Yeah...could we possibly see a chat session w/ FanPro prior to SR4's release?

I doubt it could be a bad thing.

There will be at least one -- we'll be announcing the date soon.

That would even be worth installing some sort of IRC client to attend.

Indeed.

~J

Now if only my school would allow connections to IRC's ports!

Thats worth taking the chance of hacking my company firewall to get to!

If you used Jabber, there are IRC->Jabber/Jabber->IRC bots that can transmit text between the two services.

I assume the Dev Chat would be on Dumpshock's server, or something more bandwidth friendly if it gets big enough?

It will be on the Dumpshock IRC server ... we're waiting until the new server is installed and we've worked out the kinks, hence the lack of announcement so far.

Fair enough.

Any chance of getting a Jabber bot setup to transmit between the two mediums? Makes it easier for people who are unable to connect to IRC.

This sounds really cool. When will it approximately be, American time? So I know when to get up real early or stay up real late, even by my standards?

Tanka -- can you send me some links to the software you're talking about, so I can get a good idea of how long it would take me to implement? PM is fine.

hermit -- sometime during the evening, central standard time.

<sobs>

Yeah, I just found out, my school now blocks ports 6667-7000.

Fuckers.

My sympathies for people in the GMT +6 through +12 time zones. At least it'll only be a few hours past midnight in most of Europe.

Nice. Will standard mirc work? Or an special version of irc will be needed?

mIRC works on any and all servers.

Edit

Adam: I talked to the guy who made the gateway we use on his server. He said he hardcoded it in python on his server specifically, so running it elsewhere won't work as near as he can tell.

I don't care about the time ... I'll just stay up for it.

Is Dumpshock going to retain its web-based IRC client after the server change? If so, couldn't those people blocked from using IRC (for whatever reason) use the client instead?

Would it be possible to just open up port 7001 or something for the night?

wow, i'm bad at reading ^-^

Ah, I see. Oh well, at least you are going to be able to work something out anyway.

Maybe someone could make a log of the chat (I remember that being done for D&D 3 so it should be possible), and post it on the web for those people that can't access it live for whatever reason.

But the client is not running on a computer within the blocked network; it's running on the web server, and passing the data back and forth to the browser via standard HTTP ports.

IRC -> 6667 -> Web IRC Client -> 21 -> Web Browser

And of course, the chat will be logged and made available for those who can't attend it.

Adam: The browser still communicates with an open IRC port. Any time I've seen people complain about being blocked from IRC and had somebody suggest using WebIRC instead, they reiterate that the IRC ports are blocked (even after trying).

Fortune: Yes, it could be logged. Not as cool as being there, but it works just as well.

That's what happens if you're actually using a client that runs locally, but within a web browser. If the client is actually running on the web server -- as is the case with the client we use, CGI::IRC, the traffic is passed back and forth like standard web traffic.

Odd. I may have to test that and see if some colleges smartened up and blocked specific applications from running through or if others are just daft.

I suspect tanka they are using Java chat and etc, which...hmm...

Imagine the ports blocked are a window in a house. mIRC and such are clients that make you open the window on your side. Java chat lets someone else open the window from the outside. If the window's locked, its locked, no matter which side you're on. CGI::IRC is saying, fine, the windows, locked, we'll use the door.

Tanka: Scranton is like most colleges these days. Thanks to RIAA and similar copyright drek, plus virii and trojans, they're paranoid.

I would not be surprised if every port but those used for HTTP is blocked.

Penta: Technicality, but the plural of virus is viruses.

And, yeah, they're using Java applets, which don't work. CGI is run server-side, which is what I was losing.

I second the motion to have a web-based client.

Just a slight bit of correction, for Adam's earlier statement, HTTP is run on port 80, not port 21. That's FTP. Also, I'd say that the most functional web-based IRC clients are likely implemented in Java, which is more likely to be firewall-disabled than IRC itself. Makes for a bit of a conundrum, though if you have login rights on a properly set up Unix system, you can get around the whole deal via Telnet or some more secure terminal emulator.

[edit]
i.e. telnet -> TargetHost -> ./usr/bin/irc(or just irc if its path is set in the shell) and go from there.
[/edit]

I just tested the CGI IRC client, and it's pretty slick. One thing, though. I assume it operates by making a godlessly huge number of HTTP requests and updates from a file, which is both updated and accessed in realtime. Have you sat back and checked just how much webserver load is generated by users on that client? I can easily see, if it works like I theorized, a large IRC chat composed mostly of people using the client being able to bring the server to its knees with the sheer volume of repeat requests and updates.

My head hurts...

Living up to your signature, I see?

Also, though it's not really an issue (since Dumpshock isn't exactly a ripe target nor would an attack really cause any damage), if you can get a security certificate, it'd probably be a good idea to have one for interactions like the CGI IRC client, so that HTTPS can be used in lieu of HTTP. At the moment it seems to be vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle identity spoof to arbitrarily update the perceived contents of the chatroom in question for all users on the webclient. Encrypting the transfers would make it almost impossible to perform such spoofs.

And happily, the WebClient thingy works for me. Yayyy.

Logs: Causing Severe Legal Ramifications Since Some Random Date

Heh, secure certs are such a pain in the ass...you'd actually end out doing more harm than good from an accessibility standpoint, there are a lot of places that block HTTPS connections because they assume its commerce and don't want people buying things over the network.