Bitcoin Forum

cdecker's logs: http://veritas.maximilianeum.ch/bitcoin/irc/logs/

cdecker (and also myself) would like to offer web-based linking and displaying of chat discussions and one liners from the Bitcoin IRC channel.

I have chat history as far back as about mid-July but there are some gaps (from disconnections/etc) that I'd like for others to help combine to create a most complete data set for preparing the history.  Any help is appreciated.

I will update this post with more informations momentarily.

If anyone can publish or link to chat logs that they have, I can help to prepare them into a master log data set for use in this project.

While I'm not really concerned about the privacy of such a log site, since it's an open for everyone chat, I do understand people that are questioning whether it should be done. So before collecting the logs from previous months we should clarify whether the users want the archive and if we should extend it backwards in time (collecting logs).

For me personally I'd like to start from lets say the 01st September since then we'd all have a say in the issue, and we'd just forget about the logs that were created before this agreement :D

So please just tell us how you feel about the archive  8)

I would rather it not be archived.

I have no issues with public logging.

I'd rather it not be publicly archived, but if it does happen, there needs to be a clear disclaimer so that anybody joining the channel knows that they should expect no privacy for the conversation there.

There would of course be the way to simply redact all lines that contain the usernames that chose not to participate. There would be a limit above which the logs become completely useless but if there are a few people who decide they can't be hold to what they say in a public chat it could be a simple solution.

So far we have 3 pro and 2 con, not really decisive. I'll add an onjoin notice to the bot pointing to this thread and should it go through I'll replace it with a notification and the URL of the archive, so that everybody is warned  :)

The archive should be excluded from search engines.

robots exclusion: noted :D

I do not object to logging of #bitcoin-dev. In fact, sometimes I wish a real-time log was available when I get disconnected during a conversation. And sometimes it's nice to go back and read a prior conversation.

But I understand that some are uncomfortable with a log being kept, despite it being a public channel that anyone can secretly log anytime. So redacting those member's lines is a good compromise, as long as it's made obvious each line that was redacted. Don't show who's line it was; just indicate that someone unknown said something unknown, so there won't appear to be confusing one-sided conversations.

It is fairly simple to have raw uncut logs and to present them with a script that handles censoring nicknames as desired.  However, additionally, anyone else can anonymously host uncensored logs using tor and never reveal their identity.  However, for a community-based effort as a kind of service simply to prepare previous discussions to be available, it should be fairly acceptable to censor a nickname, or possibly even to by default randomize all nicknames for the sake of anonymity for everyone.

I'm all for it. As previously posted, I simply don't want it to be indexed by any search engines.

I'm entirely indifferent.  I don't talk much in the dev chat anyway.  Archive away! ;)

Its irc!!!  -- loggers and idlers have set up camp here for over 20 years.  no one should have any expectation of privacy on irc.  Its disconcerting that people are now beginning to believe the internet is somehow safe now.  While I'm certainly all for the loggers removing personally identifiable information (phone numbers, email addresses, etc.) from the logs, no one should assume they are protected.

I have no problem with logging.

Definitely useful. An archive would be amazing. Do it!  ;D ;D ;D ;D

there are some difficulties with that, though. people will address the 'unknown people' in their messages... they'll make references to what they say in such a way as to enable a determined observer to put together a picture of who the unknown person is and the gist of what they're saying. as a result, it seems to me that trying to redact the logs will be a futile exercise, and only give the redactees a false feeling of 'ooh my messages are not getting logged so nobody knows i was there and what i was saying'.

so at the end of the day, the chanops will make a decision one way or the other, which would be either (a) have no logging, and if you don't like it, tough, or (b) have public logging with notice in topic, and if you don't like it, tough.

or (c) public anonymous logging with Tor and nothing can stop it, so tough ^_^

Of course, if anyone does establish such a service on Tor I will probably be first to blame.  I don't mind.

So far we have the following standing:

• For logging: 8
• Abstained: 2
• Against logging: 2

Strangely most of the people that agree on logging are from coming from IRC. In some cases I was unclear on whether you're for or against logging so there might be an error on my side in a few cases, so please correct me :-)

As for the censoring, I'll do my best to come up with regular expressions to wipe personal data from the logs (telephone numbers, usernames that requested it, ...), but I can't guarantee that it'll work perfectly :P

Feel free to replace all of those with my Bitcoin address and encourage people to send me things.  8)

Don't really have an opinion on the matter, but it might be nice if people were able to opt themselves out of logging if they don't wish to have their sent lines archived

I just noticed http://stuff.caurea.org/irssi/freenode/%23bitcoin-dev/2010/

It's silly to be against logging imo. Even if I didn't want it recorded, since I can't stop it, we might as well have a complete accurate record. Mark me as pro logging.

