Banning Abusive Mibbit Users

Mibbit is a service that permits users to utilize web browsers to connect to IRC. Mibbit functions by operating a series of termination servers (ircip#.mibbit.com) that operate as an intermediary between the user and the IRC service to provide a translation between the HTTP and IRC protocols. Due to this, users appear to be connecting from the termination servers and thus banning has to be handled a differently.

IRC user masks are in the form of <nick>!<ident>@<hostmask>. Most of the time channel, server, or network personnel normally would target the hostmask field alone, however with Mibbit, doing such would impact all users connecting through a termination server. To aid operations personnel, the Mibbit service transmits the IP address of the connecting user via the ident field encoded in hex.

So the best method to ban a mibbit user is whois the user, then implement a ban as such:

Commands

Channel Ban

/mode +b *!<ident>@*.mibbit.com

Kicking would then be performed as normal.

G/K-lining

/gline <ident>@*.mibbit.com 0 Reason text

or

/kline <ident>@*.mibbit.com 0 Reason text

Z-lining

Z-lines are not recommended as they would target all users utilizing that termination server since z-lines are IP-based.

Decoding the IP

Often times for accountability/abuse reasons, it can be useful to determine the IP address of a mibbit user.

Take the hex found in the ident field:

• cb007135

Separate each byte into quads:

• cb.00.71.35

Translate each byte to decimal:

• 203.0.113.53

Please Note

• If you are decoding these Mibbit ident fields, be responsible and respect people's privacy. Just because the information is available doesn't mean it should be used at all times, chances are unless you are personnel you should not be touching this information.
• If you are a user who wishes to keep their IP address concealed, it is strongly advised to use a full featured IRC client that can take advantage of the IRC network's host masking. IRC networks typically do not control/conceal ident fields of users.