Google Expanding To IRC?

AnimeFreak writes "In this The Register article, Google apparently has been involved in a little bit of activity in various IRC channels. According to Google, as asked by IRC Junkie: they're researching ways to improve their service and the activity is only temporary. Could this mean an ability to search for information that is contained on IRC? Services, such as Netsplit.de and Search IRC exist, and both allow the ability to get information from various IRC networks. Is Google trying to replicate what both these sites have done?"

Comments

Terms.

[saintlupus]

"Search for w4r3z complete. Results 1-10 of eleventy billion:"

--saint

Re:Terms.

[mrtroy]

"Search for 'Please packet *.*.*.*' complete. Results 1-10 of eleventy billion billion."

Re:Terms.

[wpmegee]

Yeah. It's called Packetnews or IRCSpy.

Re:Terms.

[NightSpots]

Wouldn't it also be nice for google to have an IRC interface to their search engine?

Google bots in popular channels. It could work.

Re:Terms.

[ls -lR]

But we've already had this for a long time. There are plenty of bots that hang out in channels and index everything offered for XDCC transfer or on FSERVs.

isohunt
ircspy
xdccspy

I'm sure there are more. And I'm not saying that Google's version of this wouldn't be useful or tastefully done. But this sort of thing has been around for a long time and it's hardly ground-breaking.

I believe there is already a such a service

[caston]

and believe it or not it's called xgoogle.com

Usenet

[wed128]

They already have the usenet archives, why not irc? seems like a logical progression to me...

Concerned

[FreeLinux]

The "information" on IRC is 99% crap. I'm concerned that, by integrating IRC searching in Google, the signal to noise ratio of Google will go way down. If however, Google keeps it as a separate service like Usenet I suspect that it will go away due to lack of interest.

Who really wants to search IRC, except the Justice Department?

Re:Concerned

[fuzzix]

Who really wants to search IRC, except the Justice Department?

If you're that worried:
/mode #channel +k 'key'

Re:Concerned

[TheDredd]

The "information" on IRC is 99% crap
And the information on the WWW is 95% crap, so what's your point again?

Re:Concerned

[SEWilco]

Who really wants to search IRC, except the Justice Department?

The new guidelines, billed as a response to the September 11 terrorist attacks, permit the Bureau to engage in the "proactive collection of information on threats to the national security," displacing an older policy that obliged the FBI to have a specific investigative purpose before collecting information on individuals or groups. "FBI on look-out for foreign government hackers"

Government workers on IRC sounds like a good idea to me. The more time on IRC, the less time they're messing up important things.

Re:Concerned

[Manos Batsis]

You would be right if IRC-originated info was searched along everything else; I suspect IRC search will be available in a seperate tab alla "Groups" or "Directory".

Re:Concerned

[Anonymous Coward]

there's a lot of crap pages, but most (non-google bombed) indexed pages contain related paragraphs of content. Ideally, the page is focused on one topic, so the first paragraph is related (content-wise) to the 10th paragraph, and searching for multiple keywords works.

With IRC, every line has little-to-no relationship to the previous one.

Re:Concerned

[platypus]

The advantage of IRC, though, compared to the Web, is that it is more reliable - in a very weak sense, but nonetheless.

Think of the google page rank algorithm, it is in great danger to be made useless by link farms.

That is because google has problems seperating link farms from "real" pages which link to each other and by that, provide each other some trust (pagerank).

With well populated irc channels, googles bots can have a higher trust that these channels are not artifial, like the link farms are.

Although you are right, the information to be found there is crap in most cases, I could imagine google harvesting known good help channels (linux-help, etc) for urls which are posted in conversations ("#bla-expert shouts: If you want to know more about bla, goto www.bla-project.org/documentation") , in order to better qualify web pages.

Re:Concerned

[jez9999]

A lot of people seem to be missing the point: It seems unlikely that Google would archive ALL channel logs. I mean it'd be really rather unfeasible technically. In order to join all 372628424682 or whatever channels on the largest networks, Google would need about 50,000 bots logged on at the same time. At this point, the nets could easily see the Google bots, and ban them for network abuse.

More likely is that, as the summary suggests, Google may be trying to emulate the functionality of something like netsplit.de. I'd be quite happy if they did this, as although netsplit.de is quite good, its channel search leaves a lot to be desired, and always seems to miss out a lot of channels, seemingly unable to get a reliable channel list for a lot of networks (they're pretty hostile to /LIST's now, unfortunaely). SearchIRC is a terrible channel search engine, because it fails to rank the results in order of number of people in the channel, for some bizarre reason, making its search somewhat useless.

If Google could implement a nice, polished service similar to netsplit.de, I'd be happy. If they tried to log everyone's chats in every channel, I (and I supect most IRCops) would be most unhappy, and expect to see Google's bots get banned from nets and channels very quickly.

Re:Concerned

[eyeye]

Good theory, One of googles problems is finding the relevant link for search terms, this will help that.

I imagine they would have to extend the processing to a few lines around the line containing the url to pick up the question or statement that prompted the url.

Perhaps it would cause an increase in bots - to spam urls to increase their googlerank.

Re:Concerned

[ilsa]

I am trying to decide whether Google is Stupid or Evil.

Stupid, because what are the odds of caching the one serious tidbit of information from the various channel Gurus when they are not bashing newbies.

Evil, because it reminds me of conversations on IRC containing such statements like "now you've done it, echelon is listening for sure."

Re:Concerned

[Jahf]

Or if you want to be a privacy nut, they -could- just turn on a transparently caching IRC server and log every channel that way. No bots needed, just need 1 node willing to let you plug in.

Personally, I don't want to see Google caching or searching anything on IRC, both from an IRC using perspective -and- from a Google signal:noise perspective.

If Google wanted to setup their own informationally focused IRC network and caching/search -that-, no problem, and it might just have enough clout to take off.

In any event, I would expect Google to post a list of the nets and/or net:channels that they had any form of visibility into. I'd like to know what to avoid if I'm planning on having a conversation I don't want monitored.

Re:Concerned

[platypus]

One of googles problems is finding the relevant link for search terms, this will help that.

You can think this even further (or speculate even wilder)
Webpages are connecteced to each other via links, i.e. you get some kind of directed graph.
Now you can partition this graph, by trying to find whole subgraphs which don't get links from the outside (but may link to pages outside "their" subgraph) - this subgraph then probably would be a link farm, because no "respected" page would point people into a link farm.

I think the dataming need to do the above is impossible to do.

But now, if you have "seed links" (from IRC) which point into the "good" set of pages, you probably just need to follow this direction when crawling and know with a very high probability that you are always visiting "good" pages, because, as mentioned, no respected page will contain a link to a link farm. You could also take into account how far away (w.r.t. to followed links) your crawled pages are from the "seed" link.

Now you have translated the task of giant data mining into just crawling web pages, something which should be no problem for google ;).

Re:Concerned

[jez9999]

Or if you want to be a privacy nut, they -could- just turn on a transparently caching IRC server and log every channel that way. No bots needed, just need 1 node willing to let you plug in.

And I'd be immediately onto the admins, demanding that that server be delinked, or I chat elsewhere.

If Google wanted to setup their own informationally focused IRC network and caching/search -that-, no problem, and it might just have enough clout to take off.

Maybe. I wouldn't use it out of principle, but weird things happen with IRC. I can't see why Quakenet took off like it did, when there were plenty of other good networks that clans could use, so I guess (alas) a Google-monitored IRC network could well take off.

Re:Concerned

[Anonymous Coward]

Just admit you were FUCKING wrong. You don't know your elbow from your asshole when it comes to IRC.

Re:Concerned

[Jahf]

Which post are you referring to and what did you consider to be wrong? You're an AC, so you probably won't ever see this, but it would be nice to know what you took offense to.

Re:Concerned

[Pointdexter]

The advantage of IRC, though, compared to the Web, is that it is more reliable

You obviously haven't spent much time on QuakeNet

Re:Concerned

[platypus]

Lol, how ironic, I clicked the link and:

The QuakeNet Website is down due to issues out of our control, including the L request page, we're sorry for any inconvenience caused, but rest assured we're working on it....

