[Asmo]

Criten.net approves new client servers

Sunday, September 29 2002 by Hardy

To handle the load of the users, Criten have added two new client servers to their pool. netstable.tx.us.criten.net and ParsISP.se.eu.criten.net are both open for everyone and after only weeks beeing linked they both hold more then 3000 clients each.

To continue beeing able to handle the growth of users, Criten are in desperate need for more client servers who can handle the load. So if you have bandwith to spare and a machine to run it from they urge you to fill in the link application.

Criten is the 18. biggest irc network in the world with 11000 concurrent connections accouring to stats from netsplit.de and the main population of the network is people exchanging warez. The network hosts 7 of 10 biggest channels on irc, where the biggest one right now have 3000 clients. The network only have 14 servers including hubs.

Two new servers on Galaxynet

Sunday, September 29 2002 by Hardy

GalaxyNet Administration has approved the testlink of Phoenix.AZ.US.GalaxyNet.Org.

Also,SonicRealm.US.GalaxyNet.Org have been approved to run a west coast routing hub. The name of the server is SonicRealm-HUB.US.GalaxyNet.Org and this happend only a month after they granted permanent link to the client server.

GalaxyNet have a average of 23000 clients accouring to netsplit.de and is the 11. biggest irc network. The network have 30 servers including hubs and the majority of ircers are from asia.

Distributed.net founders give IRC chat session

Sunday, September 29 2002 by Asmo

A few days back the Distributed.net website reported the RC-5 project has been completed. The goal of the project was to crack a 64 bit code used to encrypt a sentence. This project was done worldwide with the aid of "distributed computing" where thousands of computers where used to crack the code. Someone from Japan, who wish to remain anonymous, has finally cracked the code after 1757 days. The sentence to be cracked was: some things are better left unread

The IRC network SlashNet, originally sponsored by SlashDot, held a IRC event with the founders and original coders of the project. They placed the IRC log online for you to read.

QuakeNet TShirts

Sunday, September 29 2002 by Asmo

QuakeNet reports again about making possible TShirts for their users. Cro posted a news message with a link to a few designs where users can order their TShirt.
The money raised will be used to upgrade hardware and software on this fast growing network.

DalNet and Undernet exchange places

Saturday, September 28 2002 by Asmo

The DDoS attacks that plague DalNet for a long time already made them loose 1st place in user ranking on NetSplit in just 4 months. NetSplit now reports that DalNet lost 3rd place to Undernet.

Backdoor.Kaitex.B Backdoor Trojan

Thursday, September 26 2002 by Asmo

Another Trojan with nasty habits is discovered. On running it will make a registry key so it will run automatically on each reboot. A excerpt from Symantec's Security Responce:

The Trojan opens a randomly changed TCP port to connect to IRC servers of the hacker's choice and joins the #lerler IRC channel. It then waits for commands from the hacker. The commands (which can include, but are not limited to the following) allow the hacker to

# Perform Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks
# Download files from a Web site of the hacker's choice
# Run commands or files of the hacker's choice
# Send private IRC messages
# Terminate the Trojan


If you find that such a channel excist on your network, please contact the network administration about it, so they can take appropiate actions.
To prevent yourself getting infected, never run any executables you receive on IRC before being sure the file is save. Also when comming from friends, make sure they actually know they are sending you the file, and always run a up to date anti-virus software.

Undernet links a Romanian server

Wednesday, September 25 2002 by Asmo

Objections against a Romanian server have always been very strong on Undernet, as many DDoS attacks geared towards this network originated from this country. The users from Romania have been trying to get a server linked for a long time too however, and finally they have their own server Bucharest.Ro.Eu.Undernet.org now.
The server will only accept client connections from Romania and Hungary. All other traffic will be nullrouted as explained on their application, this to minimise any attacks towards the server. Let's hope this will bring some "community feeling" towards some users from that region .

