unethist
Editor’s Note: This was written back in what were then the early days of Undernet, and therefore is missing newer history.
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THE HISTORY OF THE UNDERNET
============================
by Mandar Mirashi - Mmmm
August 1993
Prologue
========
This file is an attempt on my behalf to record for all posterity, the
times that the undernet has gone through. There have been the bad times
and then there have been the good times. But the amazing tenacity of a
few persons has kept this dream alive and rekindled the spirit of the
Undernet. This article attempts to explore the history of the undernet
right from the hazy beginnings through turbid times to what the Undernet
has evolved to, today.
Since I have basically relied on _dl's archived mailing lists to
assemble this information, I must remain deeply indebted to him for the
wonderful work he's done in managing the wastelanders mailing list. The
file still lacks details of events that occurred before February, and the
first section will be updated after further research. If you have anything
which may help me out in this quest, please feel free to mail me. Because
this is a historical document, the author may be held guilty of bias, but
wherever possible, an attempt at an impartial representation of the facts
has been made.
A history of IRC
================
Any kind of a historical document about the Undernet would be incomplete
without a mention of the history of IRC itself. To quote from Elizabeth Reid's
Electropolis paper, which is essentially a thesis report on Communication and
Community, in particular the Internet Relay Chat :
"Jarkko Oikarinen wrote the original IRC program at the University of
Oulu, Finland, in 1988\. He designed IRC as a 'client-server' program.
The user runs a 'client' program from his or her local machine, which
then connects, via the Internet, to a 'server' program which may not
be running on that local machine. There are hundreds of IRC 'servers'
over the world, all of which communicate with each other and pass
information back to the client programs - and users - connected to
them. IRC was first tested on a single machine with less than twenty
users participating. IRC's networking capabilities were then tested
on a suite of three machines in southern Finland. Once tested it was
installed throughout the Finnish national network - FUNET - and then
connected to NORDUNET, the Scandinavian branch of the Internet. By
November of 1988, IRC had spread across the Internet. The latest
listing of countries whose Internet branches host IRC include
Australia, the United States, Italy, Israel and Korea."
The original Finnish net was often termed the "O-net". The first
international link established was between Finland and Sweden. Switzerland,
US, Canada, Norway, Poland (for a while), Netherlands, Australia, followed suit
shortly afterwards. In the middle of 1989, there were about 40 servers and 10
users on most nights. IRC had yet to come of age. But in these quiet times as
well, trouble arose in 1990.
In the beginning of 1990, a net for server development called the
ChNet was formed. It consisted of about 25 servers and no users. It was used
to develop the 2.7 version which can be found even now (1993) on the EFnet.
However, this was soon dissolved after a period of 3-4 months, due to
disagreements between the programmers. By this time, Avalon (Darren Reed) had
been approved of by Jarkko amongst others to be the official releaser of ircd
versions. However, certain GNU programmers at MIT wanted to release code for
ircd as well (Mycroft@IRC in particular) which did not fit in very well with
Avalon's plans, and so the ChNet was dissolved. Soon after, a more radical
split was to occur on the actual IRC network itself.
To quote from Helen Trillian Rose's Networking documentation found
alongwith the IRC server (updated in Oct. 1990):
"In August of 1990, IRC suffered a critical split in viewpoints of key
people in the IRC heirarchy. The result was IRC split into two networks,
EFnet (Eris Free network) and Anet (Anarchy network). This split continues
today. There is some debate over whether IRC will ever reunite, however,
neither side is willing to bend from their standpoint. Currently, there are
about 95 servers on EFnet (and the same number of users) and 15 servers on
Anet (and about half the number of users)."
The A-net proposed a central server called eris.berkeley.edu in the
US that everyone connect to (with similar plans for such servers in Europe and
the rest of the world), which had was "open connect" i.e., no passwords were
required to connect to it, and there was no limit on the no. of servers. As a
result of opposing ideologies (the EFnet believed in a backbone plan based on
net routes, ping times, etc.), the eris server was the first server to be Q
(quarantine) lined from IRC (Q lining a server causes any server which
introduces a Q lined server, to be dropped as well). The other servers along
with eris formed the A-net. As of today (Aug. 1993), the A-net is almost non
existent, with the EFnet having expanded rapidly.
IRC gained international fame during the late Persian Gulf War, when
updates from around the world came across the wire, and most people on
IRC gathered on a single channel to hear these reports.
