
Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently. - lucumo
http://blog.mibbit.com/?p=306
======
froo
I know the "official" reason, but I'm curious if there's any correlation
between the blocking of mibbit and axod's post about how much revenue mibbit
was making here (<http://axod.blogspot.com/2009/06/revenue-browser.html>) -
the timing is awfully suspicious.

I mean, a day after the post they "magically" have their own web client up
that they would rather you use.

I had a look at the qwebirc client they implemented, default installation
right now (looks like it was just thrown up) no ads yet, wondering how long
before that changes?

EDIT - well it seems that in part some of the argument from freenode's
perspective is about money.

    
    
      (00:44:02) axod: nenolod: and please explain what incentive I would have to falsify such information
      (00:44:17) nenolod: axod: assistance with ban evasion in exchange for money
      (00:44:26) axod: nenolod: seriouslly?
      (00:44:30) nenolod: axod: seriously.
      (00:44:33) axod: lol

~~~
axod
Another fun quote:

<nenolod> jtrucks: because mibbit users are retards and they think mibbit is
the only way

~~~
Zev
I've actually spoken to several users who found that to be true. Even if
silly, from the point of view of someone who knows what IRC is. Which is _far_
from everyone.

//edit: don't care much about karma, but I am curious as to how pointing out
that not everyone knows what they're doing on IRC gets me downvoted.

~~~
allenbrunson
You are agreeing with someone who said "mibbit users are retards." That's not
the kind of language that's encouraged around here.

~~~
Zev
Oh. Thanks for explaining. I didn't mean to imply that mibbit users are
retarded. Just that they don't quite know (or care?) as much about IRC as
other people do.

~~~
axod
I take offense at that. Do you have enough data to make that judgement? Out of
the millions of people using Mibbit, you've done a survey and measured? Or is
it just more likely that you'll notice if someone causing abuse is using
mibbit?

~~~
Zev
Erm, might I suggest you reread what _I_ said here, in this particular thread.
Which amounted to saying that not all Mibbit users know or care much about
IRC. Which is a very silly thing to be taking offense to, let alone demand to
be proven.

------
axod
This is a sad thing in terms of Freenode, and users trying to access it from
Mibbit, but will not affect Mibbit as such.

I remember using Freenode early on when I discovered open source. It was a
fantastic vibrant place with hackers all over the place. openprojects, lilo,
great...

Unfortunately, maybe it's got too big. The atmosphere has changed for the
worse IMHO. In my opinion, the staff no longer represent the community.

Today, they put their own ideals ahead of their users. Their objections to
Mibbit have been

    
    
      * It's not open source
      * It makes money
    

The 'abuse' reason I believe is a red herring. Abuse is easy enough to deal
with, and them operating their own web client won't change how often people
abuse using a web client. In fact their own web client is less secure than
mibbit in terms of preventing abuse.

So, IMHO, a sad day for Freenode and all that they used to represent, but an
opportunity to create a new haven for hackers.

~~~
ankhmoop
_Today, they put their own ideals ahead of their users. Their objections to
Mibbit have been: It's not open source, It makes money_

Working with Mibbit clearly costs freenode time and resources that they would
rather not spend. Since Mibbit makes money, perhaps you should consider
entering into a contractual relationship to provide them with financial
incentive and other guarantees, in exchange for their investment in supporting
your service?

 _The 'abuse' reason I believe is a red herring. Abuse is easy enough to deal
with, and them operating their own web client won't change how often people
abuse using a web client._

The abuse from Mibbit has been the only reason (in months) that I've had to
set myself as an operator and ban users. As a user, I don't feel this is a
'red herring'.

 _So, IMHO, a sad day for Freenode and all that they used to represent, but an
opportunity to create a new haven for hackers._

I'm perfectly happy on Freenode, and our IRC channels are quite vibrant. I
hope you can reach a resolution with the Freenode staff.

~~~
axod
I offered to sponsor servers, to help with coding, etc many many times. My
emails were ignored. When I popped into #freenode to ask, they said "We
assumed you wanted something in return so we ignored them".

I also offered to help with the abuse. I've asked several times for details of
abuse. I haven't been able to get concrete details on what abuse happens,
when, what they have to do etc. The staff are incredibly secretive - unlike
other networks, they don't link servers, their staff run everything, and I
believe this was one of the reasons - they want complete control over
everything including web clients.

Out of 500 or so people @peak times, I think the abuse level was really low.
Also it's easily solved with a WEBIRC setup which we have with a large number
of IRC networks (Which we never hear from, because abuse is handled by WEBIRC
and their own systems as with direct connections).

