bottler!!!

[MeSZ]

There has been a new program developed, called bottler, that is designed solely for leeching off of irc. This program has migrated across hundreds of servers and has now become a problem for my channel on efnet. Exactly what the program does is join multiple servers on a network and hammers xdcc/fserves with "xdcc send#x" or "get xx-xxx" until that packet is sent to them. This program is leech only, it contains NO coding for users to chat or that such. The way to figure out who these users are is to /whois them and you'll notice the 30/40+ channels they are in. This probably has no concern for efnet but what probably does is the endless amound of bandwidth the program uses on the servers it is connected to. You ban simple bots for bandwidth issues but these users are 10 times worse...

These are the websites that this leeching program is distributed:
http://www.memelog.com/bottler/index.php
http://www.blotterxdcc.com/

please look into this matter, I'd hate to see efnet become devoured with these pesky users that do nothing but leech and take up bandwidth. Efnet is losing enough dedicated servers as it is.

Thanks for your time

[Auriga]

sorry.. not related...
but what the heck is that in your avatar?

Oh and... bottler..
We all know about bottler....
You will get mixed reaction about these things...

Some people hate them and klne them on sight..
others let them stay...

If they bug you.. best thing you can do is try stats p on the server you are on or the server the bot is on... and tell an active operator about it.

[Gozem]

First, bottler doesn't use more bandwidth than any other client do. When bottler wants to download something it does so from the sharing bots, seting up another connection that has nothing todo with the irc-server.

But you are perfectly right. These are a bot that very well get the eyes of irc-opers (and thereby get klined/banned). IRC was made to chat, not some kinda of media for a semi-peer2peer filesharing network.

Usally bots (or any other client) that go around into "apparent" random channels is looked upon as an abusive bot. These "information collectors" tend to break the "law of privacy" on EFnet and be unliked. I write these words in quotation since its hard to really tell what these bots do wrong. This behavior also includes MediaForce's bots.

[sig11]

My guess is that its marijuana.

[munky]

this is actually a hotly debated topic on the bottler forums

servers can keep newer (>=3.05) clients off by putting "no bottler clients please" in their motd
channels can keep them out by putting "-bottler" in the topic

[Gozem]

this is actually a hotly debated topic on the bottler forums

servers can keep newer (>=3.05) clients off by putting "no bottler clients please" in their motd
channels can keep them out by putting "-bottler" in the topic

I dont want to have to make a long list in my motd what clients aren't allowed. Nor do i want to use those few 120 chars in topic to waste with the unallowed clients.

[munky]

then hope it gets put in to the motd or stop bitching about it. you are given a method for removal of the clients and you choose not to use it, how is this a fault of the software?

[Gozem]

then hope it gets put in to the motd or stop bitching about it. you are given a method for removal of the clients and you choose not to use it, how is this a fault of the software?

Im beting its a one-line patch to remove that check.

Secondly its not fault by the software. Its faulty by the users who run them. They should read the rules of the server first.

Saidly i have no rule on my motd against there bots that "goes around collecting information". I havn't found a good expression for them. I however have rules against XDCC-bot and bots that attracts attention to me or the opers.

And, Yes i need to look over the rules again sometimes soon.

[Auriga]

My guess is that its marijuana.

Kinda looks like it now that you mention it.. but.. mebbie its my screen.. i cant make the damn thing out..
it resembles weed.. but only after you pointed that out...

looks like a bunch of dust bunnies to me.

[munky]

Im beting its a one-line patch to remove that check.

Secondly its not fault by the software. Its faulty by the users who run them. They should read the rules of the server first.

Saidly i have no rule on my motd against there bots that "goes around collecting information". I havn't found a good expression for them. I however have rules against XDCC-bot and bots that attracts attention to me or the opers.

And, Yes i need to look over the rules again sometimes soon.

i haven't looked at the code, but i bet it's at least 2 lines

have you ever used bottler? i don't like the idea much of non-chatting clients on irc as much as the next person, but i have to admit that if you want to do xdcc stuff only, it does make things a lot easier than having to keep track of it all yourself. in that sense, it attracts the users that would also use kazaa, etc. sadly, these are also usually the users that never read the motd (or even know what MOTD means), so they don't know to check if their clients are allowed on the server they are using or not. following the same line of logic, these users would also not go through the trouble of removing the motd check from the bottler source, so the "no bottler clients please" would be mostly effective.

anyways, my .02

[tabarnac]

There has been a new program developed, called bottler, that is designed solely for leeching off of irc.
(snip)
The way to figure out who these users are is to /whois them and you'll notice the 30/40+ channels they are in. This probably has no concern for efnet but what probably does is the endless amound of bandwidth the program uses on the servers it is connected to.

You are probably reffering to IRC-ork bots. I won't post the URL to give 'em publicity, but just like bottler bots, they're all in the same whole list of channels, and normally on the same server.

then hope it gets put in to the motd or stop bitching about it. you are given a method for removal of the clients and you choose not to use it, how is this a fault of the software?

Tell me something, WHY should I spend 9 characters on my already limited-to-120-characters channel topic to give the name of a bot I don't want in my channel, at the view of everyone? just its name would be helping promoting it, which makes me wanna puke.

