Hacking IRC - The Definitive GuideCopyright 1996 klider@panix.com Welcome to Hacking IRC- The DefinitiveGuide. The purpose of this page if you have not already guessed is toprovide what I consider optimal methodology for hacking IRC channels. Inaddition, I provide some of the better channels to hack as well as funthings to do while "owning a channel."Contents   * Section 1-- Why Hack IRC?   * Section 2--Requisite Tools   * Section 3--What It Takes To Gain Control   * Section 4--Link Looker(LL)   * Section 5--Bots and Scripts   * Section 6--Multi-Collide-Bot(MCB)   * Section 7--Pre-Takeover Preparation   * Section 8--Thing To Do ONce You "Own" the Channel   * Section 9--Best Channels to Hack[Image]  See me if you dare.Section 1-Why Hack IRC?I have often asked myself this question and the answers are varied andnumerous. One of the primary reasons for hacking IRC channels is due toshear boredom. However a multitude of secondary reasons exist. Foremostamong these is the "that asshole op i nsulted me and/or kicked me and/orbanned me from the channel and I WANT REVENGE! This is a perfectly validexcuse and boredom is not a necessary condition for implementing a takeoverof an IRC channel. Nor is it a necessary condition that the reason yo uwere insulted and/or kicked and/or banned was because in fact you are anasshole. All that is necessary is the will, the desire, a bit of skill, andof course the tools, which convieniently brings me to my next section.Section 2-Requisite ToolsAny decent craftsmen needs a good set of tools and IRC hackers are noexception. Without the proper tools you are dead in the water. All of thetools I describe below are available on public ftp sites. Before I launchinto a discussion of what you wil l need, it is important to point out thatif you are reading this document from your ppp/slip account you mightconsider geeting a shell account if you are serious about hackin. HackingIRC from a slip/ppp is much more complicated than doing so from a sh ellaccount. There are those who will debate this but my experience has shownthat mIRC or any of the other shareware IRC programs for the PC are nomatch for the speed and ease of use that an IRC shell script allows for.Thus the first tool required fo r hacking is an excellent irc shell script.If you have already used IRC via a shell account and are still reading thisdocument you probably already have a script, which means you are well onyour way! As far as IRC shell scripts go, my personal favor ite is Lice -again available publically via ftpFTP. Other scripts exist but the richnessand power of the LICE commands I believe is second to none. Now while it ispossible to stop here and hack ops with just a script, you wouldeffectively be putting yourself needlessly at a handicap. Therefore Ireccommend these additional two tools: 1)Multi-Collide-Bot(MCB) and 2)LInkLooker(LL). These two C programs are your infantry and intellige ncerespectively. Again both are available via FTP and both are C programs andtherefore need to be compiled.What It Takes To Gain ControlWithout going into much detail clearly in order to effectively gain controlof an IRC channel you must be the only op on your channel. If you are stillclueless at this point, that is to say..You should be the only guy/gal withthe @ in front of your nic k. Once you have accomplished this, the channelis YOURS. Of course, that is until it is taken back or you decide to ceasehacking the channel. There are a number of ways to effectively gain ops ona channel and I will start with the simplest, then mov e to theincreasingly more complex and finesse laden methods. By far and away theeasiet method of gaining ops on a channel is to ask. You laugh eh? Welldon't. Clearly as hackers grow more prevelant on IRC the asking methodbecomes more and more unlikely to succeed. This is especially true of thebigger and well established channels that have cultures onto themselvessuch as #Netsex, #Teensex, #Windows95, #Bawel, #BDSM, #Blaklife, #Texas,#Hack, and any of the #Warez channels and a whole host of others. To gainops in these channels you must become a channel re gular (i.e. one thathangs there freqently and becomes a known and trusted member of thechannel). Since you have neither the time nor the desire to make friends onthe channel you ultimately want to hack ops on, the asking method is thelast thing you want to do on all but the smaller more ethereal channels,where you obviously stand a better although still slim chance of gainingops through a request.. One important exception to the ask method isthrough the use of anonirc which can be used on any ch annel but has severelimitations..more on this later. But of course you didn't come this far tobe taught how to ask for ops..so lets proceed with the next lesson. Asidefrom asking there are essentially two other ways of gaining ops. The firstis through splits and the second is through anonirc. The followingdiscussion mostly relates to splits but I will touch on anonirc briefly atthe end. What is a split? A split occurs when the IRC server you arecommunicating on detaches from the rest of the net. If you are in a channeland by chance the only one on a particular server that splits away, youwill not only find yourself alone on the channel, but will now ha ve theopportunity to gain ops. In order to do this you need to leave and rejointhe channel in which case you will now find yourself with the little @ infront of your nick. When your server rejoins you will have ops on thechannel. Now you say, "Wow, thats easy enough". Wrong. More likely thannot, especially on a bigger channel a number of things are likely to occurthat will remove your op status. Remember now the goal here is to keep opsso you can "Have Your Way". Also and more importantly, if you go into achannel and wait around hoping the server you are on splits, you might growold and die first. Therefore, what is a wannbe IRC hacker to do? LinkLooker is your answer.Link LookerLink Looker is a lovely little program that acts as your intelligenceofficer. Without getting into the complexities or its mechanics, what iteffectively does is to give your a message anyti me a particular serverdetaches from the net and a message when it rejoins. Is the methodologybecoming clearer now? Yes! Thats right! When LL tells you that a server issplit ,you connect to that server and join the channel you seek to hack opson and h ope nobody else split from the channel on that server(if thisoccurs you will not get ops).. If you find yourself alone, you will haveops and a fighting chance to gain control of the channel. It is importantto realize that on many channels, just getti ng ops via a split and waitingfor a rejoin is sufficient for gaining control of a channel. This isparticularly true of small to medium sized channels as well as channelsthat are not organized or do not have Bots (more on