Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!caen!ox.com!ox.com!emv From: emv@ox.com (Ed Vielmetti) Newsgroups: comp.unix.admin Subject: Re: IRC and Security Message-ID: Date: 13 Mar 91 23:11:15 GMT References: <7748@uceng.UC.EDU> <7753@uceng.UC.EDU> Sender: usenet@ox.com (Usenet News Administrator) Organization: OTA Limited Partnership, Ann Arbor MI. Lines: 28 In-Reply-To: pmartin@uceng.UC.EDU's message of 13 Mar 91 22:21:31 GMT In article <7753@uceng.UC.EDU> pmartin@uceng.UC.EDU (Paul Martin) writes: Sorry but IRC appears to be SOLELY used for entertainment. This is a poor example of how to spend the students and taxpayers money. irc was used in the early days of the gulf war for real-time worldwide discussion of what was happening in europe and the middle east. seems to me I recall a mention of it in the Wall Street Journal even. from what I can tell the bulk of discussion wouldn't be terribly interesting to me right now, but who can say? Given the absence of an internet-blessed real-time multiparty tcp/ip based discussion protocol, I think that irc is as reasonable an approach as any. protocol development didn't require any taxpayers money to fund DOE or DARPA grants. I've heard of some innovative applications being built on top of it. Cost is minimum -- student time is free, a few extra IRC bits doesn't saturate most links, and if it gets really bad I'm sure we'd see protocol work done to minimize link loading. if you don't want to run it locally that's one thing, you can rationalize that on any ground which you see fit. but I wouldn't call it worthless. -- Msen Edward Vielmetti /|--- moderator, comp.archives emv@msen.com