[lug] What is a bot?

[Kirk Rafferty]

On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 10:21:14AM -0700, 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. :)

Hi David,

I'm a Fairplay drone, so here's the quasi-official reply:
IRC bots started off as little automated programs for IRC that would (for
example) look for people posting frequently asked questions.  Using bots,
IRC members wouldn't have to keep answering the same questions over and over,
the bots would detect and automatically answer the question.  There are
other uses for bots, but this one sticks in my mind the most.  I don't do
IRC anymore, so I don't know if there are still such bots.

Nowadays, bots are generally a bad idea.  They consume CPU cycles, and
many of them are security problems.   Also, some bots are nefarious and
are written to cause havoc, or to flood IRC channels with nonsense.  Some
send strings of text out that cause some IRC clients to disconnect.

To address your last concern, if you're running an IRC bot, you're going
to know it.  Unless, of course, you're running binaries or code from an
unknown source.  And you'd never do that, right? :-)

Hope that helps!

-k