
IRC logs from the beginning of the Gulf War (1991) - cantbecool
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/Gulf-War/desert-storm/
======
Houshalter
This is surprisingly interesting. I just picked a random log and found this:

    
    
       <Swan/+report> test to see if infoserver is echoing 
       messages to group +war.  well all this info is probably old.
         The iraqis caused an oil spill 8-10 miles long and a 
       couple miles wide.  It's 12 times the size of that caused 
       by the exxon valdeez.  It's not known if wells are actively 
       pumping into the gulf right now, or if they just dumped 
       stored reserves.  If they're pumping at max capacity, it'll 
       get bigger by a factor every 3 days.  in other words it 
       will be 13 times the size of the exxon valdeez in 3 days, 
       14 in 6, 15 in 9.  (I realize I said that wrong).  That's a 
       worst case.  It's not possible to overstate how concerned 
       Bush seemed by this.  I think he aged a few years last 
       night.  the spill is not military significant, but 
       ecologically its a nightmare of course.  There is some 
       concern about water problems, the oil might threaten 
       desalination plants.  Yesterday the weather was much better 
       over iraq, so they set a record for the # of sorties in a 
       single day.  2700 I think.  they launched 2 missiles at 
       saudi arabia today, and 7 at israel.  (scuds).  One hit in 
       israel, lightly wounding a bunch of people, killing 1.  1 
       person died in saudi.  Patriots knocked out a whole bunch 
       of them.  I just heard from Cheneys mouth that Bush has 
       something planned to deal with the oil spill.  --mcneil 
       lehrer

~~~
jdong
This message seems to be way too long for IRC.

edit: I really don't get why people are downvoting this, the message appears
to have at least 1298 characters.

~~~
hyborg787
consecutive lines from the same sender are collapsed into a single message,
double spaces are where new lines should be.

~~~
jdong
Makes sense, though I don't think that's the standard log format for any
client.

------
Asparagirl
File #10 has an Israeli IRC user checking in moments after a SCUD missile
hits:

    
    
      <Ran> Is there anybody there? I am fine. 
      Just got the damn gas mask off. Sorry
    

A minute later he/she reports that Tel Aviv was hit, source being "my ears".

IRC, beating the TV networks since at least 1991...

~~~
xelfer
I miss how massive IRC used to be. I've been on the same network since 1996.
We're now at around 350 users down from the 6-8k we used to have back then.
I've tried other networks and they all seem dead all the time.

~~~
Pacabel
A lot of the decline was due to people being driven away, directly or
indirectly, by tyrannical ops.

A given channel, or even entire networks, would often start out pretty free.
Dissenting discussion and arguments were allowed, if not encouraged. Users
could hold and share their own beliefs without fear of repercussion. It was
generally a fun experience. The channel or network would see growth.

But as the community became larger and more established, certain users would
often end up becoming ops, and they'd start to enforce their own beliefs upon
the entire community. People would start getting kicked or banned
unnecessarily for very minor "violations", which most often involved just
holding a different opinion than an op.

These kicked or banned users wouldn't come back, those users who liked them
would have less incentive to return, and eventually there'd be more people
getting booted or leaving than there would be new people coming and returning.
The channel withers. If this happens with enough channels, the network
withers. As networks wither, IRC itself withers.

~~~
stinos
I always thought major reason for the decline was all the other alternatives
coming up back then (msn messenger and the likes) and more recently things
that aren't really an alternative but steal time anyway (facebook and the
likes) ?

~~~
gcb0
hum... none of those really does what irc does.

~~~
stinos
well no they don't (though hipchat etc comes close for teams etc), but that
doesn't seem to withhold people from using it as a (crippled) replacement

------
pling
IRC has always been wonderful in times of trouble. I'm really surprised that
people have abandoned it over the last decade.

