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AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

molo.ch

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Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#11

Post by scandox »

ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

I think this is a bit distracting. It's an ancient name. Probably a better paragraph to fixate on would be:

> Moloch has been used figuratively in English literature from John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1955), to refer to a person or thing demanding or requiring a very costly sacrifice.

I mean a project called Zeus would hardly founder on it's namesakes fetish for turning into a bull and assaulting human women.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#12

Post by lsb »

striking wrote: post #6
ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

Perhaps they were going for an association with Allen Ginsburg's Howl ( https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49303/howl ) instead?

Reminds me of when someone saw that the NSA's public key (http://www.cypherspace.org/adam/hacks/lotus-nsa-key.html) to be included in Lotus Notes had an organizational name of "MiniTruth", and a common name of "Big Brother".

Moloch isn't the good guy in Howl.

Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!

Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!

Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#14

Post by smoe »

ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

Interesting, newer knew the word is of biblical origin. In German the word Moloch is in somewhat common use to refer to an abstract merciless, all-consuming or all devouring power.

E.g big cities might get referred to as molochs the way they eat into nature around it or suck people into its anonymity

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#16

Post by finnthehuman »

ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

Why not? That's a pretty metal name. Don't tell me anyone still has appetite for yet another saccharine cutesy-wutesy "yay software squee" name.

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#18

Post by HideousKojima »

scandox wrote: post #11
ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

I think this is a bit distracting. It's an ancient name. Probably a better paragraph to fixate on would be: > Moloch has been used figuratively in English literature from John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) to Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" (1955), to refer to a person or thing demanding or requiring a very costly sacrifice. I mean a project called Zeus would hardly founder on it's namesakes fetish for turning into a bull an…

Zeus is known a bit better and for more things than Moloch

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#19

Post by Thaxll »

ignoramous wrote: post #3

Not the greatest choice of name: Moloch[a] (also Molech, Mollok, Milcom, or Malcam) is the biblical name of a Canaanite god associated with child sacrifice, through fire or war. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

Anyone who works on Linux probably knows that sometime you need to sacrifice a child...

Re: AOL Moloch: open-source, large scale, packet-capturing, indexing database system

#20

Post by dguido »

Fun fact, Moloch was initially created with funding from DARPA's famous Cyber Fast Track program! It's great to see that Moloch is still going strong since ~2013.

There is some previous discussion of Moloch when it was released in this older thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20586005

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