Forums General Discussion Can I hide my /whois information due to a banning?

For some reason, the server name that shows up in my /whois has been banned from an IRC room. Is there anyway to change how this information displays, so that I won't be banned? I don't think I should be banned for someone else's behavior. Plus, I've heard of many rooms indiscriminately banning anyone from AOL. That's not right. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Easiest way to get around this is to use a proxy. Change your other information fromt he mirc setup crap and your back in

I keep changing my information, but the /whois stays the same. It says something like: ... Level3.net ...

It is the Level3.net that I have to get rid of from my /whois information.

How do I do that?

What is a proxy and how do I use one?

Thanks

Using a proxy without the permission of the owner is not legal in most places. Most networks also disapprove of it and will ban you for using them if detected.

If a network or room owner has banned you then you have no right to circumvent the ban in any way. It does not matter if you have done something wrong or not. Connecting to IRC means connecting to a computer owned by someone else and the issue of who may connect lies solely with the owner and their appointed staff (if any). Personally, when I see someone evade a ban I place, regardless of what they think their rights are my usual response is a stronger ban, EG: their domain, a z:line on a vhost provider's c class, even a TLD if necessary.

Your only resolve is to use another server or network until the ban is lifted.

If somebody p*ssed off a room owner so that they ban everyone using a particular server, that's not my fault. So I do have a right to circumvent the ban. That's like banning all black people from your store, just because 1 black person did something wrong. It's like racism! Therefore I am combatting the same kind of thinking that underlies racism.

You don't understand the culture of IRC usage then. I said that when you connect to IRC you are connecting to a computer that belongs to someone else. They set the terms of use, rules, regulations, acceptable use policies and the appropriate indemnity jargon.

You do not have any rights over property belonging to someone else any more than I or anyone else does. When people like you decide that you have the right to tell the owner of their equipment that you can do what you please then that is when stronger bans get laid and thus it just makes matters worse. No-one has ANY rights on IRC. Connection to a server is a privilege which can be removed at any time without a reason.

In addition, it's got nothing to do with what colour you are. Look at it in this light. If I am a shop owner and someone steals my stock I would then be entitled to refuse any further entry to them and any other convicted thief, or person I deem a thief, without fear of being sued for restraint of trade. On IRC people who evade bans (like you want to do) can be rebanned with a stronger ban.

There's no law against it either as IRC doesn't cost you anything.

You said it yourself "any other convicted thief".

Well, I got banned without being convicted of anything. I did nothing, and am still banned.

All I want to do is know how to hide my /whois information, or else how can I connect using a different server that is not banned? Would you consider the latter wrong? Just using another server to connect?

I'm seriously considering getting a different ISP because I'm pretty sure that would totally change my /whois information and would let me in. Or do you think that would be unethical, that just because someone using the same server as me was banned, I must forever bear his burden and be banned myself?

Well I am obviously not getting through so I will comment no further except to repeat that you risk being rebanned if it is found that you have hidden your true details and that as such I am not going to provide assistance with how to go about it.

Thanks for your input anyway.

I think an excellent feature of mirc should be to allow people to change their /whois information at will, to circumvent frivolous bans.

I suggest we unlock all the doors in prisons and get rid of the guards so people who were wrongly convicted can get out.

Besides, it's not mIRC who provides the whois information, it's the server.

I suggest we lock everyone up in their house, because a tiny fraction of individuals are criminals; so let's just punish everyone for their actions. That should spur the global economy.

How do I change my server?

I think an excellent feature of mirc should be to allow people to change their /whois information at will, to circumvent frivolous bans.

Excuse me while I go laugh my ass off.

Newsflash - you do not have a god-given right to access any network or channel on IRC. If somebody wants to ban your whole ISP from a network or channel, it's their right. Privately owned networks; privately run channels. If you're banned, tough luck - either contact the channel / network owner or operators, or find another channel / network to chat in.

Think of a house. The house owner decides to not allow anybody with green eyes inside his house. Even if it's "not fair", it's his right to do that, and I doubt you'd be clamoring for somebody to hand you a pair of eye-color-changing contacts just to get inside that house. You'd find another house to visit.

You said it yourself "any other convicted thief".

Well, I got banned without being convicted of anything. I did nothing, and am still banned.

