Benefits of Using An IRC reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ghost_name · 2014-09-15 20:33 Hey everyone, So like everyone here, I use The Pirate Bay and recently got done watching their documentary AFK. I saw them using IRC and wanted to delve deeper into learning about it. Other than security why do you use an IRC? Apologies for such a noob question, I'm still learning the IRC commands and if I ask this question anywhere else I'm afraid I'll get a very colorful 4chan-like response. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seiyria · 2014-09-15 20:39 Not really security, but I use it for communication. It's easily scriptable (so I can write bots with relative ease), there's a variety of clients, and I can communicate with people everywhere, just by joining a channel. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ghost_name · 2014-09-15 20:54 I had heard though that some channels don't allow bots. Maybe I just don't understand the function of bots other than for simple tasks like giving me the time and date. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seiyria · 2014-09-15 20:56 Some don't, but I'm more part of smaller communities. For example, the bot I have parses links as they're spoken, allows you to do simple math / variable setting, or query wolfram alpha, or query google. There are plenty more modules than that, but they mostly boil down to convenience above all else. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MillenniumFalc0n · 2014-09-15 20:57 IRC is obviously used for communication. Different people use it for different things. I mostly stick to two networks, Snoonet for socializing with other redditors based on shared interests (subreddits) and Freenode for keeping up with open source projects. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ghost_name · 2014-09-15 21:07 That all sounds very cool. Maybe before I go that deep I just need to find a channel that I like and start memorizing basic irc commands. You have any suggestions for starting out? I've been just playing around on freenode. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2014-09-15 21:27 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- seiyria · 2014-09-15 21:57 Well, it depends what sorts of communities you're into? If you like programming, find some programming channels. Offtopic chats, find some of those. Incremental games, join #incremental. It boils down to what you're interested in, really! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- trua · 2014-09-16 07:47 Absolutely do not get into the mindset that irc is secure. It is very old and simple technology, sometimes with ssl slapped on top, which we use because we're stuck in our ways or think nothing newer is quite as good. People use irc for the sake of simplicity, openness and social reasons. Not security reasons. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wmcscrooge · 2014-09-16 18:24 what would people be doing on irc that needs to be secure anyhow? I doubt that most people who need extremely secure chat would think of using irc anyway. Most that I've seen people do is make a channel private. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plutarch_Rime · 2014-09-16 19:09 IRC is good for many-to-many communication. It is also a known quantity, stretching back to the 1980s. I am married to someone I met on IRC back in the 90s (well, initially newsgroups, then the IRC channel the newsgroup spawned). When we got married, a whole bunch of people from the channel and newsgroup - most of whom I'd never met - flew out to our wedding. There had been other gatherings as well. IRC is a sort of holdover from a time when there weren't ten billion faceless screennames you run into daily and then forget about. A whole lot of it is terrible, even now, but there are some good communities to be found. There are no ads. No blinking bullshit, no "promoted links." IRC really is the "free Internet," run mainly out of love and a passion for communication for its own sake. Most notably, Freenode is one of the best places to get realtime support if you have a problem. It strikes me as a model for an IRC network -- I just wish there were social networks that upheld Freenode's quality. As it is pure and plain text, there is a purity of sorts there that I appreciate. When I'm not being called a "faggot" or something on the IRC channels where everyone still talks like they're 12, that is. IRC's current problem is there are too many networks, servers, and channels, and too few users populating them (one big difference from the past is that, during the dial-up Internet days, you'd tend to disconnect at some point. Now with always-on Internet connections and bouncers and cheap shell accounts, people can stay logged in - but absent - for months at a time). Hence, populations are dispersed to the point that much of IRC - except for the big Freenode support channels - can almost look like a ghost town. This is in part because the barrier to entry - a server and pipe to host an IRC server - has gone way down (a good thing) over time. However, I frequently see people starting up new, short-lived IRC networks 'just because.' There are servers out there with only 30 or 40 people on them. Finding a good channel, with good people that appeal to you and your sense of humor, can be difficult. But they're out there. I have an archive of IRC logs, for example, from 9/11/2001, when I was logged in as events were going down. I have screenshots of other peoples desktops, old photographs. An archive of this old community. I miss a lot of those people; we all graduated, got jobs, and couldn't stay logged in all the time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [deleted] · 2014-09-16 19:19 [deleted] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Plutarch_Rime · 2014-09-16 19:22 IRC is like any town, which varies from quality communities (Freenode) to horrible ghettoes. If you aren't already, it is probably a good idea to do something to mask your IP/hostname. Some networks have functionality which does this automatically. Others use proxies, tor (where allowed), or bouncers (IRC-specific proxies, which will show the bouncer's hostname and IP). On some networks and channels, this is not a concern. On others, the very presence of an open IP and hostname is an invitation, especially if you're stumbling into an established channel of script kiddies who don't recognize you, and /whois you to see who you are, and see your hostname/IP address. The implication in this case is that you're new enough to IRC that you don't know to mask your origin. But again, this is only an issue on certain networks and channels. I've fuzzed my origin on IRC since at least 2005 or so. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- technfaith · 2023-08-28 23:44 Reading this and remembering the no-ad era of the internet. Windows95, 98, ME and XP. That irritating same dialup-modem tone, which now sounds heavenly lol...Look what we did to this world man!