Re: Why is IRC still around?

[Bart.Lansing () kohls com]

Vord,

Let's extend your logic a bit...

Given your diatribe, one can easily  make the following assertion and 
assume your full support:

{It is clear that the internet...being composed of largely uncontrollable, 
independent nodes...may easily be subverted for uses that are counter to 
the greater good of society.  Therefore, as alternate means of 
communications and conducting legitmate business are in fact available, 
the internet will be closed until further notice.  Please feel free to 
create a new internet which cannot be subverted or otherwise used in any 
manner which does not conform to the societal conventions we have chosen 
to enforce. }

There is no communications channel which can not be subverted in some way 
or another, be it digital, analog, or paper.  Your 
arguements/pontifications below, if carried to their logical conclusion, 
suggest that it would be approriate to consider doing away with all of 
them due to the potential which exists for abuse/misuse. 

How about a little focus on the people who are responsible, instead...you 
know, encouraging personal responsibility...that sort of thing? 

In any society, whether meat-based or bit-based, freedom does indeed have 
the side-effect of making it harder to prevent bad people from doing bad 
things.  Nonetheless, I'll gladly take the headaches of dealing with bad 
people and bad things while enjoying the relative freedoms I have.


full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com wrote on 11/20/2004 02:03:00 AM:

> ive never seen so many repetitive and knee-jerk reactions to one
> [potentially baseless] post in all my years of watching FD [the
> obvious exceptions being the OT political nonsense occurring here,
> especially as of late] as witnessed during my reading of this thread.
>
> but moving right along ... :D
>
> my take is that Danny merely suggests burning the security candle at
> both ends. it is complete nonsense to approve of ANYTHING simply
> because it has some, or even a vast lot, of legitimate users/uses.
> some things are just not worth defending or perpetuating, and perhaps
> IRC is one of them? [this is his question].
>
> and for the record, "they would move to another resource" is not a
> coherent argument against his position [his question, rather]
> concerning the elimination of a problem-child medium. perhaps the cost
> to society via the spread piracy and virii [more importantly the
> altter] isnt worth the measly gain IRC affords its legitimate users?
> [well?]
>
> it IS incoherent, however, to argue that IRC (1) is the kiddiots means
> of choice for controlling his worms because it is the easiest or most
> efficient way to do so, while also contending (2) that an IRC sunset
> would not cause the immediate dissappearance of substansial
> internet-wide problems. making it harder MAKES IT HARDER and must
> therefore to some degree reduce the probability of abuse. therefore
> the gain afforded to legitimate users by this medium should be
> weighted against the direct affect its eradication would have on REAL
> problems -- and, clearly, no one here is qualified to make this
> judgement, else they would have offered such proof in immediate
> response to the original post as opposed to blabbing incessantly about
> incredibly obvious bullshit. the only potentially useful point anyone
> has made [not that it wasnt obvious] concerns the difficulty in
> removing the medium ... but this is irrelavent, of course, since it is
> more likely that the security community would suggest [and perhaps
> assist in the developement of] a replacement [most importantly] to the
> larger IRC networks.
>
> if shooting people is evil, OBVIOUSLY guns are flawed, but only
> insofar as people are capable of abusing them, willing to abuse them,
> and effective in their attempts at doing so. so to burn the candle at
> both ends you have to fight the spread of trojans and virii by fixing
> the holes they exploit and providing detection services, while also
> continually analyzing and evolving the structure on which it all
> rests. ie, the internet at its core... protocols, etc.
>
> im sure the original ford model-T had plenty of legitimate users who
> didnt drive drunk or generally cause mayhem ... i dont see it around
> anymore though ... hmm, i wonder if that correlates directly to the
> increased safety of automobiles ... hmm hmm, indeed. </sardonicism>
>
> the issue is certainly not at all as cut and dry as most of you have
> made it out to be.
>
> --vord
> #hackphreak/undernet
> invulnerable to the accidents of people and books.
>
> On Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:08:33 -0000, Darren Wolfe
> <darren () thecosmicgerbil com> wrote:
> > I have never replied to anything on this list (I read it to keep up to 
date
> > on vulnerabilities, but im not really qualified to contribute 
anything) but
> > this particular message has peaked my interest.
> >
> > 1. Agreed, by using flaws in IE they then go on to subvert mirc into
> > spamming people.
> > 2. They do.
> > 3. A tremendous amount :)
> > 4. This is only because IRC provides the perfect medium in which to 
control
> > those zombies (a single message from one person is immediately sent to
> > everyone in the channel at the same time). If a better medium was 
available,
> > they'd use that.
> >
> > IRC is as close to a real time group conversation as you can get that
> > doesn't used closed protocols.  It's fast, simple and used by an 
enormous
> > number of people - particuarly those who play online games, and for 
open
> > source projects (#gentoo on freenode regularly has over 900 people in 
it).
> > In answer to your final question - IRC is very useful for quick
> > conversations in real time with groups of people. Sure there are other
> > things - usenet, web based forums, email based mailing lists, IM 
networks
> > etc but none have that group feeling as much as IRC.
> >
> > It's problem is twofold - firstly, mirc (the most popular client) has 
a
> > number of flaws that make it easy to steal peoples "auth passwords". 
But
> > these are not automated! The user must be tricked into typing some 
commands
> > to set the exploit in motion.
> > This is also the second problem - a link may be mentioned in a channel 
and
> > people will click on it - from there, if your browser is vulnerable, 
you can
> > be hit by any number of trojans.  There was a winamp trojan going 
about a
> > few months ago (which I reported and is now fixed - go me :D ) which
> > involved clicking a link in irc that opened winamp through a file
> > association that exploited a security flaw that installed a script for 
mirc
> > that spammed the same link to everyone in the channel.
> >
> > Like any other medium, it is a combination of a lack of knowledge by 
the
> > users and exploits/vulnerabilities in software, the only difference, 
is that
> > on IRC it tends to spread quickly because of its real time nature.
> > So in conclusion, no, IRC should not be killed off, mirc's scripting
> > vulnerabilities should be closed in some way, and vulnerabilities in 
other
> > software should continue to be discovered and fixed.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com
> > [mailto:full-disclosure-admin () lists netsys com] On Behalf Of Danny
> > Sent: 19 November 2004 17:40
> > To: Mailing List - Full-Disclosure
> > Subject: [Full-disclosure] Why is IRC still around?
> >
> > Well, it sure does help the anti-virus (anti-malware) and security
> > consulting business, but besides that... is it not safe to say that:
> >
> > 1) A hell of a lot of viruses/worms/trojans use IRC to wreck further 
havoc?
> > 2) A considerable amount of "script kiddies" originate and grow 
through IRC?
> > 3) A wee bit of software piracy occurs?
> > 4) That many organized DoS attacks through PC zombies are initiated 
through
> > IRC?
> > 5) The anonymity of the whole thing helps to foster all the illegal 
and
> > malicious activity that occurs?
> > The list goes on and on...
> >
> > Sorry to offend those that use IRC legitimately (LOL - find something 
else
> > to chat with your buddies), but why the hell are we not pushing to 
sunset
> > IRC?
> >
> > What would IT be like today without IRC (or the like)? Am I 
narrowminded to
> > say that it would be a much safer place?
> >
> > ...D
> >
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