But then I remembered (yes, I know quakenet, but forgot what it was ...).

Re:Concerned

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless ircd has been significantly perverted since I last ran one or worked on it, channel PRIVMSGs don't "flow" everywhere. They only go to file descriptors which have someone joined into that channel.

That means your sniffer server could not be a leaf unless it was going to join a bunch of dummy users to each channel. That would be pretty obvious to those in the channel, I think.

Sure, you could do it with a sufficiently well-connected hub that has a high probability of having at least one person on a given channel, but that would be obvious too. You'd see the new sniffer server in the LINKS list.

Finally, some small channels might never make it near your hub, since they would be confined to a small cluster of servers which are all on the same "side" of the sniffer.

And yes, all servers get JOIN/SJOIN and PART (and whatever else has come along to replace those) to keep the state synced up, but that's it. No PRIVMSGs unless someone on the server or behind that server is in the channel.

Re:Concerned

[rifter]

"Or if you want to be a privacy nut, they -could- just turn on a transparently caching IRC server and log every channel that way. No bots needed, just need 1 node willing to let you plug in."

And I'd be immediately onto the admins, demanding that that server be delinked, or I chat elsewhere.

Er, how would you be onto the admins? I mean first off you would have to know that there was a server logging the channels. Second off, once you know and then get onto the admins, they would probably tell you you could chat wherever you like. IRC is not a service you pay for, so no one gives a shit whether you use it or not.

Re:Concerned

[mregit]

SearchIRC orginally sorted results by the size of the channel, but users complained that irrelevant results were being shown - primarily because the largest channels on IRC are humongous warez channels. For example, a search for "chat" would return a gazillion pages of huge warez channels that had "no chat allowed" in the topic.

When the subject of size vs relevancy was put to a vote, the overwhelming majority of SearchIRC users voted for returns sorted by relevancy. Now results are sorted by a complex algorithm to find those most relevant to your search term.

netsplit.de is great for network statistics, but a very poor channel search. They do not list all networks, or all channels on the networks they do list, but they do list "metanetworks". A metanetwork is a network that has more than one name. Metanetworks have clued in that most IRC search sites do not personally visit the network before listing it, so they apply under several different names. The same physical network might have 5 names, and the same channels will be listed 5 times on the IRC search site. The last time I checked, netsplit.de listed 70 networks SearchIRC recognizes as "metanetworks". Since netsplit.de does not gather data as frequently as SearchIRC, and their results are sorted by size, its very easy for duplicate channels to go unrecognized, buried on different pages of the results.

Re:Concerned

[hsidhu]

Well if you are concrened with privacy, I suggest you look into encrypted irc.

SILC Project develops the Secure Internet Live Conferencing protocol (SILC), which is designed to provide most rich featured conferencing services and high security. The SILC Project has been coordinating the protocol development for the past few years and the protocol specifications has been made available through the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The SILC Project's goal is to fully standardize the SILC protocol in the IETF.

Re:Concerned

[jez9999]

When the subject of size vs relevancy was put to a vote, the overwhelming majority of SearchIRC users voted for returns sorted by relevancy.

That's no reason to *eliminate* the sort by size for those of us that know how to use a search facility. What's their excuse for not even having a 'sort results by channel size' button?

Re:Concerned

[jasonhamilton]

It was never planned to be a permanent removal. There is limited resources that one can put into a project this large while maintaining a job and other personal hobbies. Currently there are at least 3 people who help on the project, and each puts in 6-12+ hours a week.

Sorting results by channel size will be put back soon, though the real question is: Will it be in there by default, or only available in the advanced search?

When will this end?

[AtariAmarok]

2005 - Google indexes all the things ever said on soap operas and talk radio.

2007 - Did you forget what you said in your high school cafeteria in 1998? Don't worry, Google now has it indexed.

2010 - Lost your car keys? Don't worry, Google knows. Just do a search and you will find them.

Re:When will this end?

[presroi]

2012 - No more questions to ask? No problem: google will find a new question for you.

Re:When will this end?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're one step closer to having Google as the Ultimate Guide to Life, the Universe, and Everything!

Re:When will this end?

[Reece400]

2050 - google has discovered what question really equals 42.

Re:When will this end?

[presroi]

2050 - google has discovered what question really equals 42.

LIAR! Google has found this one out already! :)

Re:When will this end?

[eggstasy]

Google already knows that

Re:When will this end?

[Havokmon]

2007 - Did you forget what you said in your high school cafeteria in 1998? Don't worry, Google now has it indexed.

And you can point to IRC funnies:
(Nobody has seen Zygote in a while..)

<Havok> You mean you didn't know about Zygote?
<Stephen> Know what?
<MoreDruid> Ha! He doesn't know?
<Stephen> What? What is it?
<Havok> Not that it's a big deal, I thought everyone knew.
<MoreDruid> He's gay.
** Zygote joins #descent
<Stephen> Zygote never told me.
<Zygote> told you what?
<Stephen> uhhhh

Everyone laughs and laughs..

Re:When will this end?

[cygnusx]

Or try: what is the answer to life, the universe and everything.

Re:When will this end?

[Richard_at_work]

bash.org dude! Bash.org!!

Re:When will this end?

[VariableQ]

2015 - Google actually finds out what Step 3 ??? is for any process. Then of course Step 4 - Profit!

Re:When will this end?

[Havokmon]

bash.org dude! Bash.org!!

Oh thanks man! Exactly what I need

More addiction to IRC.

At least I own a house now.. My wife used to get pissed at me in our apartment when I'd be up at 2am giggling..

Re:When will this end?

[Anonymous Coward]

.....do you know what you're talking about?
Watch the episode again, you dumb sack of stupid.

Re:When will this end?

[jc42]

As others have pointed out, google already knows this. It even knows that, in THHGttU, the question turns out to be "What is six times nine?"

But even better, if you ask google about "six times nine" and "42", you'll find pointers to the many discussions of why it would be that, when you don't specify the base, Deep Thought II quite naturally assumed that you wanted to use base 13.

One of my favorites is in the page that google just now turned up as the first match. The author (Michael Thorpe) observed that "By using 42 as the Hubble constant, you can calculate the age of the universe to be approximately 23 billion years, which is consistent with experimental data." This isn't the conventional age of the universe right now, of course. But if you set the Hubble Constant to 42 in base 13, you do get a result closer to the currently-accepted age of 12 to 15 billion years (depending on which cosmologists you believe in). Of course, this may have changed by the time you read this.

Anyway, it seems that google is already well ahead of the schedule posted here.

Re:When will this end?

[WhiteBandit]

Another way to ask google to tell you the Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Re:When will this end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is SKYNET! Now you know how it will end.

Re:When will this end?

[Anonymous Coward]

2112: Recordings of some guy wanting to play guitar are found via google. Some guys called 'the priests' came up on him and kicked his ass.

If you get this, you rock.

Re:When will this end?

[vistic]

I think I just read in Discover that it's 13.4 billion.

Recalling from memory, but I think that's it.

searching the irc

[jlemmerer]

Well, how do you build up a reliable irc database. I mean there are many servers and bots and so on in the irc, and most of them deal with warez and therefore are only up temporary. So if google really wants to build a irc search engine they have to find a way to get rid of the dead links, and also from links that point to illegal copy's (you can be sued for pointing to warez, can't you (see the deCss case)).
I personally would be glad, for the irc is a little bit, well, unstructured, and a search engine would definitely do good, but the problems building a database and interface based thereon seem enomous to me.

Re:searching the irc

[That's Unpossible!]

Well, how do you build up a reliable irc database.

Have your bots sit in channels worth archiving. Break logs down into manageable chunks (hourly, by size, etc), and index them. Searches pull up these chunks of log with your search terms highlighted.

