4 ms·

Irc is banned on Brazillian servers, most ISPs will insta-cancel your contract if they detect you are running a IRC server. Reason for that is that Irc drama a

Irc is banned on Brazillian servers, most ISPs will insta-cancel your contract if they detect you are running a IRC server. Reason for that is that Irc drama attracts brazillian hackers and script kiddies like flies, having an irc server is like having a huge DDoS magnet, having a irc server is an excellent way to make a whole ISP crumble under attack. Last major irc network we had went bankrupt because of their DDoS protection costs rising and rising and rising until they went in debt to stay online and until they couldn't pay the debts.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
That's really interesting. I wonder what's particular to Brazil that causes this?
- topranks 5y ago
  I don't think it's particular to Brazil.
  - simias 5y ago
    I do recall that many ISPs had specific provision against running IRC servers in the ToS (IIRC OVH does/did?), although in my experience it wasn't actively enforced unless you started causing trouble. Ditto for bittorent.
  - speeder 5y ago
    Brazil is particular in that and other related things. For example many MMORPGs have Brazil-only servers, because brazillians tend to hack, cheat and troll, so many games have ip-banned the entire Brazil range and then made a server just for Brazillians. When website defacing was all the rage, Brazil had the dubious hanking of having the most defacing groups and the most defaced sites, despite internet in Brazil being much smaller than US or EU. According to Kapersky last year, Brazil is first place in cibercrime ranking in South America, and third in the worldwide ranking. Brazil is also currently fourth place worldwide in the number of bot farms.
    - ingenieroariel 5y ago
      and number one in weirdo NFT marketplaces like Hic et Nunc
- the42thdoctor 5y ago
  HU3 HU3 HU3 BR
- villasv 5y ago
  I wouldn't say it's particular to Brazil but I can try to guess the biggest contributing factors. Brazil is huge (so lots of script kiddies) but it has only like 3 major ISPs (attending big cities). Also ISPs here have a lot of leeway on QoS matters, even after net neutrality laws.
  - giardini 5y ago
    " ISPs here have a lot of leeway" Ha, ha saw what you did there! So, apparently for freenode staff it's either "Lee's way or the hiway"?
- tinus_hn 5y ago
  Nothing, this happened in Europe as well. IRC attracts this because of how the model works (although it has long since been mitigated through chanserv etc), if no one is in a channel and you enter it you are the owner. So if you can boot everyone else off of the network you can take over the channel.
- marcodiego 5y ago
  I'm a brazilian and I watched it. There were two major IRC networks in Brazil. The older and bigger with more users was Brasnet, the younger, smaller and with less proficient users was brasirc later renamed to redebrasil. IRC in Brazil was mostly born on university campi but, by the second half of the 90's it quickly attracted teens who simply wanted to chat. Our version of the Eternal September. Most used OS at the time was win9x and most used IRC client was mIRC. Actually, most users didn't know the difference between mIRC and IRC. So, it was very very unsafe for illiterate users. Self-reproducing mIRC scripts and people trying to fool others with netbus and the like was extremely common. One day, by the end of the 90's, both major networks joined. The service quality went deeply down. Operators of big channels lost their status, illiterate users flooded the network and traditional brasnet channels got filled with users from redebreasil who weren't used to the established netiquette. To make things