A second server that linked on Undernet is Quebec.QU.CA.Undernet.Org, which previously had to delink due to technical problems.

Three more Trillian exploits

Monday, September 23 2002 by Asmo

I was waiting for them. And I guess many have been waiting to see more too, three more Trillian exploits. Quote from BugTraq:

I'm beginning to wonder if the makers of the instant messaging client Trillian, have done any bounds checking in their code. Personally I like trillian, its a nice peice of software, on the outside. Here's three more DoS attacks on trillian, exploitable via a server.

We have contacted Cerulean Studio's and asked for a reaction on the exploits. Sofar we havent heard back from them. Also their website is making no mention whatsoever on any of the exploits sofar.

Server news

Monday, September 23 2002 by Asmo

What would IRC news sites do without the usual server news posts.. Here we go for today:

IRCNet's website reports that the sunsite.dk website is having problems holding a stable link and has been juped several times. According to the site it is still being linked now though.

QuakeNet sadly lost a server, Exil.se. Fortunally, the server hardware will be used by wineasy.se and Stockholm.se to hold up the capacity of the server. The hardware is already being used now for a new server, wineasy3.*.

A little "oops" by Slashdot

Monday, September 23 2002 by Asmo

Heh, being a news site for geeks, and then claiming that EFNet's 100k user record is making EFNet the largest global IRC network isn't really the smartest thing to do. A quote from the site:

Mortin writes "The largest IRC network in the world, EFNet, has set another world-record max user count after breaking an astonishing 100,000 concurrent users earlier tonight!"

Read up the reactions here.

New servers.ini file for mIRC

Monday, September 23 2002 by Asmo

It is time for the people who use mIRC to update their servers.ini again.

Networks break user records

Sunday, September 22 2002 by Asmo

The previous record Undernet had in number of users was set at 107128 simulatnious user connections (lets just say the drones, bots and clones are users too ). This evening Undernet has set the record to 112619 users now.

QuakeNet also broke its user record with a amazing 122698 user connections, making it the second largest IRC network around. QuakeNet's progressions is nothing short of amazing, if you look at the statistics on netsplit.de.

New Klient version

Sunday, September 22 2002 by Asmo

Klient released a new version in their ongoing beta releases till the final version will be released. This version contains mostly bug fixes, also a few bugs found in the .4 version, only released shortly before this one. A quote from their website:

This is still a beta version of Klient intended to give an idea of the new version to those who were interested. If you would rather not deal with beta issues, it is recommended that you wait for the final version which will be along in about a month or so.

EFnet reached 100,000 concurrent connections

Sunday, September 22 2002 by Hardy

For the very first time, EFnet reach 100,000 concurrent connections.

EFnet is the 5. biggest irc-network accourding to Netsplit.de

This will be the last for today, I promise

Saturday, September 21 2002 by Asmo

This latest exploit found in Trillian involves making use of a RAW, a quote from BugTraq:

An overflow exists in the way Trillian procceses raw 221, which is the user mode raw. If Trillian receives a raw 221 with more than 251 bytes as the mode, it will crash and overwrite registers. EIP is completly overwriten when sent 257 bytes.

Again, dont use untrusted servers. Personally I would have asked my money back.

Undernet's Oslo server renamed

Saturday, September 21 2002 by Asmo

Undernet's Oslo.NO.EU.Undernet.Org is renamed to Oslo1.NO.EU.Undernet.Org. On 3 september the team from Oslo linked a second server Oslo2.NO.EU.Undernet.Org, which explains the name change. You can use the no.undernet.org adress to get you randomly connected to one of the two servers.

GalaxyNet gets a new hub

Saturday, September 21 2002 by DownKaos

SonicRealm.US.GalaxyNet.Org has taken over west coast hub operations for Galaxynet. SonicRealm.* is on a Gig-E connection to Williams Communications and is sponsored by SonicRealm Internet Services which is located Los Angeles, California.