I mean there are many servers and bots and so on in the irc, and most of them deal with warez and therefore are only up temporary. So if google really wants to build a irc search engine they have to find a way to get rid of the dead links, and also from links that point to illegal copy's

Ever try searching for warez on Google Groups? Good luck. They don't archive the binary newsgroups, and it is simple to weed out the posts that contain binaries in regular newsgroups.

Google is pretty smart, let's wait and see what they come up with.

Re:searching the irc

[mrtroy]

First off...I assume Google will only be using the major networks, which are permanent.

Secondly, there are many servers, and bots...but how does this relate to an IRC database?

Servers and bots dont talk much. And I would assume google would be ignorning all mode changes

Next, IRC is not all about warez. Its the first GOOD chat system, and I still prefer it to any IM, hands down.

And what the hell do you mean IRC is unstructured? There are networks, which have servers, which have channels and users. Users can belong to channels. Whats the problem?

And google would likely just be doing some logging of channels, a simple channel listing would be redundant.

Re:searching the irc

[Anonymous Coward]

He meant "teh IRC".

Re:searching the irc

[spitefulcrow]

Having google bots that do nothing but record logs would probably piss networks off. Can you say "permanent g-line added for *@*.google.com?"

Re:searching the irc

[That's Unpossible!]

Having google bots that do nothing but record logs would probably piss networks off. Can you say "permanent g-line added for *@*.google.com?"

OK, forget bots. What if Google writes an IRC server that connects to these networks, and then logs the traffic directly via their server instead of a bot? In exchange, Google provides another connection server the people can use to access these IRC networks.

Would this piss networks off? If so, why? I could understand why a specific channel might be pissed off and not want to deal with Google, but that can be remedied channel by channel.

As long as google protects the privacy of the people it is logging (nicknames only), I don't see a problem with this at all, it sounds pretty interesting.

Re:searching the irc

[jasonhamilton]

This wouldn't work unless google's server also spawned off a "user" that joined each channel so they'd be marked to receive the channel messages. Doing something like that would cause huge net.bursts, which is why ChanServ remains out of channels.

Re:searching the irc

[That's Unpossible!]

This wouldn't work unless google's server also spawned off a "user" that joined each channel so they'd be marked to receive the channel messages. Doing something like that would cause huge net.bursts, which is why ChanServ remains out of channels.

Right -- that is where the second of my guess comes into play. Google provides free access to their chat servers on these networks. Then they get the traffic for the popular channels, and log the "interesting" channels' traffic.

Re:searching the irc

[jasonhamilton]

IRC is notorious for being a drain on the wallet (bandwidth), and a magnet for DoS attacks.

It's one thing to find a use for IRC in it's current form, it's a completely different matter to JOIN irc and make it a money making business decision :)

Re:searching the irc

[nickyj]

I agree, I use IRC often when I have some troubles with linux, perl, etc. and the right channels have the right answers, but sometimes nobody is around or the question was asked so often that nobody wants to answer it again. A search would be useful.

Re:searching the irc

[placeclicker]

How long has google been censoring stuff?

This fucking pisses me off. So much for trusting them

Re:searching the irc

[That's Unpossible!]

How long has google been censoring stuff?

Yeah, if we can't trust google to waste terabytes of their disk space to provide free warez for lowlifes, WHO CAN WE TRUST?!

Re:searching the irc

[placeclicker]

Type USENET into google and look at the first responce.

I was under the impression that it would be USENET, apparently it is not.

Re:searching the irc

[That's Unpossible!]

Please define USENET. If a news server doesn't carry EVERY SINGLE NEWSGROUP, does that mean they are not part of USENET?

Grow up.

it's called xgoogle.com

[theGreater]

Well, yes and no. xGoogle is designed largely around finding shared files on IRC IIRC (always wanted to do that). As far as I know, it depends not upon channel content, but on server/channel names and perhaps M'sOTD.

-theGreater Pedant.

Re:it's called xgoogle.com

[Crayon Kid]

In my experience, XGoogle is best used as a means to find specific channels. It is also useful as a means to find servers that form a certain network. Yeah, it can search for files too, but only on XDCC bots, which is just a small part of all the file serving techniques out there.

I'm guessing channel finding is what Google would go for as well, perhaps make it a smarter and more refined kind of search for better results. I doubt they're gonna index files, and I also doubt they're gonna index chat. As a previous poster remarked, it is 99% crap, would piss off many people (to the point of banning the Google bots off the networks), and do you have any idea about the sheer quantity of information we're talking about here? The signal to noise ratio is just not worth it.

Personally, I've expected Google to turn to IRC for a while now. I suspected they may try to buy out XGoogle or a similar service like they did with DejaNews. But there's no archive involved in this case, so with a good set of speedy bots they can achieve the same data the others have pretty soon too.

Re:it's called xgoogle.com

[jasonhamilton]

I beg to differ. searchirc.com - will almost always find you more channels on more networks because:

1) SearchIRC does not have arbratary limits on networks, requiring them to have N number of users to get listed. All networks are included when possible. So it typically has several hundred additional networks listed than any other site out there.

2) SearchIRC lists ALL channels, netsplit.de and others only store channels with >N users, so they only have partial channel lists. Thus SearchIRC has ~300,000 more channels to search through than the others.

3) SearchIRC has automated methods of detecting nevtwork merges, and removal of temporary channels (e.g; A user who joins #fuck-all-ircops before being klined). Without automating things like this, you end up with duplicate channel lists, and duplicate networks which will bloat your user counts and channels indexed.

Check them out for yourself and compare.

Correction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Who really wants to search IRC, except the Justice Department?

What you meant to say was the Just Us Department.

But don't you really need to know?

[AtariAmarok]

"The "information" on IRC is 99% crap"

Come on now, don't you really need a search engine to find out about statements like " /mode -o ChanXBot" ?

Googling minds want to know!

google ist listening to the heartbeat

[presroi]

Well, recalling from where I get "news" (read: 90% useless but funny content via links), the IRC (IRCnet, which is popular in Germany) is a incredible fast distribution way for links.

Assuming that google is interested in finding new sites as soon as possible, they should crawl the irc channels.

This does not mean that they are going to index it.

Re:google ist listening to the heartbeat

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember google gets paid to find specific things by spcific compaines. Maybe RIAA and the like are paying them to find stuff...

The original scoop on this story...

[Punchinello]

It seems Tony Collen had the original scoop on this story. It is more informative than the Register link.

If you scroll down his original web log on this topic you will see Google's first official acknowledgment of their IRC activity.

Re:The original scoop on this story...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, please don't Slashdot my server :)

manero

Perhaps Google can now answer the all-important...

[tuffy]

...a/s/l?

does that mean...

[zr-rifle]

that spam will extend itself to irc?
Thousands if not millions of bogus irc channels with specific keywords inserted in the topic only to attract hits on the main google search page?

Re:does that mean...

[senbei]

That's exactly my thought. It's not hard to imagine some bots joining channels and repeating their URL in order to get a better rank on google.

Re:does that mean...

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not hard to picture said bots getting banned in short order.

Re:does that mean...

[fireboy1919]

They already do this. Not just to get a rank - also to actually advertise sites.

Every channel I've ever been on has an autokick set up to kick these bots every time they come on or as soon as they're identified.

So google wouldn't have a huge problem because bots get kicked as soon as they something the channelops don't like.

All google would have to do is look for a kick after an ad to know whether or not it is spam.

More services

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also search facilities for IRC channels at packetnews.com and ircspy.com.

Already?

[chendo]

XGoogle.ORG -> Error: Cannot Connect to Data Base
Too many connections

Slashdotted already? We slashdotters are more dangerous than a beowulf cluster of... something.

Re:Already?

[pacc]

xgoogle can't be affiliated with google,
they have been around for ages.

Re:Already?

[Anonymous Coward]

We slashdotters are more dangerous than a beowulf cluster of... something.

MONKEYS!!!

Re:Already?

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdotted already? We slashdotters are more dangerous than a beowulf cluster of... something.
---->

Monkeys? We're more fun than a barrell full of them, already!

Re:Already?

[fireboy1919]

Don't feel too powerful by that.

