Freenode hijacked
Free Software Projects Defenestrate The Freenode IRC Network
Freenode IRC staff resign en masse, unhappy about new management
Developers flee Freenode after 'takeover' by Korean crown prince
Freenode Debacle Prompts Staff Exodus, New Network
IRC Will Never Die
On freenode and its commitment to FOSS (Andrew Lee's May 19th response)
https://libera.chat/ (new network)
Freenode IRC operators now engaging in routine abuses of power
https://www.devever.net/~hl/freenode_abuse
There have been several allegations of this since the handover of the Freenode infrastructure to its new custodians, but I can now provide a first-hand account of one incident — because I am the victim of it.
A channel which I registered, ##hntop, has been taken over by Andrew Lee (rasengan) without my knowledge or consent.
...
Conclusions. In other words, it appears that a Freenode services admin, presumably rasengan,
- forcibly dropped the channel and reregistered it so as to put themselves in control of it, and render me no longer in control of it;
- clearly did this with the express purpose of frustrating an attempt by that channel's founder (me) to relocate it to another IRC network; and
- cover up the fact that I had sought to do so.
Related Stories
Yesterday I got this global notice on Freenode IRC network:
We are moving past legacy freenode to a new fork. The new freenode is launched. You will slowly be disconnected and when you reconnect, you will be on the new freenode. We patiently await to welcome you in freedom's holdout - the freenode.
If you're looking to connect now, you can already /server chat.freenode.net 6697 (ssl) or 6667 (plaintext). It's a new genesis for a new era. Thank you for using freenode, and Hello World, from the future. freenode is IRC. freenode is FOSS. freenode is freedom.
When you connect, register your nickname and your channel and get started. It's a new world. We're so happy to welcome you and the millions of others. We will be posting more information in the coming days on our website and twitter. Otherwise, see you on the other side!
I didn't notice it until I was disconnected and reconnected today and found myself cancelled on the network. Since there is no blog post mentioned in the system notice, I went looking and I found a summary of this week's drama from Hugo Landau.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:01PM (4 children)
Obviously somebody still really cares about Freenode, but I am at a loss to figure out what is really going on or much care.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:49PM (2 children)
Jews are taking it down, along with IRC in general, in a propaganda op so they can replace it with something bloated and profitable (and more easily monitorable and backdoorable!). Jews don't like the free exchange of ideas and culture without being able to control and monetize them, so it had to be done before too many people start sharing too many free ideas.
Also, it's Donald Trump's fault and Russian hackers' fault.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @01:05AM
Parent comment is marked as Spam at this moment. Appropriate, as there's something definitely not kosher about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @03:53PM
Lee is of Korean ancestry and claims to be a member of their royal family. Doesn't sound Jewish to me, Eth.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday May 24 2021, @04:39PM
The glow in the dark people of color take over areas to spread propaganda. Apparently ##hntop was either genuine grassroots "old style internet" OR it had been taken over for propaganda reasons by a competing tribe of glow in the dark people of color and now they're having a delicious turf war. I do miss that templeOS dude he would have had something insightful to say about this situation.
I was under the impression that everyone had gone to Slack or elsewhere because of ease of integrations and better support. Dying organizations always going far left, I would assume Freenode has (had?) like 500 channels of antifa, and their pet BLM, all empty of actual convo of course. Or it might just be dead in the water.
There's a species of gregarious programmer who can't write fizzbuzz without a chat channel and a diverse community around them with a politically correct contribution covenant because you know it takes a village to write a fizzbuzz so thats why FOSS projects have chat channels. Or is it a containment board to keep those who would rather chat from making stupid strcpy buffer overflows if they actually tried to code? A chat channel does show a certain level of dysfunction of any project where its purpose is mostly to shittalk the opposition when there's a technical debate in a project, thus the less useful the coder the more likely they have time to shittalk so "democracy rules" so having a chat channel means the dumbest decision will always be selected and enforced on the project. In the old days. In the new political terrorism days I suppose IRC exists so devs can say stuff like "you can't cancel me because I joined #blm and my nick has a gay rainbow emoji in it" aka basically twitter but old school.
