Archive for the ‘IRC’ Category

mIRC 6.33 Released

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

“This version of mIRC continues to build on recent releases and addresses a number of issues that have been reported by users since the last release. It includes improvements, changes and fixes to a number of features”, the mIRC website reports.

“In particular, a new editbox “automatic” lines option has been added that dynamically changes the size of the editbox in a window to show the whole of your typed message, up to half the size of the window. This allows you to easily see and review a long, multiple-line message while keeping the size of the editbox small when it is not in use.”

IRC Defender 1.5 Released

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

IRC Defender is a security package written in Perl made for small to medium sized networks. Its written in Perl and fully modular.

It took some time to release version 1.5. Developer Thunderhacker explains: “InspIRCd became far more popular than he (Brain, ed.) expected and development of Defender got pushed to the side.  Shortly after I took over I went back to school, so my schoolwork pushed its development aside.  Now that school is out for the summer I will be doing a lot more development.”

Although newer versions are always available over SVN the team recommends stable releases if stability is important.

Operation Fastlink Suspect Pleads Guilty

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Back in April 2004 we reported about a worldwide anti-piracy sweep named “Operation Fastlink” where members of the APC group (and other warez groups) were being arrested.

Mark Shumaker, 21 years-old, was a member of the APC group and also led the Apocalypse Crew’s Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel. The group specialized in releasing music not yet available to the public.

Shumaker has pleaded guilty and faces up to 5 years in jail and a USD 250,000 fine. Fifteen other members have been convicted already.

EFnet Enables SSL Connections

Monday, May 26th, 2008

“EFnet has recently enabled SSL connections on a select few servers,” EFnet admin Taliz wrote to IRC-Junkie. “irc.efnet.ch, irc.pte.hu and irc.blessed.net are allowing SSL clients to connect on ports 9999, 7000, 7001 and 6697.”

The developers of the Ratbox IRCd added it to the code after continuous requests. “The option to support SSL connections is part of ratbox 3, which is currently in beta stage. Hence only a few servers support it yet, namely irc.efnet.ch, irc.pte.hu & irc.blessed.net. However irc.eversible.com is running a special solution also accepting SSL, using the older ratbox 2. Also irc.efnet.ch and irc.pte.hu are running separate ircds for the SSL clients, to not disrupt regular clients while bugfixing etc.”

New Zealand Botnet Master Arrested

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

An 18-year-old New Zealand suspect has been arrested in a botnet case. He is suspected of controlling a botnet consisting over 1 million infected computers and having caused nearly 13.5 Euro million in damages.

The botnet consists of AKBot worm infected machines. The botnet has been used to attack IRC networks, security companies and the University of Philadelphia.

“He is extremely clever”, said Maarten Kleintjes, head of the computer criminality department.

He is also acused of leading a worldwide network called the A-Team with members from New Zealand, Holland and the USA. New Zealand police worked togheter with the FBI on this arrest, codenamed “AKILL”.