No, he said "any other convicted thief, or person I deem a thief" (emphasis mine). In this case, you're being deemed a thief. Tough luck, find another place to chat.

I wouldn't be suprised if your obsession with ban evasion was the same thing that got your ISP banned in the first place.

Furthermore, your analogy is a load of balls. It is a human right that "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state." It is not a human right that you can get into other people's property without their permission.

It's my understanding that one user from that server was asked their age, and they gave 2 different answers on 2 different occasions. And that's what caused the ban of everyone from that server. Now, even if the person had given a consistent age both times, there's no way at all you can verify the age of a chat room participant. You just have to take their word for it. Since the ban is totally frivolous, and has nothing to do with me or my behavior, I have a right to overcome it.

"Stupidity must always be met."

I find it hard to believe you actually have this opinion, but there we go.

I think one of the more pertinent points here is that mIRC has very little to do with your /whois information. The server hands it all over, mIRC simply displays it. The only information you can change is your nickname and full name. That straight away points out that *we* cannot do anything about the ban and it has nothing to do with this forum. See this page for further information.

Secondly, the fact is you do not have a right to ban evade. No matter how much you say that you have, or what you think your rights are, you don't. You mentioned the word racism - well yes, people can ban others for racist, ageist or sexist reasons. If you say "I'm male" then the ops are free to ban you. Some channels have banned entire countries such as *.my (Malaysia) and *.pk (Pakistan) - This could well be racially motivated, but that doesn't matter. They are allowed to do this, irrelevant of who is being affected by the ban, whether they are innocent or not.

You need to sort your issues out with the ops of the channel concerned. If they do not want to remove the ban or comply with your request then they do not have to and you need to go and pick another channel out of the thousands that exist on IRC.

I think everything has been covered in this thread now. Put it this way, continuing to post is not going to get you helped, sorry.

That said, I hope your issue is resolved soon and that you get back in. It is very frustrating when something happens to you and it's unfair, unfortunately, IRC is not a world of fairness. After all, it would be unfair to restrict what type of bans those ops can set on their channel, wouldn't it? - We (including you) have to just put up with these inconveniences. Fighting bans (by evading them) will get a wider ban set, a ban from the server/network, and/or a longer ban. Hardly worth it!

Best of luck.

Regards,

Excuse me? What part of FREE don't you understand?
1. The equipment and bandwidth used to power each server is all donated. You don't own it, nor do you PAY for it, therfore you have NO RIGHTS regarding connections to it.
2. A channel is OWNED by the person that created/registered it. This means they can run it as they please, including keeping any group of people out of it because they WANT to. They don't need a reason, any more than you need a reason to keep random people from walking in your home.

Grow up and get a clue, dude!

If someone has the power to ban you then they are allowed to do so otherwise they wouldn't have that power in the first place, even if they ban you for absolutely no reason at all it's their choice and their right to ban you, even if they want to ban you because they don't like your nickname it doesn't matter, it's their right to ban you for whatever they like.

I'm perminently banned from a channel for saying i like wmp better than winamp, whether it's unfair or not, i don't have a right to evade the ban, sure i could evade it, but as watchdog said it would make things worse.

Just wait the ban out or try contacting them and asking them to either remove it or ask if they can make an exception.

If you decide to contact them, remember to be polite, don't say anything like "unban me now you little <something>, i've done nothing wrong"

Until then, find another place to chat.

There are thousands of servers out there, whether it's as good as the one you were banned from or not, it should be fine to use until you are unbanned.

If they decide that it's a perminent ban, just put it down to experience and find another server to chat on perminently.

Don't bother evading the ban, because they will see that you've evaded it sooner or later and then they will just ban you again, it's much easier and better to just cooperate with them than trying to get around it.

Well here's how I look at it. They have a right to ban me from their room. And I have a right to ban their stupid behavior by evading the ban. We're both banners in our own way.

Uh. No. You aren't.

Follow the metaphor. A channel is not a public place. It's like a house. If somebody tells you to stay out of their house, do you try and enter it anyway, by disguising yourself or whatever? It's their channel. If they want you to stay out, STAY OUT.

But I guess I'm just wasting my time here. Typical the-world-owes-me-everything critter. A dime a dozen nowadays.

