Instead of learning some Arabic, I spent time coding up stuff for rcirc, my current IRC client for Emacs.
I also fixed a bug in the interplay between two Oddmuse modules.
It felt good to be coding again. 😄
I also learnt that there *are* public logs of the EmacsChannel – on http://www.irclogs.ws/freenode/emacs.html. It seems that people have asked them to stop, but their logs are still online. Obfuscation is done very cheaply, with no care taken to obfuscate nicks in the messages themselves. And clearly, sometimes people can be identified by the content of their messages alone, without the need to mention any nicks at all. The best thing is to have no public logs.
http://www.irclogs.ws/freenode/emacs.html
#Software
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
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Not only do they have the logs, but they claim copyright on them too...
– HenrikEnberg 2005-12-10 15:20 UTC
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I sent them the following message, now:
I haven’t heard back from you on the subject of your publishing logs of #emacs. You also claim copyright on these logs. What exactly are you copyrighting, here? Certainly the copyright to my words belongs to me, your logs cannot but be a derivative work. How do you argue that you have the right to make derivative works and the right to redistribute them?
I really think it is time for you to take down those #emacs logs.
– Alex Schroeder 2005-12-10 16:13 UTC
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Here’s what they wrote back:
Hello Sir,
The copyright it’s left by the webpage designer, it’s
on the design, it is definetely not on your words 😄
The bot will no longer log the channel, as for the
existing logs, they are cached anyway, I will improve
the anonymization on the speaked names where they
still appear. Is it ok for you?
And this is what I’m going to answer:
Too bad you think it’s easier to further anonymize the logs instead of just taking them down, since a determined researcher who already has a hunch can still identify people by their writing style, the context, etc. On #emacs we often talk about politics, for example. Some of the people are communists or anarchists. Now imagine them applying for a job requiring a security clearing and their employer knowing about their interest in Emacs, and somebody knowing that they hang out on freenode. It might be possible to identify them. I don’t like it.
– Alex Schroeder 2005-12-11 10:18 UTC