DCC2 Protocol for IRC file transfers 233
Joe_Hypnol writes "I just noticed this bit of news over at IRC Junkie. Looks like a bunch of irc client authors (and even more) are putting their heads together to come up with DCC2, a replacement for the the poorly designed DCC IRC file transfer specification. The old protocol was basically based on a usenet post, but this new one is looking like it'll be a full-blown standard. It's currently an IETF internet working draft. Read the press release at DCC2.org."
Where's IRC2? (Score:5, Funny)
Insightful AC post, film at 11 (Score:5, Interesting)
The IRC protocol is flawed. Not just superficially broken, but horribly, fundamentally broken in numerous ways. As a result it's unreliable (prone to network splits), puts massively unnecessary load on servers, has problems with contention for nicknames, and so on. It really needs complete replacement.
Mind you, now that we have XMPP, there's a strong case for just letting IRC slowly die and having XMPP chat rooms take over.
You forget the benefits of an open protocol (Score:4, Insightful)
Its massively cross-platform-available and easy to integrate into messaging apps.. That's worth a lot more than the costs incurred by its kludged technology
Just replace the servers (Score:2)
XMPP Worse Than IRC, IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
The main problem with IRC seems to be the enormous load that is put on servers, mainly caused by using the servers to relay client to client messages.
There is a solution to this problem: DCC. Using DCC, clients connect directly to one another, and thus spare the servers. With a little extension, DCC can also be used to implement chat rooms client-side, so that server relaying of messages is only needed for initially connecting the clients to one another.
Of course, we could design a protocol specifically for the purpose of connecting clients to one another, and I think that would be a good idea. Jabber and IRC both do a lot more than this, which makes them, in a sense, bloated.
Re:Insightful AC post, film at 11 (Score:2)
While the protocol itself is in massive need of optimization and cleanup, it is essentially *extremely* efficient and effective.
Coming up with a system to maintain a state such as IRC is very hard to do in the methods you describe. Avoid netsplits? How? The internet is not reliable. Thus, IRC is not reliable. You talk about this as though you know something about it, but you cannot "fix" the problems you are talking about and have the result still being IRC.
Please, do explain
Re:Insightful AC post, film at 11 (Score:2)
One guy even wrote an irc server in ircII script, just to show that it could be done.
Re:Insightful AC post, film at 11 (Score:2)
This is because no one uses XMPP/Jabber, not because of any sort of protocol deficiency.
The main difference between Jabber and IRC architecture-wise is that Jabber does not split a room across servers. However, with the way Jabber is designed, you have a lot more servers. IRC has segregated network clusters, while Jabber simply operates by domain over the open internet. With IRC, you have
Re:Where's IRC2? (Score:2)
By the way, its too bad DCC2 isn't XML.
Re:Where's IRC2? (Score:2)
Sadly, not all "sequels" are good. Take Batman 3 and 4 or Bush 2. Matrix 2 (Matrix Reloaded; Seeing keanu's butt scarred me for life).
And somethings don't need sequels, like p0rn. There will be no such thing is p0rn2 or p0rn3 as p0rn is more than good enough.
Why is this modded as funny? (Score:2)
So as the parent poster said.... where's ircII?
Re:Where's IRC2? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the best way to organize? (Score:5, Interesting)
IRC, duh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:IRC, duh (Score:2)
Re:What's the best way to organize? (Score:2)
Reminds me, we need at work.
Re:What's the best way to organize? (Score:2)
Re:What's the best way to organize? (Score:2, Informative)
Just curious: when a bunch of smart authors get together to hammer out a new protocol, what's the best way to come to a consensus? Mailing lists? Blog? Wiki?
We use a mailing list [dcc2.org] for most of our communication. That way people can read and reply whenever they want, and there is a public archive available.
This is good (Score:2, Insightful)
I got another idea (Score:5, Funny)
DCC2 (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, this does improve the IRC-for-filesharing thing that I've seen... way back in the day before Kazaa, my friends used to pick up their movies etc. from IRC channels... so this will facilitate that, I suppose... possibly not what the authors have in mind.