worse, redebrasil had advertisements and such ads went together with them when they joined brasnet. That day was one of the saddest days of my life, that day I lost my operator status on #programacao on brasnet, I was 15 and getting that status was no easy task. It was the day I stopped using IRC in Brazil. The thing just went downhill from there. Getting IRCop status was reason to act arrogantly, attacks were rampant and winxp came along been not much safer than win9x. Netsplit was common because of the attacks, bots tryied to fool people to shady and phishing sites, there was no control to stop abuse from IRCops... Then, by the beginning of the 2000's IM became more popular, then social networks. Actually MSN messenger and orkut popularity were major blows in brazilian IRC. New people buying computers to get connected no longer even knew about the existence of what was once a major entertainment communication medium. The quality of the service didn't improve, and users started migrating away from it. It commercially devalued, ISP's didn't want to host it and, in 2007, brasnet was closed: http://www.brasnet.org/2007/05/era-uma-vez-o-irc-brasileiro.html http://www.brasnet.org/2007/05/era-uma-vez-o-irc-brasileiro....
- alisonkisk 5y ago
  A combination of Brazil being one of largest countries, while also being non-English yet retaining its linguistic identity (people using the Internet in Portuguese, so they don't have get lumped in with USA communities), and a dash of loose law enforcement, makes things happen there that are noticeably not the generic Anglo/USA Internet
o-__-o 5y ago
After a disagreement on IRC led to a 400mbps DDoS attack on my university (we shrugged it off, yay internet2) I decided it was time to stop using IRC. This was 20 years ago. I think I continued from a third party shell for a year or two but eventually moved on to web forums. Before I completely left I started ghosting my dns to avoid attacks but that was more effort than it was worth
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  You could access IRC via Internet2? I always thought Internet2 was limited to accessing smaller educational networks networks like Merit, JANET or CERN.
  - o-__-o 5y ago
    At the time of college, for me, internet2 consisted of mostly all the accredited universities who could afford it and special companies providing limited services. The blended connection we received allowed for us to absorb the entire impact because some of the attack machines were from other university computers (which is what caused the uproar and got me a slap on the wrist.. the attack was detected upstream within about 5-7min, I was impressed)
jacquesm 5y ago
Nice case of victimblaming.
kodah 5y ago
> Reason for that is that Irc drama attracts brazillian hackers and script kiddies like flies, having an irc server is like having a huge DDoS magnet, having a irc server is an excellent way to make a whole ISP crumble under attack Citation needed. Most ISPs ban IRC ports due to having a large amount of customers that are members of a botnet via a virus.
- speeder 5y ago
  It is not just IRC ports. Back when I wanted make my own MMO and went shopping for business ISP, I noticed one of the contracts I read even wrote a long list of all possibly IRC related stuff, they would ban you if you had: irc server seevice, irc server software irc client software, irc bots, tools to make irc bots, mirc scripts, and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember (this was around 2007)
  - kodah 5y ago
    Exactly. All of these would be part of running a botnet. In the 90s and early 2000s you assuredly had to seek out hosts specifically designed for hosting IRC shells or services. Nowadays that DDOS and traffic management work better I see less of it.