You do realize that (depending on the policies of the network) the channel operators and owners, if they catch you banevading, can contact the IRC operators of the network and get you banned from the NETWORK? And that if you evade THAT ban, the IRC operators can contact your ISP and, if you persist, get your internet connection pulled?

I don't think the world owes me anything. I just despise rude folk.

You just have to live with the fact that the owner/operators of a channel can do as they will be it a ban for various reasons to kicking people just out of amusement. Simply put you are just a victim of circumstance due to a problem caused by few. If you cannot get into that channel, then just move on and find another place to chat.

As stated before, you can find many other networks listed at netsplit.de and you can search for chatrooms via SearchIRC. Just count your loss and move on its that simple.

So rather than carry on this thread until it hits a brick wall, leave it at that because you have been helped given the previous posts. Good luck and hope this helps.

Actually I don't have to live with it. I have a mind I can use to overcome their ban. One person on this thread mentioned using a proxy; everyone else just said "Tough luck. That's just how things work."

I'm sure that when slavery was legal in the US, someone could just as easily have told a slave "Listen, slavery is the law. That's just how things work. Live with it." Or when the Jim Crow laws were in effect, someone could have told a black person "Listen, the law says you have to sit in the back of the bus. That's just how things work. Live with it." But I, for one, choose not to live with it. God gave me a mind to modify the world as I see fit, and I see fit.

You hate yourself then?
You are the one being rude by evading their ban when they clearly don't want you there, if they did then you wouldn't of been banned in the first place.
However you obviously aren't going to listen, so go ahead and evade it, but don't come back here when (if) a bigger ban has been put in place.

If you don't like the way the operators run that channel and decide who to ban why do you want to get in there so bad? - it seems like you're just looking for trouble, and with a self-righteous attitude like yours that's exactly what you'll find pretty much everywhere on IRC. What gives you the right to say 'well that ban wasn't meant for me'? Who says it wasn't meant for you? Send a query to a channel operator and ask them to change the ban, if they refuse then it's clear that they don't want you in there. Deal with it.

Your analogy with slavery is entirely flawed, these people are not infringing on any of your rights, you are attempting to infringe on their right to pick and choose who goes into their channel and it is you who are in the wrong.

"You are the one being rude by evading their ban when they clearly don't want you there, if they did then you wouldn't of been banned in the first place."

They didn't ban me; they banned the server I am using. Big difference. I'm not guilty just because I use the same server as another person they don't like. I did nothing wrong; therefore I choose not to be punished.

I don't know what planet you all live on, but the issue of whether ban evasion is a right or not is largely irrelevant. Just as an operator on IRC can ban anyone they want for largely whatever reason, a connected user can connect from any host they desire, be it through a proxy or not. As for IRC EULAs, AUPs or whatever you choose to call them, connecting to an IRC server does not signify an acceptance of such an agreement. These agreements are quasi-law at best, and one is not under an obligation to abide by those.

As far as I can tell, the poster has been banned unfairly and wishes for help on using a proxy so that he can get around the ban. I can't see that this is against my moral standards or any Norwegian laws, so here goes:

~url removed~

Above is a very helpful URL that will tell you how to set your mIRC up to work through a proxy. Of course, you don't have to subscribe to the proxy advertised on that page, you can use any proxy you can find that conforms to the standard.

I would ask myself though, "is it worth it?" Remember that you're trying to join a channel that chose to blanket ban you and many others.

"if they refuse then it's clear that they don't want you in there. Deal with it."

I am dealing with it. I am attempting to circumvent their poorly thought out ban. I would have preferred a program that allows me to hide or alter my /whois information, but it looks like I'll just have to switch to a new ISP. Big whoop.

"Above is a very helpful URL that will tell you how to set your mIRC up to work through a proxy."

Thank you, sir.
A sane man.

So if you see a sign saying 'private property - keep out' do you take that to mean it's OK for you to go there because it's only there to stop criminals vandalising and stealing things and you've decided you're neither of those things? Your *logic* - if it can even be called that - is so flawed it defies belief. You're so completely arrogant that I'm almost certain beyond any doubt that this ban actually is intended specifically for you - not that it would matter even if it weren't.