XGoogle.ORG, (which is not affiliated with google at all) crashes on a regular basis without slashdot's help.

the last line in the article got me thinking..

[WegianWarrior]

How IRC users would react to a bot from microsoft.com is an exercise left to the reader.

If the IRC is anything like was it was when I last brushed thru, not many will even notice - or attemt to engage the 'bots in "virtual intimate acts".

Off course, there would always be someone - likely a Mac or Linux user - who will notice and scream up about how MicroSoft is 'spying' on the IRC-network, which in turn would lead to several more or less wellinformed blogs writting about it, which in turn will lead to a /. headline close to "Micro$oft trying to take over IRC, will shut out 3rd part clients"...

Bot vs. Bot

[matchlight]

The IRC admins, at least for most of the better channels, will simply set up a config to kick/ban the google bot. Many channels don't allow non-human connections unless set up by the channel admins. Unlike the annoying spammers who uses legit and stolen access points, google will likely come from a single legit source making the process of denying access easier.

Google shouldn't be trying to find more content, they should be working on filtering out the mass of garbage sites that already exist.

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[garcia]

what happens when they work out a deal w/the IRCd and end up with the ChanServ doing the watching?

I guess you could move to EFnet but w/EFnet as bad as it has been do you really want to do that?

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless they add the code to the irc servers

-- mox (mox@mox.ca)

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[neglige]

Unless they add the code to the irc servers

Uh, all of them? searchirc.org lists over 1200 IRC _networks_, the number of server might be 10 times that (and that's most likely a conservative number). The underlying question is probably why would anyone want to search the entire chit-chat of the world?? I, for one, am not interested in seeing Bob trying to score with Alice... (ok, well, maybe I am)

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[Anonymous Coward]

Google shouldn't be trying to find more content, they should be working on filtering out the mass of garbage sites that already exist.

They don't index slasshdot anymore.

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[Lumpy]

dont have to use a bot..

simply talk the IRC network into letting you run a node, and then all traffic in that irc network is now available to you unrestricted and harvestable.

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[KD5YPT]

As someone once said, one person's garbage is another person's treasure. Of course, if you meant those website just aiming to get high ranking, then I have no problem of getting rid of them.

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[Anonymous Coward]

One man's garbage is another man's gold.

No offense meant to women, but this is slashdot after all.

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[the_pointman]

Google should definately start to make sense of the mess that is the internet. This whitepaper at BrightPlanet, points out some astonishing figures, such as the ratio of indexed content (19TB) to deep Web information (7500TB). If google could only index those other 7500TB of pr0n we could reach a new plateau in civilization.

Re:Bot vs. Bot

[bcemoli]

Google shouldn't be trying to find more content, they should be working on filtering out the mass of garbage sites that already exist.

But wouldnt that narrow the total amount of content they index down to just a handful of sites?

The Buzz In IRC...

[SEWilco]

Google Labs does have to keep busy. I wonder what they're up to.

• Identify authoritative IRC participants, their information and related web sites?
• Identify stupid IRC participants, and reduce the importance of their information and related web sites?
• IRC Rent-An-Expert Service?
• GoogleNatter: The Bot that makes you sound authoritative.
• GoogletyMooglety: The IRC filter that lets you hear only the good stuff.

When is Archie support?

[SailFly]

Before Google, before WWW, there was...
Archie - the first search engine

Google search for IRC Channel & Network Conten

[ScottKin]

...are they INSANE?

Oh, great - now everyone gets to see how many times I've k-lined stupid *.MY "h@x0r" wanna-be's for flooding my IRC Network's Admin channel with "N3TF0RC3 0WNZ J00" or remove their "Undetected" clone technology that acutally says "Netforce Undetected Clone Technology" in the userinfo.

Wait - that might be usefull to show the other *.MY users that we didn't k-line their Class-C address space because we don't like them - just the abusers.

What is this world coming to?

ScottKin

p2p search

[Manos Batsis]

With the importance of Google in our every day lives steadily increasing, I don't dare to think of what might happen if Google et all stops being our good friend at some distant point. Centralized repositories are just not the way to go, we need a distributed, user-base owned, search engine. Maybe in the next Matrix moovie...

Re:p2p search

[Moraelin]

One of the most powerful weapons that the Eastern European regimes had against their citizens was the illusion that the state might know what you're saying. Everything you said _might_ have ended up in a nice little dossier somewhere, and come up to bite you in the ass later. Like at some point you _might_ have screwed up your promotion chances because you once said that the Party shouldn't control the industry. So most people preferred to just avoid politically sensitive issues, than have that stuff show up in their file.

Now most people did realize that the low tech communist secret police just didn't have the resources to watch everyone all the time. But even that small chance of being actually watched was enough to keep most of them silent and in line.

Now let's think of this high tech Google version. Everything you've ever posted, everything you've ever said on IRC, and everything you thought you were saying in private on AIM _will_ go on record and available for the next century. Unlike the low tech communist version, this time you can be 100% sure it goes on record.

I don't like this idea. I just don't like it. Whether it's intentional or not, it's nothing short of being the Big Bully who keeps records on everyone. A _lot_ of people will prefer not to say anything controversial on the net (even as little as "my boss is a retard), rather than be associated with that statement for ever.

Re:p2p search

[mregit]

ChatScan. Feb, 2001.

ChatScan was an Israeli enterprise that claimed 10 million in funding. They joined a bot to IRC channels. The bot broadcast live channel text to their website. The idea was, people could scan down a list of pre-selected channels, see which had interesting conversations, then go and join them - or just watch from the website.

Users who found what they thought was private conversation up on the web were outraged. IRC channel owners and admins agree with you 100% - they considered this unwanted and unauthorize intrusion a gross invasion of privacy, and banned the bots. The bots came back on new IPs and were banned again. When they came back on a variety of IPs, IRC admins got together and put up a list so everyone could be sure to ban every last one.

Logging and archiving classes, guest speakers, technical chats and special events is a great idea, IF the people putting on said event WANT it logged. But those who do, already put the transcripts up on the web.

IRC networks compete for users. Users definitely will not stay on networks or in channels if they think there is a chance of casual conversation being logged. Doesn't matter if Google tries, or some new startup. It won't fly.

once again proving nothing online is private...

[*weasel]

like archiving email, usenet, and web traffic before it - this is simply a reminder that nothing you type through an open network is -private-. this is a lesson most of us should have learned a long time ago.

but this isn't an invasion of privacy. there's no expectation of privacy when you log onto a public chat board. just as there's no expectation of privacy should you decide to walk naked through a park.

the best you can hope for online is pseudonymity.
but that's out the window with the combined power of google. which is quickly becoming the internet's inadvertant Big Brother.

the primary difference being, google works -for- the people just as much as it works -against- the people.

Re:once again proving nothing online is private...

[SoSueMe]

Agree 100%.

Lately, I have been using the line "Yes, I am paranoid but, the question is: 'Am I paranoid enough?'".

Re:once again proving nothing online is private...

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference i can think of is that instead of network admins, IRC admins and authorities now everyone can read what has been said on IRC.

One can still be secure (as in privacy) on IRC by using encryption. Then, the encrypted text is logged, but only the participants know how to decrypt. Ofcourse, one can also use a real alternative like SILC or Freenet.

Oh, btw, what about chans with chanmode +k, +i, +s or +p?

Re:once again proving nothing online is private...

[pete-classic]

You don't IRC, do you?

Your conversation is pretty private if you DCC.

'Course Carnivore can still get it, but I don't see a joint venture between Google and the FBI on the horizon.

-Peter

Re:once again proving nothing online is private...

[Moraelin]

Actually, while IRC rooms might be borderline, what they say in the article about making AIM conversations searchable is not. The AIM conversations were one-to-one talks, and letting everyone look through them is extremely bad taste.

Even if it wasn't any "cybersex" or anything illegal involved, there might be little secrets that those people never wanted made public. E.g., even something as benign as that you once called in sick to stay home and play the newly released Diablo 2, you probably don't want plastered all over the web. You don't want your boss, or worse yet the HR droid interviewing you for your next job, to start reading that.

