GeekShed IRC Network
If You Use The Mibbit Chat Widget…
Feb 13th
If you use the Mibbit chat widget on your site, please ensure that server messages are visible to users. Having it disabled makes it so the server and services messages to the user are not displayed, and this can cause confusion (e.g. when the user is using a registered nick and all of a sudden their nick is changed and they don’t know why, when they are trying to change their nickserv settings and see no feedback from services, etc.)
To enable the server messages, look at the embed URL that you are using. If you see
Thanks to MikeWard1701 for bringing this to our attention.
To enable the server messages, look at the embed URL that you are using. If you see
noServerNotices=1, you should either set it to 0 or remove it entirely.Thanks to MikeWard1701 for bringing this to our attention.
Does GeekShed spy on channels or private messages?
Feb 7th
In short, no. We value your privacy and, as a company, we do not store any logs of any conversations, private or otherwise. There are a few exceptions which I shall explain below:
Posts such as “ADVISORY: How to tell if your Unrealircd network is spying on you” found here are simply ignorant scaremongering. GeekShed has modules which hook into channel and private messages – for example, we have a module to block private messages when umode D is set. These modules are all in the interest of our user’s security and suggesting that hooking into channel and private messages inherently means that a network spys on its users is just silly.
You can see the full and current source code for our ircd at http://code.google.com/p/gs-ircd/.
If you have any questions or issues, feel free to come and chat to us in #help.
- All network staff log the channels that they are in and the private messages that they receive. These logs are typically for the sole reference of that staff member but may be shared with parties who have sufficient jurisdiction to obtain them, if required. We may also call upon users to voluntarily provide logs of channels or private messages, if required.
- GeekShed operates a spam filter to help keep the network safe from spam. When the spam filter is triggered, the user who triggered it is always notified. In addition to this, network staff are notified of the violation and are provided with the full message that triggered the spam filter. This helps us to identify sources of spam and quickly remove these from the network.
- Very rarely we are forced to run our services package in debug mode on the live network in order to diagnose and fix problems with it. This causes all messages seen by services bots to be placed in a debug log. Messages that are logged are private messages to services (e.g. identification to NickServ) and channel messages in any channel with a BotServ bot assigned. We will always notify you when services are going into debug mode.
- All unauthorised messages to OperServ are logged. This is mostly so we can help users who might be looking for another command as there’s very little reason to attempt to use OperServ, except in error.
- All messages sent through services bots with “/bs say” or “/bs act” are logged. This is the default behavior of our services package but is something that we are looking to change soon.
Posts such as “ADVISORY: How to tell if your Unrealircd network is spying on you” found here are simply ignorant scaremongering. GeekShed has modules which hook into channel and private messages – for example, we have a module to block private messages when umode D is set. These modules are all in the interest of our user’s security and suggesting that hooking into channel and private messages inherently means that a network spys on its users is just silly.
You can see the full and current source code for our ircd at http://code.google.com/p/gs-ircd/.
If you have any questions or issues, feel free to come and chat to us in #help.
GeekShed Bot Policy
Apr 22nd
A bot is defined as any client which joins a channel on the GeekShed IRC network and interacts with it through one or more automated scripts. If your own IRC client runs scripts which can be automatically triggered you are considered to be a bot and may be banned from the network for joining channels without the owner’s permission. To avoid this, be fully aware of the scripts that your client is running and ensure any trigger scripts are disabled in channels where permission has not been given to run them.
The following is an example of such a script:
Bots are welcome on GeekShed providing that they abide by the Terms of Service. Although the whole of this document is relevant the parts especially relevant to bots are sections 7 and 8.
The most important thing to remember is: bots should NOT be joined to channels without the permission of the channel owner.
If you have any questions on allowed bots, please visit us in #help on irc.geekshed.net.
The following is an example of such a script:
<Phil> !uptime
<darkly57> I have been awake for 6days 7hrs 6mins 23secs
Bots are welcome on GeekShed providing that they abide by the Terms of Service. Although the whole of this document is relevant the parts especially relevant to bots are sections 7 and 8.
The most important thing to remember is: bots should NOT be joined to channels without the permission of the channel owner.
If you have any questions on allowed bots, please visit us in #help on irc.geekshed.net.
Ban Appeals
Apr 13th
If you are banned from a channel on GeekShed you will find no help in other channels, especially #help. This post lists the ban appeal procedures for various channels on GeekShed. If the channel you were banned from is not listed on this page and you wish to appeal the ban you should PM the person who banned you. If they do not want to hear you out you should accept this and not PM them further.
This table lists the ban appeal procedures for channels:
Search For Channel:
| Channel | Appeal Procedure |
What is SSL? What Benefits Does it Offer, and How do I Use It?
Mar 23rd
SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, and is a method of encrypting data being transmitted over the Internet that is used by e-commerce sites and other sites that require sending and receiving sensitive information.. This means that when you give your credit card or bank information to PayPal or Amazon, to name two, your information is protected. The same can be done for your IRC connection.
