New type of abuse

[forcer <forcer@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi there.
Lately, i've seen surprisingly many nick collissions while various parties
are attacking different channels.
First i thought it to be coincidence, but the kills were nicely timed, and
allways occurred on ppl with chanop status.
I informed myself a bit and found the way those parties accomplish this:
On a netmerge, a clone is placed on the merging server(s). This clone changes
it's nick to that of the person(s) being attacked. It won't get a "temporarily
unavailable", but a kill on both sides.
This is a fact and works, I tried it on myself a few times.
So, what's going on here?
I suppose it's the delay code.
The "temporarily unavailable" is only effective while the network is split.
Though on a merge, at some point the server has to say "hey, we're no longer
split", and the "temporarily unavailable" goes away. BUT on a network as large
as the IRCnet, a merge can take some time, especially for servers with a
slower internet connection.
So, the server announces the split to have ended, but didn't (yet) get all
the client and channel information. At this point, a nick collission is
possible.
At least this would explain the phenomena I witnessed.
If this is true, it's a serious hole in the ircd code.
happy hacking,
	-forcer

-- 
/* linux: the choice of a GNU generation                                  */
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