Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently. • Hacker News Board

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#141

Post by ankhmoop » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:14 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #123

Zev wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you completely and stand beside Freenode's decision. 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 v…

>> "Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a valid answer to this problem." 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…

It'd be like hackernews blocking opera users if some spam submissions were submitted by opera users.

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#142

Post by pyre » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:14 AM UTC

sho wrote: post #82

abstractbill wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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" 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…

If I have $1million there is incentive for people to shoot me in the head and take my money. I guess that means that I should hide away in the mountains as a hermit and shun society, because everyone that is part of the society has an incentive to screw me over.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#143

Post by Zev » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:20 AM UTC

allenbrunson wrote: post #138

Zev wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually spoken to several users who found that to be true. Even if silly, from the point of view of someone who knows what IRC is. Which is far from everyone. //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.

You are agreeing with someone who said "mibbit users are retards." That's not the kind of language that's encouraged around here.

Oh. Thanks for explaining. I didn't mean to imply that mibbit users are retarded. Just that they don't quite know (or care?) as much about IRC as other people do.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#144

Post by pyre » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:21 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #117

ankhmoop wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, because insinuating anyone who uses mibbit is incapable of installing an IRC client is not a sniping remark? 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.

You should block email from webmail clients. I hear they're very easy to use.

webmail clients are only blocked 'due to abuse' because it's easy to make bots to register fake email addresses. But even that is not fool-proof. I remember that back when AOL on dial-up was my internet connection, the 'master' account could create multiple 'child' accounts. So even the ISP in that case could allow you to create a 'fake' email for the purpose of registration.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#145

Post by ankhmoop » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:23 AM UTC

axod wrote: post #120

ankhmoop wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is not something that many communities on freenode are particularly interested in doing.

Channels were free to block mibbit, or require that users be identified to join the channel. In any event, this was never about Mibbit being used for abuse. It's about Freenodes own agenda.

We (as a channel) initially tried to avoid banning Mibbit wholesale, but that strategy failed. I imagine Freenode had similar issues at a larger scale. I can't say that any developers I associate with are unhappy that Mibbit was blocked.

Specifically, on a technical channel:

   Looks like Mibbit was blocked
   so sick of mibbit luzers
   nice!
   mothafuckers who can't be bothered to
  use an IRC client probably don't need to be on IRC
   had some random moron join #scheme and then
  start /msging me to ask where I was from

It's difficult to find places to engage in community discussions with other high-quality developers without eventually being inundated with low-quality participants. The quoted response may be overtly rude, but the fact is, Mibbit brought exactly the type of users that we're on IRC (and freenode, specifically) to avoid.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#146

Post by froo » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:27 AM UTC

ankhmoop wrote: post #140

pyre wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To rephrase things another way, would you ban mIRC if you determined that 100% of disruptive users used it as their client? Even though there are plenty of legitimate users of mIRC? 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…

If mIRC, by it's nature, resulted in a disproportionate maintenance cost as compared to other clients, then yes, I would seriously consider banning it. Mibbit requires additional support from Freenode: trust of its declared client IP addresses, and additional abuse support from the Freenode staff. I wouldn't demand AOL expend any effort whatsoever to support my 3rd party AIM service without remuneration, and regardle…

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#147

Post by ankhmoop » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:28 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #144

axod wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should block email from webmail clients. I hear they're very easy to use.

webmail clients are only blocked 'due to abuse' because it's easy to make bots to register fake email addresses. But even that is not fool-proof. I remember that back when AOL on dial-up was my internet connection, the 'master' account could create multiple 'child' accounts. So even the ISP in that case could allow you to create a 'fake' email for the purpose of registration.

They're also blocked because of a high number of users (proportional to other e-mail services) registering accounts to troll anonymously.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#148

Post by ankhmoop » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 1:52 AM UTC

froo wrote: post #146

ankhmoop wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If mIRC, by it's nature, resulted in a disproportionate maintenance cost as compared to other clients, then yes, I would seriously consider banning it. Mibbit requires additional support from Freenode: trust of its declared client IP addresses, and additional abuse support from the Freenode staff. I wouldn't demand AOL expend any effort whatsoever to support my 3rd party AIM service without remuneration, and regardle…

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 pe…

I'd suggest that freenode's arguments seem to be fairly hollow given ...

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#149

Post by pyre » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 2:03 AM UTC

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…

Most of your arguments (throughout all the discussion threads) boil down to: 1. All the channels you help manage banned all Mibbit users due to abuse/problems. 2. Freenode _could possibly_ have IP addresses purposefully misreported by Mibbit to them, so they shouldn't have to trust them. 3. Freenode shouldn't be _forced_ to accept traffic/users from Mibbit.

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.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#150

Post by pyre » Sat, Jun 20, 2009, 2:13 AM UTC

ankhmoop wrote: post #148

froo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pe…

I'd suggest that freenode's arguments seem to be fairly hollow given ... 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. ... fr…

> However, if I were to entertain the notion of a secret plot for IRC monetization, I still wouldn't begrudge them that choice.

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.