I hope freenode will decide to reconsider, but they clearly want people to use
their own web client, rather than mibbit. It would have been nice to at least
give people some notice rather than just shut off access.

~~~
mst
We (#perl) banned mib_* nicks and found anybody smart enough to type their own
nickname in was generally fine. Plus we learned how to extract the original IP
from the mibbit host string so we could nuke ban evaders comfortably even
without freenode supporting WEBIRC.

In fact, we were planning to have mibbit links to freenode#perl showing up all
sorts of places in the perl community to try and make it easier for people to
get onto IRC and ask questions when they got stuck with things. I've notified
the guys working on that to hang fire until we work out what the hell is going
on.

Most annoying, whoever's fault it is (and being an argument on the internet
I'm going to default to "everybody's, and especially mine, even if I wasn't
involved" :)

------
swombat
As I said in the previous thread before mariorz deleted his own submission:

This is completely stupid of Freenode. Shame on them.

Axod, how do you know it’s permanent? Have they made a statement?

~~~
ankhmoop
As someone who has been placed in the position of semi-regularly banning
mibbit from freenode OSS project channels due to abusive users, I can't see
how this is a bad thing.

The quality of user was exceptionally low, and "easy webchat" simply doesn't
seem like a strong value proposition for the technical users that frequent the
network.

~~~
sho
Agreed. Maybe it's not very nice, but I kind of think that anyone incapable of
installing a proper IRC client probably shouldn't be using IRC in the first
place.

The situation on, say, the ruby-talk mailing list is analogous; whenever you
see a really, really stupid question, check out the submitter - chances are
it's through one of the web interfaces to the ML.

The necessity of installing and configuring an IRC client to use freenode is
an example of a _good_ barrier to entry.

~~~
Jem
Elitist cack.

I can think of several times I've used mibbit to pop in to #startups (or
another channel on another network) because installing an IRC client just
isn't possible (lack of admin rights, on someone else's computer, etc).

~~~
sho
_"Elitist cack"_

Not at all. It's like a short, basic aptitude test before you're able to join
a recreational sports team, or maybe a driving test. Just shows that you know
the ropes at least a bit, you have at least basic competence.

Remove that and people can just bomb in on anyone's conversation in real time,
from any browser, no consequences, nothing. Is that really what you want?

I object to your use of the word "elitism". Someone's basic technical
competence, and the effort they've put in to do something, is a pretty
reliable guide to the quality of their contribution, whatever it might be.
When I see someone has a free blog on wordpress.com or what not, I instantly
assume they either do not care or do not know how to set up their own system.
When I see someone with a hotmail address I assume they do not know better.
And on irc, when I see someone using mibbit, I assume they do not know how -
or are too lazy - to set up IRC.

If people can't put in this basic effort, why let them in? You can yell
"elitism" all you want; I prefer to think of it as "rules of the club". Anyone
can join the club, they just have to pass the first, very easy, test. What is
wrong with that?

And I think your use case for the service, as described in your anecdote, is
likely to be quite atypical. I doubt the majority of Mibbit users just
happened to be using it because they were using someone else's computer. You
are the exception to the rule.

~~~
abstractbill
_people can just bomb in on anyone's conversation in real time, from any
browser, no consequences_

This is rather misleading. Mibbit may be a browser-based client, but it does
pass on the user's IP to the remote ircd, which means exactly the same
protections exist as for any other irc client.

Incidentally, having personally written the software behind an irc network
that's bigger than freenode (I wrote justin.tv's chat server, which has had a
peak of more than 360k concurrent clients connected), I would trust Mibbit
long before I would trust a bunch of other clients. MIRC, in particular, is
plain nasty.

~~~
ankhmoop
_This is rather misleading. Mibbit may be a browser-based client, but it does
pass on the user's IP to the remote ircd, which means exactly the same
protections exist as for any other irc client._

First, it's considerably easier to find open web proxies than it is to find
IRC-capable proxies, and Freenode runs proxy detection to catch use of IRC-
capable proxies.

Second, trusting Mibbit's IP address reporting is a tall order, equivalent to
peering their IRC servers with Mibbit, as it would allow Mibbit to readily
spoof basic user identity.

 _Incidentally, having personally written the software behind an irc network
that's bigger than freenode (I wrote justin.tv's chat server, which has had a
peak of more than 360k concurrent clients connected), I would trust Mibbit
long before I would trust a bunch of other clients. MIRC, in particular, is
plain nasty._

What 'trust' must be divested in end-user, per-user desktop IRC clients?
Mibbit must be trusted to report user identity accurately, to not allow proxy
connections, and to quickly respond to abuse while not causing freenode's
volunteer's undue labor.

Most importantly, freenode is privately owned and managed, it's not a public
service and has no responsibility to provide service to Mibbit, especially if
Mibbit causes a disproportionately sized administrative headache.