* Mentality shakes his head

You're quite unbelievable.

Time to be blunt. The only thing irrelevant here is your opinion. On this forum we don't help with ban evasion no matter what your thoughts on whether you can or can't, or the fairness of the ban are. The same goes for mass file sharing. It is another one of the very few things that are asked of us here, and for good reason.

It is NOT (Note: that is not a debatable issue) for us to interfere with bans that other users have set. For all you know, texmex could even be lying about the fact their entire ISP has been banned. If you banned someone from your channel and then found out they were being assisted to evade it on the official mIRC message board, I doubt you would like it. What would you want? I know what I would want, and what most people would want. Most people would want the user being affected by the wide ban to message them, where THEY could then decide if THEY wanted to lift the ban or not, or to give the user permission to use a proxy to get round THEIR ban that is set on THEIR channel, quite possibly on THEIR network.

It is quite unbelievable you have the arrogance to conflict every answer here, given by a lot of the very intelligent, very hard-working regulars that have posted here, who have given practical, informative advice about the issue and what to do about the ban.

Regards,

It is your logic that is flawed, for once I step foot on the private property, I have become a criminal, and therefore the sign applies to me.

It's got nothing to do with law, it's simply a matter of not being a hypocrite and making IRC a generally better place. How you you like it if someone you banned came on here and said that he was banned from your channel but that the ban shouldn't apply to him because he decided it didn't and we all gave him a list of proxies to dodge it? How about if he wanted a list of proxies to connect his army of infected IRC drones to a server you'd K-lined him from - would it still be OK because he thought the ban was unfair so he should be allowed to do whatever he wants?

"The only thing irrelevant here is your opinion."

Why so hostile and condescending? Are you perhaps one of those room operators who feels his Godlike powers of "the ban" are being threatened? You enjoy playing God; I enjoy poking holes in overinflated egos.

- You managed to ignore the first part of the sentence which gave you the specific instructions to get into the channel if the ban really isn't meant for you. I'll repeat it anyway: Ask a channel operator to remove the ban. To get the name of a channel operator use the command [color:green]/names #channelname[/color] .


- Well by dodging a ban you have become a ban evader, which is in essence an 'IRC criminal' who would be banned again immediately if they found out.

"How you you like it if someone you banned came on here and said that he was banned from your channel but that the ban shouldn't apply to him because he decided it didn't and we all gave him a list of proxies to dodge it?"

I would find it intellectually stimulating. A cat and mouse game.

"Well by dodging a ban you have become a ban evader, which is in essence an 'IRC criminal' who would be banned again immediately if they found out."

That's an interesting point. Technically, they have not banned me as an individual, but rather the server I use. Therefore, if I merely change my server, then I am not really being banned anymore, am I? It's the name which they are banning, not the human.

"Why so hostile and condescending?"

Because I am sick to the back teeth of these threads getting out of hand due to certain arrogant people who refuse to obey the very simple rules of this forum. Also, because I find it so unbelievable that certain people can be so arrogant. I know many others feel the same. Usually I feel I'm quite a nice person in the way I help, or atleast I try to be. At this point I feel the basic right to receive a courteous, polite reply has been lost due to the rudeness and contradiction that has been displayed by both you and Rounin.

"Are you perhaps one of those room operators who feels his Godlike powers of "the ban" are being threatened?"

No. I do know however how extremely irritating ban evaders are and how much time they can take up. As I generally only have op in help channels I also find it detracts from the time I can be spending helping others. Infact, it affects innocent people needing help when domain bans have to be set to keep the arrogant twit out. I hate this kind of behaviour.

"You enjoy playing God; I enjoy poking holes in overinflated egos."

I have no desire to 'play God'. The people that truly know me know this. I just can't believe that some basic rules that are widely accepted have people arguing over them and in such a rude manner with no substance or foundation to the argument in the first place.

Anyway, as I do so hate these forum arguments which this thread has become, I'll end my contribution to it from now on

Regards,

"due to the rudeness and contradiction that has been displayed"

What rudeness? I just pointed out that those who treat me unfairly will have my intellect applied to them. How is this rude?

That's an interesting point. Technically, they have not banned me as an individual, but rather the server I use. Therefore, if I merely change my server, then I am not really being banned anymore, am I? It's the name which they are banning, not the human.