The main benefit of connecting to IRC via SSL is that all content you send to the server is encrypted, as well as all data the server sends you. This is useful if you are connecting from a public hotspot and want to protect your passwords. If you are worried about the content of the messages in the channels you’re in, you’ll be protected on your end; however, unless everyone in the channel is also using SSL, the copies of the messages sent to them are in plain text, and could be read by anyone sniffing packets between the unencrypted user and the server. To ensure that everyone in the channel is using SSL, you can apply channel mode +z.
Since the directions for connecting over SSL differ based on the client and operating system you are using, please refer to your client’s documentation on that. The port GeekShed uses for SSL is 6697, and every server can host SSL-based connection.
Should you require assistance, feel free to leave a comment here, or ask in #help.
(We do not offer SASL support)
Related: GeekShed Certificate Authority · Login Service
Can People on GeekShed See My IP Address
Feb 17th
Every now and then, a question that arises in #help is if people can see the IP address of another individual. Since GeekShed encrypt users’ IP addresses and hostmasks the short answer is no, other people can not see your IP address.
The long answer is the following:
The only people that can see a user’s IP address is the user, and network staff. Anyone else will see an encrypted version of the IP address, or an encrypted version of the hostname if the IP address was able to be resolved.
Examples:
- Instead of seeing host127-68-124-93.range127-124.virginmedia.com, other users will see protectedhost-A8B9B24A.range127-124.virginmedia.com
- Instead of seeing 134.65.154.12, other users will see AD171E0.223C44F1.789AD83A.IP
Some users claim that they are able to see the IP address of other users. This is incorrect. What they are seeing is the IP address of the page they see when they try to visit a domain that does not resolve.
Examples:
- If they claim to know the IP address of a staff member, with the geekshed.net vhost, the IP they really see if that of the server the geekshed.net website resides on.
- If a user of OpenDNS claims to know the IP address of the virginmedia user (from the previous example), what they will really see is 208.69.36.132, which actually resolves to hit-nxdomain.opendns.com.
- Some clients may resolve the “primary” domain name itself, in which case the user would see 212.250.162.12 for virginmedia.com
Disclaimer: this all goes out the window if the user unsets usermode x, which is the mode that hides their IP address/hostmask. This mode is set by default on connect and is removed either by doing “/umode2 -x” or “/hs off”. If umode x ever gets unset it can be turned back on with “/umode2 +x”
GeekShed Management Script
Jan 5th
GeekShed has an officially supported management script written by the GeekShed staff along with users Zetacon and GrimReaper. It offers a range of features including canned messages to help people with common questions as well as some decent channel and nickname management features.
We have checked out the tags directory at http://www.geekshed.net/gs-script/ so you can find each version of the script. We recommend using the latest version (i.e. the one with the highest version number). The script is the one ending in .mrc. The .sig file is the GPG signature of the script and has been included from versions 1.8 for posterity. Public key Phil Lavin (Freelance Programmer) can be found on major key synchronizing servers.
Load it into the remotes section of your script editor just like any other script or place it in your mIRC install dir and type:
We have checked out the tags directory at http://www.geekshed.net/gs-script/ so you can find each version of the script. We recommend using the latest version (i.e. the one with the highest version number). The script is the one ending in .mrc. The .sig file is the GPG signature of the script and has been included from versions 1.8 for posterity. Public key Phil Lavin (Freelance Programmer) can be found on major key synchronizing servers.
Load it into the remotes section of your script editor just like any other script or place it in your mIRC install dir and type:
/load -rs gs-chanscript.mrcAny problems, come see us in #help on irc.geekshed.net
Login Service
Jan 4th
We have, for a while now, had a login service which links to our services database to allow you to login to areas of the site, such as the quote database, using your services login. This has always been an experimental feature however we are now happy that it’s working great and have finalized it. We have applied an SSL certificate to the site to allow your username and password to be encrypted as it passes over the Internet for our auth service to verify.
We hope to be able to use this service in the future for lots of cool areas of the site including web based nickname and channel registration.
We hope to be able to use this service in the future for lots of cool areas of the site including web based nickname and channel registration.
What Ports Can I Use to Connect to GeekShed?
Jan 2nd
Besides the default port 6667, all GeekShed servers accept standard connections on the following ports:
6660, 6661, 6662, 6663, 6664, 6665, 6666, 6668, 6669, 7029, 7070, 1494, and 1755
All servers also accept SSL connections on port 6697.
Should you experience difficulties in connecting, you can try another port or another server. Should you still have difficulties, you can post in the forums where someone will be able to assist you.
All servers also accept SSL connections on port 6697.
Should you experience difficulties in connecting, you can try another port or another server. Should you still have difficulties, you can post in the forums where someone will be able to assist you.