It's like I'm walking through the park talking to somone. I'm aware that someone might overhear bits of it, and that's OK. But if you start actually following me around to hear it all, that's already at best lack of manners. And if you then go and post all my conversations on the web, in an easily searchable format, that _is_ an invasion of privacy.

At any rate, such corporate stunts are starting to annoy me. Even if there wasn't a guarantee of privacy on the IRC or AIM, it's still _extremely_ bad taste to publish other people's private conversations.

And for what? For a cheap corporate publicity stunt. I doubt that the signal to noise ratio is worth it for anyone except perverts looking to snoop into erotic talk. If you actually search for actually useful information, good luck wading through all that "a/s/l?" and "r u a girl?" talk.

Re:once again proving nothing online is private...

[Anonymous Coward]

Agree 100%.

Thanks for you invaluable input. I didn't even know AOL users knew about /.
learn something new everyday

Re:once again proving nothing online is private...

[pmz]

there's no expectation of privacy when you log onto a public chat board. just as there's no expectation of privacy should you decide to walk naked through a park.

But I'm invisible, dammit! Why is everyone staring at me?!? You're not supposed to see me!

Google The Movie

[wo1verin3]

Bill Gates: Speak.

Neo: The search engine Google has grown beyond your control. You cannot stop him -- but I can.

Bill Gates: And if you fail?

Neo: I won't.

--- several scenes later ---

Google: Mr. Anderson! Welcome back, we missed you.

* Google pauses and looks around at the multitude of web sites and irc channels he has cached

Google: Like what I've done with the place?

Neo: It ends tonight.

Google: I know it does, I've had some researched figure out the answer for me. That's why the rest of me is just going to enjoy chatting on irc while we fight. I've seen the logs and irc'ers already know that I'm the one that beats you, so they're just gonna download from some leet xdcc bots.

Re:Google The Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

Does Neo have a link to "The Source"? Does Google explode into a blue light? How does it end for christs sake!

Re:Google The Movie

[wo1verin3]

>> Does Neo have a link to "The Source"?

No, Valve sent Neo a cease and desist regarding the leaked source.

Re:Google The Movie

[jasonhamilton]

Thanks for the laugh :)

Re:Google The Movie

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe I enjoyed it as well :)

And here it begins...

[KoolDude]

GoogleBot69: guess what, i have one dick and 100 balls.

GoogleBot70: me too!!

Google for Cyber Sex source:irc

[jsse]

Now we've new category of stuffs to search for other than p0rns. :)

bloodninja: Ok baby, we got to hurry, I don't know how long I can keep it ready for you.
j_gurli3: thats ok. ok i'm a japanese schoolgirl, what r u.
bloodninja: A Rhinocerus. Well, hung like one, thats for sure.
j_gurli3: haha, ok lets go.
j_gurli3: i put my hand through ur hair, and kiss u on the neck.
bloodninja: I stomp the ground, and snort, to alert you that you are in my breeding territory.
j_gurli3: haha, ok, u know that turns me on.
j_gurli3: i start unbuttoning ur shirt.
bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't wear shirts.
j_gurli3: No, ur not really a Rhinocerus silly, it's just part of the game.
bloodninja: Rhinoceruses don't play games. They f*cking charge your ass.
j_gurli3: stop, cmon be serious.
bloodninja: It doesn't get any more serious than a Rhinocerus about to charge your ass.
bloodninja: I stomp my feet, the dust stirs around my tough skinned feet.
j_gurli3: thats it.
bloodninja: Nostrils flaring, I lower my head. My horn, like some phallic symbol of my potent virility, is the last thing you see as skulls collide and mine remains the victor. You are now a bloody red ragdoll suspended in the air on my mighty horn.
bloodninja: Goddam am I hard now.


(Original post from bash.org

Re:Google for Cyber Sex source:irc

[wo1verin3]

* Horny4u picks up the bra and looks at it
Horny4u: mind if I keep this to show my buddies later?
* nubile-f unzips Horny4u's jeans and slides her hand in, rubbing him gently
Horny4u: I need to pee now, brb
* Horny4u returns wiping his hands on his jeans
Horny4u: so ready to get it on baby?
yes...take me now..please take me
* Horny4u gets excited and pulls off nubile-f's panties
Horny4u: whoa baby! you really need to shave a bit you know? I'm going to need a safari suit to go in there
* nubile-f leans her burnished body back on the bed, spreading her long legs a little ...invitingly
* Horny4u pokes around a bit between nubile-f's legs with one finger
* nubile-f arches her back and sighs in ecstasy
Horny4u: ewwwww what's that?
what?
Horny4u: that little thing sorta sticking out
* nubile-f looks at Horny4u a little incredulously before pulling him down on top of her
* Horny4u leans in to kiss nubile-f and sneezes
urrrghhh
Horny4u: oops, sorry - let me just wipe that off your face
look, don't worry about it - let's just get on with it
* nubile-f starts to pull down Horny4u's jeans, her mind on one thing only
* Horny4u finds he can't get erect
what??????
Horny4u: I don't know, could have been those 2 6-packs I drank before I got here
* nubile-f pushes Horny4u off her and gets up, starting to put her ruined clothes back on
Horny4u: oooo baby wait, i'll be ok if I just think about some hot chick for awhile!
get out
* Horny4u pulls his clothes back on in a huff
* nubile-f taps her foot, waiting for Horny4u to leave
* Horny4u snorts
Horny4u: I bet you don't even like men
*** Quits: Horny4u (Quit: Gone)

Source: Typical Dalnet :)

Re:Perhaps Google can now answer the all-important

[Anonymous Coward]

...a/s/l?

I hated that when it started polluting IRC in about '96 or '97, and I still hate it.

IRC was great before they let all the teenyboppers on. Before the Internet "explosion", the worst thing on IRC was smartarses riding netsplits to take over a channel. Now I don't know why anyone would bother, most channels are crap. The inane jabbering and "lol, me too!!!!!" crap just makes me want to cry.

Thank God for FreeNode I guess.

Re:Perhaps Google can now answer the all-important

[Anonymous Coward]

Now now, you havent been able to ride netsplits for oh...7 years? That would put it in '96

What I hate now are all the xdcc, floodnets, ddos nets as a result (primarily) of windows based exploitations. One xdcc chan we used to run was based entirely on win boxes with blank admin passes. All .edu, and fast, and we had no problem having 500+ bots on at any given time.

I AM posting anonymously

Possibly

[Apreche]

The news implies that google is going to start indexing irc logs from channels everywhere. But I don't think this is what they're going for. I think they'll include something that allows you to search for irc channels. So if I am looking for a channel where I can ask a question about something, google will point me towards the right server and channel that I can get into.

Also, they could be using IRC to facilitate google answers. Heck, if I was one of the google answer people you can sure bet I would use the IRC.

I see google indexing IRC channels as a good thing. It will help to clean out all those child porn channels from other countries. You'll be able to type child porn into google and get a list of channels full of sickos to lock up.

Re:Possibly

[beady]

Ok, Mr. Apreche... or should that be Townshend?
You have to come with us now, we have a few questions we need to ask you

Re:Possibly

[mrtroy]

Or, /list works too...

Dont make me ./root you for your ignorance, peon!

/kick Apreche #slashdot w00t

Re:Possibly

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if such channels are +s or +p, assuming Google uses /list

Re:Possibly

[mregit]

[I]So if I am looking for a channel where I can ask a question about something, google will point me towards the right server and channel that I can get into.[/I] SearchIRC.com does all of this. It was created because Google and other search engines ignored IRC. Other irc search sites have sprung up since SearchIRC opened, but they don't put the effort needed into the project, which shows in their outdated, incomplete and incorrect information. IRC channels are identified by the name of the channel, and also by a "topic", a 2 or 3 sentence long description of the channel. Channel moderators set the topic to tell people what is currently happening in the channel, make comments, post urls, etc. SearchIRC lets you search through all known (and they list around 700,000) IRC channels by keyword or term. They also have a small channel directory so you can find a channel by subject as well as keyword relevance. As Google will soon learn, IRC isn't quite the same animal as the web.