(Score: 2) by mrpg on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:02PM (1 child)
Nice month of May we've been having in the net. Drama! Gossip!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:09PM
Unidentified Aerial Phenomena
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:41PM (13 children)
citizen to exercise petty power. You just have to set up your own fiefdom first.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Funny) by tangomargarine on Sunday May 23 2021, @10:47PM (6 children)
Hmm, now that I poke around with this a little more it's starting to make more sense. This Andrew Lee guy is apparently the official heir of the deposed royal family of Korea, which now has a democratic government, so he has a (semi?) meaningless title and possibly a complex about it.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @03:55PM
He's an official pretender to the throne and he has a fake title to go with his god-king complex.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 24 2021, @07:13PM (4 children)
I thought you were joking, but wtf the founder of Private Internet Access actually claims to be a Korean Prince.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lee_(entrepreneur) [wikipedia.org]
Real life is more bizarre than any tv show.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 24 2021, @07:46PM (2 children)
It sounds like more than a claim; they have a photo in one of the summary sources of the current 77-year-old dude giving him some certificate in 2018.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 24 2021, @08:03PM (1 child)
Well, it seems no more official than that time I gave my dad a "World's Greatest Dad" coffee cup, only to find out that lots of other dads have them.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday May 24 2021, @09:59PM
I would think that, in the event Korea ever decides to ditch their democracy and reinstate the kingdom, Lee would have a good legal claim to the throne if he's the oldest surviving member of the royal family.
Being able to prove you're of royal descent is actually worth something. The odds of that ever *actually* happening are still low, but yeah...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 25 2021, @04:39PM
Wow, I didn't know that. Time to unsubscribe from PIA.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @11:19PM (5 children)
The point of the internet was that no one citizen, government, or otherwise entity could take it down.
Unfortunately, Jews run Apple, Amazon (AWS), Oracle, Linux, and pretty much everything else across a variety of disciplines. So, yes, one entity working together can in fact shut the whole thing down. They are an ugly people with an inborn resentment of those prettier and smarter than they are. Kinda like Mexicans, except that unlike Jews, some Mexicans on occasion actually work for their money rather than skim it.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 24 2021, @12:05AM (2 children)
Now that you mention it, it's obvious that Torvalds is a Jew. How could I have missed it? /sarcasm
(Score: 3, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday May 24 2021, @01:44AM (1 child)
I'm not so sure about that: I attended Linus' Bar Mitzvah and it was a dumpster fire, lemme tell you...
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday May 24 2021, @05:58AM
Unicorn; n. ...[skipping way down the list]A Bar Mitzvah which isn't a dumpster fire.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @12:41AM
You are so wrong! Mexicans are not ugly at all!
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @01:15AM
Q: Who's large, Jewish, furry, loyal, adorable, and pilots the Millenium Falcon?
A: Jewbacca!
(I'll get my hat and coat...)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @11:54PM (4 children)
If they can do this to ##hntop, they can do thus to ##anyone.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 23 2021, @11:58PM (3 children)
Does the double hashtag mean FreeNode is twice as useless as Twitter?
(Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Monday May 24 2021, @12:17AM (2 children)
On Freenode, channels with a single "#" are official channels created br or representing whatever comes after the "#" (examples: #fsf, #trisquel, #mame). Non-official, non-representing-something channels are prefixed with "##" (example: ##hardware).
Though twitter and IRC are both communication media (to some extent), their usefulness is difficult to compare directly since IRC was created for real-time communication via chat, whereas twitter was created for microblogging, hashtagging, retweeting, and the like.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @02:20AM (1 child)
double-hash channels mean "You have to be a registered user to join," afaik. Nothing more. You have to log in with nickserv to join the channel.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @10:57AM
Nope, any channel on Freenode can be set to require a registered account to join, or to speak, among many other flags that can be set by channel ops.
The naming policy is exactly as requerdanos said: https://freenode.net/policies#channel-ownership [freenode.net]
Note: Aspects of the policy document appears to be actively being changed by the "new owners", but these two policies have not changed with the recent shenanigans.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Monday May 24 2021, @12:50AM (3 children)
The private company making a bid to take control of .org could not advance any plausible reason why the transfer would be beneficial to the users. The best they had was vague bull about The Market.
There wasn't any good reason, of course. It was painfully obvious that they were parasites looking to snag control of a monopoly, so they could collect excessive rents, for nothing.