SonicRealm's admin cybernaut had this to say, "Well I am glad that SonicRealm* is given a chance to perform this important task of hubbing and I hope it can keep up to everyone's expectations."

According to netsplit.de GalaxyNet is the 9th largest IRC network with an average of 22267 users.

Could there be aven *another* Trillian exploit?

Saturday, September 21 2002 by Asmo

Ofcourse there can be. This is going to be the 4th post concerning exploits found in Trillian made in just 2 days. Whoever is still using this allround chat client for IRC must like to play russian roullette too! From the BugTraq post:

An overflow exists in the way Trillian procceses 'JOIN' commands from the irc server. If Trillian joins a channel that is larger than 206 bytes, trillian will crash and overwrite registers.

To exploit this, the victim needs to be connected to the attackers 'IRC Server'

Luckily this means, just as with the previous exploit, that only server admins can abuse this exploit. So make sure you use trusted IRC servers when you insist on using Trillian.

Backdoor.DarkFtp Trojan

Saturday, September 21 2002 by Asmo

From the Symantect website:

Backdoor.DarkFtp is a backdoor Trojan horse that gives an attacker unauthorized access to an infected computer. By default, it opens port 6667 on the compromised computer. The compromised system is then controlled by commands transmitted over IRC.

Luckily, removal is easy when you have a up to date anti virus scanner installed.

Even more exploits known for Trillian .74 and older

Friday, September 20 2002 by Asmo

Its bad days for the Trillian users. After we posted on the identd exploit yesterday and the day before that, today even another exploit has been posted on BugTraq. A quote from the report says:

"An overflow exists in the way Trillian procceses 'PRIVMSG' commands from the
irc server. If the nickname of the sender is larger than 206 bytes, trillian
will crash and overwrite registers."

Luckily the exploit can only be executed by a irc server admin. Which means you should theoretically be safe on known bigger IRC networks. Let's hope this will be the last exploit for some time to come concerning Trillian though...

Trillian Pro 1.0 also vunerable

Thursday, September 19 2002 by Asmo

Yesterday we reported on a newly discovered exploit that makes it possible to Dos users of the free Trillian .74 version. The same exploit possibly also allows the execution of arbitrary code.
A second post have been posted on BugTraq claiming the Pro 1.0 version is vunerable as well.

If you make use of the IRC features in Trillian, you are advised to turn off the identd option, and to use a third party identd server if your IRC network requires it.

QuakeNet implements Undernet ircu code into their ircd

Thursday, September 19 2002 by Asmo

QuakeNet is putting new network code from Undernet's recently released ircu 2.10.11 into their own ircd software called Asuka. This new code makes it possible to run 4 times as much users on the same hardware due to optimised traffic. Bigfoot, a oper on QuakeNet comments:
"the reason for the improved performance is that it is based on Undernets ircu2.10.11, which has some new network code in it. It uses FreeBSD's kqueue-call instead of the normal poll/select-calls"

Unfortunally, the new ircd Asuka is also cuasing some problems while it is being tested. Problems include the ability to deop L, and join local channels (&channel) on other servers. These issues should now have been solved.

Finally they report that a new channel mode being called "auditorium" is being discussed right now. This mode is meant for channels where interviews or other live events are being held at, to prevent spammers to be able to disrupt the event.

IRCNet server in Belgium delinked

Thursday, September 19 2002 by Asmo

IRCNet's website informs us they have delinked ircnet.wanadoo.be due to excessive DDoS attacks that made it impossible to operate the server on a normal level. Users in Belgium are advised to use irc.belnet.be.

And if you want to visit the IRCNet website and find that it is unreachable: they are reporting problems, and offering www.ircnet.info as a alternative when the main domian is not working.

Update: Good news, the server administration decided to relink the server after consideration. So its back for all .be users to use.

Dalnet: Big Network, Big Problems

Thursday, September 19 2002 by DownKaos

As most of you may know Dalnet has been the target of major ddos attacks recently. What no one knew was who, what, or why? That is until now, a unnamed source close to the main dalnet administration has come forward with information to shed some light on the situation.