Another one of the splinter nets formed once IRC became popular was
the TubNet. This was when EF-Net started falling apart. There were a number of
attempts to form other networks. But because they were run by people who really
only wanted to talk.. and not by people who wanted the systems to work well,
they all fell off. TubNet was formed in June 1991\. It was created for all the
#hottub'ers who did not like the netsplits. TubNet at its height had 5
servers, and around 100 people. The servers were located in Caltech,
Washington DC, Montreal, South Africa and UK. It lasted from June to
September. The net dissolved because the admins at the other sites got angry
at unofficial servers.
Finally in the January of 1993, the Undernet was born, when the local
US net (started by Wildthang - Daniel Mitchell) merged with the servers in
France and Canada run by _dl (Laurent Demailly) and Whizzard (Donnie Lambert)
respectively. The Undernet has shown tremendous tenacity as compared to the
other nets, and as this document goes on to display, it is the sheer enthusiasm
on the behalf of opers that have helped to keep the net alive during hard times.
Today (Aug. 1993) the Undernet has over 30 servers, all over the world, with
at least around 500-1000 users having visited it, 200 of them more than once!
The Undernet continues to grow and confound its disparagers, and this is a story
of a net that was born out of the wilderness, and which didn't give in no
matter what the others felt, to finally start becoming more popular.
A new star is born - Christmas '92
==================================
As far ago as the October of 1992, people had already started
feeling the effects of user overload on EFnet, not to mention many other
factors. In an effort to strike out new territory in cyberspace, many
"groups" of individuals had relentlessly attempted to sustain the onslaught of
the forbidding isolation, and start up a server of their own. Many failed
in their ventures, many just got bored of it and many just got shut down
forcibly by paranoid system admins. Through the scattered outposts of the
mysterious vaccum emerged 2 groups of entrepreneurs. The undernet in itself
has two different tales to tell. Yes...the tale of two nets. One in the US,
one in Europe-Canada.
The US undernet started off way back in Oct 92, when Wildthang
put up essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (and linked it to underworld [skywarrior])
to start up a local test net. It started off as a playground to test
bots at first, but quickly, the idea of a net hidden from the main net
and a "friends and their friends" network grew more appealing. In mid
November, Munchie (Andrew Daniels) joined Wildthang and set up the first
US link essex->blackfoot.ucs.indiana.edu. Soone after Xney joined them with
his server ux4.cso.uiuc.edu. By Christmas time, Wildthang linked the US
net to the servers run by WHIZZARD and _dl.
A mention must also be made of the "visitor servers" which linked
to the Undernet to soon proceed to the EFnet. One of these was the server
run by Lightning (Edward Poffenbarger) who had troubles compiling it initially
on a NeXt, but with the help of his sys. admin eventually managed to compile
it, and later migrated to the EFnet. Another server which was temporarily
linked to the undernet was one run by SpUr (Mushfiqur Rahman) from Uni. of
Texas, (on port 6669) but was soon brought down due to pessimism expressed on
behalf of the co-admin (Rodder) and the lack of time to maintain it. lonestar.
utsa.edu (Longy) and inga1.acc.stolaf.edu (Dannyboy) joined in soon afterwards.
There were then also pace2.mts.edu which ran only parttime, and one at
chip.ucdavis.edu which was run without admin approval, and almost resulted in
the revokal of the IRC admin's account. Another old timer was TempT who linked
in CRUX1.cit.cornell.edu.
On the European side, _dl had already set up his server - hplyot.obspm.
circe.fr, and in early December linked *.fr to *.ca. The Canadian venture was
headed by WHIZZARD in the guise of taurus.ccs.tuns.ca. Taurus was originally
set up in November 92, and linked to *.ariel.yorku.ca on the EFnet. Kangaman
and Wildmage were WHIZZARD's uplinks on EFnet. However the uplink of
*.ariel.yorku.ca - Nevster, got Whizzard's link on the EFnet revoked. Finally,
Whizzard had a talk with _dl, and set up the Canada-France link. The
*.ariel.yorku.ca server soon followed suit and linked to the Undernet as well.
On the French side, _dl had originally set up a net to test the 2.8 series of
servers along with dp (P. Ducrot) as well. Later on, after the dissolution of
the test net, he linked to WHIZZARD's server in December. dp joined him on the
Undernet soon afterwards, with his server ismra.ismra.fr.
