I know it is a long shot... But are there EFnet server logs back to 1998? reddit / irc ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oiomi · 2016-05-29 02:22 I know it is a long shot, but hear me out... In 1998, I had an online relationship and we did most of our communication on EFnet. In retrospect I realize that was dumb because there is no guaranteed security, but whatever. Anyway, one week I had to go out of town and I didn't have internet access. When I got back, she was super mad at me and she was all like "How could you say those things to me!?". I didn't understand at first, but apparently someone used my nick to impersonate me and mess with our relationship. At first I assumed it was just a random person I didn't know... But as the years went on, I had a real life friend betray me on something else, and I started to wonder if he is actually the one who sabotaged my relationship. Is there any server admins or anything that might have logs going back that far? All I would need is for someone to look at my nick for a few week period and see where the ip address range changed during that week I was gone. Then I could try to investigate whether that ip belonged to my "friend's" service provider. Like I said, I know it's a long shot and I don't really have any expectations of being able to find this info... I just thought I would try to find out. To be able to confirm it would give me some closure. Thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- optize · 2016-05-29 16:01 Servers don't keep those kind of logs. It's been 18 years bud, time to let it go ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oiomi · 2016-05-29 16:15 That's cool man. Thank you for the info! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- theeleut · 2016-05-29 16:49 People can amass an enormous amount of digital 'junk'. My current desktop still contains archived files from many years and computers ago. Think random web cam shots, MSN chat logs and school assignments I never got around to filing properly. Maybe, just maybe someone out there still has these logs from 1998 on his/her hard drive. I know for certain that I wasn't on EFnet in 1998, but lots of folks were. A username would be useful, since that is likely to be unique and a search command would pretty quickly determine whether it occurs somewhere in what I'm assuming are plain text chat logs. It sure is a long shot, but definitely worth a try. /u/oiomi, what username did you use at the time, and what date range is most relevant for you? Interwebz, help a brother out! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oiomi · 2016-05-29 16:57 Thanks for the input man... I was hoping to keep the username private until I can get in contact with the person with the logs. No need to post it publicly in case the guy who messed with me sees this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- theeleut · 2016-05-29 17:02 I get that. Maybe a date range and channel name? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oiomi · 2016-05-29 17:23 I don't remember what channel we met in, but we mostly did private messages after that. The date range... I'm pretty sure it was June of 98... But I don't remember for sure which week I was out of town, so they'd probably have to maybe look at May and see what my typical ip range was, and then see if there was a discrepancy for one of the weeks in June. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edman007 · 2016-05-29 17:55 Generally servers don't log the conversations, the only hope you'll have is from the people who saw the conversation. For channels there are often hundreds who see it and many of them log it. For PM's it's only you and the other person. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- oiomi · 2016-05-29 18:00 But doesn't the server log who logged into a certain nick and on a certain ip? That's the only info I would need, nothing about the private messages themselves. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- edman007 · 2016-05-29 18:15 Maybe Maybe not, but the IPs are typically private anyways, they won't give it to you and the ISP won't be able to track down the owner so its useless. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- wantonregard · 2016-05-31 03:21 yeah, it eas probably a dude. Maybe me. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MuffinMedic · 2016-05-31 03:25 Most servers maintain a WHOWAS database, which is essentially what you are asking for, but they aren't usually kept past a few days as they take up a lot of resources and are of little benefit in the long term. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- XavierNite · 2016-06-05 22:56 I hate to break it to you, but you have a better shot at this girl reading this post and going "oh yea I think I remember you". Chances are very slim to none.