History of Eggdrop bots to DDoS IRC channels
reddit / irc

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Mount_Everest · 2018-02-27 17:17

Hello, I'm researching the use of Eggdrop bots and their use to DDoS
IRC channels for a history project on DDoS attacks.  I can't find much
info on it online, could anyone give me any context of how this was
used?

Thanks!

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wow-a-name · 2018-02-27 17:42

>I'm researching the use of Eggdrop bots and their use to DDoS IRC
channels

Your research will turn up fruitless because that's not what Eggdrops
are used for. They're general-purpose just like supybot or any other
utility bot. Eggdrops are commonly used in "botnets" in the literal
sense that they are a network of bots all talking to each other to
synchronise information. They are not mal-intented.

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HumansAreRobots · 2018-02-27 17:45

Eggdrops were typically used to takeover and hold channels.

If you happened to be on the "winning" side of a netsplit, you could
immediately rejoin the channel and gain operator status. Once the
servers reconnected to each other you (or presumably some bots you had
setup) could then mass deop the other ops. Boom, a channel takeover.

Eggdrops were just there to help keep you opped or deop anyone you
didn't trust.

DDoS attacks were used to cause the netsplits so that channels could
be taken over.

This is of course, almost entirely a non-issue these days. IRCd
software has proper timestamps and time synchronization and most
networks have channel and nickname services that will let you be the
proper owner of a channel or nickname.

I used to keep 6 energymech bots (similar to eggdrop) always
attempting to switch to my nickname on IRC so that way I would never
lose it, even if my home connection happened to disconnect.

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yunocchi · 2018-02-27 19:32

yep

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wow-a-name · 2018-02-27 19:40

The only network that doesn't have netsplit protection these days is
IRCnet.

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iNfzx · 2018-02-28 16:23

It does. Users can't join channel on netsplitted server. "Nick/channel
is temporarily unavailable"
http://www.nic.funet.fi/~irc/server/delays.html

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wow-a-name · 2018-02-28 22:46

That does nothing to protect against splitriding lol

Not to mention servers aren't required to enable splitmode.

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namenamee · 2018-04-08 07:50

You could do a research about DALnet, there was some going on there
like 15 years ago.

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Joonicks · 2018-04-14 01:56

energymech ftw.

-proton