Sponsors — sponsors are the lifeblood of the network; without sponsors there would be no freenode. Unfortunately, the recent attacks have been significant enough for some of our sponsors to pull the plug as they were unable to continue providing the same level of assistance to the network as they had in the past. These kind of attacks can be costly for our sponsors; the disruptions soon have a financial impact for sponsors and their paying clients when service is disrupted. They are also costly in time and resources spent trying to alleviate the issues caused within their networks. To those of our sponsors who have had to discontinue sponsorship, in part or in full, I would like to thank you for the years of support. Not just for freenode but for the Free and Open Source Software Communities and we can only apologise for the difficulties your organisations have experienced as a result of these recent attacks.

Free and Open Source Software Communities — whilst sponsors may be the lifeblood of the network, the FOSS communities are our reason for being. Unfortunately they, along with our sponsors, are the ones suffering at the hands of the attacker(s) — it is their projects that are disrupted and affected and we can only apologise for the instability and disruption experienced by projects on the network in this last week.

freenode — ironically freenode is the puzzle piece that gets off lightly. We’re just a bunch of people passionate about FOSS — the network itself is devoid of feeling and whilst our volunteers do their best dealing with the aftermath of the attacks and try to keep the network up and running the reality is that in the grand scheme of things freenode is nothing. freenode is just a means to an end; the projects that have chosen to use freenode could easily go elsewhere, the volunteers who staff the network… well, they could easily go wherever their projects went — we volunteer for freenode because we’re passionate about FOSS, and the majority of us also contribute to one or several FOSS projects or have done in the past. For us it has never been about “freenode” — it has been about FOSS; and the projects we, as individuals, care about. We are all freenode users first, and staffers second.

If there was no freenode, there would be other alternatives — perhaps similar alternatives, perhaps very different alternatives. The FOSS communities are full of talented, passionate people and I have no doubt that we’d all find different ways to stay in touch and work on our projects even if there was no freenode.

That’s not to say we’re about to throw in the towel — we’ve all invested a lot of time and effort in the network and I am sure we will continue to do so for as long as there are projects wanting to use it and sponsors willing to help us.

I wish I could provide you with detailed information about the attacks and the cause of them — but these details are but a mystery to us and with nearly 90,000 users I’d be loathe to speculate as to who we might have annoyed… or how. For the time being, we intend to continue mitigating attacks where possible and continuing to endeavour to provide service as usual!

Once more, thank you for the support and the faith in the project — and thank you for the patience whilst our infrastructure team desperately tries to juggle our infrastructure around to bring back as much of our normal services as is possible at this point in time.

The first ten people who completed all three tracks are, in descending order of aprilness:

• jojo
• homerj
• AndrewF
• stereo`
• ditzydoo
• talisein
• nebkat
• timgoh0
• Aster
• PyroPeter

Here are the riddles and their solutions, in the original order:

Misc

1. ###>++++++++++ [>++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++><<<<<<-] >+>++>++++>+>+++> <<<<<< >.>.>.>.>.
   • This was brainfuck code, writing eprog to stdout
   • ###eprog
2. #####946684800–4102444800
   • This was a range between two unix timestamps, from 1.1.2000 until 1.1.2100 (midnight)
   • #####century
3. ##### 277453665
   • This level was slightly harder, on a phone keyboard (according to TU-T E.161) writing with these numbers spelled aprilfool (with some guessing or T9)
   • #####aprilfool
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
   • The beloved Rick Roll video. This was a joke idea, the channel ########gotyou was actually hidden as a channel forward (mode +f)
   • ########gotyou
5. ###### BOGBOS, SEAPHXDENDALMSP, CPTOSL, SCLBOSCPTARN
   • Similar to last years keyboard riddle, you had to connect the airports on a map which formed the letters I W I N.
     • Bogota to Boston: I
     • Seattle to Phoenix to Denver to Dallas to Saint Paul: W
     • Cape Town to Oslo: I
     • Santiago to Boston to Cape Town to Stockholm: N
   • ######iwin

The topic in ######iwin was: Congratulations, you finished the misc track. Here, have a puzzle piece: It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this! ###the. Make sure to also play the other quiz tracks!

Music

The list number references the level number of the listed question.