What the heck are the new controllers of Freenode after? It doesn't seem like money and greed is their sole motivation.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 24 2021, @02:57AM
Allegedly, it will continue to exist. For whatever its existence worth after.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @11:01AM
They want to reshape it after their own personal ideals: https://irc.com [irc.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @03:59PM
The same thing Twitter and Facebook are after: Data mining the users to sell to the highest bidder. That is the market they are interested in. That some of those users are abused minorities living under oppressive regimes just means Lee will get some government sales to pad the budget.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @12:51AM (4 children)
What's this Freenode about?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @12:58AM
It was a social media platform for freetards that were too lazy to set up their own IRC servers. Now it's just a regular brogramming-tinged social media platform like gitcuck.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @03:18AM
It's about a foster boy who befriends a captive server. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 24 2021, @04:33AM
I've always viewed Freenode as tech-support via IRC. I've often gone to freenode to discuss a Linux distro, or a software issue, or to get clarification for something the documentation failed to make clear.
I just did /list on Freenode, and learned that 221,000 people are logged into about 7223 channels.
Visit, look around, and you'll probably find some topic in which you have some interest. Or not, I guess.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Monday May 24 2021, @05:54AM
A very old and well established one that just underwent a corporate takeover, from the sounds of it.
IRC is Internet Relay Chat.
Those who do not know it, are condemned to reïnvent it, /en perpetua/, and badly.
The attack here, it's important to note, had nothing to do with IRC. IRC had ridiculously nonexistent security or privacy provisions; but it left room for servers to provide them at least. This is just a corporate takeover - anything that has legal existence can be seized. Domain name? Provider contracts? Anarchist collectives have always had a difficult time getting a fair shake with the legal or commercial systems.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @12:58AM (1 child)
people who grabbed channels on libera have been stripped of their channels so the "right" people can have them
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @02:22AM
LoL, tried to squat on a popular channel and had it taken from you, huh?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday May 24 2021, @01:20AM (1 child)
I am of the IRC generation (hell, I'm of the BBS generation), I patronized Freenode for many years and I made two of my best friends on it. So it's not like I don't care. But...
Reading this looks furiously like pensioners fighting for the TV remote in a retirement home :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @03:50PM
Get off my lawn! And take your self-flagellation over your pensioner/boomer/retiree-guilt with you!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @01:36AM (1 child)
Inquiring minds want to know.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Monday May 24 2021, @02:11AM
FTFY, because of this:
(Score: 5, Informative) by hendrikboom on Monday May 24 2021, @03:32AM
The actual tech staff from freenode have gone over to https://libera.chat [libera.chat]
and many of the projects formerly using freenode adre now using https://libera.chat [libera.chat] instead.
So if you've been using a channel on freenode and it's gone, you know where to look.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 24 2021, @12:50PM
it think you can also use it for a makeshift "find my computer" when you don't got fixed ip.
on your home always-on server, you terminal use "irrsi" and /connect irc.freenode.net /nick {yourservername} /join #mydomain66.
do a "dig @1.2.3.4 irc.freenode.net, write down {ip.freenode.node}
sit in car, drive far away, connect to some internet gateway, ignore dns server.
do-a /connect {ip.freenode.node} /join #mydomain66 and /whois {yourservername}, note ip and voila: http://ip, [ip,] or ssh ip or whatnot you have your server doing-a. ah?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @10:43AM (1 child)
Say one thing against women and banned.
Glad this happened to them
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 25 2021, @01:34PM
If you don't like the girl dick, then support single payer healthcare.
You won't. Feminists crying about breast cancer won't.
If we had single payer healthcare, girl dicks would vanish, breast cancer would be detected early, outcomes would improve across the board, and feminists would no longer be able to operate their lucrative pinkwashing money laundering schemes.
Oh wait, Obamacare shut down the pink cancer charities. I know because they retaliated against me personally for being a footsoldier of a conspiracy involving 3.5 billion men, but spoilers: that conspiracy doesn't have many men at all and is in real reality operated by cis-gendered womyn-born-womyn. Only a womyn-born-womyn could be so fuck petty as to lash out against a cancer charity. This dick girl couldn't help but to be sympathetic, but that's not good enough when womyn-born-womyn want to fuck each other over and blame it all on the nearest tranny.
So, thanks once again to right-wing feminism, we must all put up with the girl dick, because we will never, ever have single payer healthcare.
But what the fuck do I care? Our ridiculous healthcare system is making me rich at the moment. Karma I guess. Feminism can go fuck itself.