When our service opened 6 months ago, I made it a point to open up availability to many networks that were blacklisted, with a few notable exceptions (DALnet because of DDoS issues, any network whose primary purpose is file sharing, hacking, etc.). Networks such as SwiftIRC, AlphaChat, Byroe, BhasIRC and others got a new lease on availability. Though 1 or 2 have already been put on our permanent blacklist (BhasIRC and DesireNET the principle networks), things have worked out for the most part. One network I continued not to allow was AllNetwork, purely because of the amount of abuse I had seen from users to that network over the prior year and a half. Now that our service has established itself and I have put numerous checking systems into the bot, I have decided to allow AllNetwork on a limited basis for now. This “limited” basis will be 1 account per IP allowed to their servers. When these fill up and if there are no incidents for a week, I will open up another account per IP until I am confident that abuse will be very minimum and then I will allow the full limit per IP to the network. I want to give these users a chance. I hope this works out for everyone.

As many of you know already, Rho has moved since the last news post. In addition to it being on a far better server and much more reliable host, we were also able to add 2 more IPv4 IP’s to help us out. The new server is in the UK, giving us a server based in that region again after the original Xi left.

Our new *buffextras module is finished and installed across all servers. This new version offers our users the ability to set it on an individual channel basis… a first anywhere for this module. Though not many users will bother to use this feature, those that do will appreciate the benefits. The new *network module is being finished now, though the webadmin interface for it has yet to be started, and frankly will be the most difficult part according to Armageddon. But, I know she will succeed and give our users the ability to finally change their server list to another server for the same network without the need of the Elite staff. This will be especially helpful to our users with accounts to EFnet, IRCnet, Link-Net, and many others.

The new EliteCrawler script in the bot, designed to get information from new networks not in our database, has been completed and is now in full use. It is now a 2-step process for us to add new networks into our system. I have set all new networks to a default of 2 accounts per IP unless the bot gathers information from the network itself that shows it is higher or lower. It is rare that many of these networks even fill up 1 account across all of our IP’s, so this was a logical quick solution even though many nets allow 3 or more per IP. This has sped up adding requests to unknown networks to as little as 4 or 5 minutes, with confidence that accounts added are not going to be immediately banned. It’s part of my continued effort to make our service the Elite of the free bouncer industry.

There is more to come in the coming weeks, so please check back!

The Rho server will be moving to a new host in the next couple of days. Even before the recent DDoS incident, the server has been problematic, so it has been decided to let the current host expire and move it to a stable, more reliable host. We will inform the users on that server when the transfer is ready to be made. The Xi server will be next, as that server’s host has been excessively bad again of late. This will happen when the server’s owner is available again, hopefully next week sometime.

We have now set up to automatically add additional servers for requests to Undernet. This network has a history of issues with their servers, so this will help prevent issues before they happen. Also, Undernet is inconsistant with the session limits; some servers only allow 2 connections per IP, while others allow 3 or 5. This inconsistancy has been a problem until now. We have confirmed 4 servers that allow at least 3 connections, and these are the servers that will be added to any new account.

IRCnet has been another problematic network, as most of the users only request either the irc.atw-inter.net or openirc.snt.utwente.nl servers, which constantly hit their total user limits of 2500 connections. These requests will also automatically add additional IRCnet servers to avoid this issue.

The new *buffextras module is complete and will be installed on all the servers later today. This module will now give the user the choice if they want to turn it on or off for each specific channel. The new *network module should be ready soon, and the new *nickserv module will be worked on as well as a new feature, the *news module. Information on these will be posted when they are ready to install.

That’s it for now… other than the recent increase of abusers that have forced temporary request suspensions on a couple of networks. Apologies to those new users who have been trying to get accounts to one of these networks, but we have to contain the abuse problems before they get out of hand. We hope you understand this.

The last couple of days, the Rho server has been the victim of DDoS attacks. We have found the user responsible for these attacks on our server. He was taking part in DDoS’ing another user on EFnet to steal the nick. EFnet is one of the networks known for this problem because of the lack of services and host masking. We have blocked the account and banned the relevant IP ranges from our channels. We hope this will be the end of the situation, but it’s possible Rho will become a target again since we removed the user. We will keep everyone informed if anything changes.

As we celebrate our 6 month anniversary of being in service today, I thought I would take a few minutes to update our users on what has been going on behind the scenes. Updates to the service bot and our custom ZNC software are continuing, and just today I have added the ability for users to remove their own accounts. This can be done in any of our official IRC channels by using the new !remove command. Please take note: this system can only be used once per user. The reason for this is to prevent abuse, such as someone who has been banned from channels on a particular IRC network, or even glined from the network itself, and repeatedly removing their account to get a new account and evade these bans. Also in the works is the ability for a user to add additional servers of the same IRC network to their serverlist without having to wait for staff to do this.