1. What does Dorothy wish she was on the other side of?
   • ##rainbow
   • Referencing: Dorothy from the The Wizard of Oz sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
2. What is the first thing Rick Astley will never give up?
   • ##you
   • Referencing: Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley.
   • Source
3. This person can’t touch “this.”
   • ##mchammer
   • Referencing: U Can’t Touch This by MC Hammer.
4. This old song leaves many people wondering what the writers had wrote it about. Most people think the song is about drugs, however the group has said in interviews that it didn’t really have any meaning at all.
   • ##hotelcalifornia
   • Referencing: Hotel California by the Eagles.
   • Source
5. This 1975 classic is fairly self-explanatory.
   • ##bohemianrhapsody
   • Referencing: Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
6. The main character, a kid, in this classic music video was mocked for being “this”.
   • ##poet
   • Referencing: Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd, specifically Part 1.
   • This question seemed to trip up the most people, as it was the most vague question.
7. We reminisces about the good ole days of when those popular in music were radio stars.
   • ##buggles
   • Referencing: Video Killed the Radio Star by The Buggles.
   • This was the official answer for Level 8, however, as someone pointed out the official name of the band is “The Buggles.”
8. Michael Jackson’s most popular song predicts this future event that is popular on the Internet as an event worth preparing for.
   • ##zombieapocalypse
   • Referencing: Thriller by Michael Jackson.
   • This one was a tad tricky as the answer was not in the lyrics of the song.
9. This 80′s song was very controversial when it came out, offending several people, including average working people. It is often censored on the radio when played.
   • ##moneyfornothing
   • Referencing: Money For Nothing by Dire Straits.
   • More about the controversy.
10. The most popular guitar riff is from the beginning of this group’s most popular song.
    • ##deeppurple
    • Referencing: Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.
11. This band was the first band to have three consecutive multi-platinum albums.
    • ##styx
    • Referencing: The Grand Illusion, Pieces of Eight, Cornerstone, and Paradise Theatre. These albums have been certified Multi-Platinum by the RIAA.

The /topic in ##styx was: Congratulations! | You have answered all the music trivia correctly. | Make you to play the other quizzes and you’ll need this for later, ###best

Crypto

The list number references the level number of the listed question.

1. Blog post of ##bhggbyhapu
   • This is a simple ROT13 cipher
   • where AtoN, BtoO, CtoP, etc.
   • python -c “print ‘bhggbyhapu’.decode(‘rot13′)”
   • The answer is: ##outtolunch
2. pTShnJAmo3W0
   • This is base64 encoded then ROT13′ed.
   • python -c “print ‘pTShnJAmo3W0′.decode(‘rot13′).decode(‘base64′)”
   • The answer is: ##panicsort
3. http://i.imgur.com/AArVy5H.png
   • JWGUBNYMGBQWOI is the text
     • This text is encrypted using a Vigenère cipher
       • Here is a script I built to decrypt/encrypt Vigenère ciphers http://git.io/TLfWTg
     • The key is git. This is from the reference of Linus Torvalds in the image.
     • The answer is: ##DONOTUSENVIDIA
4. QOZTMLUVG IPAJGECYZ | Don’t forget to nT92MKV= | orange
   • QOZTMLUVG IPAJGECYZ
     • This is a Vigenère cipher again.
     • The key is JUICE. This is hinted at by orange.
     • Searching the web for the unencrypted text, HURRICANE EGGBEATER yields https://xkcd.com/944/
   • nT92MKV=
     • This is the same as the previous level, rot13′ed and then base64′ed.
     • python -c “‘nT92MKV=’.decode(‘rot13′).decode(‘base64′)”
     • hover
   • If you hover over the comic on https://xkcd.com/944/ you’ll see:
     • After exhausting the OED, we started numbering them. When overlapping hurricanes formed at all points on the Earth’s surface, and our scheme was foiled by Cantor diagonalization, we just decided to name them all “Steve”. Your local forecast tomorrow is “Steve”. Good luck.
       • This next step is a bit of a leap, but we expected you to search for key phrases in the string. You should end up on Cantor’s diagonal argument on wikipedia. From here you’ll see some description of it. We want the most popular example of Cantor’s diagonal argument, which is Russell’s Paradox. (Can a set of all sets contain itself?)
   • The answer is ##russell’sparadox
5. http://git.io/Y60F5g | 936 | UHG | NZCBXBXUSXDBXIWZWMMLLVLHM | WEQ | I’m So Meta Even This Acronym | freenode | 12 | ♥
   • The /topic changed a little bit during the game. This is the most recent form.
   • Hints given:
     • 2013-04-01 18:51:18 <yano> i think you should focus more on how you “cracked” the code for the last
     • 2013-04-01 18:51:32 <yano> and by code i mean, QOZTMLUVG IPAJGECYZ
     • 2013-04-01 18:52:12 <yano> UHG and WEG are pretty important
     • 2013-04-02 04:13:28 <yano> it is vigenere
     • 2013-04-02 05:42:38 <yano> one more semi-important hint: UHG | NZCBXBXUSXDBXIWZWMMLLVLHM | WEQ are each encrypted with the same KEY and method
   • The last hint pretty much gave it away for many people.
   • UHG | NZCBXBXUSXDBXIWZWMMLLVLHM | WEQ
     • This is vigenère again.
     • The key is IRC ROT12-ed.
       • IRC is expected to come from the reference of I’m So Meta Even This Acronym and freenode as in an acronym of/about freenode.
       • The 12 comes from the number directly in the /topic.
       • UGH decrypts to
         • AES
       • NZCBXBXUSXDBXIWZWMMLLVLHM decrypts to
         • TWOHUNDREDANDFIFTYSIXBITS
       • WEQ decrypts to
         • CBC
     • Now, let’s take a break and follow a pattern from previous levels. Let’s pull up https://xkcd.com/936
       • This should be obvious given the previous pattern of XKCD being involved in these levels.
     • While viewing that you should probably download http://git.io/Y60F5g
       • wget http://git.io/Y60F5g
     • Y60F5g is encrypted with AES-256-CBC. This is provided by the previous clues.
     • The key for the encrypted file is Tr0ub4dor&3
       • This is obtained from the XKCD comic: https://xkcd.com/936
     • openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -a -in Y60F5g -out Y60F5g.plaintext
     • The output of the file is: ##K&R
   • The answer to this level is ##K&R

