NeoModus was started as a company funded by the adware "Direct Connect" by Jon Hess in November, 1999 while he was in high school.
[1] The first third-party client was called "DClite", which never fully supported the file sharing aspects of the protocol.
Some time after, DClite was rewritten as Open Direct Connect with the purpose of having an MDI user interface and using plug-ins for file sharing protocols (similar to MLDonkey).
Open Direct Connect also did not have complete support for the full file sharing aspects of the protocol, but a port to Java, however, did.
[6] The ability to kick or move (redirect) a user to another hub is supported by the protocol.
For example, the hub cannot send a user command that will trigger the default browser to visit a website.
The peer-to-peer part of the protocol is based on a concept of "slots" (similar to number of open positions for a job).
These slots denote the number of people that are allowed to download from a user at any given time and are controlled by the client.
Transporting downloads and connecting to the hub requires TCP, while active searches use UDP.
For some reason that escape sequence was ignored by DC++ developers and they use HTML equivalent if these characters are to be viewed by the user.
[8][9][10] The CTM Exploit surfaced in 2006–2007, during which period the whole Direct Connect network suffered from DDoS attacks.
[13] As of February 2009,[14][15][16][17][12] an extension for clients was proposed in order for the attacked party to find out the hub sending the connecting users.
[18] The DCNF maintains a list of articles, papers and more documentation that relate to DC.