handles everything. That is why it's recommended.
I'm really skeptical that abusing trust would be a good thing to do - if trust has been broken, networks can just ban you easily.
#3 I disagree with strongly. I have tried extremely hard to have an open dialog with freenode, to get details of any abuse, to get any email reports to abuse@mibbit.com or PM.
I'm working on new anti-abuse features for non-webirc networks that will hopefully help here.
Of course. My intent with that post was not to get into a discussion about why Freenode was right or wrong in making their decision - like I said, I'm not a staffer, and I have no access to the information they presumably are making their decisions on.
My intent with that post was to point out that Freenode's reasons were significantly more nuanced than you claimed in your parent post, and to address your response to one of them using arguments that they, again, outlined while you were in the channel.
This is completely stupid of Freenode. Shame on them.
Axod, how do you know it’s permanent? Have they made a statement?
Direct link to their new web IRC client: http://webchat.freenode.net/
Damn, so many nice things written in Python .. guess it's time to learn it : /
"Disconnected from server: Connection to IRC server lost: Buffer overflow"
Mibbit has never done that to me...
The quality of user was exceptionally low, and "easy webchat" simply doesn't seem like a strong value proposition for the technical users that frequent the network.
The situation on, say, the ruby-talk mailing list is analogous; whenever you see a really, really stupid question, check out the submitter - chances are it's through one of the web interfaces to the ML.
The necessity of installing and configuring an IRC client to use freenode is an example of a good barrier to entry.
* Part of axod's idea, from what I gather, is simply to provide a nice chat system, that happens to have IRC as a backend. Would you say that people who can't install a proper nntp/smtp/whatever client shouldn't be allowed either? How 'bout twitter, to pick something popular? How about people who need help setting up an online store presence because they can't code it themselves? We owe the existence of this site to pg knocking down that particular barrier to entry.
Now, the question of abusive users is another one, and one that deserves to be taken seriously. But I have no idea about how axod handles that side of things.
You need something better, though.
After all, it should be noted that discussion here is via a web based interface, and yet the conversation isn't that bad.
I agree, but IRC is different and arguably antiquated technology. It doesn't require registration, operates in real-time, has no concept of reputation or community moderation. It's difficult to manage, and services that accidentally facilitate abuse make it more so.
More accurately, the protocol doesn't say anything about registration. It's dead simple to implement some form of registration outside of the IRC protocol, and then only allow registered users to connect.
In any event, this was never about Mibbit being used for abuse. It's about Freenodes own agenda.
Specifically, on a technical channel:
<me> Looks like Mibbit was blocked
<user1> so sick of mibbit luzers
<user2> nice!
<user3> mothafuckers who can't be bothered to
use an IRC client probably don't need to be on IRC
<user1> had some random moron join #scheme and then
start /msging me to ask where I was from
Why did it fail? You can just ban mibbit if you like on the channel :/
I've used Mibbit as my primary client for a year. I take offense at your blanket statements about the "type of users that use mibbit".
We didn't want to ban an entire service! Unfortunately, it wound up being the easiest way -- hence, our attempt to avoid doing so failed.
I've used Mibbit as my primary client for a year. I take offense at your blanket statements about the "type of users that use mibbit".
You are an outlier. The "type of users that use mibbit" were consistently abusive, difficult to deal with, and ultimately detrimental to our communities.
We tend to be patient with individuals (even semi-abusive ones) before resorting to crude methods such as banning.
You'll get rid of all uneducated trolls. The educated ones may be the worst kind, but that's another matter.
I can think of several times I've used mibbit to pop in to #startups (or another channel on another network) because installing an IRC client just isn't possible (lack of admin rights, on someone else's computer, etc).
Not at all. It's like a short, basic aptitude test before you're able to join a recreational sports team, or maybe a driving test. Just shows that you know the ropes at least a bit, you have at least basic competence.
Remove that and people can just bomb in on anyone's conversation in real time, from any browser, no consequences, nothing. Is that really what you want?