In the last week of December '92, the 2 nets merged and formed what
came to be called later on as the "Undernet". A mailing list was founded by _dl
on Feb 5th, 1993, to start the ball rolling! A channel called #wasteland was
proposed by WHIZZARD and accepted by others, as the channel for opers, and a
bot called Wastedump was set up to "guard" the bleak landscape.
Ever since, a wide variety of servers have appeared and dissappeared
from the face of the Undernet, but the ones that have clung on have always
carried forth the spirit. In the face of all odds, against an almost
non-existent userbase, they have clung on to one another, each oper giving
encouragement to the other, trying to lighten up those gloomy days spent when
there were hardly any users, and not a single soul ventured to enter the
underworld. The reasons for servers dropping off have been many - accounts
no longer active, sys admin dissapproval, disheartment at the lack of
userbase, and so on. Nevertheless, the Undernet lived on.....
As a piece of antiquity, here's the first ever e-mail message to the
wastelanders mailing list.
5th Feb - 1993 : The First Wastelanders e-mail message
=========================================================
From: Laurent Demailly <dl@hplyot.obspm.circe.fr>
To: wastelanders@hplyot.obspm.circe.fr
Subject: New Mailing List !
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 93 16:25:06 +0100
Hi wastelanders ;) !
I've setup a begin of mailing list for our //Irc Net :
**** <wastelanders@hplyot.obspm.circe.fr> ****
please mail me or <wastelanders-request@hplyot.obspm.circe.fr>, to
complete the list...
currently the list is [5 feb 3pm gmt]:
wastelanders:
dl,fpl1@CRUX1.cit.cornell.edu,lamberdc@newton.ccs.tuns.ca,
ssmagals@gold.ucs.indiana.edu,jonesk@newton.ccs.tuns.edu,
ez030724@chip.ucdavis.edu,irc@ariel.yorku.ca,neuger@inga1.acc.stolaf.edu,
dehall@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu,dvmitche@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu
Friendly,
_dl@irc
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of these admins, Whizzard, _dl, Dannyboy, Wildthang and Daveman still run
servers on the Undernet. The rest of them dropped off at some period of
time during the arduous history of the Undernet.
The remainder of this document describes events in a chronological
order.
FEBRUARY 1993 - The shaky beginning
===================================
* Admins approve of dl's mailing list, enthusiasm is riding high.
* 7th Feb, updated mailing list as follows:
wastelanders:
dl,dp@ismra.fr,fpl1@CRUX1.cit.cornell.edu,lamberdc@newton.ccs.tuns.ca,
ssmagals@gold.ucs.indiana.edu,jonesk@newton.ccs.tuns.ca,
ez030724@chip.ucdavis.edu,irc@ariel.yorku.ca,neuger@inga1.acc.stolaf.edu,
dehall@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu,dvmitche@midway.ecn.uoknor.edu,
kmuelle1@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu,csspence@mtu.edu,cmjohnso@mtu.edu,
smiguel@lonestar.usta.edu
* First messages by almost everyone on the list as soon as it is set up.
(Basher on the 5th, Whizzard on the 7th, Ultraboy on the 8th, dp on the 9th)
* 15th Feb, Tonto requests subscription to the wastelanders. Sets up
freedom.iastate.edu (machine name - pv1789.vincent.iastate.edu)
* 15th Feb, sheeba/nikita posts first message to the wastelanders.
* 15th Feb, Tonto posts *first* ever Undernet server list, as follows:
sandman.cco.caltech.edu (Sheeba/Nikita/Wizcode)
chip.ucdavis.edu (Basher)
cory.berkeley.edu
magic.magic.magic.kr
mike.cs.titech.ac.jp
shade.princeton.edu (IQ)
crux1.cit.cornell.edu (TemPt)
cunixa.cc.columbia.edu (hk)
charon.njit.edu
hplyot.obspm.circe.fr (_dl)
ismra.ismra.fr (dp)
newton.ccs.tuns.ca (WHIZZARD/Ultraboy)
taurus.cs.tuns.ca
iris.ariel.yorku.ca (Wildmage)
freedom.iastate.edu (Tonto/hop)
essex.ecn.uoknor.edu (Wildthang/Daveman)
ttmath.ttu.edu
inga1.acc.stolaf.edu (Dannyboy)
pace2.cts.mtu.edu (Chris_S/Aeros)
* Names for the new net decided as "alternet" or "undernet".