I've got an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I've got an idea (Score:3, Insightful)
hey! you are talking about ssh [openssh.org] - sftp!
Re:I've got an idea (Score:2)
(*) Though, I suppose one could have a "guest/guest" account which could not execute any commands. Still seems a bit dangerous to me if you only ever want to serve files anonymously.
Re:I've got an idea (Score:2)
yes, he is. the openssh source is available under the gpl. how difficult can it be to get it, and integrate it into an irc client for file sharing?
Try again... (Score:2)
Kjella
Re:Try again... (Score:2)
lol
you are right. anyway, i was talking about the protocol, not the implementation of it.
Re:I've got an idea (Score:2)
Re:I've got an idea (Score:5, Informative)
There must be some mistake (Score:4, Funny)
PIrates rejoice (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:5, Informative)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Maybe you should try to use your computer for something else apart from sending pirated music to your friends and you'll realise that there are other uses for file transfer?
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like you have only been exposed to bots using DCC to send you files. You are talking about someone who distributes music on IRC or whatever, when in reality DCC is more than a means for bots to offer files. Normal users send files too... it's just like sending an email attachment.. you use those don't you?
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:4, Insightful)
If I want to send a file, I am going to use a better method than DCC. Once again, we have the 1% trying to parade around as the majority. Don't insult our intelligence here, a vast majority of the files transfered by DCC are pirated. You log files aren't the size of DVD rips unless you don't know how to get things working.
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:3, Insightful)
And what "better method" of sending files would you suggest, that is not used by pirates? FTP? HTTP? IM? E-mail? Newsgroups? P2P networks? SSH? Bullshit. They're all used for piracy. And the $100,000 dollar question, if it's that much better, why aren't the pirates using it as
Your soap box is a bit rickety (Score:2)
Why do people have an issue with honesty? DCC is used mainly for piracy -- oh yea, that and "log files".
Re:Your soap box is a bit rickety (Score:2)
You're probably right, and normally I don't feed trolls like you, (I've been reading up un the thread), but where's your proof? If you don't have direct proof, where is your source?
Perhaps you just took a blind guess, and therefore are full of shit because you didn't do the research before you made your claim.
Re:Oh, please! (Score:2, Insightful)
If it is efficient pirates will use it as will porn peddlers. Who the heck cares what DCC or heck even IRC are mainly used for? I use IRC for tech support from like minded users. I have also benefitted from people sending me a config file or document. At the end of the day the I am better for the tech being there even if people like you
Re:Oh, please! (Score:2)
That as it may, I wouldn't be surprised at all if the assertion that most DCC bandwidth is used in illegal or qua
Re:Your soap box is a bit rickety (Score:2)
You may be right that most of the BANDWIDTH is taken up by some type of pirated file, but I doubt the same holds true as far as the overall NU
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2, Insightful)
Otoh, dcc isn't as efficent as some, it has size limits which some doesn't have. IMHO if someone wants to download shitloads of things they either
a, use a efficent protocol for it
b, go where there are alot of users
Irc fullfills b.
But irc isn't Direct-Connect. It's not p2p either.
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2, Interesting)
Maybe the average Slashdotter will use something better, but the average non-techie will just hit mIRC's ``send file'' button.
Back when I was really into IRC, DCC was used all the time.
``Hey, I wasn't here last night...anthing happen?''
``Here, let me send you my log''
``Whoa, I just found this really cool pic''
``Hey, can you send it to me?''
Now, yeah, most of the fserves/bots are distributing pirated stuff (and even there, it's
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Ironically a few days ago I had log files taking up over 4 Gs of my system too. I wish I were making it up...
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't insult our intelligence here, a vast majority of the files transfered by DCC are pirated.