Appearently a muslim man has decided to fight his own cyber jihad. The packets started coming after the man percieved something as an insult (what, we don't know). He has amassed thousands of bots on a Turkish IRC network and is/was using them to attack Dalnet. "We don't know if the man is doing this because of the insult or to just attack the largest U.S. based irc network."

But wait there is more!

Such damage to an irc network Dalnet's size could not be done alone. A bunch of packet (ddos attack) kiddies are being paid to launch attacks on Dalnet. By who you ask? A few months ago a bill was introduced into congress that would let organizations that represent music companies attack networks that allow file-trading. So this group that we cannot name, for fear of litigation/attack, fights online music sharing in the U.S. They are paying packet kiddies to take down Dalnet, to make sure they will be ready to attack file sharing organizations if the bill passes congress.

Dalnet's official response is: "DALnet has been subject to heavy attack in recent times, however we are unable to give any other information at this time other than the fact that DALnet are working with law enforcement and security entities in several countries to bring those responsible to justice."

According to netsplit.de Dalnet is now the third largest irc network and their stats continue to drop as the attacks keep on coming.

Update: After the posting of this news, there was a email conversation between the webmaster of this site, Asmo, and Fuggs, member of the Dalnet Exploits Prevention Team. In our eyes it is only fair to show their side of the story as well, so we will reprint the email here for you to see.

Trillian .74 DoS attack discovered

Wednesday, September 18 2002 by Asmo

Trillian, the all around chat program which released the shareware 25$ 1.0 version a short while ago, still gives their .74 version as free download from their site.
On 3 september, Lance Fitz-Herbert discovered a exploit which can let the cracker make the target machine impossible to have a working network connection. It is also considered, but yet unconfirmed that arbitrary code is executed on the victim's machine.
It also seems that Trillian is leaving port 113 always open. Unlike programs like mIRC, who close their port 113 after the connection sequence have past.
Users of Trillian .74 are advised to turn of the identd option in Trillian, and use a third party identd server if needed.

XChat updates

Wednesday, September 18 2002 by Asmo

XChat is releasing two new versions. The 1.9.3 development version for the *nix OS that uses GTK2, and will be XChat 2.0 when fully done.
Next they released verion 1.8.10a for the Windows OS, is more of a experiment with GNU gettext. Neither seems to be security related updates, so fire at will we would say

Smiley celebrates 20th birthday

Monday, September 16 2002 by Asmo

Next thursday is the day, the will have its 20th birthday! The original smiley was thought lost, but Jeff Baird found the original email back, typed by Scott Fahlman to CMU CS Bulletin Board.
If you are interested in the complete history of the smiley, then the page Scott made might be a interesting read for you.

Trillian 1.0 released

Friday, September 13 2002 by Asmo

Trillian, which we posted a URL to a review a few days ago for, has released the final version 1.0 now. They have renamed the 1.0 version Trillian Pro, and as rumoured, made it a 25$ shareware version. The previous Trillian is now named Trillian.74 and is still freeware.

Trillian is an all round chat program that supports Yahoo, IRC, and other popular chat protocols.

New trojan Trojan.IrcBounce

Friday, September 13 2002 by Asmo

Symantec reports of a new trojan that makes abuse of standard Windows installations with no administrator password, or easy guessable ones.
Once regained access, it has full control over the victim's computer, and can also be used in (suprise suprise) DDoS attacks. Luckily removal is easy if you keep your Anti Virus program updated with the latest virus defenitions.

Efnet`s first ipv6 server are temporary closing their I:lines

Thursday, September 12 2002 by Hardy

irc6.qeast.net, efnet`s first IPv6 server felt forced to temporary close their I:lines due to abuse from ipv6 users. There is no good working ipv6 connection monitor bot out yet to handle abuse and multiple connections, and the Qeast administrators did not feel they could have the server running until they can ensure the efnet community that abuse will be handled good enough.

