The future of DALnet...

v0rtexio · Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 62 Location: worcester

On a more serious note,

I just wanted some feedback on where you guys think the infamous DALnet is going - will the banning of FDC class C ips bring a new wave of ddos attacks to the network? will it be detrimental on how people view dalnet? heres my view...

DALnet has always been a network i have personally avoided, although i have ventured into DAL-Land on few occasions, where i have not liked what i have seen... Going from one of the 3 top networks and strongly enforcing a network wide TOS - leads me to the penultimate questions... have they left it too late for them to do this? Is there reputation already tarnished?

anyways - i do my best to stay away from dalnet due to its reputation of underage porn and xxx channels... can dal do something more to prevent this, or are all bigger networks ran without morals ?

I do admire dalnet in a way however for this banning, but there are other way of stopping harmful bots than banning ISPs !

Peace
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_dood_ · Joined: 07 Mar 2005 Posts: 21 Location: United Kingdom

I personally love DALnet. Its one the only large networks that I trust because of the services it has to offer.

The Denial of Service attacks caused a huge downward spiral in its user base as confidence was destroyed for many users. I was not witness to this so I cant comment but from what I have seen I am impressed.

As far as the underage pornography and XXX channels are concerned this is a common hazard for any large network. DALnet does not endorse child pornography however, and I'm very certain that nobody working for them would be pleased to know that users were on their network for that purpose alone. DCC is anonymous and unmoderated at the best of times so its down to the users own seedy mind.
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Mentality · Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 32

DALnet has been my home network since I started using IRC, I saw the DDoS attacks and they were handled very well, both by the DALnet staff and the regular users of DALnet. Whilst a lot of negatives were spurted towards the network, admiration has to be felt towards the strong sense of community that came out of the attacks.

Then of course, what many think was a bad move (I personally think every network should follow suit), they banned file sharing, also contributing to their large userbase downfall. Having spoken to a number of opers in the past about this however, they are quite pleased - the rate at which DALnet was growing and the abuse they had to handle because of this was ridiculous. As a user, I feel the network is better for it too.

As a note, I believe DALnet have closed channels which give out XXX passwords. Sex chat is something IRC can be used for, whilst I don't frequent the channels myself, I don't see it as a "bad" thing. Child pornography distribution would break the AUP as no mass file sharing is allowed, so they don't allow those either. What's more, it is against their AUP:

"All clients connecting to DALnet must agree to refrain from using DALnet to engage in illegal activities, including the transfer of "warez" or "kiddie porn"."

Unfortunately, I assume like any IRC network, it has far too much politics, it also has its fair share of arrogant opers and, as I have experience on two other IRC networks, it seems to me DALnet has more than other networks. To be honest, it seems that opers have their very own community separate from almost every normal user of DALnet, and if you fall out with one of them, you are branded by all of them. I don't think DALnet succeeds in its opers being a part of the community. They help a lot, but it's all so stiff and formal, which does nothing for their aim at being the friendliest IRC network. I do think it achieved this in the past though but has been weeded out through years of growth, gaining of admins, gaining of admin's friends, eventually leading to what I perceive today as elitism. Whilst ranting, I want to also note there are some wonderful exceptions, and those people do a fantastic job.

Anyway, , what do I think the future of DALnet is? Well, I think this whole IX concept is brilliant, and its main co-ordinators (more specifically, Ahnberg) has been brilliant and exceedingly patient in explaining this process to anyone who asks (including myself). I don't think it's going to grow much bigger, nor do I think it wants to though. However, for the users who currently exist, and for the few who do set up a new home there, I think it will be a very enjoyable experience. Since the attacks a couple of years back, there has been a HUGE decline in the number of netsplits and Services outages, I rarely see it at all. I don't think this FDCServers akill will bring any DDoS attacks, and if it does, it won't be that detrimental - in the few days they have been akilled, as I said, I have seen no netsplits or anything else indicating massive attacks that a user would be affected by.

Whew.