A vast majority of files transferred by Internet are pirated. A friend (who just left the movie scene) and I (a neutral observer) once computed that high-level piracy (raced FTP sites and the like, mostly sitting on fat telecom links "borrowed" by otherwise legit admins -- the sort of piracy that the FBI didn't know existed until recently [usdoj.gov]) consumes about 50-75% of all bandwidth on the Internet. When a single
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:4, Funny)
boy: hi
girl: hi
boy: asl?
girl: 19/f/someplace
boy: pic?
girl: [dcc send]
Of course feel free to replace girl with [boy pretending to be girl]
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:4, Funny)
Of course. It's used for sending pictures, so people can see who they're chatting with.
It's used to send drafts of collaborative documents.
It's used for anything that you'd use email attachments for (when the file is too big to send by email, and you don't want to wait for a carrier-pidgeon or setup an FTP server)
It's used by terrorists to DCC blocks of semtex to each other without having to meet
[[ Please do not feed the trolls ]] -- sorry, did I miss that sign earlier?
IRC is a chat protocol by default, not a file-share protocol. Use GNUNet or BitTorrent or Konspire2B if you want to distribute music efficiently
Don't forget DCC chat (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
Re:PIrates rejoice (Score:2)
This announcement looks interesting since dcc was never intended as a pirate protocol, but it became the default for several years.. Now that it's obsolete again, they announce a new version.. Of course, it wouldn't make sense to just build a bittorrent client/tracker on the irc clients and call it 'dcc2'.. DCC is mostly used to send f
Online gaming comunity uses IRC a lot (Score:2)
Sooo.... (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not kick in some p2p as well? If you're going to download a x00 mb file, then you might as well be a good neighbor and share some of that upstream bandwidth you've got there. And if p2p is not an option, why not just take a random OS FTP server, stuff it in an IRC client, let the initial connection go through the server and let browsing & data-transfer go through a direct connection.
Seems to me that writing a file transfer protocol ( Where have I heard that before? ) would be like reinventing t
Re:Hmm... (Score:2, Insightful)
They really should fix IRC instead (Score:5, Insightful)
Nicknames use SW-ASCII, yes that's right, the swedish variant of 7-bit ascii. That's the reason [ and { are equivalent, as is | and \.
There are no standard encoding. Most people use 8859-1, other languages use, well, whatever they happen to agree on. A number of other channels use UTF-8 which is the best solution (supports all languages) but is not supported by mirc.
Takeovers, splits, need I say more?
Server desync
I don't think DCC is a problem at all. It's all the other crap that needs to be fixed. Once you do, I'm pretty sure implementing good file transfers will be quite simple.
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
At this point the only realistic way to "fix" charset handling would be to have servers use unicode internally but optionally translate data to and from other charsets for specific clients, so mIRC users can have stuff translated to their system's ANSI charset, and so on.
Of course, characters outside the chosen charset would be unintelligible, but anyone who cares will hopefully just use a unicode-able client.
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
DCC is basically xmodem, which is a fairly lousy transfer protocol. From what I understand, some irc
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
That's what you think. It happens to me very often that I need to type a single word in cyrrilic, or use some mathematical symbols (very useful when talking maths), or just use some of the nice symbols like arrows or why not the different types of accen
Re:They really should fix IRC instead (Score:2)
Besides, what's it matter if channel takeovers can't happen on DALnet due to ChannelServ, when the ENTIRE FRICKING NETWORK HAS BEEN EFFECTIVELY SHUTDOWN FOR FOUR YEARS BECAUSE OF SCRIPTKIDDIES DOS ATTACKS.
Remember this? (Score:2)
FileBot: Offering
FileBot: You are in the queue...
Yes, but... (Score:2, Funny)
--
3 million strong can't be wrong
www.MadPenguin.org [madpenguin.org]
Getting mp3s will be that much easier (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, dcc2 will make all that so much easier; which I guess is a boon for the various networks' profits, but at what moral cost?
Re:Getting mp3s will be that much easier (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Getting mp3s will be that much easier (Score:3, Insightful)
Moral of the story is the MPAA at least are going through the big channels and trying to track them down. Due to hacked machines the real criminals will never be found.