As soon as the connection monitor is programmed and running fine they will open the server up again. Until then irc.ipv6.homelien.no is the only open ipv6 server on efnet.

Review of WinBot, a native Windows IRC bot

Thursday, September 12 2002 by Asmo

A what? Yes, you heard it right, a bot thats specifically made for the Windows OS. And no, it is not the eggdrop port. It comes complete with a easy to use GUI, scripting possibilities, plugins and the whole kazaam. To find out if it is something for you, Asmo reviewed the current 2.2 version for you.

EFNet server name change

Wednesday, September 11 2002 by DownKaos

EFNet's irc.lightning.net server is changing it's name after years of service. The server will now be called irc.he.net. Hurricane Electric is buying out Lightning Internet Services, and so the hub ircd.lightning.net will probably get a name change in the future also. The irc.lightning.net dns will still be pointed to the server.

Continuing problems on DalNet

Wednesday, September 11 2002 by Asmo

Dalnet is plagued by severa DDoS attacks for quite a while now. If this is reason for the change in the managment as IRCNews is reporting about we have no idea. But it seems DalNet's co-founder Sven Nielson (nick: dalvenjah) regained the position of being the network's top man.

So far it remains a mystery why DalNet is being dossed for this long period of time. The reason as stated on the Dalnet's newsite, as if crackers are merely testing their DDoS tools seems misplaced. Sources told IRCjunkie it has to do with a channel being closed down by a DalNet administrator. Since DalNet has sofar been unwilling to supply any information or answer our questions on the case, we can not get this rumour verified.

Klient development group formed

Wednesday, September 11 2002 by Asmo

A group of scripters and coders formed the Klient Development Group. This group has as goal to release scripts and DLL plugins for the Klient Windows based freeware IRC client.
The idea is to relase the plugins under the GPL opensource liscence so others can improve and learn from code made by others.

FreeBSD 4.7 coming up!

Tuesday, September 10 2002 by sprinkler

For all you FreeBSD running IRC-geeks, FreeBSD has decided to currently stop the 4.6-stable branch, and prepare for the 4.7 release.
FreeBSD 4.7-PRERELEASE is already available for download through CVSup. The expected shipping date for 4.7 is october 1st!

FreeBSD is one of the more populair, and stable *NIX variants. Others include OpenBSD and NetBSD.

Microsoft releases information on Backdoor.IRC.Flood

Tuesday, September 10 2002 by Asmo

Backdoor.IRC.Flood is a trojan Microsoft reported on in their knowledge base on the 6th this month. Sofar this trojan only seems to affect Windows 2000 Server, according to Microsoft anyway.

Funny thing is this trojan is around in several forms for years already. And not just for Windows 2000 Server either. There is a report of it dating back to 30 October 2000 even. Way to go Microsoft!

New Windows IRC trojan

Tuesday, September 10 2002 by Asmo

Trojan.Nullbot is a new trojan that affects Windows computers. If the user runs the program (uh? there are still people who just DCC Accept anything they get, AND double click the file?) the trojan will install itself into the system directory, and add registry key's that will make the trojan run on Windows startup.
The trojan has a IRC client in itself that will allow the cracker to control your normal IRC client, lets you join other channels to further spread the trojan, he can update the trojan and it also has a DDoS client build in so your computer can be used in DDoS attacks.

New HydraIRC version!

Tuesday, September 10 2002 by DownKaos

HydraIRC has released V. 0.312 of their Windows IRC chat client.

Some of the new things added are:
* Query window taskbar text was servername instead of other nick
* Forgot to remove a debug text from /query
* Added server window own nick tab-completion.
(e.g. press tab in a server window and your current nick
is added to the command line)

Criten hits record users!

Tuesday, September 10 2002 by DownKaos

Criten has reached 10,000+ users for the first time ever. This is an amazing feat since only a few months ago criten was the target of many large ddos attacks.