Hm. Interesting point, indeed. It really depends on what the intention was when the ban was set, I'd say.

- The channel owner or operator who banned your entire ISP did so as a last resort to keep a problematic user out of the channel. Therefore the ban wasn't meant to keep you out.

-OR-

- The channel owner or operator who banned your entire ISP did so because they believe every user using that ISP is a pain in the ass / not worth dealing with / whatever. Therefore, as an user of that ISP, the ban was meant to keep you out.

But you can't know that [1], so the point is moot.

Anyway.

You've mentioned channels banning the entirety of AOL in your first post of this thread, and that being "wrong" - I'm an IRC operator, and believe me, 99% of AOL users I've seen are rude / idiots / demanding asshats / a combination of those and more negative qualities you can think of. In addition, AOL has a fully dynamic host, it changes every time somebody reconnects. So if a person who is on AOL and needs to be banned because they're rude / disruptive / spamming / flooding / whatever else is clever enough to change their ident and nick, the ONLY way to keep them out is banning AOL as a whole. I'm betting that's also what happened with your ISP, which I also recall as being quite dynamic in its host assignation. (If you're telling the truth and you're caught in a wide ban, that is - but I'm assuming you're telling the truth.)

As people have already stated, if you really want to get in that channel, contact one of the operators of the channel. (Do a /names #channel to find an operator.) Be polite and explain your situation, and ask if they can lift the ban or set you up with a ban exemption. If they refuse, simply move on.

You have nothing to lose by asking politely.



[1] Well, you can. You can contact a channel operator and ask if they can lift the ban or set you up with an exemption. If they do it, the ban wasn't meant for you and they're willing to solve the situation. If not, they still want you out. Such is IRC.

What rudeness? I just pointed out that those who treat me unfairly will have my intellect applied to them. How is this rude?

Two points.

One - you claim it is "unfair" that you're banned from a channel. It really is not.
Channels are privately owned, not public spaces. Just as you have the right to deny access to anybody to your house, for whatever reason, channel operators and owners have the right to deny access to anybody to their channel, for whatever reason. And just as you would get pissed off if somebody you'd refused to let inside your house broke a window and came in, channel operators and owners will get pissed off if you evade the ban.
Your slavery and racism examples are completely flawed.

Two - Mentality's original post ("The only thing irrelevant here is your opinion" etc) was directed to Rounin, not you. Keep that in mind when replying.

- Well with my 'Keep Out sign' analogy the sign was meant to keep out people who commit criminal acts as a whole, not you as an individual criminal, therefore by your *logic* you can enter private property because rules apply to *people*, not you as an individual. You're trying to rationalise something which cannot be rationalised without eliminating all boundaries.


- Just as a burglar enjoys the cat and mouse game of trying to enter a house illegally, or the cat and mouse game of a serial killer and his/her victim? After all, someone trying to not be murdered is just an invitation for you to try and dodge their attempts and murder them isn't it? Once again, your views are illogical and in a broader sense justify anything imaginable. I'm pretty sure you're already aware that your rationalisations don't make sense and you're just doing this for the sake of argument. If not then you have a psychological issue with boundaries and I'd suggest some kind of therapy.


Also I noticed you ignored my statement on how to get unbanned again, further demonstrating that the ban is meant for you so you can't ask the operators.

When I was first banned, I spoke to one of the channel operators and asked them why I wasn't allowed in. They told me they were sure I was someone else, and they didn't believe my story that "I'm new here". Since I realized there was no point talking to people who had already made up their mind, I decided to try to overcome their ban. There is apparently no software that lets me change my /whois information, and the proxy approach costs the same as my ISP, so I may as well just change ISPs and see what happens.

When I was first banned, I spoke to one of the channel operators and asked them why I wasn't allowed in. They told me they were sure I was someone else, and they didn't believe my story that "I'm new here".

Out of curiosity, what the heck is in that channel that you're so desperate to get inside even if you're not wanted? If you've already asked, and you've been told you wouldn't be allowed in, find another channel to chat in. At this point, even if you get in with another ISP, you will most likely simply be banned again. Why waste time and money trying to get around the ban rather than simply finding a different channel to chat in? That's what's baffling me.