The topic in ##K&R was: Congratulations! You have completed freenode’s crypto challenge! | Make sure to also play the other quizzes, and take this with you ###est | http://git.io/TLfWTg

With ###the and ###best and ###est you are expected to put these pieces together to find ###thebestest

Congratulations to those who have completed all the tracks and levels!

Top 10

All times listed are in UTC.

Lists

Those who have completed all the levels and made it to the final channel but didn’t make it in time for the top 10:

• alex_joni
• CeruleanSky
• DonkeyHotei
• erkin
• fsckd
• kaneda^
• Kent
• luckybunny
• Martok
• pekuja
• Pixelz
• PoohBear
• Rutix
• shino
• slidercrank
• stac
• Tordek
• Valodim

These people were elligible for our cloak lottery, where we used a piece of code to randomly pick three people to win a cloak. Those people were: fsckd, Rutix, and stac.

Top 10 For Each Track

All times are listed in UTC.

Misc

Music

Crypto

Good luck, lots of fun, and thanks for flying freenode trebutchet!

What does Dorothy wish she was on the other side of?
###>++++++++++ [>++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++><<<<<<-] >+>++>++++>+>+++> <<<<<< >.>.>.>.>.
##bhggbyhapu

When the organisation transferred across from the US to the UK we wanted to keep the organisational structure as close to what it had been before (change is scary, right?) — however, we made the conscious decision to no longer have any paid employees after Rob Levin passed away. This meant that everyone involved with the organisation were volunteers and we no longer had anyone who could invest the time and effort required to do fundraising and similar tasks, meaning that the organisation was unable to sustain the levels of donations required to obtain and maintain charitable status in the UK.

Due to the massive reduction in financial support we found ourselves in a position where being an incorporated organisation cost more than what we were able to bring in in donations and after years of operating at a loss it was decided that we would apply for the dissolution of the corporation in order to drastically reduce costs. The application has been processed and the organisation has been dissolved; to further reduce costs we have also discontinued the majority of infrastructure services for which the organisation paid, together with the reduced administration and organisational fees this means that we are now in a position where our outgoings are restricted to domain renewals! We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the organisation in the past, users, organisations and staff in particular, who have always been (begrudgingly?) happy to contribute towards the difference in order to cover the deficit.

What does this organisational change mean for freenode?

In practise it means very little, the PDPC has never been involved in the day to day operations of the network and there will be no changes to the way in which the network is run. freenode is staffed entirely by volunteers from all over the globe who contribute their time and expertise to keep the network up and running in between contributing to various other FOSS projects.