I had to hit IRC when Sept 11th went down because I was stuck in a facility
with no television reception and even news sites were down due to load. The
only things that were still shifting data were slashdot and a couple of IRC
networks. We had a channel relaying news from TV and radio worldwide including
from ham and shortwave.

~~~
icpmacdo
I wonder if there will be a service that hits the sweet spot of cool community
instant messaging over a large group of people in the next generation of
technology, I think so.

~~~
pling
Well Twitter is where everyone goes now when something is broken. I'm not sure
its the right solution but it's part of the way there.

~~~
jpgvm
Twitter and all of these other commercial services lack the sheer resiliency
of IRC.

Taking down an IRC network (assuming DNS is not affected or users have cached
list of servers in their client) is incredibly difficult.

Twitter doesn't fail-whale as often but it's still centralised and not overly
reliable or robust in comparison.

~~~
andor
_Taking down an IRC network (assuming DNS is not affected or users have cached
list of servers in their client) is incredibly difficult._

Yes, but remember that DDoSing individual servers and taking over channels
through the resulting netsplits was a favorite pastime of bored teenagers
around the world.

~~~
ASneakyFox
That's not so easy to do any more.

~~~
cmdrfred
I'd say it's easier if anything.
[http://www.nimbusddos.com/](http://www.nimbusddos.com/)

------
Afforess
Mirror zipped archive of all 39 IRC logs from the OP's link:
[https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49805/desert-
storm.7z](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/49805/desert-storm.7z)

------
SoftwareMaven
I remember very clearly sitting in my first math class in my first term of
college, talking about the Gulf War when it started. I was 18 at the time. The
big concern we had was another Vietnam, dragging on for years with a new
draft. There was a lot of talk on campus about that, until it became clear the
war was not going to last long.

~~~
gonzo
Russia invaded Afghanistan on Christmas Eve, 1979. Carter re-instated draft
registration the following June. I'd just turned 18, and thought Afghanistan
or Iran (hostage crisis) would be my Vietnam.

------
rdl
I wonder if the IRC logs from the Iraq War (round 2) will ever be declassified
and released. IRC is used pretty extensively by the military for
communications (generally just called "mIRC", since people associate it so
strongly with the official military client), and there were a bunch of
different channels on different networks to discuss operations in realtime.

[http://publicintelligence.net/tactical-
chat/](http://publicintelligence.net/tactical-chat/)

~~~
maaku
Military client? mIRC is shareware:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRC](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIRC)

~~~
malvim
I think he meant mIRC (the shareware software) is the official IRC client of
the military.

~~~
count
Heh, they use the full paid version. I always wondered who KMB got cash
from...

~~~
Nilzor
Didn't he have like 9 paying users after 15 years or so? Poor guy :) Could
have needed some monetization strategy advice

------
cmdrfred
<CaptainJ> THE LIBERATION OF KUAIT HAS BEGUN <Alexander>
WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <Goofa> The liberation of Kuwait has begun. <Anipa>
Mr Fritzwalter: the liberation of Kuwait has begun <Tylenol> WAR HAS
STARTED!!!! <Alexander> WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

~~~
keehun

      <MistDrake> Announcement from the president of US: The
      liberation of Kuwait has begun
    
      <Arkie> i'm listening to nbc radio....
    
      <Starhawk> "Desert Storm"

------
mineo
The website doesn't seem to work reliably at the moment, here's the
archive.org version:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20131021002154/http://www.ibibli...](https://web.archive.org/web/20131021002154/http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/Gulf-
War/desert-storm/)

------
pantalaimon
Can we please make #hackernews on freenode a thing again?

~~~
wmil
Who would go there? It'd be hacker news without the news (articles).

------
msutherl
<Lipstick> I dont think bagdahd is on the net =]

<BOY> No arab countrys on the net..

------
tottenhm
Went to watch the July 4 fireworks in SF tonight, but it was cloudy, causing
the fireworks to soften into a vague burst of color. I thought, "This looks
just like CNN's coverage of the Gulf War. Except without all the fear and
death. Damn, I'm lucky -- no war here!"