I can very well understand why some people don't feel comfortable about IRC logs.  Sometimes on IRC you write silly stuffs that you're not pride off.  Not necessarly offended things, but just silly remarqs that might may have you look dumb.

However, requesting for a deletion of a particular user might be too much either.  So I'm ok with logs, but I'd like the log not to makes my nick appear too easily.  What about using a rot13 filter on the nicks of people who ask so ?

Well I'll do :  if you log this IRC chann, please rot13 my nickname.

unu, fher, naq gura fbzrbar nccyl n fpevcg (ternfrzbaxrl?) gb ebg13 ntnva ^_^

Doesn't matter,  I just want not to make things too easy.  Using rot13, at least my nick won't be indexed by Google or other robots.

The log files are not indexed by search engine indexers, at least not the big ones who respect the "Robot: nofollow, noindex" headers so there shouldn't be a huge problem.

I suggest that if you are concerned about what you say being associated with your identity than you should put forth the effort to conceal or make difficult/impossible to determine your identity and not require or expect others to do the work for you.  Besides, if you already have said something that would affect you in some way, then regardless of the public logs, other privately established logs can be used and you will have no recourse.

It can be argued that a public log makes information finding easier, and yes, that's the point.  Information wants to be free.

Previously I have quoted insightful commentary from others that had sparked further discussion amongst the forum community and possibly the rest of the world.  The ideas/discussions that have been initially limited to the IRC community due to lack of replication throughout other communication models could be expanded to the web to provider others to express their insights, etc as well.

I know very well how to hide my identity if I want to.  I have several nicknames that I use on different forums/websites, depending on how anonymous I want to be on that forum/website.  The thing is that if sometimes I can write silly things, some times (hopefully), I can also write smart things that I may be willing to be able to claim for paternity, in some future.  That's why I like the rot13 function :  it hides the original nick but it's easy to show what it is really, if we just let people know that it is a rot13-ed word.

Now, I don't exactly "request" you to do it, since I know very well that I have no power to coerce you to do it.  I also know that some other program miht just be doing it without us even knowing it.  I just think it might be some kind of courtesy.  If you don't do it, it won't be the end of the word for me, I don't care that much.


Masking the nicks of people is not exactly hiding information.  What is important is what people say, not who actually said it and with which pseudonymous.

I guess we all agree that as soon as we write something in the channel or here on the forum, it will be associated with our pseudonym (nickname), so yes we could add additional barriers to recognize the person, heck we could even replace all the nicknames by their Numeric ID, and the discussions would still be meaningfull, however such a mechanism will be hard (if not impossible) to implement, and buggy.

I will of course remove all mappings from pseudonym to IP address (IRC Join, Part, Whois, ...) but I guess keeping the nicknames in place would be acceptable for everybody, unless there are more people requesting rot13 on the nicknames, I'm always open to suggestions ^^

i clicked a link from the bot to 'tell us what you think about [the loggging]'  i was expecting a poll, but i dont see one, so:

i'm very, very, much against it, and am totally amazed anyone would be logging such a thing to the web for countless obvious reasons i'm not going to state for the same reasons

Well, I think I understand what you mean, and I didn't thought about that first.  But you're right, for some reason that we can't really say here,  making logs is a very bad idea.

I seem to miss the point. Please tell us these reasons to either convince us to change our minds or create a public debate as to why they are relevant :-)

To put it simply : if you log IRC, you're working for Big Brother.

Wikipedia seems to have similiar controversies (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IRC/Personal_views_regarding_IRC#No_clear_dispute_resolution_path_for_IRC)
Also (http://www.irseek.com/blog/?p=3): comment (http://www.irseek.com/blog/?p=3#comment-48)
See (http://blog.fealdia.org/2008/09/17/public-irc-logging/) brraaaiiins (http://www.splitbrain.org/blog/2007-05/27-logging_an_irc_channel)

No I only have a smaller brother, and he's not listening in *ROFL*

I agree to be archived. And I think that everyone should be archived. It is public place!

When you talk with a friend in the street, people around could be listening to your conversation.  So it's a public place.

And yet, would you agree if governments woud decide to put mics everywhere in the street, so that all "public" conversations would be recorded and archived ??

