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IRCOPs are reading private messages aka SpamFilter |
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Written by MindForge Team
Wednesday, 14 March 2007 23:54
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Lets start with some accusation we sometimes hear:
It is true that there are IRCds (IRC server software) that allow eavesdropping on private conversation. It is also true that there are modules that add this functionality to IRCds that normally do not have this. We here at MindForge give you a clear statement and a promise on this: We are not using and will never be using such features. Any server admin who would install such software would be kicked from our team and his server removed from our network. Such features are unethical, unfair and totally against the idea MindForge is pursuing. Yet, we are facing quite a number of threats that make our lives unpleasant and more importantly your chat experience on MindForge less enjoyable. Here are just a few: Spam This is by far the main source of anger. People who think that an IRC network is an ideal place to pest people with weblinks to dubious pages. Links often leading to porn, virus or trojan ridden software and pages meant for personal gain. We also very often see links to other IRC networks and users trying to draw our faithful MindForge users away. Insults / Propaganda / Harassing Actions or statements that affront other people is a sensitive topic. Often it depends on your personal taste or mindset but sometimes it is just beyond any open mindedness. For example Nazi glorification, racial hate, discrimination etc. It surely is difficult to find an appropriate rate here but we reserve the right to judge whether a statement is appropriate or not. We are always open to discussions and feedback here but we feel it is necessary to prevent certain things entirely. Deliberate disturbances Faking official network services, flooding channels with crap just for the fun of it, overtaking channels or nick names are all examples of deliberate disturbances. Why people think such stuff is fun is beyond our understanding, sadly it happens on a quite regular basis. We see it as our duty to protect you from this as far as possible On a network with several thousand users and channels it is simply not possible to cope with such threats manually. This would require an enormous amount of man power and time and, believe us, is no fun at all. Consequently we need fully automated helpers that deal with such threats. The most important and efficient weapon here is called spamfilter. This is a fully automated feature built in the IRC server software. It basically triggers on predefined words or sentences and reacts upon them. The reaction can be simply blocking the words, killing or even banning the offender. The spamfilter can trigger on all sort of messages on IRC, be it a message in a channel, a notice or even a private message. This does not mean that somebody is actually reading or receiving the message, it is just an automatic reaction upon certain trigger words. For example we could add the phrase “Buy Viagra online” to the spamfilter and each time the phrase is recognized a kill for the user would be the consequence. As the spamfilter cannot discern between legitimate conversation and spam, it would also kill when you ask your buddy “where do you buy your Viagra online?”. False positives may happen but in total the gain from this measure is far greater. Again, we do not eavesdrop on your conversation but on the contrary strife to give you a pleasant experience on MindForge. If you have any questions about the spamfilter or want to discuss about certain trigger words please feel free to see us in #MindForge and have a chat.
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| Last Updated on Saturday, 24 March 2007 00:36 |