by Michelle Delio
10:30 a.m. Jan. 9, 2001 PST

One of the Internet's oldest and most addictive forms of communication
is under attack, and may soon be nothing more than a memory.

Internet relay chat, or IRC, a free, multi-user chat service, has been
connecting people around the globe since 1988. IRC is predominantly
staffed by volunteers who donate their skills and servers to host the
world's never-ending conversations.

But IRC channels are increasingly being hit with denial of service
attacks that are severe enough to cause their service contracts with
ISPs to be terminated and IRC servers to shut down, threatening the
existence of the service.

Currently under attack is Undernet, whose administrators say that the
service has been under a constant DoS attack since last Friday,
barraged with a flood of garbage data that ties up their servers and
renders them inaccessible to users.

Some Undernet servers have been taken down at the request of the ISP
that hosts the service, and Undernet officials say the chat may be
forced to go offline permanently if the attack continues.

A message on Undernet's front page reads: "To put it simply, we cannot
provide you with a free and stable IRC service if that means the
companies providing that service must continually suffer the loss of
customers and revenue, the cost is simply too great.

"Apparently some people do not appreciate the time, effort and money
spent to provide people with the chance to speak freely with people
from around the world, and resort to illegal and violent attacks in
what amounts in the end to an attack on the existence of IRC itself."

Undernet admins said that the most recent attack appears to have
originated from a user in Romania, but now others seem to have decided
to join in and attack Undernet's servers as well, leading to a
situation that is rapidly spiraling out of control.

"The sad thing is that IRC is being killed by the people who use it.
Hardly anyone knows about IRC anymore besides those who use it so
we're suiciding (sic) ourselves," the admin said.

IRC has an illustrious history. At the start of the Persian Gulf War,
hundreds of IRC users gathered -- spellbound and horrified -- on one
channel, reading live updates from users who were posting from Kuwait
and Israel. The live news coming in direct over IRC scooped the
censored coverage of the major networks.

IRC was also a valuable news source during the Russian coup in
September 1993, when IRC users from Moscow were giving live reports
from their country.

But in recent years, IRC has been replaced for many with more
mainstream alternatives such as AOL's chat rooms and instant messaging
clients. Some steadfast users say that IRC has now become populated
with angry kids looking for a cyber-fight.

Others, such as an IRC user who goes by "Spotz," say that IRC is
controlled by "noxious geeks who think they are God," which leads to
"an overwhelming desire to behead the false king, steal the women and
burn down their virtual house."

"IRC is indeed a hotbed of geek drama," said "Bandit" who, until
recently, hosted a private IRC channel on his home server.

"I got tired of dealing with people who thought they were HaX0rZ
(hackers) but are really D00dZ (dudes), along with the warez pups
(people looking for free software), lamers lurking in the hopes of
talking to any female, and the script kiddies," said Bandit. He closed
down his channel six months ago, after a year spent battling DoS
attacks and "a stream of insults, rants and other bullshit."

Although he mourns the loss of his channel, Bandit said he can
understand why some choose to attack IRC servers.

"There is a definite attitude problem among some of the channel
operators, who have never had any power in their lives, and suddenly
find themselves the masters of their own little domain. So they insult
people and tell them they're not 'kewl' and the kids, who have
probably spent a day in school being tormented by jocks, respond by
attacking IRC."

Launching a DoS attack on IRC isn't very difficult. Since almost
anyone can sign up to host a server, it's impossible to ensure that
every server is properly secured. The problem is also compounded by
what many claim is "total disinterest" on the part of ISPs.

"When Yahoo or eBay is under attack, the tech people at the ISPs
contact each other and try to figure out how to shut down the attack
as fast as they can. But since IRC is a giveaway service with no
commercial value, the ISPs could care less about helping us track
problems," Bandit said.

"I find it amazing that people like me, people who for all intents and
purposes have no life, are killing the one thing that we have that
amuses us," Bandit said.

"Undernet is under attack now and will probably die if something isn't
done. Once they kill Undernet they'll go for efnet or Dalnet. No one
seems to know what to do. Eventually, there will be no major IRC
servers left. Then what?"

Luzor, a self proclaimed "IRC addict," admits that he has participated
in DoS attacks against IRC servers, though he claims he hasn't done
any "DoSing" in at least a year.

"The IRC ops are evil. They put people down, and they are out to hurt.
It's not hard to see why someone would want to blow them off the face
of the Internet. If someone takes crap all day from idiots, they don't
want to have to take more crap at night from people who are supposed
to understand what it's like to be a geek, a leper, a reject," said
Luzor.

"Make IRC a place that doesn't make people angry and maybe you'll stop
getting attacked," he added.

Miz Ery, a former channel operator, agreed that IRC isn't always the
friendliest place.

"I stopped using IRC when I got a full-time job. But I peek in
occasionally and I do see a lot of angry kids looking to break stuff,"
she said. "Maybe the admins can fix the DoS problem with technical
things like router filters and the much-help from the ISPs. But the
real problem is the kids, and I think we need to really look at why
they are so angry."

Miz Ery thinks that a mentoring program for computer-savvy kids might
help, and suggests that respected hackers consider spending some time
teaching computer ethics to "our technically smart but morally
confused kids, before the next generation of hackers turns into
mean-spirited crackers.

"If we don't do something, IRC will die just like Usenet did. Spammers
and idiots have all but killed Usenet. I think IRC is next. It's sad
to see the Internet turned into nothing but a mall, sad to see all the
conversations between folks about all the important and silly things
dry up."
 
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,41077,00.html


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