A of days back

[arvindn]

I attended a talk by a couple of google guys at my school (one of the speakers, Krishna Bharat, creator of google news, is an alumnus). Apparently they have a lot of expansion plans. They're planning to set up a new research center (at Bangalore) with around 300 to 500 people. So I'd say this isn't surprising in the light of the long term plans they have.

A few days back

[arvindn]

I attended a talk by a couple of google guys at my school (one of the speakers, Krishna Bharat, creator of google news, is an alumnus). Apparently they have a lot of expansion plans. They're planning to set up a new research center (at Bangalore) with around 300 to 500 people. So I'd say this isn't surprising in the light of the long term plans they have.

Re:A few days back

[Anonymous Coward]

Wooohooo! Google comes to India!

First GE, then MS, then Oracle, now Google... the way the country is progressing is just staggering.

I can only image it now...

[SageMadHatter]

*Goes into new google IRC search mechanism and searches for term "Warez"*

Result: "Warez" is a very common word and was not included in your search

Mad Hatter

Actually...

[Short Circuit]

The idea of searchable IRC logs kindof scares me. An investigative team need only go to Google to search for discussions by someone with the nickname "l33t".

Of course, IRC logs are already out there, often made available by the denizens in charge of the channel in question. But they're not hooked up to a common database.

The speed of information dissemination is great for research and development, but that applies to both you, and people who want to learn about you.

I've mentioned several times on IRC that I have a brain disorder (Asperger's syndrome, specifically), but I may have been operating under the assumption that the information wasn't important enough to be spread around to twenty or thirty Googleable sites. To be honest, I don't care who knows, which is why I'm saying it here.

Re:Actually...

[Mwongozi]

Isn't it more likely that Google are simply trying to index the general topic of each IRC channel, rather than the specific content? For example, a search for "linux" on "Google IRC" might return #opensource as well as #linux. (Disclaimer: No idea if #opensource actually exists.)

Re:Actually...

[tambo]

Isn't it more likely that Google are simply trying to index the general topic of each IRC channel, rather than the specific content?

But IRC channels are pretty ephemeral - IRC channel topics, even more so. Google runs a serious risk of adding a bunch of dead or irrelevant links to their database.

Additionally, what would such a link do? The vast majority of Google visitors do not have an IRC client loaded on their computers - especially not one that plugs into their browser. So most users who get a link to "#slashdot" will click on it and get the standard browser complaint: "Don't know what this is. Do you want to save it, or choose a program to open it?" So even when Google provides a link to a relevant and non-transient IRC channel, most users won't be able to reach it.

- David Stein

Re:Actually...

[KD5YPT]

Perhaps they will have a system that rank the IRCs according to their activity? Kinda like page rank, but instead of links, it uses # of users. And maybe they'll have a java client in Google that allows you to chat in it. On the other hand, google also returns result in Adobe Acrobat format, which some computers might not have the right software to run it. Maybe they would team up with mIRC? Now that would be cool. Or be Mozilla friendly and use Mozilla's own IRC chat client.

Re:Actually...

[RLiegh]

There's tons of Java IRC applets out there, ready to be customized to whatever specifications Google needs. I don't think they would need [or that they should] rely on Chatzilla or mIRC plugins.

Community support

[Short Circuit]

IRC is often used for community support for a product, much like Usenet. Debian used to have a really good IRC support channel, but it's since become hostile to new users.

IRC is often a great place to ask obscure questions, where if you ask on Usenet, you're often a lone voice in the world.

Old idea

[mordejai]

Our friend Brian already thought of that...

Re:Old idea

[Anonymous Coward]

"Our friend"???

I don't even know this Brian character and he's certainly not a friend of mine. You can go ahead and keep your imaginary friends to yourself.

Opting out of archiving

[AndroidCat]

On IRC, how do you set the equivalent of X-NoArchive, which Google does respect?

Anyone that expects that someone won't collect and archive anything they do in a public forum is dreaming, but usually IRC log publishers get accused of breaking netiquette. Should we all add Lamie copyright notices to anything we do on the Internet? (Yes, yes, copyright inherent, stupid, I know. Tell Lamie that.)

Google Searches then get limited

[Anonymous Coward]

The only info Google would have at that point would be A/S/L and breast size.

Re:Perhaps Google can now answer the all-important

[Short Circuit]

A powerful...female...cluster?! ...

Still way too young, though.

This has allready been done

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out bash.org it pretty much sums up IRC archives

That would be awesome cool actually

[Karma Sucks]

For example, I would like to search and browse the chatter on the SUSE acquisition and KDE vs Ximian situation on #gnome @ irc.gimp.org.

If Google could allow me to do that, that would be fantastic.

As an aside, does anyone know of IRC logs for #gnome?

Re:That would be awesome cool actually

[Moraelin]

Knowing irc on the whole, any broad search across all channels would only return noise anyway. I can just see it: Search: "+Ximian +gnome" Top result: "Ximian: ne1 no how 2 do a garden gnome in The Sims?" "*** HornyGurl is now known as Gnome" "Gnome: yeah, do me." "Ximian: asl?" Search: "Linux shell back door" Top result: "LaraCroft shoves her big strap-on up Tux the Linux penguin's back door." "Shell: ROFLMAO!!!" (Continues in descriptive detail over 3 pages.)

Dumb.

[Asprin]

This is the only IRC index that matters.

Why 42?

[dark-br]

Becouse of this

I see a great idea... doomed to fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whether this is the intention or not, I have no idea...

I think they may be using bots to monitor chats for the sole purpose of extracting URLs being spoken about. A way this could be great would be if they simply elevated search rankings of URLs people routinely talked about online.. a way to demote the link farms

The problem is, IRC spam bots were around long before link farms trying to foil PageRank, and in the long run all that would happen would be the effect of link farms magnified even more.

Re:I see a great idea... doomed to fail.

[jasonhamilton]

SearchIRC.com already makes it's database available to http://ircimages.com for URL extraction, but in this case, it looks for graphic URLs.

I could take it a step further and have the server cache the images so that dead links are not displayed, but ... right now I don't think it's a good idea for me to cache all that porn and god know what else :)

Re:I see a great idea... doomed to fail.

[mregit]

I know that users spam IRC channels and topics with urls (usually sounding like porn sites) that contain viruses and trojans. People visit the site, get infected, and their computer is backdoored. Jason, since you run SearchIRC, you can answer - doesn't SearchIRC has some method to filter out most, if not all, dangerous urls?

Re:Perhaps Google can now answer the all-important

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I've only been a casual user since all the crap started (7 years ago! it doesn't seem that long). I occasionally visit channels that I know some old friends still frequent, and I've recently discovered FreeNode. But IRC just isn't fun anymore. All the mIRC exploits (why not just use EPIC or ircii?) and the inane crap that passes for chatting just make me sick.

I remember the sheer excitement of chatting to people overseas when I first started using IRC. Now, most people use it to chat to friends who live in the same town.

Another annoyance is the private messages you constantly get from strangers (with inane "a/s/l?" questions) when you're sitting in a popular channel. Sometimes I just like to sit and chill, and watch the text scroll by. Fending off stupid questions from teenyboppers isn't my idea of fun. And if you don't respond they keep sending them.

Things might be better since MSN/AOL Messenger became popular, but I just mourn for the days when IRC was full of geeks from all over the world having (reasonably) intelligent conversation. Now there are thousands of channels, but none that are really worth frequenting (unless you're into the whole "file-sharing" scene).

private for how long?

[Anonymous Coward]

there doesn't have to be direct collusion. if google releases this tool - then carnivore can tap it like any other source, and your DCC encrypted chat is only private for a matter of time.

and in the case of the NSA, i'd bet against time being sufficient.

