Freenode

freenode, formerly known as Open Projects Network, is an IRC network which is particularly popular with free and open source software users and programmers. It is the official network of many major free software projects, such as the GNU project ^*. freenode reports over 30,000 simultaneous connections at weekly peak.

Users of the network are encouraged to contribute to the Peer-Directed Projects Center (PDPC). The contributed funds are used to continue the improvement of the network, as well as for the PDPC to take on a variety of charitable social support projects for the FOSS communities.

freenode uses IRC server software called hyperion-ircd, a fork of the formerly used software called dancer-ircd. Hyperion traces ancestry back to EFnet's ircd-hybrid-6.0 tree (as opposed to Undernet) codebase. It has NickServ and ChanServ bots provided to reserve nicknames and channels. The services program is theia (formerly dancer-services), and it is a modified version of hybserv, designed only to work with hyperion-ircd, due to changes in the server to server messages. freenode servers are usually named after science fiction or fantasy authors.

History

Rob Levin (lilo), the founder of the network, traces its inception back to January 29, 1994, when he started a small Linux support channel called #linuxneo on the EFnet IRC network. The channel wasn't active until August of that year, and soon after it became active it changed its name to #linpeople.

It then moved from Undernet to DALnet, and in late 1995 moved again to its own IRC server, irc.linpeople.org. In 1998, the server was renamed irc.openprojects.net and generalized its mission, attracting a variety of free software projects. And in August 2002, it became a network: freenode, a service of Peer-Directed Projects Center.

Security Breach

On June 24, 2006, a user with the username ratbert gained the network privileges of Rob Levin and took control of the network. It is likely that approximately 25 user passwords were stolen as a result This user proceeded to k-line many Freenode staff members, and most Freenode servers subsequently went down for several hours [http://tgmandry.blogspot.com/2006/06/worlds-largest-foss-irc-network.html. Messages from the user indicated that the GNAA may have been involved.

On June 25, the Freenode staff held an IRC meeting to inform network users about the attack. This meeting was attended by more than 1000 IRC users, and was also trolled, apparently by the GNAA. The Freenode staff members have not released all the details of the attack and the ensuing response, preferring to wait for the results of a full investigation.

External links

freenode.net Official web site
irc.netsplit.de Freenode statistics and other miscellaneous information
chat.freenode.net Freenode IRC main server rotation access
hyperion Information about the hyperion IRCd

IRC networks | 2002 establishments

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Freenode

History

Security Breach

External links