2026-01-07 Discord IPO, again
=============================

> Chat platform Discord filed confidentially for an initial public
> offering in the United States, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday,
> citing people familiar with the matter. -- Chat platform Discord
> files confidentially for US IPO, Bloomberg News reports, by Prakhar
> Srivastava and Nathan Gomes, for Reuters

If you're in the position to host things for your friends, here's what
has worked for me and my friends.

Set up an IRC server. We used ngircd because it can federate so now
we have a little network of two servers. That's good for resilience.
There are more modern IRC servers but they don't federate like that.
If you don't need federation, then by all means pick something new
like Ergo.

Set up a web app for your IRC server. Or more than one! Nobody has to
know that it's all IRC under the hood. The one I am using is The
Lounge. I've set it up such that file uploads are allowed and I've
set up a job on the server that deletes any uploads older than two
weeks. Just to be a bit safer. If you set it up with accounts, then
every user gets a log and therefore it's always on. Nobody needs to
mess around with IRC bouncers like znc and proxies like WeeChat.
Convos is another option but it doesn't allow file uploads. And all
the IRC nerds can still use IRC clients and paste-bins, of course.

If you can, set up a Discord/IRC bridge. We run Dis4IRC to connect
our servers. This is a bot that connects to both your Discord Server
and your IRC server and sends messages back and forth. It looks ugly
but it works. This allows a gradual transition. It makes sure that the
backup plan works and nobody has to move immediately. But those who
are curious can check it out and follow along.

Set up a video conference server. I use Galène. It was much easier
to set up than Jitsi.

None of these offer custom emoji, message editing, invite links,
easily accessible roles and permissions, server management, etc.
Things are going to be different. All of the proposed solutions work
on my small virtual machine I'm renting. This was important to me,
too.

(Related blog post from last year: 2025-03-09 The looming Discord IPO
.)

#Discord #IRC #Galène

2026-01-20. @paco@infosec.exchange writes that Discord outsourced
their age verification to some vendor. Makes sense, it's cost
effective and age verification is mandatory in some jurisdictions.
Remember the Online Safety Act in the UK? 2025-08-28 Online safety,
maybe. The age verification service Discord used just had a data
beach exposing photos of government IDs for 70,000 people. Sooner or
later, this will happen if perfect security is impossible. And now we
have to ask ourselves: Was this a good trade-off?

2026-02-09. Oh, next step! 2026-02-09 Discord and the kids.