I spoke with Lucky13 and he said, "Well, it was a long trip...people tried to keep us down at times, but we reached the first step. 10,000 users down, 90,000 more to go."

Flyboy7 added, "Criten is back to normal, and we are quite pleased to have hit 10,000. Our sights are set high, and we will continue to provide an exellent IRC environement."

According to netsplit.de Criten is the 20th largest IRC network.

Insiderz under fire!

Monday, September 9 2002 by DownKaos

Like so many other IRC network recently, the Insiderz IRC Network has come under a massive ddos attack. Insiderz has an average of 1841 users and is the 45th largest IRC network according to netsplit.de

I talked to dvast8 one of the netadmins of Insiderz and he said this, "At about 10 p.m. CST most of the insiderz servers came under attack from a huge windows botnet with atleast 6000 hosts. This produced about 990 Mb/s to atleast one of our servers. We are investigating this matter and are working with our providers to get all the info we can. At this point we suspect this was done by a group from another IRC network, thats all I can say for now."

IRCNet temporarily delinks server

Monday, September 9 2002 by Asmo

IRCNet temporarily delinks eu.irc6.net due to hardware problems. They expect the server to be back on monday.

Project-X is history

Monday, September 9 2002 by Asmo

Mirc.net brought the news that Project-X, one of the most well known mIRC scripting groups stopped its activities. Over the last few years they got well known for making addons for mIRC like a Autojoin, Away System, but also addons like BlackJack and a Paint addon.
On Project-X's website FolkLore, the appointed "General" of the group explains that it is mainly due to a lack of interest by the majority of its members. The leaving of two key members of the group made the descision final for him to stop the whole group.

New IceChat released

Sunday, September 8 2002 by DownKaos

Today IceChat v. 3.66 was released. IceChat is another mirc alternative that works on Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP.

According to the site the new version includes, "A Nickserv Password feature in Server Editor which will send the nickserv password if asked for. Fixing more scrolling problems, and a few problems encountered with Copy and Paste to IceChat. Also fixed the Sound Events, they were not firing at all."

To go to the IceChat website please click here.

New mIRC Exploit

Sunday, September 8 2002 by sprinkler

All mIRC clients, running below 6.03, allow a remote compromise in the form of a buffer overflow, when having scripts installed using the $asctime identifier. This identifier is used to format unix timestamps.

Doing a CTCP version on a average channel shows that at least 30% of the users are using mIRC 5.91, or even lower. Time to upgrade!

Real Life tragedy and IRC

Sunday, September 8 2002 by DownKaos

Most of us who have been using IRC for a while have made good friends. We tell these friends everything and some things that we wouldn't tell our real life friends. Eventhough we never meet, a strong friendship bond forms. We laugh, we cry, and we feel pain together. It gives us all a little time away from the stress of the real world. Sometimes the real worldcatches up and tragedy strikes.

Recently Anthony Ybarra was killed in a car accident. His friends on Efnet instatly felt the shock of losing one of their best friends. They have setup a few websites and an irc channel in his memory - http://www.invisibledream.com/aydawg/ - http://aydawg.tripod.com/ - Efnet: #aydawg

Tony you were a great guy, good friend, and honorable person to everyone you met. We will miss you dearly and never forget how you changed each of our lives.

R.I.P. Anthony Ybarra 1980-2002

The recovery of Criten.net

Sunday, September 8 2002 by Hardy

After a month of having problems with DoS attacks the Criten IrcNetwork seems to have got up on its feet again. The network have regained several of its client servers again and are now back up at at a average of 7000 clients.

The primary network use are warez and xdcc bots. Even tho the networks good recovery they are still looking for good client servers, so if you have the bandwith to do so join their network and ask in #routing.

You can follow the Criten IrcNetwork`s history here.

