A modest proposal

Wed Sep 18 00:19:50 UTC 1996

Robert E. Seastrom put this into my mailbox:
> 
> <ahem> Some of them even put their IRC names in their .signatures
> (present company excluded of course) :)

Naturally - it's a marketing ploy };>

> Uh huh, right.  If you ever actually see anything like this, lemme know.

Okay, perhaps not that. But I *have* seen scripts for an IRC client where
one right-clicks on a nickname and selects an option from a pop-up menu. This
program then takes in that nickname's address and goes to work, flooding,
spoofing, whatever it's intended to do. They may not exist to the Hollywood
extent, of course, but it *is* as easy as point and click.

> The only "nuisance" will be if you notice it; that is actually not
> very likely.  The causal "victim" will be happily oblivious to a
> pingflood coming from a 14.4k dialup unless he too happens to be on a
> 14.4k dialup.

This is a point where I beg to differ. A 14.4k dialup can definitely spawn
multiple connections to an IRC server with spoofed source addresses and send
as much data as the link can handle (1k/sec) to a single person/channel/
whichever. It can - and does - make the target's IRC session unusable.

> You've got a whole lot more to worry about from him -- at least he has
> the bandwidth to make good on a threat to make your life difficult via
> brute force.

I know.

I'm going to insert my usual spiel about IRC - I know there are a lot of
people who believe it's worthless and not worth the time of a provider to
worry about, and I'm not going to waste my time explaining why you should
change your opinion. I believe, however, that it can be legitimized and am
trying to do so - and the first step to doing so is trying to figure out how
to stop the people who've given IRC a bad name. I appreciate your cooperation.

-dalvenjah

  Dalvenjah FoxFire, the Teddy Dragon (also known as Sven Nielsen to some :)
                dalvenjah at dal.net    ---     dalvenjah on IRC
     Remember: if you're not on DALnet, you're on the wrong IRC server!!
       (/serv irc.dal.net 7000 or telnet telnet.dal.net to try it out)
--
 ____       _               _      _ "I had the dagger in my hand, and he has
|  _ \ __ _| |_ _____ _ _  (_)__ _| |_the indecency to start dying on his own!"
| |_) / _` | \ V / -_) ' \ | / _` | ' \        --Ambassador G'kar, Babylon 5
|____/\__,_|_|\_/\___|_||_|/ \__,_|_||_| FoxFire -- dalvenjah at dal.net -- (SN90)
                         |__/