Still, I don't believe at all that if a user decided to manually add a channel, a simple "-bottler" in the topic would make the client exit the channel against its owner will.
I don't believe that when a client would join a channel that says "-bottler" in the topic would take the channel off its list, it will probably instead just part for this session, and come back on a later session when topics will be desynch and lost on a split or something.

I guess a "NO BOTS" in a server's MOTD is enough to make that crappy bottler crap to leave the server.

Back to the "xdcc-requesting bots in a huge list of channels" subject, after speaking to a clueful oper, there's unfortunately nothing they can do, as these bots are not abusing the service: no flood, no DoS activities, no (other bad things). They just sit there and watch for xdcc packs from iroffer bots to display and give it back to the silly human behind the console, who sees nothing at all the conversation held in the channels.

Only solution I found for those bots to leave my servers alone was to run the xdcc server in "summary" version (2/3-lines) and explain its content in the Headline, instead of dumping the whole xdcc listing in the channel.

[munky]

Tell me something, WHY should I spend 9 characters on my already limited-to-120-characters channel topic to give the name of a bot I don't want in my channel, at the view of everyone? just its name would be helping promoting it, which makes me wanna puke.

the limited topic is another thread entirely, but most xdcc channels hardly come close the the 120 char limit. and having "-bottler" in the topic may give it publicity, but it's hardly promoting it if you are banning all bottler clients."

Still, I don't believe at all that if a user decided to manually add a channel, a simple "-bottler" in the topic would make the client exit the channel against its owner will.
I don't believe that when a client would join a channel that says "-bottler" in the topic would take the channel off its list, it will probably instead just part for this session, and come back on a later session when topics will be desynch and lost on a split or something.

no, it doesn't take it out of the servers.ini, but it will part that channel and not re-join during that session. seeing as larger xdcc channels have massive join/part traffic anyways, i don't see the problem in this. bottler does not allow users to send commands to the server manually (ie - they can't type "/join #xdcc"), so it is quite believable that once the client see's that in the topic, it won't be joining again (for that session).

like i said before, channel ops and admins are giving methods for removing the clients that are mostly effective (at least for version>=3.05), so if you choose not to use them, it's your own fault if you have bottler clients in your channel/server.

[tabarnac]

the limited topic is another thread entirely, but most xdcc channels hardly come close the the 120 char limit. and having "-bottler" in the topic may give it publicity, but it's hardly promoting it if you are banning all bottler clients."

S'cuse me, but I'm not running a typical XDCC channel where bots talks to bots. There ARE humans in my channels, and we DO have conversations. Did it even occured to think once that not all channels are managed the same way? We are NOT on Dalnet here.

no, it doesn't take it out of the servers.ini, but it will part that channel and not re-join during that session. seeing as larger xdcc channels have massive join/part traffic anyways, i don't see the problem in this.

Then it's TOTALLY useless! One minute you say there are methods given to remove such clients, the next minute you say that xdcc channels are anarchy anyways it won't matter if a bottler bot is there or not.

"Get out and stay out" is not complicated to get throught a little human skull. Bottler has no respect for channel admins.

Oh, BTW, I did a test. After updating the topic in my channel with -bottler, the bots already in the chan hasn't left. Proves it's not even working.

like i said before, channel ops and admins are giving methods for removing the clients that are mostly effective (at least for version>=3.05), so if you choose not to use them, it's your own fault if you have bottler clients in your channel/server.

I'd say, bottler programmers are giving instructions to channel ops and admins on how to run their server/channel.

As I said in my last post, "NO BOTS" in the MOTD is enough and clear enough. If we follow your mentality, as more and more stupid software like this one are released every month, the MOTD will start naming all and every lame bots. On top of this, they will soon be forced by bots developpers to explicitly mention the version.

What a piece of crap software.

[munky]

for once it would be nice to see a post from you that wasn't a flame.

i never said xdcc channels are anarchy, i said they have lots of join/parts. most of the larger xdcc channels are +m so regular clients can't talk anyways. i was not saying you should allow bottler clients to be in the xdcc channels, i was saying that some extra join/part traffic won't hurt much.

bottler does NOT check topic changes once it is in the channel, it checks the topic when it joins. so if "-bottler" is in the topic, the client will join, check topic, and part. therefor your "test" is completely irrelevent.

bottler programmers are not telling you how to run your channel, they are giving you an option on keeping their clients from joining your channel. would you prefer they left that feature out so you had to use ctcp version scripts to keep bottler clients out? personally, i think using 9 characters out of your precious topic length isn't too bad of an option. if we follow your mentallity nothing will get done and all we'll do is bitch about everything on forums.

[tabarnac]

for once it would be nice to see a post from you that wasn't a flame.

Been there, done that

bottler does NOT check topic changes once it is in the channel, it checks the topic when it joins. so if "-bottler" is in the topic, the client will join, check topic, and part. therefor your "test" is completely irrelevent.

That's what I was saying: it's not even working.

bottler programmers are not telling you how to run your channel, they are giving you an option on keeping their clients from joining your channel. would you prefer they left that feature out so you had to use ctcp version scripts to keep bottler clients out? personally, i think using 9 characters out of your precious topic length isn't too bad of an option. if we follow your mentallity nothing will get done and all we'll do is bitch about everything on forums.

It's still not respecting the "NO BOTS" rule in the servers's MOTD.

Bitching is called freedom of speech. Live with it.