Public QOTD from imstillthinking.net

I decided, due to reasons that are still unclear to me, to host a QOTD server to keep this protocol alive. So if you have something that needs random quotes every time you connect to port 17, here you go.

Public QOTD Sever TCP Port
um.imstillthinking.net 17
An example output from the server

As of December 2024, the server will respond with a quote from an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. But stay tuned–I will probably update this to have a variety of different sources in the near future.

(Short) Blasts From The Past

Picture this: you roll out of bed, fire up your clunky terminal, and—surprise!—there’s a little nugget of wisdom (or silliness) waiting for you each day. That’s basically QOTD. It’s defined in RFC 865 (which is so short you can read it in one coffee break) and uses port 17 for both TCP and UDP.

The Protocol Nuts & Bolts

  1. TCP Mode
    • You connect to port 17.
    • The server sends you a short quote—think ASCII text under 512 chars—and shuts the door immediately.
    • Any data you send? Ignored. The server just shrugs and says, “Nope, not listening.”
  2. UDP Mode
    • You fling a UDP packet to port 17.
    • The server sees your packet, tosses it in the trash, and sends back a little snippet of text.
    • No “connection” to speak of—just a quick handshake of “Hey, quote me!” → “Sure, here’s a gem!”
  3. Quote Format
    • Strictly speaking, no fancy rules—just keep it to normal ASCII, newlines, maybe a carriage return, and definitely under 512 characters.
    • Despite “Quote of the Day” in the name, it doesn’t have to be daily—could be random, weekly, or once every 47 minutes if you like.
  4. Why Bother?
    • Back in the day, it was a fun little test (like “Is my network alive?” or “Will I get a silly limerick or an inspirational line?”).
    • Great for learning sockets and messing around with writing your first server code.

Where’d Everybody Go?

Yes, QOTD is basically a relic, overshadowed by modern stuff and often turned off on production systems. Why? Because:

  • Security Worries (Amplification Attacks):
    • UDP-based QOTD is especially easy to “fake” traffic with. Attackers can spoof IP addresses, and your sweet little quote server ends up sending large-ish responses to someone who never asked for them.
    • In short, QOTD can be abused to flood networks with unwanted traffic.
  • It’s “Useless” (Debatable!):
    • Let’s face it: most folks don’t need random quotes coming from a raw socket these days—unless you’re feeling nostalgic or just messing around for fun.
    • People can just go to a website or run a random fortune cookie script for their dose of daily wisdom.

Is It Truly Insecure?

  • UDP: Big yes—it’s trivially used in reflection/amplification DDoS attacks because UDP doesn’t validate the source IP.
  • TCP: Less obvious but still possible if an attacker can predict or guess sequence numbers. They can basically trick the server into sending quotes to a target who never requested them.
  • Real Reason for Extinction? A mixture of “meh, who needs it?” and “we don’t want an extra open port for random traffic.” So yeah, it’s a combination of both security and irrelevance.

Who’s Still Running It?

  • I am! And a handful of servers (like djxmmx.net) still serve daily quotes—purely for the retro fun.
  • NIST has a Daytime Protocol on port 13 that’s kinda in the same old-school spirit. But that’s actually useful and still used by many services to get updated time.
  • Any modern QOTD hobby server out there probably has rate limits or behind-the-scenes checks, so they’re not an easy spam weapon.

Final Takeaway

QOTD is part of an internet era when every tiny service had its own neat protocol—Echo, Discard, Daytime, QOTD, you name it. These days, it’s mostly a curiosity:

  • Insecure? It can be.
  • Useful? Rarely.
  • Nostalgic? Absolutely!

And that’s the short of it: QOTD is basically basic. And keeping it alive is some sort of techno-museum-style hobby. There’s a certain charm to firing up a QOTD server and remembering the simpler times when your terminal greeted you with a little inspiration first thing in the morning.

Public QOTD Servers

It is incredibly hard to find working QOTD servers today. But I am going to try to maintain this list the best I can (including the server I am hosting). Currently these are the only ones I can find to be working as of Dec 2024.

Server Notes
djxmmx.net:17 TCP & UDP.
um.imstillthinking.net:17 TCP only.

If you find or know of any other working QOTD servers, that actually serve up QOTD’s, let me know here, and I’ll add it to the list.

Shout out to Gokberk Yaltirakli for the inspiration to make a list of working servers like this.

Now defunct QOTD servers

For completeness’ sake, I decided to host a list of once-but-no-longer-working QOTD servers, just in case one of them ever comes back online.

Defunct Server Notes
wreeper.top
alpha.mike-r.com
cygnus-x.net
qotd.nngn.net
qotd.atheistwisdom.com
alpha.mike-r.com
qotd.online.net
qotd.sr.unh.edu
quote.polite.fi
dragon.bestmindsincorporated.com
quotes.theenglishman.com
quote.hackingdojo.com
quotes.cat-v.org
quotes.shoutirc.com
quotes.metalforge.net
quotes.mattv.net
quotes.gathman.org
quotes.cwilson.org
cygnus-x.net
qotd.nngn.net
qotd.atheistwisdom.com
athena.mit.edu
vax.ox.ac.uk
unix.stanford.edu
cmu.edu