[Update - 2012/07/08]
I have added the !addserver command in the bot for our users to use in the IRC channels. This will only work with servers for the same IRC network, and any other network’s servers will be rejected.

On the topic of our official IRC channels, we expanded earlier this week (for those who didn’t notice) and officially opened our #EliteBNC channel on the FreeNode network. This brings us to 7 total networks where you can get assistance. We have also just taken over the main #bnc channel on Rizon and set up a relay there for requests. The former owner, BNC4U, has also just closed down like RDL did a short while ago. The Rizon staff came to us and asked if we wanted to take it over, so we did. We sincerely thank the Rizon staff for continuing to work with us, as we continue to work with them regularly. Also as far as network staffs, we now have better help on the ICQ network as 3 of our users are now staff or staff helpers there. Along with our continued working relationship with the staffs of GameSurge, Abjects and Infinity-IRC, we are continuing to stretch our ability to help our users.

To help out the EliteBNC staff, I have been working hard to add more automation into the service bot. This now includes auto-removal of accounts for any of the following: 1) unused via IRC client within 3 days of being accepted. 2) parking accounts/channel stuffers after 5 days. 3) users that repeatedly ‘ghost’ their BNC on the 3^rd offense (if you are ghosting it, you are not using it and don’t need it). Other automation features for staff include the bot setting a temporary user ban (blockuser) from their BNC with the reason stated when the user tries to connect. This will be done if an account is g-lined/z:lined/otherwise banned from a network. The account will not be removed immediately, though, unless the staff come to the conclusion that this was a true abuse ban. Another new automation added is the bot will now check the IRC server the BNC is on against the server/network in the user’s information and alert the staff if they do not match. And last, but not least, is our new ‘Crawler’ that will connect to any new IRC network not in our current approved list, get any relevant info and relay it back to the staff. This will save us a lot of wasted time waiting to get information from staff on these networks. All of these automations are designed to allow the staff to concentrate mainly on assisting our users and the ever-increasing amount of requests we are getting. As we are now nearing 600 active users, I will continue to find ways to make sure we can assist them all in a timely manner.

Once again, I appreciate all the continued support from our users, the staff of many IRC networks, and many others along the way. I especially thank my fellow staff members for continuing to make the Elite name live up to its namesake. Here is to the next 6 months!

Now that summertime has come (for the Northern Hemisphere, that is) and ‘kids’ are out of school/college, the yearly issue of ‘skiddies’ will be prominent on IRC networks and related IRC services (such as bouncer services) for the next couple of months. It is just the nature of IRC, so we are preparing for what will come. July and August is always a rough time as many IRC networks (both large and small) will suffer DDoS attacks, flood bots, spam bots, and the like. Though we would like to believe EliteBNC would not be effected much, we simply don’t know, as this is our first summer in service. This is just a heads up for our users that for the next 10-12 weeks there could easily be disruptions in our service. We will work hard to get everything back online as quickly as possible should this happen.

We are aware that the largest of the free service BNC providers, rdlBNC, has recently shut down operations. We would like to thank them for including us in pointing users in our direction, and we hope that the future endeavors for their ownership and staff will go well. We have already seen a jump in user requests, and we hope we can adequately fill in part of the role rdlBNC has left behind. We are already in a tight squeeze, though, to add accounts for a number of networks, including QuakeNet, UnderNet and ICQ. We will be looking into adding additional openings and/or removing unused/idle accounts to these networks in the next few weeks. We hope their former users will be happy with our service.

Work is still on-going on some of the new features we will be adding into our ZNC software, including the new *network module currently in the works, and an eventual “rebuild” of the *nickserv module. We have, however, slowed down the pace to take care of things going on in our personal lives. We enjoy providing this service for everyone, but we all have our real life priorities we need to take care of as well, and I would never want any of the staff here to ignore those priorities. That said, we are going to make sure any new upgrades we implement will be ready before updating the servers when we get to that point.

That’s about it for now, other than I want to take a moment to offer best wishes to our staff member, Russell. He is taking a much-needed break from IRC for a while. Even though he won’t be around but an occasional visit, he will remain as part of our staff, and the Rho server will remain in operation. Good luck to him and his endeavors!

[Update]
We are in better shape than first believed in regards to accounts for QuakeNet and ICQ, though ICQ is in a request suspension period at the moment due to request abuse for the network. UnderNet shouldn’t have been listed as we have plenty of openings for that network.

The service has been below our standards of performance for the last week and a half. This has primarily been due to the unfortunate timing of real life events with all of the staff members at ths same time. I, myself, haven’t been home this entire span other than a couple of hours here and there. This was the reason for the service bot being down for 24 hours or so. I simply was unable to get home to restart it until a short time ago. Hopefully, things will start to return to normal next week when I should be back home again. We hope everyone will understand that our real life priorities will come first, and we thank everyone for their patience.