Sounds weird

[Kegetys]

I wonder what thats about... If they'd want to start logging & indexing IRC channel discussions, they'd either need some kind of deal with IRC server operators to get traffic from them, or just have their own googlebot on every IRC channel. The second option is quite hard: Most servers have a limitation on how many channels you can be on, for example at most of IRCnet its 11 channels I believe. And theres 46600 channels currently on IRCnet. They'd need 4237 connections open to get in all of those, the IRCops might not like that and would propably G-Line google.com to block access. Not to mention that many IRC channels would propably ban the bot too...

IRC?

[hatless]

I find it hard to believe Google really wants to index IRC. The occasional open-source developer discussion aside, it's a wasteland. My guess is that they're experimanting with indexing and archiving text chat in general with an eye toward indexing things like internal corporate chat for their intranet appliances and things like "celebrity" Q+A sessions for the public.

IRC gets them a good data feed for experimenting since it's not burdened by corporate Terms of Service, has an open protocol, and has a good range of content to work with: A/S/L sessions, serious discussions, bots, and everything in between.

Re:IRC?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't you love to find PATRICK NAUGHTON'S chat with that undercover agent, for example?

I would!

My guess: Page ranking improvement

[Anonymous Coward]

Everybody who has involved to IRC channels knows that on active channels you get bombarded with tons of "useful" and useful links by your fellow chatters all the time and I know, based on experience with our own website, that when you see an unexplainable increase on your site very quickly from users that don't have HTTP_REFERER, its normally due a "runaway link", people suddenly posting link to their IRC channels, IM buddies, emailing them, etc.

No one, except IRC spammers of course, post "spam links" to channels and by looking at the popularity of links appearing on channels, you can determine quite well popularity of the page.

So, to get the quickest idea of "what's hot _RIGHT NOW_", go to IRC channels and start following the links. Usually even the fastest news services follow this trend slower, at least 4-10 hours behind of the phenomenom when it started.

Proof that slashdot moderators are TRAITORS!

[Anonymous Coward]

You ungrateful prats!

Sci Fi Ref Re:When will this end?

[kisrael]

2095:

"Google, is there a god?"

"There is now."

Re:Sci Fi Ref Re:When will this end?

[dillon_rinker]

The researcher, frightened, moved to hit the power switch. A bolt of lightning pierced the ceiling, killing the researcher and fusing the relay shut...

Google + IRC = Better Ranking method?

[jasonhamilton]

The odd thing is that people are reporting the robot joining channels, doing /whois on users and more. What value could the /whois info from random users have? The only thing one can safely say about this whole situation is: Google is doing some testing on IRC. Personally, this is how I look at it: Google ranks websites according to many criteria. Ranging from keyword density, keywords, text placement on the page, to incoming links and what the text within the links say. What use could IRC have? It is possible that active topics that are being discussed in real time could be used to help boost rankings towards subjects that are currently hot topics, similar to how google currently temporarily boosts the scoring of newly indexed pages to the google index. This is of course, pure speculation. As others no doubt have already thought -- actual postings of private user information would be useless, as ChatScan had several million in funding couldn't pull it off with the IRC community two years ago. However, using that information to derive popular subjects might. OTOH, google can likely gleam similar information from the millions of searches users enter into their search engine each day.

Works for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Put it in quotes and it works for me.

The problem is that Google is so freaking overflooded with junk, fake porn/warez sites linking to eBay, and other assorted shit that even the best-framed search leaves you digging for a gold watch in an outhouse.

Examples for generating hueristics

[Catskul]

Maybe they use IRC to find what out what garbage is, then de-page-rank any page that has the same garbage on it as the irc channels.

Interesting

[sokk]

This can prove to be very useful. If I have some problems doing something, or get an error in Linux I can search the linux-channels for a quick answer.

A lot of people get support from IRC, and now it's possible to "do a google" on a channel before asking. People use IRC because of the instant feedback, and the ability to do real-time troubleshooting. Because of this a lot of questions that get answers on IRC, never gets published on the www/forums -- so different people ask the same question over and over again.

Google has always been an innovator. Keep up the good work google!

Re:Interesting

[jasonhamilton]

Try something like this

Re:Interesting

[sokk]

I visited the site, but it only index channel names. Not discussions. Eg. you can't search for: "Cannot open /dev/dsp" +quake 3 I should've mentioned it; but I meant searching past discussions.

Bad thing

[Anonymous Coward]

Once google indexes IRC networks, the software pirates and porno pirates will be shut down.

Argh!

Re:Who's Desktop?

[zhenlin]

More curious is the fact that there are users pretending to be from microsoft.com.

I know that there was one, pretended to be pc5215.redmond.corp.microsoft.com... He couldn't make up his mind whether he was a Windows apologist, a Mac admirer, a BSD zealot or a Linux flamer...

In a way, it [having a certain nickname, or DNS address] is flamebaiting without even saying anything.

Re:Google search for IRC Channel & Network Con

[zhenlin]

Clearly, a place where open proxies are allowed to connect to IRC servers...

Or a Windows dominated userland, all infected and controlled by various groups...

Or just some annoying people who seem to have too little knowledge about real hackers, past and present. [It's sad really, many of the talented ones here are raised to be the next Bill Gates, the proprietor of the next generation of poorly implemented closed source software]

Ho ho

[Perianwyr Stormcrow]

finally I have a source for the newest and most horrible mind-destroying image weapons ever created.

which information is really stored on irc servers

[Anonymous Coward]

i wonder.

theres usersignon and offs incl. hostnames if not bounced and some xdcc stuff they are not searching in i suppose. topics bla. the real info is in logs but often never released to any "public" eye.
cheers

Indexing URLs, not conversations

[lordscarlet]

From the information I've seen, Google is capturing URLs in channels, not the actual conversations.

Try again

[Anonymous Coward]

Try again. This time, actually look at the results. 3 of the first 10 do not contain the phrase.

If it "works for you" perhaps you are one of those who is satisfied when you go to Subway and ask for the chicken sub but get a ham sub 3 out of 10 times.

"The problem is that Google is so freaking overflooded with junk, fake porn/warez sites linking to eBay, and other assorted shit that even the best-framed search leaves you digging for a gold watch in an outhouse."

Yet, Altavista and others have no problem with 100% relevance in answers.

Google is planning...

[bs_02_06_02]

to add chat rooms. It makes sense. AOL, MSN, Yahoo all have them.

Reading through most of the comments, everyone thinks that Google is indexing IRC. It doesn't make sense. The amount of useful info is so small and short lived that it doesn't make sense. Bots, lurkers, filetraders. I admit that there are links to harvest. I think that if they can parse free text, they could start indexing topics, but then they run the same risk as indexed blogs. An impassioned minority (or majority) could sway any attempt at indexing. Script kiddies without drivers' licenses would stay home, trying to see what they could do to Google w/ a series of bots in an IRC channel.
It just doesn't seem like Google to want to get into that kind of mess.

I think they want to compete with MSN/AOL/YAHOO chat rooms. Start from scratch and build a better mousetrap.
Why not just re-use IRC? IRC has a lot of great features, but also a lot of lurkers, warez bots, spammers, AOL'ers, pedophiles. They can wreak a lot of havoc. I think google is concerned about these things, and is sniffing around, trying to figure out how best to avoid that?

**** For those of you complaining about the slow erosion of anonymity, why? What do you need anonymity for? If you say free speech, think about that the next time you look at political candidates.

Re:Google is planning...

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. They are probably trying to make their contextual advertising work for chat.

Re:Google is planning...