What about other PDPC projects, such as fosscon, geeknic, and the fossevents site?

These projects will continue as they have before, and we invite you to attend fosscon for real world talks and collaboration, to join a geeknic picnic or plan your own at http://geeknic.org, and to check out http://fossevents.org for events in your neighbourhood and around the world.

I appreciate the work you do and I still want to contribute

The best way in which to help the network is to contribute time — help out in #freenode or elsewhere on the network, assist users in finding answers to their questions and help us try keep the channel and network temperature at a nice, comfortable level which encourages collaboration!
If you are low on time but still want to help out you might be able to help us through your company or organisation by becoming a server sponsor (See “Hosting a server” for more information).
If you feel that one particular volunteer has helped you out and you want to say thank you — ask them if they have a preferred charity to which you could make a small donation! With time we might update our website to provide links and information of such preferences.
Alternatively, you may consider donating to one of the following projects:

• Software Freedom Law Center
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Open Rights Group

Existing PDPC donor cloaks

Existing PDPC donor cloaks will remain valid for a full year, after which they will be converted to unaffiliated cloaks. Ongoing donations will be cancelled by us. If you have previously donated to PDPC you’ll still qualify for your donor cloak as normal. If you believe you’re due a cloak and we haven’t processed it yet please contact us.

May it be as good as, or even better than, 2012.

In addition, certificate based authentication is now available. We’ll hopefully get the docs for this up online shortly.

For various reasons, these replacements haven’t worked quite how we’d want or need them to in order to achieve our objective of registering groups in a timely fashion.  Meanwhile, development of GMS, our automated replacement GRF system, continues.

For these reasons, we have taken the decision to temporarily close the group registration system.

What this means is that -

• No new group registrations will be accepted from this point onwards, until further notice.
• Outstanding grf-f applications already in the queue will be processed in due course.
• Outstanding “old style” GRF applications will *not* be processed (most of the applications in this set are very old now, and the people who submitted them should have seen at least one reminder to refile under grf-f)
• All existing registered groups are unaffected and continue as normal.

Please bear with us whilst we work on where we want to go next with this system.  Meanwhile, if there are channels currently owned by freenode-staff that your project could make use of, please contact a staffer to see if (provisional) op rights can be granted to your account. (These would likely be done on a somewhat temporary basis, until such time as registration re-opens.)  Note also that this is *only* to gain ops on channels, *not* for obtaining group cloaks.

As always, thanks for flying freenode!

mrmist.

We anticipate up to an hour of services outage for this upgrade and prune to take place. We will notify the connected users closer to the time through the use of WALLOPS and/or globals, but please do plan ahead accordingly for a period of services unavailability.

We will be moving to Atheme 7, so, amongst other improvements, this will see the introduction of certificate-based authentication to services.

To use certificate based authentication, you would need firstly to generate a certificate, then add the certificate to your client, then tell nickserv about your certificate fingerprint. We’ll explain more about this in a future blog entry or on the freenode website in the near future.

Hi everyone,
In just a couple of months we will be hosting FOSSCON (Free and Open Source Software Conference), focusing on the community that has grown around Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and in parallel to both the Free Culture and Open Source cultural movements.
This is a community-focused live event designed to build and strengthen relationships between Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers and users. FOSSCON seeks to raise awareness of and promote FOSS alternatives to proprietary software. Facilitating face-to-face interaction, creative workshops, talks and think tanks, FOSSCON brings developers and users together in a nurturing and dynamic environment stimulating the free exchange of ideas and information while fostering cross-project collaboration and dialogue for innovation.

FOSSCON is a Peer-Directed Projects Center (PDPC) project, organized by the foss community.  FOSSCON (along with Geeknics) is part of PDPC’s desire to bring an already massive online community, freenode that has grown around free and open source ideas, out into the world, to meet, connect, support and challenge each other, imagine, plot and co-develop beautiful, possibly useful and unexpected things.

The people behind FOSSCON are free software enthusiasts, user group members, coders and users – just like you! Free software is all about community and this is a very grassroots event, organized by the community and for the community. Our common goal is to provide a space for us to all come together in the northeast. We hope you’ll join us as an attendee, a volunteer or an exhibitor.