Edit: Oh, and the number of times a thread has been posted titled "The future of DALnet?", "is DALnet going to die?" is ridiculous, none of those times has DALnet died (obviously), but nevertheless, it's a fun opportunity to share my opinion!

Regards,
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mite · Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Posts: 107

I've wandered into a few DALnet channels in the past...

Each time I connected, I was turned away by the channels I found other users in by /whois'ing at random. A large number of 'normal' DALnet users seem to occupy pornography and other sex related channels.

Hardy · Joined: 06 Nov 2004 Posts: 3 Location: Kongsberg, Norway

One comment i have is, their new IX system to irc-servers will probably make the network alot stronger then most others if shit hits the fan later on, however to administrate it and making sure the major internet exchanges has a dalnet server/peering will be a hell of a job i dont envy them...

And i have to say i think efnet`s strategy of demanding more of the provider hosting the server in ddos filters, shitload of bandwith and a solid network vs. the way some ...other.. major irc-networks do it by just looking at the admin when linking (offcourse the server have to match minimum requirements also.. ) is what makes efnet strong, and what some of the other top 5 networks really lack.
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x · Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Posts: 43 Location: ireland

the New IX servers.. whats the difference from the normal servers?

to me Dalnet will always be my home .. it has what i need good chans , Decent opers , and Services its all im looking for really.
I Tried other networks efnet and undernet and some other net but they didnt have jack shit on Dalnet when compared.. yes it has more "chans" and "people" but iv noticed they IDLE alot more on efnet and undernet then they do on Dalnet .. you could say i dont come on at the same times as everyone but i found that to bullshit since im on a hell of alot.

Im amazed Dalnet has lived this long even through the Ddos attacks ..Whatever happened to the ddosers during that big attack in December?.. did they just give up?

in your remark about knowing ircopers and "elitism" i'd say you couldnt be more 100% right. There are a few Decent Ircopers that are willing to help but most of em keep to themselves

basically i'd say mentalities(sp) post has hit on the nail
Good post Smile

Stefano · Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 34 Location: Beirut

if undernet is somehow today is big, is also because of the failure of dalnet. i myself am a dalnet user from 1997 till 2000. when dalnet crashed. we #france moved to undernet and i never came back because i found on undernet peace which i couldnt find on dalnet. (plus not being able to hide his vhost on dalnet provided lot of problems. i use to get packet often by some kidos just for not voicing them... (for example))

today i just want to show lebanon as example. this a tinny country yeah? ok.. #Lebanon dalnet is closed. cityshells.net main lebanese shells company glined. as we all know in lebanon they have cables and 4 5 neibours share the same ip.. so if 10 users are online from a street the whole city is unable to conect.. now tell me how do u want lebanese people to join dalnet?..
so.. -1000 users for dalnet
+ 1000 for undernet.
tiny example...
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katsklaw · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 1:50 am?? ?Post subject: Re: The future of DALnet...

Stefano · Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 34 Location: Beirut

you know.. go to DALnet you will notice most of the users are from
paskistan, indian, indonesia, arabia .. asians/orientals
you go to undernet.. canadians americans romanians.. westerns
maybe this is it. simply western people are better at irc then the orientals
just like in real life..

its just irc theorie that we can maybe consider
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computerdude · Joined: 10 Jul 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Next Door

I've never liked DalNET for as long as I can think. I wouldn't really care if the network died or not.
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Stefano · Joined: 01 May 2005 Posts: 34 Location: Beirut

when u download mirc.exe and u wana connect it randomly gives u like 5 networks most of the time its efnet dalnet as i noticed
so i dont know how many noobs download mirc per year
but i imagin if 1/5 lands on dalnet
whatever hapens the network cant die
maybe yes some oldies move to some other places but wont just die.

i infact would link dalnet to mirc, its just the reflect image of mirc.
if dalnet its shows that irc is too.. in fact it is and we all know it
but we are like cursed people we just want to stay here till the end..
i got a new pc , i had paltalk in it.. i asked the guy hey where is mirc , he said what?
see..
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