I object to your use of the word "elitism". Someone's basic technical competence, and the effort they've put in to do something, is a pretty reliable guide to the quality of their contribution, whatever it might be. When I see someone has a free blog on wordpress.com or what not, I instantly assume they either do not care or do not know how to set up their own system. When I see someone with a hotmail address I assume they do not know better. And on irc, when I see someone using mibbit, I assume they do not know how - or are too lazy - to set up IRC.
If people can't put in this basic effort, why let them in? You can yell "elitism" all you want; I prefer to think of it as "rules of the club". Anyone can join the club, they just have to pass the first, very easy, test. What is wrong with that?
And I think your use case for the service, as described in your anecdote, is likely to be quite atypical. I doubt the majority of Mibbit users just happened to be using it because they were using someone else's computer. You are the exception to the rule.
I tend to agree with sho, and alternative, reasoned viewpoints would be enlightening.
I have no problem with basic aptitude tests. I have no problem with restricting a community to the technically literate. What I have a problem with is the assumption that anyone choosing to use X over Y is some kind of moron.
No, simply that as an initial barrier to entry for a technical community, "browsing to a web page" isn't very difficult and serves poorly as a first-pass filter.
This is rather misleading. Mibbit may be a browser-based client, but it does pass on the user's IP to the remote ircd, which means exactly the same protections exist as for any other irc client.
Incidentally, having personally written the software behind an irc network that's bigger than freenode (I wrote justin.tv's chat server, which has had a peak of more than 360k concurrent clients connected), I would trust Mibbit long before I would trust a bunch of other clients. MIRC, in particular, is plain nasty.
First, it's considerably easier to find open web proxies than it is to find IRC-capable proxies, and Freenode runs proxy detection to catch use of IRC-capable proxies.
Second, trusting Mibbit's IP address reporting is a tall order, equivalent to peering their IRC servers with Mibbit, as it would allow Mibbit to readily spoof basic user identity.
Incidentally, having personally written the software behind an irc network that's bigger than freenode (I wrote justin.tv's chat server, which has had a peak of more than 360k concurrent clients connected), I would trust Mibbit long before I would trust a bunch of other clients. MIRC, in particular, is plain nasty.
What 'trust' must be divested in end-user, per-user desktop IRC clients? Mibbit must be trusted to report user identity accurately, to not allow proxy connections, and to quickly respond to abuse while not causing freenode's volunteer's undue labor.
Most importantly, freenode is privately owned and managed, it's not a public service and has no responsibility to provide service to Mibbit, especially if Mibbit causes a disproportionately sized administrative headache.
What conceivable reason would Mibbit have for doing that?
Mibbit must be trusted to ... not allow proxy connections
No, that's not true. Mibbit must be trusted merely to pass-on the correct IP. Then Freenode's existing proxy detection can handle the job of rejecting proxied connections.
You are publicly calling into question Mibbit's integrity here, and suggesting that there's an incentive to give Freenode false information about users' IP addresses. Why?
Regardless of Mibbit's integrity -- of which I have no opinion, and am not calling into question -- freenode has absolutely no responsibility (contractual, moral, or otherwise) to extend their trust to any third party.
If Mibbit wishes to resolve the issue they can enter into a contract with Freenode to establish trust. Mibbit can provide a financial incentive and contractual guarantees, and in return Freenode can agree to extend Mibbit trust and administrative resources.
I know nothing about Mibbit beyond their web page and their colourful representative here, but - it's not about the personal integrity of the founder, or whatever. Mibbit's whole business model is around advertising. The more page views, the more advertising, the more profit. They have no investment in any other metric. It is reasonable to assume Mibbit does whatever they can think of to boost their usage.
"suggesting that there's an incentive to give Freenode false information about users' IP addresses"
There is a clear commercial incentive to encourage usage of the service. If sending random IPs to Freenode boosts revenue, there would be an incentive to do that. That would be reprehensible, of course, but you can't say there's no incentive.