Re:Getting mp3s will be that much easier (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The MPAA, RIAA and whoever else already have people/drones/bots/whatever on many IRC networks. We see them almost every day.
2. 9/10ths of the channels on ANY network, including efnet, quakenet, or whatever are most definitely not warez channels. There are certainly plenty of warez channels out there, but if you think the recent warez group busts weren't at least in part due to irc monitoring, whether it be with clients, carnivore,
Re:Getting mp3s will be that much easier (Score:2)
Re:Getting mp3s will be that much easier (Score:2)
Profit?!? (Score:2)
DCC isn't so good but (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a quick overview of how a DCC connection is initiated:
- The initiator's IRC client opens a TCP socket, then (let's call him Bob) sends a DCC (CHAT, SEND) request through normal messaging. Basically it's a plain-text message starting with ^A, similar to a CTCP request. Then it listens to the socket.
- The target IRC client (let's call him Joe) gets it, decodes Bob's socket's IP address and port inside the DCC request, and tries to initiate a TCP connection to Bob.
- Once the connection is established, if it's a DCC CHAT, text is sent as-is across the TCP connection back and forth. If it's a DCC SEND, then the file transfer protocol is used over the connection.
Of course, the confusing thing for people who aren't familiar with DCC is that it's the initiator's client that temporarily becomes the server for the contacted client, and not the other way round, like most people are used to, with http for example. So basically, it's people who initiate DCC connections who must open one or more inbound TCP ports in their firewalls, and configure their IRC clients to limit themselves to using those ports.
Re:DCC isn't so good but (Score:2)
It doesnt do ANY crc checking. Just try sending a few files..stopping them..then resuming them. Do a diff and its pretty much sure that one of them will be corrupted.
Its a damn pain in the ass.
Re:DCC isn't so good but (Score:3, Informative)
It was also designed when Internet pipes were a lot thinner and far more overloaded than they are today. One major university in Sydney (UTS) had a 48kbit pipe for the entire campus. The network was also a lot less reliable - dropped packets were commonplace. When sending a file at full speed over this kind of network, you had a greater risk o
IRC-Junkie.org Article (Score:2, Informative)
"The DCC2 community, a group of leading IRC client developers, today announced an initiative to create standards that will make establishing direct connections between IRC clients easier. The group will also work to standardize the protocols used to transfer files and text messages between clients once a connection has been established, allowing for a simple
No mIRC support? (Score:5, Insightful)
It leads to extremely stupid things like being able to recieve but not send, even though it is obviously possible since once the connection is established, the data should be able to flow either way. The other big alternative is FTP, which also is horrible at dealing with passive mode.
The hilarious part is that the reason corporations, universities etc. seem to give for it is p2p - when they get around this trivially. On a network, someone will be active and there's no problem. You're only being a major pain in the ass for me when I want to do something with a friend that also has no open incoming ports.
Kjella
As an IRC Admin... (Score:4, Insightful)
When I tell people I use IRC, more and more people say something along the lines of "yeah, much better than kazaa" or "I could never figure it out, so I still use kazaa myself", it's quite sad. ISPs hate IRC, and it's hard to find any that will let you host IRC servers, if not because of it's rep for illegal MP3s, warez, ect, it's cause of the DDoS attacks IRC attracts because of the extra scum file transferring brings.
And now they want to improve DCC, JUST FUCING WONDERFUL!
Re:As an IRC Admin... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:As an IRC Admin... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As an IRC Admin... (Score:2)
Time has moved on (Score:2)
'chat' has moved more to the traditional IM networks, for various reasons.
Hey, things happen, things change. Remeber the old BBS's? Nothing stands still.
Re:Time has moved on (Score:3, Interesting)
My home town of 8000 people has to be the IRC capital of the world with 100's of people chating on IRC at anyone time. It started way back in 96 and the channel is still going strong today. Best of all its pretty damn stable, its been years since there has been a conflict. Back in the day I must admit to taking the town channel on several occations.