* 16th Feb, Chris_S, Xney, Wildthang post first message to wastelanders.
* Routing concerns voiced right at the onset, and Tonto (Tony) requests everyone
for ping times.
* Mailing list flooded with ping times :)
* Early dissapproval/approval of L lines voiced.
* Shaky routing causes servers to disconnect often, and with absence of backup
lines for one another, parts of the net get isolated often.
* 17th Feb, freedom.iastate changed to pv1628.vincent.iastate, a more stable
machine.
* 23rd Feb, a new European server anatsg1.unil.ch (admin Mcfly) is linked by
_dl.
* 25th Feb, hacked server policy drawn out.
* 26th Feb, Tonto posts updated server list. New servers appearing on the
list are: ra.msstate.edu, anatsg1.unil.ch, t3h.cs.man.ac.uk, hp825.bih.no.
A total of 26 servers, with 15 servers "up".
* 28th Feb, SIO requests subscription to wastelanders.
March 1993 - link me not!
=========================
* 2nd Mar, Grant posts first message to wastelanders, a "map" of servers
connected.
* 5th March, Wildmage withdraws from the Undernet, and takes off iris.ariel
yorku.ca, citing a reason of "lack of userbase".
* 14th Mar, camelot.bradley gets Q-lined (first server to be Q lined) for fear
that it is a hacked server. The Q lines are removed later.....lots of confusion
abounds.
* 15 Mar, crux.cit.cornell goes down. IQ wants to form his own net on port
9876.
* 17th Mar, due to absence of backup links, the undernet at one time holds
only 5 servers!
* 22nd Mar, IQ takes shade, spot and columbia off into his own net.
* 23rd Mar, TBA (alex Skrabut) proposes new east coast server at Hofstra
University, Long Island, NY, USA.
* 24th Mar, Tony posts new server list. New arrivals: ball.com,
belvoir-vmd1.army.mil, phys1.nchu.edu.tw.
* 25th Mar, DaBigMac (Jim) joins the Undernet from Down Under, with his
server yamabico.cs.uow.edu.au.
* 26th Mar, Tony explores possibilities of implementing mesh connections for
servers.
* 27th Mar, Grant posts the first ever Undernet FAQ.
* 28th Mar, the "hacked server net" comprising of cheetah, cheshire and hamster
(the server on a "modem") gets linked in by sheeba accidentally. It gets
delinked almost immediately by sheeba.
* 28th Mar, Dannyboy and Mmmm post first messages to wastelanders.
* 29th Mar, Tony asks for new ping times from everyone. Wastelanders is
promptly flooded with ping stats. from everyone.
* 30th Mar, Dregyon asks to be added to the wastelanders. Burnt from previous
experiences, the wastelanders promise to take care when handing out new
links.
* anatsg is proposed as the new European hub, based on pings.
April 1993 - L lines and bots!
===============================
* 3rd Apr, the first undernet oper meeting takes place. TBA discusses his
"web" routing.
* 6th Apr, Riot posts first wastelanders message.
* 6th Apr, utexas enters the undernet again - flubber.cc.utexas.edu, run by
Celestia. Also, a new entree is tdsb-s.mais.hydro.qc.ca run by SirLance.
flubber later is changed to tigger.
* 6th Apr, sandman.caltech changes names to cancun.caltech
* 8th Apr, Atlantis (Gurkan Kaymak) asks to be subscribed to the wastelanders.
* 10th Apr., IQ declares utexas as a hub server without previous notification
or discussion with operators. Dat declares cornell to be a hub in the same
arrogant fashion, and refuses to reason with opers. They even go ahead and
start changing the routing radically without asking the rest about what they
feel. Tired of it, the wastelanders finally employ L lines to employ a good
hub / leaf routing. _dl the opposer of any L line /die's his server for a
day, in protest.
* 10th Apr, nikita proposes hostmasking regions, with a detailed plan.
* 12th Apr, _dl is out of town, and the wastelanders mailing list has slight
problems. hop makes a backup mailing list, but _dl gets pissed.
* 15th Apr, Daveman posts first message to Wastelanders.
* 15th Apr, Patina (Lucy - Tonto's gf) sends her first wastelanders post.
* 15th Apr, acm4.acm.rpi.edu gets linked, with Chucki as oper.
