Internal community chat

[Tank Program]

tank, i dont understand what you mean with "it would be difficult to run a server".

I mean, it seems like this will require a direct connection to the computer, with an open port or some such. That could be difficult.

[iDiot / sPuNkY]

For a while nixda.net had a IRC client on their website that was easy to use. Seems to be broken right now though.

It is still there and it is working fine.. and it is shure more easy to use than a "windows application" (that you would have to install)


My two cents:

ICR is the best way to connect a community.
It's multiplatform based, there are lots of freeware clients that are very easy to conifgure and it comes with a lot of safety.

How safe do you think would a self written chat program be?
Does it provide against "hacking" or spam?
In my view safety and "professionalism" are the most important parts of a application that connects a community that big like the armagetron community.

And since most of the people you want to see in a chat like this (like the developers) are using a unix/mac based system,
it would really be a bad idea to lock them out.

So if people complain about not having an "international community chat" it could perhaps be a good idea to hotlink the freenode irc chat on this page.
And perhaps install a bot that protects against spam, flaming or something....
(there is also the way to create a channel for general chat)

so long...

[ady]

tank, i dont understand what you mean with "it would be difficult to run a server".

I mean, it seems like this will require a direct connection to the computer, with an open port or some such. That could be difficult.

and for what does the winsock exist?

answering you:
-you talk about safety, did i say that this is unsafe?it uses the same things as icq/msn so it is so unsafe as that other chat programs.spam? there is an admin in each channel, so the spammer would have to deal with him
-hackers? who would be interested in hacking your pc... that no fun nowadays... And a hacker coulnt use this program to get important info, its a risk like all others programs have.
-installation, no needed. the project will be compressed in a zip, with his folders and files. There will be an installation pack of actual ocx controls, thats needed to install if you are running an old O.S., it depends on that.
-You said " to connect this big arma community", well, it isnt that big as you think, go into the main list of servers and count the players in each server, you will probably count at the end about 60~80 players so far.
-you said that its not good because this "blocks" the important part of the community-the programmers of the game, or developers. My opinion is that it would be more necessary to talk with a clan leader to organize a clanwar than to any of the developers, and i bet that they already use some kind of private messaging system.This application is for the Active Players, the ones who play every day, not the ones behind the scenes.

[Jonathan]

…

and for what does the winsock exist?

I believe not for NAT traversal, which might not even be possible.

[wrtlprnft]

Don't need to count.

With a closed- source program maintained by one developer I don't have any way to find out if you have stupid mistakes in your problem, like wrong use of strcopy(3), buffer overflows in general, unescaped chars in shell commands, unescaped “../” in file paths, dDOS vulnerability, hidden backdoors and wrong file permissions. Even if some of these don't apply to your favorite programming language or operating system the problem still remains, and there's probably other mistakes you can do.

Crackers are always interested in hacking someone's PC to install mass mailers, adware, trojans, viruses, you name it. Others hack someone's PC (well, a mac in this case, but it doesn't matter really) to run an arma server on it (happened already, don't worry).

The devs mostly talk in the IRC channel or on these forums, but there's plenty of other, “normal” people in there, too. Currently I count 4 devs and 9 others (+ 1 bot) in there, it's more full occasionally.

[ed]

My opinion is that it would be more necessary to talk with a clan leader to organize a clanwar

If the main reason for it's use is to organise clan wars, then it's only useful if all members of the clan are able to use it.
Only useful then to a clan full of windows only players who are willing to slap a closed scorce network chat app on their computer on the trust of ady who says it's ok?
No offence to your programming skills ady, you may be a pro, I just don't know. But I am very choosy about what I put on my PC, especially my mainly dormant windows one.

Why not open source it?
If it does prove to be a useful app that can be used by the community, maybe someone will port it to other platforms.

[Tank Program]

Don't need to count.

Could you make it smoothe the line so it's easier to read? (Could also shrink it some then too I think.)

[Z-Man]

Err, security by winsock and lack of interest for hackers? Worst. Idea. Ever.

And you should try to convince us that this is better than IRC. What do you think which instant communication method we'll advertise as long as we think IRC is better?

[ady]

let me end it first and then you will choose the best option for you.
backdoors? i thought at your arma dedicated server or the game, it could have a backdoor...but there i am, playing...
and by the way, what are the firewalls for?:P

[wrtlprnft]

There've been enough people over the code so that it would be pretty hard to install one without having it be seen. There's someone who writes us e-mails once in a while pointing out possible security holes he found by looking at arma's source code, asking us to fix them.

I guess there's been people looking over other code as well, adding hacks it and whatever, they'd have seen it, too.

But of course, it's all a big conspiracy and we're payed lots of money by big companies for adding a backdoor, just don't tell anyone. psst!

[ady]

yes and i put backdoors on my programs , and that way i get all your webcam pornographic videos but psst !dont say anyone!

[Z-Man]

Well, you were asking what we think

I guess you're right. At this point, the best thing for you to do is to finish this and show us the result. In source form because we've got a healthy bit of paranoia, and so we can estimate the work required for ports. Of course, you can always share the code you've already got.

[Tank Program]

yes and i put backdoors on my programs , and that way i get all your webcam pornographic videos but psst !dont say anyone!

Don't be like that.

[Luke-Jr]

If you can't handle normal IM clients like Exodus or Psi, at least write your "simplified" one to comply with the XMPP standard so it is interoperable with the rest of the world.

If you want to do something productive, write XMPP MUC support into an existing IRC server, preferably the one FreeNode uses, so people can then connect to the IRC room natively.

From there, you just need a simple XMPP directory of Armagetron users and channels...

[Z-Man]

Ah, joy. Two out of three predictions correct. Minor correction to my footnote two: Jabber or Google Talk.