A User Speaks - Pagan999
It is easy to forget the lost voices of users who are the first to be impacted by attacks on DALnet. They are the ones who suffer when servers split, and they are the ones who don't know why the attacks happen or how they can be stopped. This is one user's thoughts...
curve: Pagan999, you're a regular DALnet user - how long have you been on DALnet?
Pagan999: Been here around 2 or 3 years now, it really seems a lot longer in some ways.
curve: It sounds a silly question, but why do you use IRC?
Pagan999: I'm not sure I can really answer that, it's not as easy as you might think. It's easy to sit down and chat to different people from all over the world, I'm pretty open minded - or at least I like to think so - and I enjoy learning vastly different points of view and ways of life. It's also good to just sit down, kick back and enjoy a few laughs with people. I'm also just a tad addicted ;)
curve: So why do you stay on DALnet, rather than any other network?
Pagan999: DALnet was the first place I tried, (helps that it's near the top in mIRC eh? ;) and I met some people, became friends and enjoyed it so I stuck around. I've been on EFnet and Undernet and other places but I just don't get the same feel for it as I do here. DALnet is... different, in a good way :)
curve: So how has DALnet been to you lately, have you had problems getting on, or staying on it?
Pagan999: I've definitely had problems getting online lately. Over the last month or two, I've sometimes been unable to get on DALnet at all. Sometimes I can't even get a server to respond when I try to connect. At times when I've managed to get on, the network has been split up into small groups of hubs and servers, and splits have been a constant event
Pagan999: I've noticed that the user count has gone down from around around 100,000 at any time down to 70,000 or so and that's a pretty sizable difference.
curve: So how do these problems effect you personally?
Pagan999: If I can't even get connected to DALnet, that makes it rather bloody difficult to chat there. With some online friends IRC is the only way that we stay in touch, sure we could use email, but that's not the same. Yes, we could use any one of a seemingly endless number of instant messangers - but why should we HAVE to? The DDOS attacks just take the fun out of IRC, and that is what it's all supposed to be about.
Pagan999: Having fun, enjoying yourself and your friends doing the same.
curve: Why do you think people are attacking DALnet?
Pagan999: To be blunt, because they are ethically retarded misfits, you've got to a pretty big waste of space to ruin a free service for thousands of other people, just because you feel like it.
Pagan999: The people who do it have various reasons, they don't like something that was "done" to them (or a friend) in some cases. Like they lost a nick or a channel for some reason or something like that. They demand it back, they don't get it so they decide to down the network and the ISP's/NOC's that host them. Pretty sad really.
curve: You obviously don't like what they do, but do you admire their skills? Think they're 'elite'?
Pagan999: I have zero respect for the ones who cause all the damage, those who put up the websites with the exploits, get the ball started infecting people etc, they're just twits. The people who code the exploits and rootkits for *nix machines, the ones who actually find the holes and insecurities and then find out how to exploit them, they have skill, they are clearly intelligant people.
curve: Yes - unfortunately, most of the kids who big it up on the network about what they can do, are simply using pre-written scripts and tools which take no real effort or intelligence to use.
Pagan999: Exactly. I could give them to my parents (whose idea of wordprocessing is a typewriter) and they could do the exact same thing. Does that make my parents potentially "elite" hax0rs ?
Pagan999: There is no skill in just using a rootkit given to you when you have no idea how it really works. No skill in having people infect themselves from a website you put up and then telling a few hundred or thousand bots to attack . I don't call causing millions of $ of damage smart.
curve: Do you think most people on the network understand what is going on, and why?
Pagan999: The greater majority of people with clue, know what is going on. But as so many people keep on getting infected and keep on asking "pls why I can't get on the MIRC?" there are still clearly many people out there who have no idea what's going on or why.
Pagan999: The concept is simple though, some kids with probably no social life in the "real" world, can act real tough and show how cool and powerful they are online by sending a few hundred Mbit or Gbit at a few chat servers.
curve: Is there any way you think the users on DALnet can help fight these attacks?
Pagan999: They could try actually reading the massive amounts of information that has been given to them about trojans. There have been so many warnings, you get information when you register your nick, you get links to the help docs in that email, the main DALnet website warns you, memos have been sent to the entire userbase warning people.
Pagan999: People need to take a few seconds and take NOTICE of what they are being told. It's not nuclear physics, don't visit websites that are spammed to you, don't run files from strangers, can with an up to date anti virus program, install all the critical updates for IE and windows etc. It really isn't very hard at all.
Pagan999: But everyday, we still see a couple hundred people pass through #nohack infected with things that any anti virus could pick up and remove. *sigh*
curve: Do you think DALnet is worth saving, if so...why?
Pagan999: It's not just DALnet, it's the whole Internet community. There really aren't many good things in todays world that are still FREE. I have always thought and still do think, that things like DALnet are just amazing. Here is this thing, that you can without even really think about, connect to, find a hundred THOUSAND other people on at the same time.
Pagan999: You type something on some keys in front of you, hit enter and it comes up on the other side of damn planet. That's amazing, it really is. In less time it takes me to type it, it's gone around the globe. It costs a fortune to provide but it's still free for us to use. Gawd damn why destroy this?
curve: If you could give a message to those who attack, what it would be?
Pagan999: Think about what you are doing, what you are *really* doing. At the end of the day, what are accomplishing besides ruining something great for thousands of others. Why break something that's great, if you think it's flawed then try to fix it, don't throw it out in the street and steamroll over it.
Pagan999: The thing is, the sort of people who are behind the attacks, won't even read that, or if they did, they'd just laugh and keep right on going. It's all a game, keeping score who can make the most servers split or how many they can keep held down. Whatever happened to drinking, drugs, sex and tv eh?
©Emma/Curve 2002
