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Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

blog.mibbit.com

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Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#51

Post by abstractbill »

ankhmoop wrote: post #47
abstractbill wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people can just bomb in on anyone's conversation in real time, from any browser, no consequences 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…

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. 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…

...it would allow Mibbit to readily spoof basic user identity.

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?

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#52

Post by ankhmoop »

mrtron wrote: post #50
ankhmoop wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About the same as any other client that makes it difficult to mask your identity via open web proxies.

Are you claiming mIRC made it difficult to use a proxy? 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.

Are you claiming mIRC made it difficult to use a web proxy?

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#53

Post by sho »

abstractbill wrote: post #43
sho wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Elitist cack" 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 "…

people can just bomb in on anyone's conversation in real time, from any browser, no consequences 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…

Well, I don't really know all the details behind Mibbit's implementation. Interesting that they pass on the IP. But the problem would then be that people can then use any of a number of proxies, etc, to get around that - Mibbit certainly does not have any incentive to block proxies, it's interested only in ad views. So it seems there would be a conflict of interest between Mibbit, interested in maximising users, and freenode, interested in maximising quality. Anyway, obviously freenode couldn't easily get around it, otherwise this news item wouldn't exist, right?

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#54

Post by abstractbill »

ankhmoop wrote: post #49
abstractbill wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(1) and (2) both boil-down to saying "we don't trust the operators of Mibbit to pass on the IP address accurately". Do you have examples of the IP address being inaccurate? (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.

Why should freenode, a not-for-profit independent entity, be required to extend trust to a third party service and their reporting of user identity?

I don't see anyone requiring that, but publicly calling into question the integrity of Mibbit without offering any evidence that they cannot be trusted is really bad karma imho.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#56

Post by ankhmoop »

abstractbill wrote: post #51
ankhmoop wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. 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…

...it would allow Mibbit to readily spoof basic user identity. 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 s…

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#57

Post by ankhmoop »

abstractbill wrote: post #54
ankhmoop wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should freenode, a not-for-profit independent entity, be required to extend trust to a third party service and their reporting of user identity?

I don't see anyone requiring that, but publicly calling into question the integrity of Mibbit without offering any evidence that they cannot be trusted is really bad karma imho.

Freenode has absolutely no innate responsibility to extend trust to a third party such as Mibbit. I see no reason to judge them poorly for failing to do so, or how this reflects on Mibbit's integrity.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#58

Post by abstractbill »

menloparkbum wrote: post #48
abstractbill wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people can just bomb in on anyone's conversation in real time, from any browser, no consequences 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…

Incidentally, having personally written the software behind an irc network that's bigger than freenode 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)

Yes, I used Twisted as the non-blocking network substrate for JTV chat. Actually in the initial implementation I used their IRC protocol library too, but that has been gradually dropped and replaced as more and more problems have been found. This is my general impression of Twisted actually - as an i/o core, it's rock-solid, but the protocol libraries are much more rough and many have clearly not been tested under significant load or with real-world messy data.

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).

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#59

Post by abstractbill »

froo wrote: post #20

I know the "official" reason, but I'm curious if there's any correlation between the blocking of mibbit and axod's post about how much revenue mibbit was making here ( http://axod.blogspot.com/2009/06/revenue-browser.html ) - the timing is awfully suspicious. 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,…

assistance with ban evasion in exchange for money

That is absurd.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#60

Post by natch »

jjs wrote: post #37
[deleted] wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

You called him a "homophobe", and I provided a link that shows evidence to the contrary. A link to an article with a comment by you, so I know you've had the chance to read the comments. I stand by my accusation of FUD, and add one of trolling, as well.

I disagree with his position, but think I was getting this discussion too far away from technology. So yeah, trolling - not intentionally, but in effect yes. So I deleted my earlier comments.
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