My Responses: (1) You had a problem with Mibbit users that you seem to have solved. Why do you need to argue so passionately against Mibbit if it was so easy for you to solve? Did it take you hours and hours to figure out how to ban Mibbit users from your channels? There is a post by someone from #perl that says they even figured out how to extract the original user's IP and that they were able to get rid of most of the bad users by banning the default Mibbit prefix. That doesn't seem too hard to me (banning the nick prefix). Could you enlighten us as to why Mibbit made it a PITA to ban all Mibbit users from your channel?
(2) I don't see any claims that Freenode knows that Mibbit is misreporting its users' IP addresses. Whether or not they have incentive to do so is irrelevant because it does not even seem to be a stated reason behind Freenode's decision. Therefore presumably Freenode either believes what Mibbit reports or they don't think that it's a minor issue. In either case, I don't see how it should be a large part of this discussion. To further argue against your point, Freenode supports Tor. Tor's stated objective is to help users be anonymous. Should Freenode also ban all users from ISPs that allow them to reset their modems to get another dynamic IP address?
(3) I see lots of disagreement with Freenode's decision, and calls for reversal but I have yet to see someone claiming that Freenode should be required to never ban a certain client. Just because someone disagrees with a decision doesn't mean they believe that the person/group doesn't have a right to make a decision. Much in the same way that just because Freenode has the right to make this decision I am not required to like it.
We had to solve the problem, as did all other channels with this issue. You reference another poster who had similar issues. How many man hours were blown by individual channel managers dealing with Mibbit issues?
I don't see any claims that Freenode knows that Mibbit is misreporting its users' IP addresses. Whether or not they have incentive to do so is irrelevant because it does not even seem to be a stated reason behind Freenode's decision. Therefore presumably Freenode either believes what Mibbit reports or they don't think that it's a minor issue. In either case, I don't see how it should be a large part of this discussion. To further argue against your point, Freenode supports Tor. Tor's stated objective is to help users be anonymous. Should Freenode also ban all users from ISPs that allow them to reset their modems to get another dynamic IP address?
1) Whether or not Mibbit misrepresents IP addresses isn't really the issue. Why should Freenode have to adopt a policy of extending trust to a third party service? What about future services that also request similar access? Why is this Freenode's problem?
Additionally, this is relevant because extending trust would simplify freenode's handling of abuse, and is so the recommended (demanded?) course of action by Mibbit proponents.
2) Freenode supports Tor, but has banned Tor in the past, may do so again in the future, and had to expend extra effort to work with the EFF to support Tor.
Since Tor is intended (in no small part) to provide a service to users in fascist states, Freenode clearly felt this was worth addressing, but even still, have had to take draconian measures due to abuse in the past.
I see lots of disagreement with Freenode's decision, and calls for reversal but I have yet to see someone claiming that Freenode should be required to never ban a certain client. Just because someone disagrees with a decision doesn't mean they believe that the person/group doesn't have a right to make a decision. Much in the same way that just because Freenode has the right to make this decision I am not required to like it.
Simply put, I find the sense of entitlement to be audacious. Mibbit is an external service, has no claim to Freenode's services, and was causing Freenode a disproportionate amount of trouble.
I wouldn't expect or demand that Freenode accommodate peering AOL/AIM, Facebook, or any other external service -- why is Mibbit any different?
From what I've read in your comments in the past, I'm assuming you used Twisted for the IRC backend. I was wondering, if you were starting this project today, would you still use Twisted? (apologies for veering off topic)
As for whether I would use it again... I think I'd be really tempted to use Clojure to be honest. Python is nice enough, but I still find myself missing a real Lisp (I did a lot of CL work before I joined JTV).
I've been using Ruby's EventMachine, I can get it up to about C20k before it blows up, but that's local only, remains to be seen what proper connections will do. Haven't tried multiple processes yet. As for IPC I just dump everything into AMQP, whose fanout exchanges seem practically designed for IRC : D
Hm, anyway, thanks for the info. Really cool to hear python stretching that far.
Funnily enough, I'm currently writing my own (toy) IRC server too, though I doubt it will (or could) ever serve the numbers you're talking about! Amazing that it has never really progressed beyond RFC2812, and even that was old news when it was written in 2000. I'd like to see IRC 2.0.