* 16th Apr, acm4 changes to spiff.gnu.ai.mit.edu, acm4 and hermes leaf off
spiff, and so doea sugar-bombs.
* 17th Apr, Chucki proposes a new server at santafe.edu run by bogus.
* 19th Apr, first message to wastelanders by mailer (admin of viminale*fr).
* 19th Apr, camelot.bradley is pulled down by the disapproving sys admin. Mmmm
sends letter to try and save the server to no avail.
* 20th Apr, first post from tc (Tewwy) to the wastelanders. He posts the
European map, the American map and a routing plan in great detail.
* 21st Apr, curie.ualr.edu gets linked with Kham and TG as opers.
* 22nd Apr, the great bot debate is sparked off. Finally it is decided that no
remote bots will be allowed, and each server admin will fram his own bot
policy. Tony posts the bot policy for pv1628*.
* 22nd Apr, _dl puts up new mailing list server - listserv, which makes mail
handling highly efficient.
* 23rd Apr, TheJester posts first message to wastelanders.
* 25th Apr, McFly takes a short leave from the Undernet.
* 25th Apr, Mailer posts the crontab file for checking on servers.
* 26th Apr, opers express disapproval of the 2.8 series of servers because of
unexpected core dumps and their inability to work with old clients.
* 29th Apr, the wastelanders user average drops to 10 as exams approach.
MAY 1993 - timestamps and mass posts
=====================================
* 2nd May, the bot debate rages....
* TempT posts first message to the wastelanders (although crux1 is no longer
around).
* Chucki makes a huge mistake of deleting his ircd directory on spiff :). So
he requests everyone to add links for Sugar-Bombs.
* 3rd May, many admins post local bot policies.
* 3rd May, TG posts first message to wastelanders.
* 4th May, new link from Netherlands - sg.tn.tudelft.nl (admin Run) is set up
by _dl.
* 6th May, elm.circa.ufl.edu goes down temporarily.
* 8th May, WHIZZARD proposes limiting no. of bans.
* 12th May,Chucki (by now a very confused soul :) asks everyone to delete lines
to spiff and sugar-bombs, and asks to add lines for goldman.gnu.ai.mit.edu
instead.
* TempT gets overly uptight at some e-mail sent by kham in French.
* 15th May, Wildthang hands over primary admin responsibilities to Mmmm.
* 17th May, a new link is announced in UK - dorothy.ibmpcug.co.uk (admin
Chucki). Another new link is also announced - piaget.phys.ksu.edu (admin epa)
* 17th May, Goldman is down for a few days, Chucki plans to move to hermes.
Mmmm proposes "mass post" idea.
* 17th May, Tony releases new imrpoved of his multinet bot 'ul'.
* 21st May, new link in Europe - vilm.informatik.uni-rostock.de announced
(admin Uwe)
* 21st May, "mass post" carried out by Mmmm. It turns to be a "semi" success,
however, most newbies (500+ persons compiled clients defaulting to the
undernet) either give up irc, or some move to EFnet. Some stay to become
regulars.
* 22nd May, dorothy goes down.
* 23rd May, chucki posts new routing plan.
* 24th May, Run proposes the timestamp solution to netsplit ops!
* 24th May, first post by Twilight1, radium and Maniac (SirKnight) to the
wastelanders.
* 24th May, the great debate on how channels can be protected by opers - Run
proposes /smode, a patch which would affect *all* servers. It is turned down
and instead underworld.edu (a 2.7.2f server) is proposed as a channel saver.
The advantage being that if it were to get abused, it is easily removable.
* User recruitment frenzy breaks loose....bots, people, etc :)
* 25th May, new link - falcon.lhup.edu us announced (admin CocoCat)
* 26th May, the mailing list and hplyot are down for 3-4 days.
* 27th May, curie.ualr.edu goes down for the summer. Kham's on vacation.
* 27th May, new link to India established - server soochak.ncst.ernet.in
(admin Mmmm)
* 27th May, Mmmm posts the "newlink" document which contains guidelines for
new servers linking to the Undernet.
* DemiTrix (IQ's pal) tries to get a servers linked again to the undernet but
is turned down.
* Dat tries the same stunt. Boy, these people never will stay out of the
Undernet history - IQ, Dat and Demitrix. :)
* 28th May, dorothy is back up for a while.
* 29th May, mirac.eecs.usma.edu goes down.