Once again, as has happened a number of times with both services I have been a part of, the IRC network BhasIRC has seemingly banned all of our connected users.  This time, the reason was: [mass] bot/clone/spam. Previously, they had banned all IPs with no reason at all. This is the final time I will try to work with the network. It is now permanently disallowed.

Also of note, Russell has been promoted to full staff as Accounts Administrator. He has given us valuable assistance over the last several days. We thank him for all that he has done.

In IPv6 news, the list of IPv6 networks has been updated again with a few new additions, including SwiftIRC and our home network of Infinity-IRC which is once again IPv6 capable. Also, our Xi server is IPv6 capable again, and we have set up 7 IPv6 IPs for our users.

That’s it this time around. We thank you for your continued support.

[update 2012/05/12 8:14pm]

IRCnet is now open for requests again.

As irony would have it, the day we removed someone from staff, they reappear out of nowhere! We welcome back Kieran to the staff, and he has become the new owner of the Xi server. Xi was abruptly shut down yesterday, so there were some quick changes made to get it back online. We have decided to part way with BluntMaster. We wish him well with his IRC network.

The new report module system is working awesome so far, although a few users did tend to ‘test’ it at a level we weren’t expecting. :P That’s fine. We know people like to try new things! :D The new automation system for users to remove their own account has been started, and should be in place by the end of this week. I am also looking at the ability for a user to add additional IRC servers to their account, as long as they are for the same IRC network. Our service bot is already set up to automatically determine which network many IRC servers are for (especially: EFnet, IRCnet, Link-Net, and almost all with *.netname.* such as us.undernet.org), so if the bot recognizes the server request is for the same network the user is already on, it would accept the request for the addition. This latter system probably won’t be in place for a couple of weeks or so, as I will make absolutely sure it works before putting it into service.

IRCnet has again been temporarily suspended for 5 days. Our wonderful IRCnet hoarder was found to have 3 more accounts over the last 2 days we didn’t know about until we were alerted by our service bot. This now brings the total to 13 accounts removed, 12 of them to IRCnet. The user zubzub / zub_zub is now on permanent ban from our service for repeatedly violating our rules.

We were hoping the DDoS situation on our servers had subsided, but that didn’t hold true a few hours ago. For the first time since we opened, Zeta was hit by a massive attack and had to be restarted. It was hit with over 200GB of data in just 20 minutes, and then was hit by a second DDoS a few minutes after the first attack. A restart was the only option left. Apologies to those users. We are looking for a possible user that could have been behind the attack so we can remove them.

Once again, thanks to everyone for the continued support. We appreciate the users spreading the word (without spamming networks) about our service. We have grown bigger than I expected to be at this point, with our user count now surpassing the 400 mark in just 3 months. We wouldn’t be doing this without you.

As EliteBNC reaches its 3 month anniversary of being in service today, we have adopted a new slogan that will define us… “Moving forward.” We are rolling out some of our new custom upgrades, including our new report module. This is an internal system that anyone can use if they have a problem with their BNC. Details will be posted later today or tomorrow once we have everything coded to support it from the service bot in the staff’s room.

As for our staff, we are going to move forward without long-time alumni, Kieran. He was another staff from the other service most of us split from, and brought the original Sigma server with him. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been seen in 5 weeks again, and we had to move the Sigma server to a new host without him last week. If he should return on a regular basis in the future, we will gladly welcome him back. Also as far as our staff, we have brought on BNC4FREE owner Russell as our technical advisor and official observer. He was part of the test team for our new report module. We are happy to have him on board.

There are more changes on the way, including 1 of the new automated services that was mentioned previously. We will be setting up to allow a user to remove their own account. There will be a stipulation on this system though… it can only be used once by the user. This is to prevent abuse, such as someone constantly changing their account for ban evasion reasons. Details on when this system will be ready will be released soon.

Thanks to our users for the constant support. We are looking forward to what the next 3 months will bring!

Update: The service bot is now working with our new report module. Users will no longer have to join one of our channels or email us to get assistance. To use this new system, simply type /znc *report help and follow the directions.

The Omega server has been moved because of the DDoS attack, and subsequent nulling of the 2nd IP. With this move, however, we not only have the 2nd IP working again, but have added a 3rd IP to the server, giving us another usable IP for many networks. Everything else about the server will be the same.

Our new QuakeNet room is starting to grow, so I wish to thank those users for coming in and having a chat with us. If this trend continues, then I may go ahead and take the room off the trial basis and move it to a permanent status.

The saying goes, “Immitation is the highest form of flattery.” Well then, we are quite flattered to have everything we are doing being imitated, especially everything we have added to our website. The only difference is, we are 100% transparent. No fake 100% Uptime buttons, no fake “Restart” stats, etc. etc. etc. It just goes to show, we are the innovators. Enough said. Good day to everyone!

Update: “I’ll just register robbysmells.com” …seriously, who has no life? lol. And you wonder why I never replied to the email. Seriously… nothing that has been stated here is false, and nothing fake ever will be. Maybe someone should look at themself. Enough said.