- original document taken from http://mixter.warrior2k.com/whyefnetsux.txt, mirrored
without permission -- yossman@yossman.net, 2000-09-05.


			Why EFnet sucks
			===============

* The four main reasons
* The summary
* The conclusion

1. Rules
The policies of efnet are certainly hippocratic. The main goal
of efnet was to provide a free network with a minimum of "laws"
that ensure its stability. The main idea was to create a network
where no channels, nicknames, or other virtual resources within
irc are "owned" by anyone. One main statute was also that irc
operators don't involve in channel and user matters, as long
it is non relevant to an actual problem with an irc server.
Look at efnet today, many opers abuse their powers, involve in
senseless conflicts, take over channels and certain nicknames,
sometimes in co-operation with takeover groups, and hire un-talented
accomplices to find bots, spammers or "deal" with "abusers".

2. Routing and Administration
The efnet team is incapable of agreeing on many, many things.
They don't manage to use an uniform version of the ircd code,
some servers never upgrade, others upgrade always without asking
others, etc. This results in a chaotic ircd infrastructure, and
some servers vulnerable to certain channel security problems, while
others are not, or vulnerable to other problems. The efnet guidelines
to get a link to the efnet backbone are also very un-efficient. While
some powerful servers with high bandwidth are denied links because
their link is declined in the act of voting, instead of following
objective guidelines, other peoples servers who are already known
to the efnet team because they're oper or anything are accepted
even if they do not provide appropriate resources. IRC Operators
tend to non-tolerated behavior (abuse, random klines) and many have
lost their o-lines, while others, who have more "authority", can
get away with almost everything.

3. Ircd development
Both ircd servers, the version developed by the hybrid team, and
the version developed by Chris Behrens are not coded with optimization
and an increase of user functionality in mind, but instead
more and more paranoid fixes and flood detection are applied to
them, with the goal to give the opers more "power" over their
network, and to automatically detect abuse without doing much.
As mentioned before, the actual guidelines of efnet do originally
permit many of the kinds of "abuse", like channel takeovers,
running bots, etc. Nevertheless, the recent security features
do actually cripple the functionality of the efnet network.
Examples for hybrid5 / CS irc daemons:
- opers can cycle channels without delay, they can set channel modes
  without delay, while normal users requests are delayed intentionally
- opers can gain channel ops on netsplits, while it is almost
  impossible for users, resulting in increased attacking of the
  servers by takeover groups to cause them to split more frequently
- users who do not send messages for a certain time are disconnected,
  forcing all efnet servers to have a policy against idling
- joining a channel and parting it immediately, as well as
  channel CTCP requests, will alert every oper on the server
  telling them your private channel name, your nickname, and
  if a tcm (monitoring bot) is running, it will automatically
  suggest the server operators to k-line the user.
  because of cycling or ctcp'ing a channel.
Examples for hybrid6 (will be the new standard):
- The normal user can no longer request STATS information, and
  other such like versions from a remote irc server, disabling
  a user with a problem to get administrative info or a list
  of active operators from that server he could request help from.
- Multiple targets for messaging and noticing are no longer
  supported. This breaks the RFC for IRC again, and it will
  force many users to re-write their scripts or even clients.
- Ban exemption like on ircd 2.10 is now supported, with all
  its vulnerability. Many clients cannot recognize +e modes,
  and it can be used in channel take over, to make flooders/takers
  unable to be banned out of a channel until the mode is removed.

If all this is not enough, there is conformed insider information,
that four major efnet servers are currently running in debug
mode, which enables them to see ALL private traffic, like
private chat, passwords sent to channel protection bots, messages,
etc. and the information is being filtered and sent to the
FBI, which requested this. Currently, a big EDU server, an
.ORG server, an European server, and a server of a major ISP
which are all linked to efnet, are monitoring traffic via DEBUG MODE.

4. Channel takeover groups
Takeover has always been present on efnet, and in the
past it has not been a big threat to servers or users. However,
the new wave of takeover people is using high-bandwidth attacks
against servers and users, causing several damage to everyone,
and threatening the major channels of efnet which are their
primary target. One problem is, that "new school" takeover
people actively compromise hundreds of random servers over
the internet, with the single purpose to use the boxes with
high bandwidth connectivity to attack irc servers and irc
clients. Group members co-operate to gather their power
against anyone, being a serious threat to anyone they decide
to attack because of whatever reason. Also, there has been
a big recent increase of shell services on the internet,
who offer high-bandwidth access, like it had only been
available to educational institutions and enterprises before,
to everyone for prices as low as $5 per month. Today,
everyone can afford this technology along with fancy long
hostnames, that look like the hostnames used in spoofing
attacks some years ago. But note, that these people are
everything else than hackers. They have merely the knowledge
on how to configure a bot or irc client and know 3-5 shell
commands which they also use to attack from their compromised
hosts and thats all. The problem is, that almost every
teenager without a clue can nowadays get a shell, fancy
hostname, which will eventually get him into a group with
other people like him, who teach him the basic skills of
compromising a server and running denial-of-service off it.

Summary:
As a normal user not willing to break into hosts or join
a online rioting gang, you are helpless against takeovers,
and the irc ops won't help you either.

As an experienced user or hacker you are attacked by ircops
because you are "abusive". You can join a 1337 takeover
group if you can bear to deal with their lameness or stupidity...

As a takeover kiddy you are in the gang of elite vhost
ownerz and do pretty much what you want, while you attack
servers with kinds of attack whose damage you probably
cannot even evaluate. The size of your ego exceeds
the size of your intellect and you have to play avoid-the
k-line every day by carding new leet vhosts. If you are
one of the dumbest sort of take kiddies you waste your
additional free time with warez. You get what you want
for the price of having neither a life or half a mind...

As an irc operator or admin you are always involved in the
hassle with other opers, who tell you what to do or what not,
and if you get unpopular, your server will become a target
for takeover d00ds. You can start becoming mr. evil mass
k-liner which will undoubtly escalate the "war", and you
might succeed to ban the takers and "abuse" with extreme
aggression, against takers and probably innoccent people
as well, from your server to another one, and/or worse,
get in more dumb hassle with the ircop "community", maybe
your o-line removed or your server delinked.

Conclusion:
Leave EFnet.

Greets to Monk aka Monkster aka Monkiespankr how do you like this one.