June 1993 - new servers and timestamps
=======================================
* 1st June, TheJester posts patches against the UTC bug in clients.
* A need for an east coast hub expressed again.
* 1st June, Karll posts first message to wastelanders (admin sci.dixie.edu)
* 1st June - hermes.acm.rpi.edu goes up again.
* 2nd June, viminale changes to deabis*fr
* 5th June, McFly posts new routing plans for Europe.
* Dat manages to gain a temporary link from *Canada*! To prevent an out of
country link, Chucki gives him a link too.
* 6th June, Whizzard posts wallop patch.
* 7th June, new link announced - shadow.acc.iit.edu (admin Staffa)
* 7th June, Dat gets delinked again, due to his own arrogance.
* 8th June, Tony accidentally deletes his conf (luckily he has backups)
* 10th June, Mailer takes a short vacation.
* Munchie pops into the Undernet again with apricot.ucs.indian.edu. He
proposes to act as a backup for iastate.
* 16th June, Chucki notices that some servers have still not changed links
from acm4 to hermes :)
* 17th June, Rob (rthomas@sequent.com) sets up a new server - sequent.sequent.
com.
* 17th June, Rellik (kalt@palatino.enserb.u-bordeaux.fr) obtains an oper
password which was easily guessable and performs the first mass kill on
Undernet. A sad day....
* 17th June, epa posts first message to wastelanders.
* 21st June, falcon moves to port 6666
* 21st June, new server aspen.che.sdsmt.edu is set up (admin - chucki,sunil)
* Some servers experience technical difficulties and are a bit irregular on
the net.
* 28th June, Dwildstar introduces a new server which could act as a hub, on
the west coast - goren.u.washington.edu
* Mmmm posts new routing plan, along with dwild and chucki.
* 28th June, Run releases Timestamp (TSpre1)!!
* 29th June, Twilight1 hints at a good uark server.
July 1993 - mass kilss and jupes
=================================
* 1st July, four servers upgrade to the timestamp protocol.
* 1st July, Run releases more patches for upgrading to 2.8.10 with wallops
and TS.
* 5th July, Munchie pulls out of the undernet again! (first one was blackfoot,
the next one was apricot).
* 10th July, new link in Greece - Cyprus.csd.uch.gr (admin kermit) announced
* 12th July, midnet faces some severe problems for a day or two, due to floods
in Iowa and Nebraska.
* 15th July, Tony's upset at cancun's ridiculous ping times, and drops links
until the problem is fixed.
* 16th July, a new server pellava*fi (admin Sisko, S_Avatar) is set up.
* 16th July, Run releases TSpre6.
* An effort on the behalf of some is made to move to 2.8 servers. But many
are still reluctant to change because of the incompatibility of new servers
with old clients. A soft deadline of Aug. 1st is proposed.
* A brief debate on whether hacked id should be allowe or not.....most agree
that it is impossible to stop hacked id.
* 16th July, Mmmm posts the undernetiquette document.
* 21st July, TG sets up bolero.rahul.net
* 23rd July, due to TG's lapse of setting the correct modes on the conf, a
miscreant signs on and performs a mass kill (the second in Undernet's
history). Hendrix is the prime suspect.
* 24th July, Run puts up TS for FTP.
* 26th July, a new link - imageek.york.cuny.edu is established on the east
coast (admins - USViking, geek).
* 26th July, the troublesome bolero server pops up again, linking to essex,
which had not yet deleted the links...and another masskill takes place.
Finally the links are pulled, but it is too late. TG resolves not to
return to the Undernet again.
* 27th July, Dregyon proposes oper meetings to move things smoothly.
* 29th July, many opers decide to use their IRCNAME for advertising the
Undernet.
* Ping data packet size decided at 1024 bytes.
* 29th July, geek and Rob have a fight on EFnet, Rob drags the fight over to
the undernet and repeatedly squits imageek* without any further notice, and
refuses to apologise. sequent.sequent.com is juped - the first server to be
juped on undernet. Rob continues to allege that geek's server is hacked
without any proof to back his allegations.
* 29th July, a flame war erupts on the wastelanders over the incident - Rob
versus the rest.
* 29th July, radium is tired of the bicksering on the mailing list.
* 30th July, elm.circa.ufl.edu returns...admin TG.
* 30th July, TG proposes to advertise Undernet on BBSes
* 30th July, Tychy posts first message to the wastelanders.