EasyNews relinks their servers to Undernet and EFnet

Sunday, September 8 2002 by Hardy

After two weeks offline due to hardware upgrades EasyNews relinked their server both to UnderNet and Efnet.
The names of the servers are irc.easynews.com which is linked to Efnet. and mesa.az.us.undernet.org (irc2.easynews.com) which is linked to UnderNet

Guppy, eggdrop maintainer stops

Saturday, September 7 2002 by Asmo

On Eggheads, the official eggdrop website, we can read a newspost from guppy in which he announces his retirement as being the 1.6 maintainer.
IRCJunkie interviewed guppy this week, in which he explained already that a comming wedding will restrict him in the work he does on the eggdrop bot project. The task as 1.6 eggdrop maintainer will be taken on by Wcc from now on.

New open I:lined server on EFNet

Saturday, September 7 2002 by Asmo

Server irc.servercentral.net succesfully went through its 45 day testlink period, and is now fullinked on EFnet. It has a open I:line, which means clients from all over the world can connect to it.

New Klient released

Saturday, September 7 2002 by Asmo

As reported yesterday, last night a new version of Klient, a popular mIRC alternative was posted last night on their site, along with a new website. This version is a complete rewrite, and released as version 2 beta. The website describes Klient in the following way:
Klient features a fully customizable interface, multiple server support, highly robust skripting, external .dll support, and much more!

New RAW for Undernet

Friday, September 6 2002 by Asmo

While many Undernet servers are upgrading, a new feature in a /whois output becomes more and more available for users. It is a RAW that shows on what username a user is logged into X. To have this new information show in mIRC you could use the next RAW, which you will have to put in your remotes (ALT-R):
raw 330:*:{ echo -a CService: $2 $4- $3 | halt }
The -a trigger will output it to the active window, normally where you have the whois output visible already. If you rather want it to go to the status window, use -s.

New testlink on Undernet

Friday, September 6 2002 by Asmo

A new server, sanjose.ca.us.undernet.org has been given testlink status on Undernet. Over the next few months the link will be reviewed by the Routing-Com, and be given permlink status if found to be stable.
Be sure to check the server out if you are geographically close to it. OTOH IMO you should be on a nice sunny beach instead of nerding from within a curtain closed room...

New Klient release

Friday, September 6 2002 by Asmo

Well... Almost! This evening Klient 2 Beta will be released, a alternative to mIRC as IRC client for the Windows platform.
On the temporary page the coder of Klient informs us that this coming version is a complete rewrite from the ground up, and although there are a lot of new features, not all features that where requested over the past time to him are implemented yet.

New mIRC worm W32.Muzk.Irc

Friday, September 6 2002 by Asmo

On the site of Symantec we can read news on another IRC worm that relies on users clicking to accept anything they get per DCC. A proven concept that unfortunally still works.
This worm fortunally is not doing a lot of damage besides writing a few harmless files, changing the IE homepage, and be very annoying to other users in the channels you are in, since it will auto DCC send itself to others. It is the same old story, dont accept files from strangers, and even if comming from friends, make sure they actually intend to send a file to you, and that it is not a automated DCC send.

A while back we wrote a article on basic security on IRC, it includes a section on IRC related worms, trojans and other nastinesses.

Two new client servers approved on Galaxynet

Friday, September 6 2002 by Hardy

Two new client servers have been approved for permanent link to galaxynet. The servers are underworld.no.galaxynet.org and sonicrealm.us.galaxynet.org.

Underworld.no.galaxynet.org is located in Trondheim, Norway and the admin is Hardy. The second server, sonicrealm.us.galaxynet.org, is located in California, USA and is admined by cybernaut.

Both servers are open for the world, so feel free to try them out.

QuakeNet sets default channel mode, +p

Thursday, September 5 2002 by Asmo

On QuakeNet they have the channel flag +p available for a while already, which will wont allow the deop of channel ops, who however still can be banned and/or kicked. In a reaction to stolen channel manager passwords recently this channel flag +p will be automatically be set on new channels on Q.

