[lug] What is a bot?

[Scott A. Herod]

David Porter wrote:
> 
> Hi, I am a Linux newbie so go easy on me. :)
> 
> I am wanting to learn shell scripting, and have found
> an ISP that will give me a shell account (Fairplay
> Communications).  But there usage agreement at
> http://www.fpcc.net/policies/aup.php3 says that IRC
> bots are prohibited.  I kind of know what IRC is (some
> kind of chat rooms I think), but what is a IRC bot?  I
> just want to know so that I don't get kicked off
> fpcc.net because I was ignorant. :)
> 
> Brett

A program that listens to a IRQ (chat) channel and acts like
a person, responding to various messages.  (Open up xemacs
and play with the Psychoanalyst program under Apps/Games menu
to see an example.)

Apparently some of the worms used to harvest machines for 
DDoS attacks use IRQ bots to listen for commands on IRQ
channels to do their dirty work.

Scott