* 31st July, Run posts a useful "IRC Map" alias.
August 1993
===========
* Things settle down again - July was a bad month for the undernet.
* 1st Aug, Wildthang posts about his channel link bots again
* 2nd Aug, a new link santafe.santafe.edu (admin - bogus) is set up.
* 2nd Aug, Discman returns to the wastelanders
* 3rd Aug. first undernet oper meeting held. Topic discussed - Rob, no flames
on the mailing list, cancun oper inaccesibility, limit on opers per server?,
oper protocol, underworld.edu, nick change when away, help bots, hubs to go
2.8+TS.
* 4th Aug, SIO posts ban info patch.
* TG notices undernet as an option on the holonet.net menu.
* 5th Aug, the second oper meeting. Topics discussed - TS, hacked servers, fast
upgrades, channel policy, motd change, undernet billboards, /sping.
* 6th Aug, new link in Sweden - need.hgs.se established (admin Oddy).
* 6th Aug., Tony realeases Oper Manual.
* 6th Aug, the third oper meeting. Topics discussed - no oper bots, hub
upgrades, note not working on 2.8.11, ping times, European routing, host
masking.
* 6th Aug., Run posts about how L lines can be used for auto routing.
* 7th Aug, wallops fixed again by Run, also, he releases NOTE patch.
* 7th Aug, Dregyon posts summary of topic covered in meetings.
* 8th Aug, the "underworld" debate flares up.
* 8th Aug. the undernet starts averaging more users than servers.
* 10th Aug, everyone votes yes for underworld.
* 11th Aug, SIO releases Topic patch and _dl posts summon/local kill in syslog
patch.
* A need for recruiting users expressed once again.
* 12th Aug., Rhino (oper on sci.dixie)'s first e-mail to the wastelanders.
* 14th Aug., Mmmm opposes Karll's opvis patch which allows opers to see
private channels. The patch is finally removed.
* The undernet sets a new record of 57 users.
* 16th Aug. auto routing discussed intensely.
* 16th Aug, Fizzy (Adrian Hall) proposes a backbone for European routing. _dl
also posts his own ideas.
* 16th Aug, Run proposes a new coding idea which will help in routing.
* 16th Aug., client connect patch released.
* 17th Aug., it is discovered that bolero is attempting to connect to aiken
which is fortunately L lined. The aiken admin takes off the lines when he
discovers them.
* 17th Aug, Fizzy (Adrian Hall) proposes the DNS alias *.undernet.org scheme,
along with FTP/Gopehr/Wais/wastelanders at undernet.org.
* 19th Aug., Patina posts after a *long* interval of time. Expresses some
displeasure at the current feelings amongst undernet ops.
* 19th Aug, with essex down for maintenance, and pv1628 out of action
tenporarily, the undernet is in some turmoil.
* 20th Aug, Twilight1 sets up new server at engr.engr.uark.edu. curie is
replaced by engr.
* 20th AUg, bugs in TSpre6 (mode changes) found by Mmmm.
* 23rd Aug, Fizzy applies for registering the undernet.org domain.
* 24th Aug., the first *.undernet.org server - London.UK.EU.undernet.org
is set up by Fizzy.
* 24th Aug., goren1 goes down - Dwildstar pulls out of undernet citing the
reason of "insufficient userbase". (funny how history repeates itself :)
* 25th Aug, undernet.org is registered, and new server names are quickly
decided.
* People move too quickly to the new names, causing lots of routing headaches.
* 26th Aug, hot debate on a Nickserv which can maintain nick uniqueness by
means of kill/jupe launched. Opers divided into 3 groups.....no easy
decision found yet.
* 28th Aug. Mmmm posts the undernet history file.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE UNDERNET SAGA CONTINUES...........Watch this space as the months unfold!
Mmmm
References
===========
1\. Electropolis, Communication and Community, On Internet Relay Chat,
Elizabeth M. Reid, Honours Thesis, 1991, Univ. of Melbourne.
2\. ircd/US-Admin/Networking document - Helen Trillian Rose, Oct 1990.
3\. IRC primer, Nicholas Pioch, Edition 1.1b, February 28, 1993.
4\. The Wastelanders mailing list archives - maintained by Laurent Demailly
(Feb 93 - Aug 93).
------x-----x--------
Copyright (C) 1996,1997 Joseph Lo and many
others.