Mibbit blocks all known web proxies, tor, etc and has done for a long time. You really do think the worst of everyone don't you. I wonder what that says about you? :/
That he's either Danish or Australian?
That he's someone I'd hire to deal with network security.
What about actually looking at their contribution and judging it on its own merits?
Isn't this just like judging someone's talk by how they look or judging a book by its cover? Isn't this the same principle as racial profiling? You take a factor which seems to have a correlation but which is incidental to what you're really trying to determine?
For that matter, isn't it like, "that new VM can't be that much better. Aren't our VM guys really smart?"
The really annoying thing about the Pointy Haired Bosses is their constant use of such heuristics in evaluating technology. It's when we see how their heuristics are maddeningly wrong when they dismay us the most.
I propose that we techies would be better served by eschewing such sloppy heuristics and actually evaluating technology and technical expertise. We have big brains, so we can just reserve judgment on the rest until we have actual evidence.
Doesn't strike me as good enough of a barrier. Then you still get a lot of idiots who think they are elite just because they can set up a client. Not sure that's improved the situation that much.
Which is why they saw to it to create their own web chat...
http://blog.freenode.net/2009/06/new-freenode-webchat-and-wh...
1) Manage it directly, immediately, and independently of any third party as to quickly respond to abuse.
2) Directly trust the web client's reporting of IP addresses, which is the primary form of unregistered user identity management on IRC.
3) Perform proxy detection on incoming web client connections, which they already use for non-web connections (http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#firewall)
(3) makes no sense, assuming you do trust the IP address, so doesn't add anything more than (1) and (2). You can already perform proxy-detection if you have WEBIRC and you trust the reported IP.
Provide a friendly interaction environment for project coordination and for the support of community projects.
Freenode, as a communication platform (and particularly as a self-described "friendly" environment) have a duty, to common sense and intelligence, to make reasonable efforts to encourage communication rather than stifle it.
Being willfully wooden-headed about this whole thing is not just wrong because of the unnecessary harm it causes, it's also self-contradictory.
What about Facebook? Google Talk?
As a member of several "community projects", I don't feel particularly slighted (and am, in fact, relieved due to decreased abuse) by the disconnection of Mibbit.
They don't have any responsibility to provide it, they can do what they like to their users. But I think their users liked it - which is why thousands of people used mibbit to connect to freenode.
Freenode clearly has a closed management culture, which is why they want complete control of everything. I don't think that makes for a great community.
Apparently #perl found a way to get around this without banning all of Mibbit. Maybe others should take the time to put more than a "F* YOU!!" into this?
I'm curious as to how much time you've spend solving the problem vs. complaining about it in forums/channels... I can say that right now I have more respect for the #perl guys than you, and I'd never heard of Mibbit before this article...
There has always been proxy settings available. I...know some people...that wrote scripts for mIRC that loaded thousands of bots on proxies. That was on an early Pentium with dialup too.
Since IRC traffic can't be conveyed via a web proxy, yes. =)
There has always been proxy settings available. I...know some people...that wrote scripts for mIRC that loaded thousands of bots on proxies. That was on an early Pentium with dialup too.
Absolutely, I used to abuse WinGate TCP proxies back in the day. Those eventually disappeared, and it's now much harder to find open TCP-capable (SOCKS, etc) proxies. To seal the deal, major IRC networks perform TCP proxy detection on incoming connections to check for open proxies operating on standard ports.
That may still happen, depending on whether freenode learns to actually trust a human being (see the rest of this thread), and on what axod and swombat decide.
Edit: And you can come to #startups on irc.mibbit.com already. :)
It's just as easy for me to type /server irc.mibbit.net over /server irc.freenode.net - no forcing involved.
It's a shame, but the extreme reactions of the freenode operators is destroying the server. Soon you'll need an encryption key, proprietary software and be forced to donate (which btw i wont be doing any more)
[17:30] <swombat> it's called +m [17:30] <swombat> it works like this [17:30] * swombat sets the channel mode to 'moderated'.