Unreal channel modes

al5001 · Lurker Joined: 17 Jul 2003 Posts: 181 Location: Canada

You can't just track people down like that. Most ISPs, if not all, have what's called an IP pool for dynamic IP addresses. Unless you run a business, you'll never have a static address, and more likely you'll have a dynamic address from an IP pool. This IP pool could even cover one whole country, holding thousands of addresses, each belonging to different places. Saying that you can track people down just with their IP is totally bullocks. You can only trace the IP down to the provider, and then you'll need to get a court order to even force the ISP to tell you any info on that person. Ever hear about the internet privacy act? No ISP can just give away your street address without court order or your permission

So okay, I blew away that point. The only thing you have left is security. DDoS, hacking, etc -- most computers that have Windows preinstalled already have antivirus and firewall software. Anyone these days not having it is a sitting duck. GNU/Linux, BSD, and the rest of UNIX-based systems all have some kind of firewall capability. All you gotta do is configure it. And if you don't have a firewall and antivirus software, some ISPs will even delete your account, just like my ISP will. DDoS is the only problem I see, and if it gets really bad, the user can just get a new IP address by renewing the lease with cable/DSL, or reconnecting with dialup. At the very very least, the user could talk to his own ISP and report to them the person doing the DDoS.

You'll need many more excuses before you can convince me that IP masking is desperately needed in IRCd. As I see it, hostmasking is a luxurious feature, not a necessity.

PS: Just think about it. Every email you send. Every website you visit. Every DCC file you send. You give away your IP to all of those.

Talrias · Lurker Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 163 Location: :noitacoL

magpie · Idler Joined: 18 Jan 2004 Posts: 454 Location: Essex, UK

Talrias · Lurker Joined: 16 Feb 2004 Posts: 163 Location: :noitacoL

GeniusDex · Lurker Joined: 16 Aug 2003 Posts: 150

Ashen · Idler Joined: 05 Jan 2004 Posts: 285

The fundamental problem here is that without accountability, IRC would descend into a warzone.
The ident, nick, version, and so on of a connected user can be changed very easily in almost all cases. The only thing we have left to identify people with that they can't very easily change is their IP/host.
IRC Admins know this, and so do coders. Why do you think it is that it is common for the default bantype in various services to be *!*@full.host?

I am totally against fully hiding the IP addresses of clients, using vhosts such as username.staticdomain.org (undernet's ID.users.undernet.org is an example of this bad policy) as ban evasion becomes almost impossible to defeat without oper intervention.

Partial IP address hiding may be useful to stop user<-->user DoS or nuking (but then again, is stopping this our responsibility?). Even if this is true, it is the same principle that has resulted in our situation with AOL where, due to not being able to resolve a user on AOL down to any small area, in order to ban one AOL user (XHCO8304.ipt.aol.com), we have to ban them all (*.ipt.aol.com). It makes banning people extremely difficult...... and turns ban evasion from a minor problem into a serious disaster.

I'd support some very limited hostmasking of a small part of the address of a client (maybe, up to the first . in a hostname with more then 4 parts, or the last segment of the 4 part IP address) but no more then this...... to provide users with more anonymity beyond this is simply encouraging them to act without care for the consequences.

-Ashen

angelic · Lurker Joined: 01 Aug 2003 Posts: 148

The first few pages of this thread were amusing to start with and then just plain insulting.

As the admin of a network that uses UnrealIRCD i seem to fit into the newbie catagory for some of you here. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, because my network uses unreal, i _must_ be power hungry admin. Oh, on top of that i'm a girl, so i'm buggered.

<evil cackle>

We chose unreal because of the options and freedom it allows our users, for the clueful developers who (more often than not *hi codemastr*) listen to their users and supporters, we chose anope services for the same reasons.

I dislike the implications made in this thread by the self named elite of irc.

Firstly why should irc remain closed to people less technically minded than l33t *nix g0d5? Why shouldn't a teacher wanting to open a network for their book group be able to grab and ircd and run it?

Secondly, rarely do i join a network and _not_ see some kind of oper abuse. I view comments, like those made here, to users in that god awful "i am l33t3r than j00" tone, as abuse.

You can guarantee you've not done yourselves or the networks you're representing any favours with this thread.

al5001 · Lurker Joined: 17 Jul 2003 Posts: 181 Location: Canada

katsklaw · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2004 Posts: 1122

ok, we aren't talkin about modes anymore ... we are talkin about everything but. So this thread has outlived it's purpose.

Closed.