An imaginary conversation on an IRC channel :

<Alice>Yeah...  I had fun last night.
<Bob>So you went to the party, finally ? Have you seen your old friend John ?
<Alice>Yeah, omg.  I drunk too much and when I saw him, I couldn't resist and we did bad things.
<Bob>Don't tell anything more, Alice.  You know, this chan is archived !
<Alice>Really ?  Oh, sh..it !

Since anyone can join the channel anyway, it's not so much the log that bothers me but the fact that its indexed by search engines.. someone who may not know about someone's presence there could find out, learning something they didn't know.

you can stop all the important search engines with Disallow:  /path/to/logs   in your /robots.txt


also hiding the IP addresses was really nice, thanks

I think, that the public IRC channel and the real street are quite different things.
Even in the SL world streets look more like real, there is communication distance.
On IRC you always know a number of persons who can see your public messages.
People should behave accordingly and responsibly!.. Or just use private messages.

I can not be sure that this is not happening now.

It's not a matter of good behavior, it's a matter of having a place where you can talk without thinking all the time of what would happen if my boss reads what I am writting.   There are a lot of people that I don't want them to know what I like, what I do on casual time, what are my political beliefs, and so on.  I'm not exhibitionnist and therefore I don't want everyone to know everything about me, or even about my pseudonym : I'd like my pseudo to carry some reputation on cyberspace so even for my electronic identity, I want it to have some place where it can be used relatively anonymously.

[/quote]

So you can use I2P IRC or something similar. May be I should not save this page because it is public place? :-\

Well I'd be sorry to have to resort to that.  IRC was a nice place where people could chat without Google recording everything.  Now people want to log every single chat room...  pff.

I understand your feelings, but it's already happening. We should adapt and live with it. :-\

grondilu, imagine that the IRC channel is being monitored by your government or whomever else that you are afraid of finding certain informations that may have found similar information from public logs.  In that case, you may want to consider what type of information you publish to the Internet.


Not "every single chat room," just the public Bitcoin one.

Well it's after all a dev channel, so probably we should create a public discussion channel that would not be logged. As a developer myself I find it quite usefull to refer to earlier technical discussions, so a single link can replace having the discussion all over again :-)

Anybody against the channel split?

I'm fine with a split of the channel.

The topic for #bitcoin-dev might be something like :

"This is the *logged* channel about bitcoin developpement.  For relaxed non-logged chat about bitcoin, join #bicoin-..."

#bitcoin-support ?

Perhaps it may be useful to have a separate channel in which newbies can join to ask faq and to not interrupt or interfere with discussions/conversations of established users.

Ok, I'll be releasing the logs starting from October 1st, I have them from 1st September but since it was undecided then I'll leave them out as a grace period :D

So here you go: http://veritas.maximilianeum.ch/bitcoin/irc/logs/

Comments and requests are always welcome :D

Cdecker, that was great when you said and did "I will of course remove all mappings from pseudonym to IP address (IRC Join, Part, Whois, ...) but I guess keeping the nicknames in place would be acceptable for everybody"   but now they're back in the link you just posted, did you change your mind or was that an oversight?

Oops, I'm incredibly sorry, I will ofcourse remove the ips. I've forgotten about them, but since the logs are not indexed by the search engines it shouldn't have too many repercussion.

Ok, I created a regular expression to replace IPs so they should not appear anymore. If the replacement does not work, please tell me and I'll fix it as fast as possible :D

This is not a valid comparison at all. No one is talking about stealing milions/billions of dollars to spy on the same people you stole from and using the data to selectively attack, imprison, rape, and even kill people.

The comparison would be: A person records audio on the street with their own resources and puts it on the web for others to hear. And no, I have no problem whatsoever with this.

Well, I have.

Although it may be legal, I think it would be gross/rude.  Actually I saw once a reportage about a photographer would took picture of people in the subway.  He had to make sure people don't find out he was photographing.  I wouldn't feel comfortable doing this, personnaly.

Maybe it's legal, maybe it's not, I don't know.  Google had some trouble in EU with its Google cars, so there is definitely an issue with capturing "public" data.

There are things beyond law :  habits, politeness, and well-behavior.  Capturing data in the street, images or sound, is very much controversal, in my opinion.

I have no problem with beauracrats being filmed while on the job. The fact they are starting to crack down on people for filming those who are supposed to be "servants" is proof that it is a good thing. Go to youtube and search for "police brutality" to see why more cameras in public is a valuable tool. Live streaming to the internet is the best protection you have against corrupt public officials.