MUD, IRC and the like on MichNet

[Jeff.Ogden]

 Attached is a sequence of messages that were exchanged among the
 Merit staff last week. They talk about MUD (a multi-user adventure
 game) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and how we do or don't deal with
 them.
 
 Comments welcome.
 
  -Jeff
 
 ------------
 
  Message: 9271575, 4 lines
  Posted: 12:41am EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
  Subject: reactions to telnet port restrictions?
  To: Merit-Technical-Support-Group
  From: Jeff Ogden
 
  Have we gotten much reaction to the telnet port restrictions
  that went into effect on Tues [Aug 20th] other than a couple of
  requests about how to get authorization service accounts?
    -Jeff
  .................................................................
 
  Message: 9272584, Reply to: 9271575, 5 lines
  Posted: 8:28am EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
  Subject: reactions to telnet port restrictions?
  To: Jeff Ogden, Merit-Technical-Support-Group
  From: Richard Schmalgemeier
 
  There have, as expected, been some comments on M-Net [a
  conferencing/BBS system in Ann Arbor] which. The two basic
  communities are the IRC and MUD people. In general the comments
  have been fairly tame -- in part because I think they
  (specifically the IRC group) have found a way (probably an
  "annex" type box) to get around the restrictions.
 
  [It turns out that the way around the port restrictions is to
  use the TN host directly. We'll close this loophole shortly.]
  .................................................................
 
  Message: 9272711, Reply to: 9272584, 14 lines
  Posted: 8:42am EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
  Subject: reactions to telnet port restrictions?
  To: Richard Schmalgemeier, Jeff Ogden, Merit-Technical-Support-Group
  From: Laura Bollettino
 
  We've gotten a couple of messages, some calm and some irate, as you've
  seen.  (The message from the 15 year old makes me wonder -- what *did*
  Byte say about MichNet?)  I haven't had any phone calls on the subject.
 
  This might be a good time to talk about MichNet's semi-official stand
  on IRC and MUD.  MichNet seems to think that MUD is bad; we cut it off
  when we can, and we don't care if MUD users get ticked off about it.
  (I hope I'm not misrepresenting MichNet's feelings about MUD.)  Do we
  feel the same way about IRC?  IRC is a popular service, and if we
  wanted to make it more accessible we could offer to make IRC ports
  available for telnet without authorization.  That might get us some good
  PR among IRC users.  On the other hand, if we think IRC is bad enough
  that we'd rather eliminate it if we could, then we probably don't care
  what IRC users think of us.
  .................................................................
 
  Message: 9273284, Reply to: 9272711, 59 lines
  Posted: 9:27am EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
  Subject: reactions to telnet port restrictions?
  To: Laura Bollettino, Richard Schmalgemeier, Merit-Technical-Support-Group,
  From: Jeff Ogden
 
  I'll reply to the 15 year old.
 
  My position on IRC and MUD (and therefore MichNet's until we
  choose to do something more formal) is:
 
  Neither IRC or MUD are good or bad as such. Both can cause
  problems by overloading particular network resources (in the
  case of MUD and IRC it is the dial-in modems that get
  overloaded). That when we see some network resource being
  overloaded (or from previous experience we know that some
  service is likely to cause these sorts of problems) we can look
  into the issue and take corrective action. This means talking
  to the people who are offering the service if it is within
  Michigan and also thinking about how Merit's and the NSFNET
  conditions of use policies apply. In general if the service
  doesn't have formal backing from someone official at a Merit
  member or affiliate or if the service is open to the general
  public then we push for changes (removal of the service, limits
  on who can use the service, ...). We do this through
  discussions with the people offering the service rather than
  just taking action on our own.
 
  MUDs have usually not had official backing and when they had
  informal approval that was withdrawn when I explained the
  problems. So, at least within Michigan our policy has had the
  effect of discouraging MUD games that are open to the general
  public via dial-up lines. If there is a way for people to limit
  MUD access from dial-up, then it isn't really any of our
  business. [This is the case for a MUD game running at the UofM's
  College of Art and Architecture where they don't allow access from
  "net 35".]
 
  IRC has offical backing at some sites and seems to have caused
  less overload problems on the dial-in lines. So we've done
  nothing about IRC. I do worry about potential problems with IRC
  so I've asked Pat and others not to run newsletter articles or
  do other things that would encourage IRC. We are trying to stay
  neutral.
 
  [This past week I checked with the administrator of the UofM's
  Engineering College's network and learned that he was just as
  happy to have people without authorization codes not be able to
  access IRC on his systems. That sort of reaction, while not
  universal, is pretty common.]
 
  There have been some problems with "gay bashing" on IRC at the
  UofM. The folks in the NOC and I have been involved in some
  informal discussions about what the IRC operators can do in
  this situation and what Merit can do to help. This is a
  difficult situation since it also involves freedom of speech
  issues.
 
  Of course all of this changed somewhat with the new telnet port
  restrictions from public or dial-in ports when into effect on
  Tuesday.
 
  All of this was discussed with the Merit Board (at a fairly
  general level) and the telnet port restrictions were talked
  about and approved at a meeting of the Merit Joint Technical
  Staff. The main reason for the telnet port restrictions were
  security related issues and the limitations on MUD and IRC are
  mostly side effects. It may turn out to be a good thing in that
  it will help keep us out of the business of judging what use of
  the network is good or bad. As much as possible we should leave
  these sorts of judgments to our users.
 
     -Jeff
 ________________________________________________________________
 
 [This next message is from Randy Frank the administrator for the
  Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN) at the UofM. Randy is
  the administrator I mentioned above.]
 
 Message: 9276384, 10 lines
 Posted: 1:52pm EDT, Thu Aug 22/91, imported: 1:52pm EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
 Subject: Re: telneting to specific TCP ports 
 To: Jeff Ogden
 Cc: frank@engin.umich.edu
 From: frank@engin.umich.edu
 
  As far as I'm concerned, there is no one w/o an auth code who
  should be accessing these anyway. Thus, I'm in total support
  with the change.
 
  I just talked to Paul the other day about the stateus of the
  auth server, and it's moving up on his list. We definitely want
  to do it, and will try to get to it asap.
 
  Thanks 
   Randy
 ________________________________________________________________
 
 Message: 9273339, Reply to: 9273284, 7 lines
 Posted: 9:32am EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
 Subject: reactions to telnet port restrictions?
 To: Jeff Ogden, Laura Bollettino, Richard Schmalgemeier,
     Merit-Technical-Support-Group
 From: Sarah Gray
 
     Okay, so I just got a call from someone who wanted an account to use
 IRC.
     So I should have (I just took a message):
        --asked her whether it was within Michigan
        --seen if this was overloading that part of Michnet and whether it had
             backing
        --if that all was fine, given her the account?
 ------------------------
 
 Message: 9273525, Reply to: 9273339, 11 lines
 Posted: 9:47am EDT, Thu Aug 22/91
 Subject: reactions to telnet port restrictions?
 To: Sarah Gray, Laura Bollettino, Richard Schmalgemeier,
     Merit-Technical-Support-Group
 From: Jeff Ogden
 
 No just give then the info they need to get an account.  If there are
 problems with IRC we'll deal with the IRC operator not with the IRC
 user.
 
 MUD is a little different. Since in general I don't think that MUD use
 is allowed by the NSFNET Conditions of Use policy I think we should say
 that to people and ask them if the MUD game they are using is directly
 associated with some educational or research program that they are part of.
 If not, say that we can't allow that sort of use from MichNet dialup ports.
 If they don't like that suggest that they call me.
   -Jeff
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