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---
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title: Footnote
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date: 2021-06-15
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tags:
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- irc
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series: freenode
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---
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# Footnote
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- [Final Chapter](/blog/final-chapter-2021-05-20)
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- [Epilogue](/blog/epilogue-2021-05-26)
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---
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Before the darkness was the darkness, the darkness was a child. This child found
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themselves lost and without purpose. Life was scary. Things were changing
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constantly, and they found themselves at a loss. One day they were walking about
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the etherial network and stumbled across a meeting house.
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The child looked inside and was confused. There were hundereds of rooms with
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even more people inside. There were rooms on every topic. There was a shower of
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culture and an outpouring of knowledge. Hanging out here would permanently
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change the course of the child's life.
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---
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Horrified by the room takeover golem, the remaining regulars had fled their
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former homes. This was not a home for legal reasons, but it was their social
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home on the etherial network. Sadness had turned to rage had turned to
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depression had turned to laughter. One of the former regulars was a apprentice
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scryer, so as a lark they decided to set up some meeting rooms to scry their way
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into rooms in the old meeting house. It was a one-way scry and all they could do
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was watch.
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---
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Historically, IRC spam has been a unique form of art. Yes, I'm serious. There
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have been legitimate works of art created in the desire to disrupt conversations
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on IRC. It sounds absurd, but it's true. One unique quality of these artworks is
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that in order to see them, they must be shared with others. At some level you
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can't view this art alone, and that makes it beautiful.
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Fighting IRC spam has turned into a full time job. There are hundreds of
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different bot kinds and so many different ways to spam that fighting it is
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difficult due to the server software being very simple. Historically IRC
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developers have not wanted to add hooks so that people could run a bit of code
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on each message as it was being processed. There were legitimate fears that
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doing this would allow a malicious server admin to log every channel, not just
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the ones they have joined. IRC was created at a time where all of the admins
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knew eachother; but they were part of different organizations, each with their
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own rules and subtly different codes of conduct.
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One of the best ways to fight IRC spam has been to wait until the spammer gets
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bored and goes off to do something else. Users are not as understanding to this
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method.
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---
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Someone had set up a golem-creating golem and aimed it at the meta-discussion
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room of the former meeting house. It did its job dutifully and continued
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marching on:
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> (pissnet) come to pissnet for cold wet chats!
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The people watching the scry had never seen this brand of disruption before. By
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now the people watching had amassed to over a hundred and they were all bored
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and eager for something new. Something new was here!
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> (pissnet) come to pissnet for cold hard piss!
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Over time, the shadowy group behind these golems became known as the urinators.
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These urinators became a bit of a hero to the people who watched in horror as
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the situation developed. The golems got discovered and ejected, and even earned
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the ire of the anti-golem golem. The disguise was clever, the ejections where
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swift, but the watchers laughed as the golems kept getting more and more
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creative.
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---
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The darkness was dismayed. Everything was falling apart around them. The
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maintainers of the maintenance golems had fled. The spellcrafters that empowered
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them [had sworn to give no more
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assistance](https://atheme.github.io/atheme-open-letter/). The halls themselves
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were starting to show the rot that had built up over the last 20 years of them
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existing.
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The darkness pondered amongst themselves until they pulled back a memory from
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the past. A memory from the child. The halls themselves had to be replaced!
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---
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The watchers looked on in horror. The scryer had given up hope and decided to
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move on with their life. The urinators had suceeded in shutting down the things
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that were fun to the watchers. The urinators won.
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Some urinators created their own halls. It was an experiment in anarchy for
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running these types of halls. It is astounding that it managed to stay as stable
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as it did.
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---
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I have been completely unsure how I should broach the topic of pissnet in these
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articles. For people unfamiliar with IRC culture, you must think I'm making shit
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up or something. It is _so_ out there that it's almost like an abstact art
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gallery or something. But no, pissnet happened. It started as IRC spam and then
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turned into this: [letspiss.net](http://letspiss.net/). I don't really think I
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can suggest readers of this blog go there. It is some kind of weird anarchist
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IRC hackerspace, but most of the users are ircops and can see your IP address.
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Like, for people that are really deep into IRC culture, the whole pissnet
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shitshow was so out there that they thought the people that were telling them
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about that were making that shit up.
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But it's real.
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---
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> We are moving past legacy freenode to a new fork. The new freenode is
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> launched. You will slowly be disconnected and when you reconnect, you will be
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> on the new freenode. We patiently await to welcome you in freedom's holdout -
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> the freenode. If you're looking to connect now, you can already /server
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> chat.freenode.net 6697 (ssl) or 6667 (plaintext). It's a new genesis for a new
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> era. Thank you for using freenode, and Hello World, from the future. freenode
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> is IRC. freenode is FOSS. When you connect, register your nickname and your
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> channel and get started. It's a new world. We're so happy to welcome you and
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> the millions of others.
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The darkness smiled and replaced the halls where they were. The darkness hoped
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that millions would follow.
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They didn't come.
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---
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- [Freenode commits suicide, is no longer a serious IRC
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network](https://www.devever.net/~hl/freenode_suicide)
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- [the end of freenode](https://ariadne.space/2021/06/14/the-end-of-freenode/)
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- [All Freenode Channels and Users
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Gone](https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/o0263h/all_freenode_channels_and_users_gone/)
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- [Last remaining >1000 user community channel seized by freenode
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staff](https://linux.chat/linux-on-freenode/)
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Freenode is dead. The spirit lives on in [Libera.chat](https://libera.chat/).
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Cadey Ratio