this later), You simplywait for the server to rejoin and once the channel is full you execute yourmass deop command (this is on your script and the key element in gettingrid of any other ops) and you will be the only op left. The channel isyours and go do your thing! On bigger more organized channels, things won'tbe so easy due to the presense of Bots as well as the presense of scriptsused by existing human ops.Bots and ScriptsBigger more organized channels inevitably have a Bot(Robot) or multipleBots. Bots are essentially suped up scripts that attempt to maintain ops ona channel by their continuous presensce on channel. Additionally Botsprovide a number of channel mainten ance tasks such as opping known membersof the channel (either automatically or through password requests),providing notes, and other information. Bots however are primarlly used forkeeping ops on channel and depending on the type of Bot, defending aga instIRC hackers. Bots come in many varieties and types but the best of them doa good job of deoping spliters(thats you silly..you are opped on a splitand when you rejoin the bot will deop you). Not only will Bots deopyou..many of the human ops have scripts (such as LIce) that depending onthe settings employed will deop you as well. Now with the prevalance ofpowerful scripts on IRC a recent phenomona is the occurse of the desynch.This is a nasty event that takes place when you rejoin from a spli t andyour script deops the existing ops and the existing ops deop you at thesame time. What this does is confuse the shit out of the servers and causethem to desynchronize from one another. This is to be avoided at all costs.When this happens you w ill effectively become desynched from a largeportion of the net and most the channel, (depending on what server you rodein on). What's worse is that you will think you have ops( which you willfor that server) but in reality you won't and you will be w asting yourtime. So how with the prevalence of super Bots and Human ops with scriptsdo you take the channel? Using MCB of course!Multi-Collide-Bot(MCB)Multi-Collide-Bot (MCB) is a powerful tool and your best friend. MCB is aneven lovelier program that creates a clone of a nick you want to kill(almsot always an op on the channel you are tr ying to hack) on a serverthat has split(yes the one Link Looker informed you of). Basically you feedMCB the name or names of the nick you want to kill and tell it what splitserver to establish those clones and upon rejoin.BAM/SMACK/KIILL!! Yesthats r ight, the target is thrown out of the channel(losing ops) and mustre-establish a connection with a server to get back onto IRC and into thechannel. So yes, you have figured it out. If you kill all of the ops on achannel and you ride in on a split you will be the only op in the channel.Let me assure you there is nothing like seeing the nick kill messages ofthe ops you have targeted as you ride in on the split.Pre-Takeover PreparationThere are a number of things you can do before you attempt to take over anIRC Channel to make things easier and be as well prepared as you canpossibly be. 1)Pre-Attack Observation. Plain and simple you must know whoyou are attacking. One of the most important things you can do as you sitand observe the channel is to determine which bots and/or human ops aredeopping on rejoins. These are the nicks you want to target first. You willfail if you don't kill these nicks and rejoin because you are lik ely tocause a desynch(discussed above). However, it is essential to make sure youkill all of the ops. Leaving just one op alive means you have lost thatbattle and must now regroup and wait for another split. It is important towatch out for ops chan ging their nicks if they detect a split. If they dothis, the mcb you tagged with their nick will be useless to you. The way Iprevent this is to be on both sides of the split. That is to be opped inthe channel on the split server and have a clone in the channel on theother side of the split monitoring the goings on, telling you if ops changenicks or new people are opped (in which case you create a new mcb withtheir name on it).Things To Do Once You "Own" the ChannelOnce you own the channel, the decision is clearly yours on how you want toproceed and needless to say the number of things you can do is endless.However, let me share with you a number of time tested ideas that are sureto give you a thrill not to ment ion totally piss of the channel you havenow hacked. The first thing you can do is to taunt the former ops of thechannel. That is to say, they will probably be cursing you and telling youwhat a loser you are for hacking the channel. They will say thi ngs like"get a life, do something more productive". Remember don't take itpersonally. You have to keep in mind that it is the formers ops who in factare the ones who need to get a life, considering the only power they haveor make that had (if you su ccessfully hacked the channel) was to have opsin the first place. So you can continue to taunt and if they get relaybillegerent you can kick them off the channel. They will undoubtedly comeback within a second or two and then you can say something li ke, "Now, nowI am in control of the channel and I will not tolerate such language andbehavior. If you are unable to control yourself I will be forced to banyou." Now this is sure to get some violent response from the former op inwhich case you subse quently kick and ban them and move onto the nextperson. Another thing I like to do is to word ban. This is particularlyeasy if you have LICE. What you do is pick a word that if typed onto thescreen by any of the channel members, will automatically r esult in youkicking them off the channel with the reason that word is banned. Thismethod is particularly good in channels like #teensex where people arealways saying the word sex, male, female, teen, age, etc. All you do is banthose words and watch the kicks begin to fly. Another thing I like to do ismoderate the channel. What this does with the /mode +m command is to makeit such that nobody on channel can speak. This is a particularly good thingto do when many of the channel members are getti ng out of hand and youwant to make some sort of statement without anybody interrupting you. Yesall eyes will be trained on you. If you want to be really mean, when youare finished hacking the channel, you can leave it moderated in which casenobody w ill be able to speak and the channel is effectively shut down.Other things to do which are nasty as well are to kick everybody out of thechannel and make it invite only, effectively shutting it down as well.Think of your own creative things to do. I would love to hear aboutthem..email me..if they are particularly interesting I will include them inthis page with an attribution if you like.Best Channels to Hack#limbaugh#rush#lamerz#newbiesemail klider@panix.com