"Two - Mentality's original post ("The only thing irrelevant here is your opinion" etc) was directed to Rounin, not you. Keep that in mind when replying."

Oops. Sorry, Mentality. I thought you were attacking me.

Oops.

Figured that's what had happened. As a suggestion - if you look at the top of each post, there's a mention of who the post is replying to (with a link to the post). This one for instance will have a [re: texmex] on it

tex, what folks are trying to tell ya, is that you don't have some -right- to be there.
There are thousands of channels, move along.

Hm, you're right, I failed to remember the point in the forum rules about ban evasion. However, I think it would have been fair of you to point out those rules on the first page, rather than sparking a heated and one-sided ethical debate and then chastising the first person to disagree with you. Either we're debating ban evasion, or we're debating forum rules. And as far as forum rules are concerned, we agree.

"- Well with my 'Keep Out sign' analogy the sign was meant to keep out people who commit criminal acts as a whole, not you as an individual criminal, therefore by your *logic* you can enter private property because rules apply to *people*, not you as an individual. You're trying to rationalise something which cannot be rationalised without eliminating all boundaries."

Hmmmm, this is getting more interesting now. The sign applies to human beings. It's as if the house owner said to himself "Those human beings! 99% of them are pesky/rude/asshats ... I want them off of my property." If I change my species to a cat, let's say, then the sign would no longer apply to me. That's how I view changing my server name.



"- Just as a burglar enjoys the cat and mouse game of trying to enter a house illegally, or the cat and mouse game of a serial killer and his/her victim? After all, someone trying to not be murdered is just an invitation for you to try and dodge their attempts and murder them isn't it? Once again, your views are illogical and in a broader sense justify anything imaginable. I'm pretty sure you're already aware that your rationalisations don't make sense and you're just doing this for the sake of argument. If not then you have a psychological issue with boundaries and I'd suggest some kind of therapy."

Where you're wrong here is in the assumption that a different server name would be illegal. That room only wants to keep out users of a particular server. If they wanted ALL servers kept out, they would have banned the entire universe and been a room unto themselves.

If you're so sure that they only want to keep out one server, then surely it won't do you any harm to ask them if you can use a different server to enter?

"tex, what folks are trying to tell ya, is that you don't have some -right- to be there.
There are thousands of channels, move along."

Okay, I agree that I don't have a right to be there; that the room operators can behave in a totally irrational manner and keep me out.

But do I have a right to change my ISP, then walk into that room scot-free?

/me shakes his head

why is this thread still here?

I'm not even going to bother with this one anymore...

I don't know what planet you all live on, but the issue of whether ban evasion is a right or not is largely irrelevant.

It's entirely relevant, though not the only issue raised. When IRC was first introduced there was no real means to ban someone from a room. Why is this so? Because IRC was largely an unknown protocol and used only by professional computer users who had better things to do with their time than annoy other users.

When IRC began to appeal more to the masses they used to ban people like texmex by putting the room on +i (a mode that did exist at the time) and then kick the user out and simply restrict all entry until the channel owners hoped and prayed that the fool had left the server and found something else to occupy their time.

Soon after, someone suggested a more powerful and configurable way of dealing with troublemakers and mode +b was conceived. +b meant that specific connection details and/or nicknames could be banned from rooms without affecting innocent people. The trouble we have today is that people like you and texmex are determined to make +b an outmoded way of dealing with trouble.

As for IRC EULAs, AUPs or whatever you choose to call them, connecting to an IRC server does not signify an acceptance of such an agreement. These agreements are quasi-law at best, and one is not under an obligation to abide by those.

This depends on the country the server is located in and largely comes under civil law, regardless of the country. When you log into IRC you are presented with the message of the day which more often than not contains the terms (or a link to a website containing an AUP, etc) governing your use of the server/service. By continuing to use that server/service you are entering into an implied agreement to follow those terms. Failure to honour an agreement is classed as a breach of contract which leaves the offender liable to legal action which more often than not results in formal complaints to ISPs and in some cases the Police if a criminal offence is being committed. How this can be regarded as quasi-law is beyond me. I've been a server admin for quite a while and have had to deal with people getting past bans and I have had to, in cases where a person simply cannot be brought to understand what "You are not welcome on this server" means, sent a formal complaint to their ISP. Out of my habit of statesmanship I always include a reason for banning someone and quite frankly I am heartily sick and tired of people using proxies to circumvent my attempt to bring some peace back to a situation. Even worse is people like you who think it is okay for someone to deny they are the troublemaker and provide them with a means to reconnect. My thanks to Karen for removing the link you posted.