Register

Admission is free and open to the public, but RSVP is required. If you’re able and want to be a “FOSSCON supporter” you can get a gift and thanks for $25. Whether free or a supporter, please register here: http://fosscon.org/attend

Schedule

FOSSCON will last all day. See the regularly updated schedule of presentations (and proposal guidelines) here: http://fosscon.org/speakers

Anyone in the FOSS community with interesting and exciting topics is invited to submit a talk to speak at this event.  As a general event built for the community at large, the range of acceptable topics is broad, however FOSSCON traditionally favors topics with an immediate real world use in home, work, or education environments and broadly categorizes talks under one of these headings.

The program committee invites proposals for paper presentations, demonstrations and poster contributions on any topic relevant to FOSS awareness, accessibility and application. We want to offer something for beginning, intermediate, and advanced learning levels with particular emphasis on the following topics:

• The Open Culture Movements influence on open source
• Beginning the FOSS conversion
• FOSS on a Windows Desktop
• Fun FOSS projects for your home
• Plugging into Social Media with FOSS
• FOSS in the workplace
• FOSS in education
• FOSS at non-profits
• FOSS Government
• Open Hardware
• Open Mobile Environments
• Your new awesome FOSS project
• Free Network Services

Exhibitors

If your group has an interesting project, or event useful to the community, show it to the world at FOSSCON!  We invite you to join us at FOSSCON to show the community what you’ve done, what you’re doing, or what you offer.

• LUGs
• Hackerspaces
• Local FOSS events the community needs to know about

We still have a limited number of spaces available for groups so please get in touch with us to reserve your spot.

Sponsors

We have a limited number of tables available for sponsors so please get in touch with us early to reserve your spot.  We’re very interested as well in any suitable organizations involvement in other ways, such as talks or other interesting ideas you may have. Please see this link for more info (oh, and obligatory but genuine shout out to FOSSCON sponsors here as well): http://fosscon.org/sponsors

Location

FOSSCON will take place at Venturef0rth on the second floor of 417 North 8th Street Philadelphia PA.  The location is just a few blocks from Market east station on the SEPTA transit network, which further provides access to the Philadelphia Airport and 30th street station, where Amtrak can be connected.  The location has central air, and elevator access to the floor we will be occupying.  There are several paid parking lots within a few blocks of the location, and limited street parking is available nearby as well.

Volunteer

If you would like to help out with FOSSCON, let us know!  We need help with things before, during, and after the event, including setup and tear down, announcements, technology, and much more.  We also appreciate assistance in spreading the word via mailing lists and other resources you may be a part of.  Stop by our IRC channel (#fosscon, on freenode) to learn more or read on for other ways to contact us.

Questions?

You can join us on the IRC network “chat.freenode.net” and join the channel “#fosscon” to talk with the planning team and others interested in FOSSCON, ask questions, or volunteer to help us out.  You can easily join the channel using webchat by clicking here: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fosscon.

You can also check out our facebook page, or our twitter feed.

See you all then!

1. dwfreed
2. bikcmp
3. divVerent
4. sbp
5. meridion
6. heftig
7. JoshuaA
8. [bjoern]

Here are the riddles and their solutions, in the original order:

Stage 1, the picture linked on the blog:

ITucplOwnTShozIfVT1cM2u0VTWyVPZwp3EupaD=

This was base64 + rot13 encryption,
##start

Stage 2, topic in ##start

###### MLG UZHGVI GSZM

Encryption A-Z Z-A,
“NOT FASTER THAN”

With a bit of thinking, this led the users to ######neutrinos

Stage 3, topic in ######neutrinos

#### C0LEMAK 43WRXC 34PTCXRW XSF34GDVC BHJ6 CTP4GHKNL7 87JHKMEN

Solvable with a picture of the Colemak keyboard layout and a bit of tracing with your fingers. Following the path between the keys on the keyboard gave you C, O, D, I, N, G.

Stage 4, topic in ####coding

3. #### Find a five-digit number in which the last number is the sum of the first, second, and third; the third is four less than the last; the fourth is two less than the last; and the first and fourth added are one less than the last. The last number is also three times the second.

Plain math, 13579

Stage 5, topic in ####13579

#### This “huge” work, written over twen ty years, contains ten books. What colour is it?

The Great Book of Amber
####amber

Last Stage, topic in ####amber

i yam what i yam but i yam ####

which lead to ####popeye, the final channel.

We hope you enjoyed our little quiz and had a great time.