This is not to be confused (we where!) with the normal channel flag +p, private. It is the +p flag in Q's internal flag system for the channel.

ICANN gives VeriSign ultimatum

Wednesday, September 4 2002 by sprinkler

ICANN has threathened to cancel VeriSign's ability to register domainnames. According to ICANN, VeriSign has entered too much inaccurate information in their WHOIS databases, this way abusers, spammers, and anyone else violating the law, is hard to track down.
VeriSign has been given 15 days to clean up their databases, if they don't do it, they will no longer be able to register domainnames.

IRCJunkie reopens!

Wednesday, September 4 2002 by Asmo

It is with great pleasure that I can say "WE ARE BACK!". We had to close down IRCJunkie back in februari for several reasons that made it impossible for me to keep the site up.
We have changed a few things, besides the design; several sections are removed, and others are more enhanced. From now on we do what we do best; news, articles, interview and log files.

Be sure to check out a new interview from yeager. This time he interviews guppy, head development of the oh so popular eggdrop bot. Finally you will understand where the name comes from, or will it still remain a mystery?

Second, we have a wonderfull quotes system now! Eric^^ has been coding a excellent system where we can submit quotes online, as well as rate them. Be sure to check this out.

We hope the whole site works as planned, if you find any bug or problem, be sure to let us know by using the form on this site to contact us.

Trillian 1.0 review

Wednesday, September 4 2002 by Asmo

Trillian is a multipurpose chat client for several popular protocols such as IRC, Yahoo, etc etc. Closing in on the release of version 1, Mortin of Icrontic was able to get his hands on version 1, and wrote a review on it.
This version will support plugins, and a Winamp and cam plugin are supplied with the install. Mortin gives it a overall 98% value. If this is worth the rumoured 25$ a year version 1 will cost remains to be seen. Although for true chat junkies, the possibility to chat to all your friends wether they are on ICQ, IRC or Yahoo from within 1 program might be a very good deal.

Run your bottie from a Xbox box

Wednesday, September 4 2002 by Asmo

Or run your ircd on it, or run BitchX! The XBox-Linux Project have released a press release in which they claim to run SuSE 8.0 on a Xbox, with only a few minor modifications.

The reason why this is so interesting? The price of a Xbox is very attractive compared to a PC, and as such would be a very efficient, price effective box to run for example a server on.

New EU Undernet Server

Tuesday, September 3 2002 by sprinkler

Today, a fairly new, undernet server has been permlinked to the Undernet.org IRC network. The servername is oslo2.no.eu.undernet.org and is hosted by Chello broadband, norway, just as Oslo.* is too.
We wish the admins, Mr_Jobe and Bjoern luck with their server!

Quote system

Tuesday, September 3 2002 by Eric

The quote system I've been working on the last couple of days is finished, you can now submit your own quotes using the submit quote form. Make sure to rate the quotes too, that way the best ones can be at the top.

Check it out for quick laugh =)

Dalnet DoS attacks

Tuesday, September 3 2002 by Asmo

Regular Dalnet users know this for a while already, the network is under some extreme DoS attack. According to their own news page the attacks are comming from crackers who are testing their DoS tools.
Wether this is true or not, it is very hard to connect to any Dalnet server, for me only tiscali.uk.eu.dal.net worked this morning, with services lagged up to 10 minutes.

Undernet's Coder-com releases ircu2.10.11.00

Tuesday, September 3 2002 by Asmo

It's time for the servers running Undernet's ircu to upgrade again. Most changed and additions are IRC Operator related, so for us users there isnt much new stuff.

For more information, read up on the releasenotes.

mIRC raises $32,160.00 for Red Cross

Monday, September 2 2002 by Asmo

In a second fund raising, where a month worth of registrations will be donated to a charity, mIRC programmer Khaled donated $32,160.00 to the International Red Cross, for their Southern Africa food crisis appeal.
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Asmo

webmaster www.IRC-Junkie.org