TulliusCicero 5y ago

That's really interesting. I wonder what's particular to Brazil that causes this?

topranks 5y ago
I don't think it's particular to Brazil.
- simias 5y ago
  I do recall that many ISPs had specific provision against running IRC servers in the ToS (IIRC OVH does/did?), although in my experience it wasn't actively enforced unless you started causing trouble. Ditto for bittorent.
- speeder 5y ago
  Brazil is particular in that and other related things. For example many MMORPGs have Brazil-only servers, because brazillians tend to hack, cheat and troll, so many games have ip-banned the entire Brazil range and then made a server just for Brazillians. When website defacing was all the rage, Brazil had the dubious hanking of having the most defacing groups and the most defaced sites, despite internet in Brazil being much smaller than US or EU. According to Kapersky last year, Brazil is first place in cibercrime ranking in South America, and third in the worldwide ranking. Brazil is also currently fourth place worldwide in the number of bot farms.
  - ingenieroariel 5y ago
    and number one in weirdo NFT marketplaces like Hic et Nunc
the42thdoctor 5y ago
HU3 HU3 HU3 BR
villasv 5y ago
I wouldn't say it's particular to Brazil but I can try to guess the biggest contributing factors. Brazil is huge (so lots of script kiddies) but it has only like 3 major ISPs (attending big cities). Also ISPs here have a lot of leeway on QoS matters, even after net neutrality laws.
- giardini 5y ago
  " ISPs here have a lot of leeway" Ha, ha saw what you did there! So, apparently for freenode staff it's either "Lee's way or the hiway"?
tinus_hn 5y ago
Nothing, this happened in Europe as well. IRC attracts this because of how the model works (although it has long since been mitigated through chanserv etc), if no one is in a channel and you enter it you are the owner. So if you can boot everyone else off of the network you can take over the channel.
marcodiego 5y ago
I'm a brazilian and I watched it. There were two major IRC networks in Brazil. The older and bigger with more users was Brasnet, the younger, smaller and with less proficient users was brasirc later renamed to redebrasil. IRC in Brazil was mostly born on university campi but, by the second half of the 90's it quickly attracted teens who simply wanted to chat. Our version of the Eternal September. Most used OS at the time was win9x and most used IRC client was mIRC. Actually, most users didn't know the difference between mIRC and IRC. So, it was very very unsafe for illiterate users. Self-reproducing mIRC scripts and people trying to fool others with netbus and the like was extremely common. One day, by the end of the 90's, both major networks joined. The service quality went deeply down. Operators of big channels lost their status, illiterate users flooded the network and traditional brasnet channels got filled with users from redebreasil who weren't used to the established netiquette. To make things worse, redebrasil had advertisements and such ads went together with them when they joined brasnet. That day was one of the saddest days of my life, that day I lost my operator status on #programacao on brasnet, I was 15 and getting that status was no easy task. It was the day I stopped using IRC in Brazil. The thing just went downhill from there. Getting IRCop status was reason to act arrogantly, attacks were rampant and winxp came along been not much safer than win9x. Netsplit was common because of the attacks, bots tryied to fool people to shady and phishing sites, there was no control to stop abuse from IRCops... Then, by the beginning of the 2000's IM became more popular, then social networks. Actually MSN messenger and orkut popularity were major blows in brazilian IRC. New people buying computers to get connected no longer even knew about the existence of what was once a major entertainment communication medium. The quality of the service didn't improve, and users started migrating away from it. It commercially devalued, ISP's didn't want to host it and, in 2007, brasnet was closed: http://www.brasnet.org/2007/05/era-uma-vez-o-irc-brasileiro.html http://www.brasnet.org/2007/05/era-uma-vez-o-irc-brasileiro....
alisonkisk 5y ago
A combination of Brazil being one of largest countries, while also being non-English yet retaining its linguistic identity (people using the Internet in Portuguese, so they don't have get lumped in with USA communities), and a dash of loose law enforcement, makes things happen there that are noticeably not the generic Anglo/USA Internet

o-__-o 5y ago

After a disagreement on IRC led to a 400mbps DDoS attack on my university (we shrugged it off, yay internet2) I decided it was time to stop using IRC. This was 20 years ago. I think I continued from a third party shell for a year or two but eventually moved on to web forums. Before I completely left I started ghosting my dns to avoid attacks but that was more effort than it was worth

Dracophoenix 5y ago
You could access IRC via Internet2? I always thought Internet2 was limited to accessing smaller educational networks networks like Merit, JANET or CERN.
- o-__-o 5y ago
  At the time of college, for me, internet2 consisted of mostly all the accredited universities who could afford it and special companies providing limited services. The blended connection we received allowed for us to absorb the entire impact because some of the attack machines were from other university computers (which is what caused the uproar and got me a slap on the wrist.. the attack was detected upstream within about 5-7min, I was impressed)

jacquesm 5y ago

Nice case of victimblaming.

kodah 5y ago

> Reason for that is that Irc drama attracts brazillian hackers and script kiddies like flies, having an irc server is like having a huge DDoS magnet, having a irc server is an excellent way to make a whole ISP crumble under attack Citation needed. Most ISPs ban IRC ports due to having a large amount of customers that are members of a botnet via a virus.

speeder 5y ago
It is not just IRC ports. Back when I wanted make my own MMO and went shopping for business ISP, I noticed one of the contracts I read even wrote a long list of all possibly IRC related stuff, they would ban you if you had: irc server seevice, irc server software irc client software, irc bots, tools to make irc bots, mirc scripts, and a bunch of other stuff I don't remember (this was around 2007)
- kodah 5y ago
  Exactly. All of these would be part of running a botnet. In the 90s and early 2000s you assuredly had to seek out hosts specifically designed for hosting IRC shells or services. Nowadays that DDOS and traffic management work better I see less of it.