move away from OFTC to new functional, Tor-friendly IRC network

Everyone having issues using current OFTC. This is not a support issue. The problem is with OFTC blocking Tor connections. Not configuration.

• https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2016-January/039823.html
• https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2016-January/039818.html
• https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1571
• https://phabricator.whonix.org/T361

I am not positive about this situation to improve over time. Enough time has passed. OFTC does not seem to care/prioritize this issue enough. I think it's well justified to make the change.

Ideally, the whole Tor community (Torproject, Tails, Whonix, Qubes, ...) would switch to a new, functional, Tor-friendly IRC network.

added archived-closed-2018-07-04 component::archived/operations priority::medium resolution::wontfix severity::normal sponsor:: status::closed type::task labels

Is there an IRC network that won't start blocking Tor connections when the usual suspects get unhappy and decide to spam/DoS the IRC channels/servers?

Trac:
Username: tyseom
Cc: whonix-devel@whonix.org to whonix-devel@whonix.org, tyseom

What about https://www.hackint.org/? The only problem might be that they are relatively small currently.

Hackint requires SASL auth for connections from Tor (and registration over clearnet in this case), so I don't think it's an appropriate choice here. In addition, what will Hackint do if someone starts brute-forcing accounts over SASL? That's why Freenode turned off Tor connections, from what I understand.

Hackint requires SASL auth for connections from Tor They have .onion for Tor users with no auth forced.

Tor Team should show everyone how to provide public chat for Tor users, isn't it? Or just write in Contacts that they cannot provide IRC/chat for Tor users.

Trac:
Keywords: N/A deleted, bug-no-bounty unicorns added
Component: general to Ponies

For what it's worth, the situation seems much improved over the past few days.

What was improved?

Trac:
Component: Ponies to - Select a component
Status: new to needs_information
Keywords: bug-no-bounty unicorns deleted, N/A added

They no longer seem to be preventing new connections from Tor.

Trac:
Reviewer: N/A to N/A
Sponsor: N/A to None
Component: - Select a component to operations

OFTC is blocking Tor again. Just as Griffin and probably others, I have given up using IRC.

(quotes collection): "Sign in to OFTC with your Google+ OAuth" As of 2017-03-26, NickServ will require nick verification via services.oftc.net for the +R user mode. This affects channels using the +M and +R channel modes. a lot of ordinary new participants will just walk away because verification is oppressive but not to spammers etc, who are more highly motivated well and #tor will just stay +R, which harms it the most due to it being full of people who often do not want javascript enabled :/

dwfreed said. oftc's ir.cop:

IRC is not a democracy, especially not OFTC I don't care what you think

oftc and PRIVACY:

    if (((i = can_join(source_p, chptr, key)) && !IsGod(source_p)))
    {
      sendto_one(source_p, form_str(i), me.name,
                 source_p->name, chptr->chname);
      if(i == ERR_TOOMANYCHANNELS)
          break;
      else
          continue;
    }

    if(i != 0 && IsGod(source_p) && MyClient(source_p))
    {
      char tmp[IRCD_BUFSIZE];
      ircsprintf(tmp, "%s is using God mode: JOIN %s", source_p->name,
          chptr->chname);
      sendto_gnotice_flags(UMODE_SERVNOTICE, L_ALL, me.name, &me, NULL,
          tmp);
      oftc_log(tmp);
    }

UMODE_INVISIBLE yet

dwfreed said, golden collection oftc's ir.cop:

besides, what is against the rules is whatever the opers say is

Please also consider about.psyc.eu/IRC#Using_IRC_in_a_post-Snowden_world Suggestion: Make a standalone torproject IRC server.

Trac:
Username: vynX

Two thoughts:

A) OFTC has its issues but on the whole it's been quite pleasant compared to other irc networks. So I would worry about the case where we move somewhere, the new place turns out to not be able to handle all of our issues, and then we don't have anyplace to move back to because we burned our bridges. I think any move we might make should have a good answer for this concern.

B) Longer term, I think we need somebody to build the irc proxy + nymble idea. That is, we need an irc proxy that can accept connections from Tor users, allow them to authenticate using some variant of the anonymous credentials idea, and then pass their connections (or their traffic, or however it works) to the main irc network. Then if they get blacklisted from the main irc network, the proxy notices and revokes their credentials.

I guess item 'B' is one instance of the more general "irc needs to gain better abuse handling mechanisms" goal. I'd love for somebody to work on it, but so far it hasn't been something that Tor has developers for.

Trac:
Cc: whonix-devel@whonix.org, tyseom to whonix-devel@whonix.org, tyseom, arma

Trac:
Cc: whonix-devel@whonix.org, tyseom, arma to ahf, whonix-devel@whonix.org, tyseom, arma

Close all tickets in archived components

Trac:
Status: needs_information to closed
Keywords: N/A deleted, archived-closed-2018-07-04 added
Resolution: N/A to wontfix

closed

mentioned in issue #18129 (closed)