IRC is still being used by chat by isolated groups.
Re:As an IRC Admin... (Score:2, Funny)
Filenames (Score:2)
Reference (Score:2)
File name and size information ... (Score:4, Informative)
How dcc works: if you're sending a file, you open a listening port, then send your IP and port to the remote host via a CTCP message. The remote host connects to that IP and port, and accepts the file.
To fix the send/receive via a NAT problem, one could merely make an extension (or just a seperate sending command) where the sending machine requests that the receiving client open a host and port and then the sender connects to it. It wouldn't be too difficult to implement, but it might require that a ctcp message be sent back from the receving client. We've been talking about this for over a decade. The hardest part would be to talk the other client authors to implemenet it.
One other, less commnon problem -- that IP that is sent comes from your hostname in many cases, so on a multi-homed box it's often wrong. Here is a pseudo-fix [google.com] that's just under 10 years old for ircII.
But make no mistake here -- the *only* reason one would need to avoid sending file name and size information over irc would be to avoid censorship or logging done by the irc servers. It's just metadata, and a few bytes of it -- the servers can handle it without any problems.In fact, it would be nice if the new dcc protocol (if it's ever completed and widely implemented, which I doubt, based on my experience with how irc stuff is done) could support sending small files directly through the servers with no additional TCP connections. It would be *very* slow (thanks to flood control -- perhaps 100 bytes/second tops) and would put a larger load on the servers, but it would allow two clients behind two different NATs to send files to each other when nothing else would. Wouldn't be practical for .mp3 files, but it would for .ircrc files. Of course, the server admins would hate the mere idea, and if people used it a lot they'd add code to the servers to find and block it, K-line the users, etc.
Not a flame... (Score:2)
So many people are using IRC for so many things that it's not built for, that it has become nothing but a gigantamongous tangled mess full of SHIT.
The only way to save it is to destroy it. If not, eventually, it will all be taken down forever by script kiddies, such as what happened with DALnet (last i knew, they'd had a 4 year long DOS attack on them...)
Start over. The WHOLE NETWORK. Not the fucking file transfer protocol that's hacked over o
DCC Torrent style (Score:2)
...and the second part (Score:3, Informative)
Taco, you might want to update the story with the link to the second draft, Draft File Transfer Specification [dcc2.org]. It isn't on the IETF site yet, however.
Re:What's the difference? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's the difference? (Score:5, Informative)
The current DCC protocol does not address IPv4 vs. IPv6 issues, SSL/
TLS encryption negotiation, NAT and Firewall traversal, or multiple
file/directory file transfers....
Re:Wonderful XML (Score:2, Funny)
For bonus fuck ups, write it in Java.
Ha!
It cuts both ways. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yaaddaa yadda yyadda. Everything can be used for ill or good.
Re:What is the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
The point is to let the protocol decide the best way to connect given several options so the user doesn't have to manually try each of the many variants of the DCC command that have been added to the different clients to overcome the problems with DCC (e.g. dealing with NAT).
I do not beleive that dcc2 will have a great difference of quality over the regular dcc but it will have more compatibility.
DCC2 will perform better than DCC in most circumstances. DCC requires ACKs every so often, halting transfer until the ACK is sent from the receiver. Since TCP/IP already guarantees delivery, this part of the protocol is completely redundant, and it can significantly slow down delivery.
They aim to "incorporate new technologies" but I dont see where they are going with this...
DCC2 is both simple and extensible, unlike DCC which, though simple, is not at all extensible. Some functionality that DCC2 could help standardize accross clients are whiteboard sharing, voice/video chat, encryption, IPv6 connections, etc.
--Riley, dIRC [dircchat.com] developer, Algenta [algenta.com] Technical Staff member.
Re:What? No encryption? (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably because you didn't look hard enough [dcc2.org].
--Riley, dIRC [dircchat.com] developer, Algenta [algenta.com] Technical Staff member