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IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

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Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#101

Post by xelfer »

stinos wrote: post #86
Pacabel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the decline was due to people being driven away, directly or indirectly, by tyrannical ops. A given channel, or even entire networks, would often start out pretty free. Dissenting discussion and arguments were allowed, if not encouraged. Users could hold and share their own beliefs without fear of repercussion. It was generally a fun experience. The channel or network would see growth. But as the community b…

I always thought major reason for the decline was all the other alternatives coming up back then (msn messenger and the likes) and more recently things that aren't really an alternative but steal time anyway (facebook and the likes) ?

I agree here, my friends weren't affected by ops (we were all ops in our own channels) - they moved to MSN and gave up on IRC. Then MSN was dropped and they moved to facebook/google chat, and now it's almost like IRC was by using group chats in whatsapp, but without meeting any new people.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#102

Post by pistle »

canjobear wrote: post #30
melloclello wrote: post #7

Archived SomethingAwful thread from 9/11/2001: http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/ http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/wtc01.html > WATCH BUSH START A FUCKING WAR

Page 13, Kramer says: > Not to belittle the signifigance of these events, but you do realize that this means a whole slew of "anti terrorist" and probably "anti violence" laws will be passed through congress. > Any "anti terrorist" laws will be given almost a blank check to do what is necessary. I'd be surprised if in 6 months you'll be able to make a domestic call without it being monitored. > That's the way terrori…

This period was a text-book case of the use of fear as a tool to unwind the spirit of American freedoms.

Literally, from peoples' mouths, "Better to lose some freedoms than to be scared."

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#103

Post by sleep-less »

maxlybbert wrote: post #93
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Patriot was so overhyped and yet so bad in practice that Israel went and developed its own missile interceptor system (Iron Dome), because they realized that from the claimed 80+ % success rate, Patriots really intercepted less than 10%. And yet they still successfully sell this system to many countries.

I'm sure you realize that the Patriot system has been upgraded some in the last 24 years. However, I think one of the brilliant things about Iron Dome is the fact that it doesn't try to shoot everything down. If a missile is determined to not threaten anything, it is allowed to crash on its own. That may not be as big an optimization against opponents with good aim, but the people who fire rockets at Israel are often…

Hmmmm, won't be so brilliant if Russia is to develop a missile that corrects it's course after passing the air defense zone.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#104

Post by owenmarshall »

gaius wrote: post #63
cperciva wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always read that WTC was the kind of event that no one ever imagined it could possibly happen until after the incident. There were two aspects to 9/11 which surprised people. First, that it was four planes which were hijacked: For security screeners to allow one armed hijacker onto a plane may be poor luck, but for armed hijackers to get onto four planes looks like carelessness. (With apologies to Oscar Wilde.) Sec…

It was nothing to do with security screening, it was a philosophical attack. The hijackers knew that SOP in the event of a hijacking was everyone sit tight and let the negotiators deal with it. Everyone thought that the only reason to hijack a plane was to take hostages. The "weapons" they used were blades less than an inch long. The passengers that did react, overpowered them quickly (tho' by the time it was too lat…

"Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers." -- Bruce Schneier (https://www.schneier.com/news-072.html)

It's telling that every post-9/11 security incident I've read about, from "person gets drunk and agitated" to "person attempts to light bomb in underwear" have been defeated by a door or a passenger.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#105

Post by gcb0 »

stinos wrote: post #86
Pacabel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the decline was due to people being driven away, directly or indirectly, by tyrannical ops. A given channel, or even entire networks, would often start out pretty free. Dissenting discussion and arguments were allowed, if not encouraged. Users could hold and share their own beliefs without fear of repercussion. It was generally a fun experience. The channel or network would see growth. But as the community b…

I always thought major reason for the decline was all the other alternatives coming up back then (msn messenger and the likes) and more recently things that aren't really an alternative but steal time anyway (facebook and the likes) ?

hum... none of those really does what irc does.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#106

Post by e12e »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #17
icegreentea wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly they meant the general public thought it was outside the realm of things that would actually happen, as opposed to realistic seeming (yet safely 'impossible') things of fiction. For example Tom Clancy's Debt of Honour wraps up with a Japanese airliner flying into the Capitol Building killing off the majority of the US Government.

No, I believed that it was outside the realm of imagination , that the concept of flying a passenger plane into a building as a form of suicide attack never entered the collective mind of the society. I stand corrected though, thank you and shepardrtc for the Tom Clancy reference. I guess one gets to learn something new every day ;).

Terrorist plots aside, there's also this:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-08-22-sept-1...

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#107

Post by wmil »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #10
melloclello wrote: post #7

Archived SomethingAwful thread from 9/11/2001: http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/ http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/wtc01.html > WATCH BUSH START A FUCKING WAR

From the thread: > Now this is weird, since last week was the first showing of that X-files spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" in Austalia. The plot of the first one was that some government group was going to fly a plane into the World Trade Centre. Life imitates art? Eee... WHAT? I always read that WTC was the kind of event that no one ever imagined it could possibly happen until after the incident.

It aired in the US 6 months prior and 13 million people watched the episode.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)

The "no one ever imagined" line is put forward by DC insiders to cover for the fact that they never planned for a well known attack vector. Reporters spend a lifetime building connections to senior civil servants and have no problem running with lines like that if it will help their contacts keep their jobs.

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#109

Post by stinos »

gcb0 wrote: post #105
stinos wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought major reason for the decline was all the other alternatives coming up back then (msn messenger and the likes) and more recently things that aren't really an alternative but steal time anyway (facebook and the likes) ?

hum... none of those really does what irc does.

well no they don't (though hipchat etc comes close for teams etc), but that doesn't seem to withhold people from using it as a (crippled) replacement

Re: IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991)

#110

Post by ASneakyFox »

andor wrote: post #66
jpgvm wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter and all of these other commercial services lack the sheer resiliency of IRC. Taking down an IRC network (assuming DNS is not affected or users have cached list of servers in their client) is incredibly difficult. Twitter doesn't fail-whale as often but it's still centralised and not overly reliable or robust in comparison.

Taking down an IRC network (assuming DNS is not affected or users have cached list of servers in their client) is incredibly difficult. Yes, but remember that DDoSing individual servers and taking over channels through the resulting netsplits was a favorite pastime of bored teenagers around the world.

That's not so easy to do any more.
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