IRCNet on Strike

From Friday April 7 12:00 until Saturday April 8 20:00 Dutch time, the Dutch IRCNet-servers will be unavailable.

With this action, the Dutch IRCNet-operators join the strike that is organised by the German IRCNet-operators.

Why ?

In the past few months, IRC-servers have increasingly become the victim of so-called DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. These attacks are so serious that not only the IRC-server itself, but the entire network of the ISP or university is badly inflicted. These attacks have already led to the discontinuing of the IRC service by a German provider. Several other providers (including Dutch ones !) are currently considering the same.

Who's causing this ?

A small group of people think they have to fight out their conflicts through IRC. This is nothing new. What is new is that, as a method of fighting out these conflicts, IRC-servers have intentionally been attacked. More and more violent methods are being employed without any consideration towards other users.

So ?

We, the Dutch IRCNet-operators, want this to stop. What we used to consider as a form of 'sport', running an IRC network, is costing us so much extra time and effort because of these attacks, that we're fed up with it. Furthermore, we can no longer defend the use of running an IRC server towards the universities and ISPs that are currently hosting them, because of the strain these attacks cause on their networks.

The Dutch IRCNet-operators,

Remco van Mook (OmeHenk)
Andre Koopal (koopal)
Cor Bosman (cor)
Mark Visser (Laser_)
Jan Pieter Cornet (johnpc)
Remco van Zuijlen (TW)
Rene van Valkenburg (jiggel)
Mark Koenen (TheNose)
Leon Brouwers (Limbo2)
Alex Bleeker (Z_Reau)
Tjerk Vonck (Krejt)

More information:

http://www.nl.ircnet.org/strike.html