~~~
abstractbill
_...it would allow Mibbit to readily spoof basic user identity._

What conceivable reason would Mibbit have for doing that?

 _Mibbit must be trusted to ... not allow proxy connections_

No, that's not true. Mibbit must be trusted merely to pass-on the correct IP.
Then Freenode's _existing_ proxy detection can handle the job of rejecting
proxied connections.

You are publicly calling into question Mibbit's integrity here, and suggesting
that there's an incentive to give Freenode false information about users' IP
addresses. Why?

~~~
sho
_"You are publicly calling into question Mibbit's integrity here"_

I know nothing about Mibbit beyond their web page and their colourful
representative here, but - it's not about the personal integrity of the
founder, or whatever. Mibbit's whole business model is around advertising. The
more page views, the more advertising, the more profit. They have no
investment in any other metric. It is reasonable to assume Mibbit does
whatever they can think of to boost their usage.

 _"suggesting that there's an incentive to give Freenode false information
about users' IP addresses"_

There is a clear commercial incentive to encourage usage of the service. If
sending random IPs to Freenode boosts revenue, there would be an incentive to
do that. That would be reprehensible, of course, but you can't say there's no
incentive.

~~~
axod
Incentive or not, some of us have integrity and honor and choose to play by
the rules of what is right. Not what makes the most money.

------
jcromartie
Ouch. Mibbit+Freenode has saved my butt many times. Sad to see it go...
especially when Mibbit is one of the better choices when it comes to free IRC
on Windows.

~~~
patcito
You can use that instead <http://webchat.freenode.net/>

------
mannylee1
So what is an alternative Web Based IRC client? For those of us working behind
a corporate firewall, Mibbit.com was the only way to access IRC.

~~~
patcito
<http://webchat.freenode.net/> lightweight, minimalist, opensource, fast, ad
free, I love it already.

~~~
lucumo
And absolutely broken on Opera 10 :/

------
JeremyChase
If freenode is really having that much difficulty with Mibbit clients, why not
allow individual channels to allow/deny Mibbit clients.

~~~
randallsquared
Well, just from the threads here, apparently they're not really having any
difficulty with Mibbit; they just saw an opportunity to bring that traffic in-
house.

------
jrockway
Freenode accepts Tor connections, so just connect that way.

~~~
bnrubin
Freenode _sometimes_ accepts Tor connections. Other times they too are banned
due to abuse. Of course you could sign up with their tor-gpg hidden service to
get past that block.

------
oomkiller
I'd just start running everything through Tor. That's the way they should have
handled this anyways. If it is a problem, block it temporarily or
unregistered/confirmed users. To me this sounds more like something personal
than an actual logical reason.

------
jjs
The new #startups is on irc.mibbit.net

~~~
moe
Actually #startups has _not_ moved. It is still alive and kicking on freenode.

~~~
swombat
It's alive and kicking without one of its most active members. That's not
good.

------
sztanpet
there is a webirc project in the works for freenode if i know correctly, its
based on quakenets qwebirc (which is a lot nicer then mibbit, but of course
YMMV)

~~~
jjs
The reason people are moving to the new #startups is not to use mibbit's
client (I'm using Colloquy on the Mac), but rather to show solidarity for
axod.

~~~
jerome_etienne
people are not willingly moving, they are forced to move. So are they showing
support or forced to 'show support' ?

~~~
jjs
Nobody's forced to use the new #startups. You could just as easily start
#startups2 and sit by yourself.

------
davidw
axod - you might want to handle widgets and other things in a nicer way:
<http://www.bikechatter.com/chat> , by for instance, just saying up front that
freenode is broken.

------
sneakums
Well, if this isn't a perfect vortex of inconsequentiality then I don't know
what is.

------
james2vegas
i imagine the default irc:// protocol handler set to mibbit in future
firefoxen influenced their decision

------
Annointed
RIP Freenode and Lilo.

It's a shame, but the extreme reactions of the freenode operators is
destroying the server. Soon you'll need an encryption key, proprietary
software and be forced to donate (which btw i wont be doing any more)

------
zackattack
This is messed up. The only reason I use mibbit is to get on Freenode when I'm
coding at public terminals.

~~~
patcito
You can use that now <http://webchat.freenode.net/>

------
jerome_etienne
why splitting community ? shame

[17:30] <swombat> it's called +m [17:30] <swombat> it works like this [17:30]
__* swombat sets the channel mode to 'moderated'.

