There appears to have been a malicious compilation of the EnergyMech IRC Bot that is currectly "in the wild".
The SANS ISC has reported this. Unfortunately the diary entry is not entirely clear and can be read that EnergyMech itself is a malicious bot. I have spoken with another handler about it and he will be speaking with the handler that wrote the entry regarding the wording.
News like this makes it even harder for legitimate users of IRC bots and even IRC in general to find hosts that allow these legitimate bots, clients and servers to operate on.
IRC is not evil
It is used by thousands a day for discussions just like Forums and IMs.
IRC bots are not evil
They provide channel control services where the network does not provide it, as well as other services. Some examples are RSS reading, Stock Quotes, Web Services, Weather information, Trivia game and Dictionaries.
IRC is not dead
On one of the neworks I am currently connected to there are 43,757 other users connected. That's more than some towns.
IM is realtime but cannot replace the ability to have a central gathering place for numerous people to discuss a shared interest.
Forums are central gathering places for people to discuss shared interests but are not real time.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Not all bots are evil
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1 comment:
As the author of the energymech... well, I hope you get some attention to this aspect of bots. A bot is not more malicious than a knife. Its a tool, no more, no less. Its the hand that wields it that makes it malicious.
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