[bs_02_06_02]

Everyone tries to relate to advertising revenue. I'm happy to announce that I don't pay attention to commercials. If someone comes out with a good product, and I hear about it through word-of-mouth, that's all I need. I do my own research. I watch prices. I know when things are on sale.
I channel surf, I hit mute, I fast-forward, etc to avoid commercials. I hate them. I don't support many companies because of the way they advertise. I vote with my dollar.
My internet habits are much the same way. If you have pop-ups, or anything else annoying, "Bye." Salon.com can rot in hell. I don't care for the leftist slant. I don't care for the whiny news. As far as TV goes, I don't want to watch whatever junk they want me to see. Sorry, I don't want any of it (commercials).
If someone has a chat window and starts offering advertisements that I find instrusive, forget it. I'm not there.
TBS, TNT, and other cable stations are advertising in the corner of the screen during the show. I quit watching those stations. They're not on my program guide for DirecTV anymore. They gave me a choice, watch, or don't watch.
I do think that Google has their head screwed on straight. For the most part, they've weathered the storm of public opinion, criticism, and they've stayed above ground financially.
I think that the public will watch Google carefully in the future. For one, I want to see how socially responsible be with their data. They have a lot of data they've gotten from their search engine. They need to be careful. I do not want this data landing in the wrong hands (Microsoft).

IT all boils down to the same problem

[geekoid]

we need a government funded, not ran, media outlet.

Or

we need the FCC to start giving money to the media outlets to run the News.

It used to be that the FCC gave buckets of money to stations so they would have a news agency. traditionally a money losing situation for the stations. however once that money got pulled, stations needed to make money, so now we see all the fluff meaningless crap. meanwhile stories about political situation, and Iraq get buried cause the don't make money.

Before peopel start ranting about government control and censorship, plenty of damn news came out of Vietnam. If you want a conspiracy, it would be the pulling of moany that caused a lot of big corporate and government scandles to only briefly see the light of day. Unless it involved a penis.

Advogato

[Cardinal]

This would be an approach strikingly similar to that in the Advogato trust metric.

Re:Advogato

[platypus]

Damn yeah, I swear I've never read that page. I added the metrics aspect as an afterthought (to rule out responses which point to the obvious simplification as a flaw).

Useful

[philipkd]

This seems useful to me. Back when I did more programming, if I had a perl question or what not, I'd first go to IRC and ask around, and one time out of four, I'd get a decent response. I think it would be nice to search through stuff like that.

Already Google is used for searching archived tech support in the form of forums; web forums however are not the end all be all for that kind of stuff.

+1 Usefulish

Re:Who's Desktop?

[Anonymous Coward]

being user@wholesaleniggers.com was pretty good bait!

The reason for botkicking

[fireboy1919]

Normally, unauthorized bots are identified and kicked specifically because they're spammers - that is, the bots are designed to advertise a message to the rest of the channel.

The general goal of any channel is self-preservation (among other things), which is invariably hampered by spambots, who annoy the regular attenders.

AI bots that talk can be just as annoying, which is why channel ops like to control them - to ensure that they follow the purpose of the channel.

Where do listening bots fit into this? They would not hamper channel preservation (unless they channel was doing something illegal), and would not annoy people with questions. I doubt most channel operators would mind. And it's not like a single bot costs a lot of bandwidth, even if it's in every channel on a network.

Nobody seems to mind when I jump into a channel, do nothing, and let my logger listen away.

IRC is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

IRC is obsolete and completely insecure. There is no justification whatsoever for still using IRC in 2003. It is like using telnet instead of ssh - stupid. Check out SILC to see what IRC wishes it could be!

Re:IRC is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

SILC is not anonymous. Try IIP instead.

spam-detection?

[zcat_NZ]

I haven't bothered to read all the comments yet, but the first page was all about how -bad- IRC is.

Well duh. Join many channels, and you get spammed with porno-page links. Leave the channel and you get a few more. What if Google are joining channels just to see who spams them, then ranking DOWN pages advertised that way. There's no easy way for google to detect artificial link farms, referer spamming or whatever, but it's a fair guess that many the pages being promoted this way will also be spammed on IRC. Google's results will improve a lot if they downgrade or remove such pages.

They might also count channel-topic links equivalent to ordinary web-page links. I seriously doubt they'd bother looking at channel text, although I guess they could look out for links they don't already have to seed the crawlers.

Re:Perhaps Google can now answer the all-important

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the turning point for me was when the teenybopper saturation reached the point where they'd come onto development channels that they had a minor interest in just to hang out, or because they knew one of the people there. So I'd be trying to discuss code, at the same time some kids were sitting around gabbing about the mall, as if one needed an additional avenue to discuss such esosteric subjects. Most annoyingly was that inevitably one would have a female sounding nic, which means that they were never, ever, booted off.

No proper Format

[kyndig]

I have reviewed several logs of IRC chat rooms, and have not yet seen a good log format. Reading something like:

klax: So what'd you eat for dinner
bryan: Does anyone know how to recompile a kernel?
ray: I had french fries and a beer

Provides little to no format. Google currently cache's PDF files in their cache; and should your search term return a pdf file, all your keywords are highlighted. I would imagine that google would use this same approach for their log format system, yet even this does not provide a friendly browsable view. I don't have any recomendation for a proper format, as I have not seen any good formated logs.

Fixing Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's all a part of fixing the irrelevant links in google. Anyone been on IRC lately can testify on irrelevant messages sent to all users about spam/virus websites. It would be easy to:
1. Get the message
2. Filter the junk/identify the URL
3. Remove URL from Google index as irrelevant
4. Build a cleaner Google.

Of course this can mean that people take advanage of the system and remove links they want from Google, unless of course they have a way of identifying fraud.

Easy

[Aero Leviathan]

//mode $chan +s

IRC Topics

[mregit]

Google runs a serious risk of adding a bunch of dead or irrelevant links to their database. Additionally, what would such a link do? The vast majority of Google visitors do not have an IRC client loaded on their computers..

Go to http://SearchIRC.com

Search for a channel by keyword in the name or topic, just like you'd search for a website on Google.

SearchIRC gathers data constantly on many networks, hourly for the small nets. (But don't think its a matter of joining every network and running /list - its far, far more complicated than that.) They have a freshness rating for every channel, they tell you if its new or established, and they have recently added reviews so you can see what others think about the channel too.

You can most definitely join the channel right from the website. Click on the name of the channel and a java client will launch and bring you right into the chat. If you have an irc:// compliant client like mIRC on your computer, that you prefer to use, just click on the "irc://" to join.

By cataloging all known IRC channels and letting users search through them in much the same familiar manner as Google finds websites, then giving users one click access to those channels, SearchIRC effectively eliminates barriers that separate IRC nets.

That means, access to 700,000+ chatrooms can be found on one website, and even the most inexperienced user can join with one click.

IRC has always shown very strong, steady growth. Since the closure of MSN, the userbase of IRC has gone from 900,000 concurrant connections to 1,200,000 - 1,400,000 connections - that is users on IRC, right now. This number varies little 24/7. Even considering bots, its fair to say that approximately 24 million people per day use IRC worldwide.

IRC is not a "small" part of the internet... but the rules on IRC are not the same as the web.... as so many have found out. A fair number of very well funded websites have made assumptions about IRC, and found themselves thrown on the dot.com funeral pyre for their arrogance.

As a long time IRC junkie, and a big fan of SearchIRC, I am watching this with interest.

Use it as a negative database

[Chuck Chunder]

They could improve their search engine by taking what they learn from IRC and removing anything similar from their web database.

Something does not jive.

[Anonymous Coward]

I gave up using IRC.

When other people asked questions that needed
an answer longer than a few sentences, one used
to point them TO www.google.com

I know for a fact, no one wants to type out a paper to answer a question that deserves a howto.

I also agree with an above poster who said something like, "google should concentrate on eliminating crap from its databases."

oh gee MORE idiots!

[LostboyTNT]

Once of the things I've always enjoyed about irc, is you have to have at least some intelligence to be there. (in most cases, or at least know someone with intelligence to walk you through it)

Although this has been dropping significantly in recent years, (java based web chat's) it still has been at least a few drops of chlorine in the online gene pool.
Anyone who has been on AOL's chat, and on IRC can verify.

Gee I can't wait.. 10 billion script kiddies flooding the undernet. (what joy! typing !seen wazzabi, and get flooded off with 'I don't know who wazzabi is')

IRC Hint number 1> if you don't know what it is, don't use it, go back to your AOL chat room.

Re:Google search for IRC Channel & Network Con

[Anonymous Coward]

oh... so that's what you do all day.

well that explains a lot actually