If you know nothing about Internet Relay Chat or aren’t interested in it, move on to the next thread now.
Well, about half of EFnet’s backbone is gone. Among the list of dead servers is irc.core.com, irc.home.com, irc.ef.net, and irc.lsl.com. Irc.ais.net, irc.mindspring.com, and irc.idle.net are gone as well. Gblx.net servers are holding up much of the remaining population and are expected to fall under the weight within a few weeks (if that long). Bots are becoming a thing of the past as all of the bot friendly servers are dropping off. Connecting to EFnet is an exercise in futility.
The reason for this? Constant DOS attacks, packet kiddies, nukes and other k3wl d00dz playing their little games. No longer able to ride server splits into channels, they now DOS an entire server just to kill a bot on a channel they want to take. IRCOps who work with the packet kiddies in their wars and take sides against other servers. EFnet used to be a battleground and many of the people who used it took some pride in standing up to the constant attacks and floods, but now it’s more of a blasted wasteland unsuitable for keeping a channel on.
I imagine that most of the “normal” IRC users will either migrate to Undernet or DALnet to escape the attacks and to quite simply be able to connect to a server. Both of those are much more stable and running on better systems. Still, it’ll remain to be seen if Undernet and DALnet can handle an exodus. I expect even more users will leave IRC altogether for other chatting mediums. From what I’ve heard, the d00dz will most likely try to go back to IRCnet. And EFnet, the largest IRC network and a constant fixture in the internet world will sink into the mire.
Any comments or news on the situation?