As far as I can tell, the poster has been banned unfairly and wishes for help on using a proxy so that he can get around the ban. I can't see that this is against my moral standards or any Norwegian laws, so here goes:

What are the chances that the user is not wanting to connect to a Norwegian server? I'd suggest that the chance is better than average therefore Norwegian law does not apply. At any rate my only reference to law originally was texmex connecting to someone's proxy without their permission. I am sure that Norwegians who own servers would disapprove of their IP being used to evade a ban as they are then responsible for any undesirable activity that texmex, or any other ban evader causes.

Above is a very helpful URL that will tell you how to set your mIRC up to work through a proxy. Of course, you don't have to subscribe to the proxy advertised on that page, you can use any proxy you can find that conforms to the standard.

Showing someone how to get themselves into further trouble is NOT helpful. It's stupid and a very bad reflection on you. You are worse than him because you "showed him the ropes".

I would ask myself though, "is it worth it?" Remember that you're trying to join a channel that chose to blanket ban you and many others.

Remember also that he is likely to raise eyebrows on his return. He'll most likely use the same nickname and the hosts of the channel will remember that he was asking to be unbanned. At the end of the day, it's not really worth the bother.

I did a little digging and here's what i've found. Now I don't know if this can be of any help to you but I went to Tjerk's webpage and stumbled across this little section:

From the page:

You can not connect from AOL? AOL protects you from the evil IRC world and blocks most of the IRC servers. Read the AOL Help file to learn what servers you can use without problems.

Now as I said, I don't know if this will help or not but I don't know of anything else that can help you.

I see now that our definitions of "implied agreements" are very different. Over here (Norway again) a EULA or a MOTD has about a million to one chance of passing as an implied agreement or an agreement of any sort, even if the user has expressly clicked an "I agree" button or something similar. It's often puzzled me how foreign servers and web sites can present users with huge licenses and contracts when they never collect a single signature. I guess that's exactly the same issue we're dealing with here.

As for the ban evasion itself, I agree that it's noone's right to evade a blanket ban, but I think that also goes for setting a ban, or just being on IRC in general. I agree with the URL being removed, since I obviously posted it being mindless of the forum rules, but I won't agree that setting a ban is any more ethical than evading it. What is unethical is connecting to IRC and bothering other users, but the above poster doesn't seem at all like a bother to me.

Anyway, interesting discussion... It just shows how different the views on Internet usage still are, especially with regards to connecting to other peoples' servers.

It's often puzzled me how foreign servers and web sites can present users with huge licenses and contracts when they never collect a single signature.

And what exactly is a signature? It's a mark (often illegible) that someone places on a piece of paper to grant authority to the text above that mark. Since this is a little difficult to do to a computer screen there is two buttons (Okay and Cancel) instead.

Don't forget that some people cannot write either and in that case, even on a Statutory Declaration or Affidavit (sworn statements) a scrawl, thumbprint or even a rubber stamp can be used in lieu of an actual signature.

All in all it comes down to a person's integrity and the value of a handshake, a gentleman's agreement and the issue of a deal being a deal - if one agrees to something then they should stick to that agreement instead of being sneaky. By this I mean, for example, if someone logs into IRC and knowingly decides they have the right to breach the terms of an implied agreement then they deserve whatever comes to them.

Duly noted.

Let me fill you in on something. When you connect to a server, or accept the license agreement of a software package, even if you do not read it , you are legally bound to the agreement. The same applies for IRC servers. It is up to YOU to read the MOTD. I oper on 3 networks, one as a simple oper, another as a services admin, and on the last as a co-admin. For those that insist on evading bans set in place, both channel and server, I have no qualms about phoning up their ISP and having their service terminated right then and there. By trying to evade bans and get yourself into more trouble, you're also risking this, as well.

As it's been stated before, choose a different network and channel. One or the other, or both. That simple.