~~~
nikanj
The rest of the world would prefer the US to have its wars on its own soil
though.

------
sheetjs

        #Belladona# Bagdad Radio reports Saddam has ordered his 
           troops out of Kuwait IMMEDIATELY!
        #Scott# unconfirmed, keep it to +war/+report
        #alex# belladona - stop making rumors ....

------
Kiro
What's the context?

------
ganessh
No access

------
melloclello
Archived SomethingAwful thread from 9/11/2001:

[http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/](http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/)

[http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/wtc01.html](http://www.truegamer.net/SA_911/911%20SATHREAD/wtc01.html)

> WATCH BUSH START A FUCKING WAR

~~~
TeMPOraL
From the thread:

> _Now this is weird, since last week was the first showing of that X-files
> spin-off "The Lone Gunmen" in Austalia. The plot of the first one was that
> some government group was going to fly a plane into the World Trade Centre.
> Life imitates art?_

Eee... WHAT? I always read that WTC was the kind of event that no one ever
imagined it could possibly happen until after the incident.

~~~
cperciva
_I always read that WTC was the kind of event that no one ever imagined it
could possibly happen until after the incident._

There were two aspects to 9/11 which surprised people. First, that it was
_four_ planes which were hijacked: For security screeners to allow one armed
hijacker onto a plane may be poor luck, but for armed hijackers to get onto
four planes looks like carelessness. (With apologies to Oscar Wilde.)

Second, while the prospect of planes crashing into towers had been considered
-- and in fact all modern skyscrapers are designed to survive such an impact
-- the aftermath of 9/11 was the first time the prospect of aircraft _fuel_
being used to bring down a skyscraper was ever widely contemplated. If the two
planes which hit the WTC hadn't been carrying enough fuel to reach LAX, the
fires would not have burned for long enough to bring the towers down.

~~~
gaius
It was nothing to do with security screening, it was a philosophical attack.
The hijackers knew that SOP in the event of a hijacking was everyone sit tight
and let the negotiators deal with it. _Everyone_ thought that the only reason
to hijack a plane was to take hostages. The "weapons" they used were blades
less than an inch long. The passengers that _did_ react, overpowered them
quickly (tho' by the time it was too late).

~~~
owenmarshall
"Only two things have made flying safer: the reinforcement of cockpit doors,
and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers." \-- Bruce Schneier
([https://www.schneier.com/news-072.html](https://www.schneier.com/news-072.html))

It's telling that every post-9/11 security incident I've read about, from
"person gets drunk and agitated" to "person attempts to light bomb in
underwear" have been defeated by a door or a passenger.

------
ilaksh
I'd like to see IRC logs from other countries at the same time.

As well as a map of all of the invasions and "liberations" with a timeline,
and a list of official "reasons" for those military actions.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil_reserves)

Hmm. I wonder what the IRC logs of the Venezuelan "liberation" will look like?
Actually for Venezuelan's sake hopefully the economic warfare already going
on, along with the encroachment coming from the direction of Brazil during
World Cup, will be enough to "integrate" them into the system (i.e. "liberate"
them of control over their resources) without requiring overt military action.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _As well as a map of all of the invasions and "liberations" with a timeline,
> and a list of official "reasons" for those military actions._

I like that idea. It could be really interesting and educating to play with an
interactive map showing that. There are things like that appearing from time
to time (like the article about Syria and Iraq from yesterday[0]); I hope that
concept trend will catch on and we'll see more and more old and modern history
knowledge expressed in interactive, explorable forms.

[0] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7985305)

~~~
ilaksh
I think it would be good to have a map and timeline like that going back to
the 10th century. Because I think that people _really_ could use some
perspective.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Kind of an unified, explorable map of historical events, in which you can see
how the borders looked like, could see various information overlays like trade
routes, major wars, events, etc.? It's quite an endeavour but I believe a
worthy one, and I hope a project like that will start soon.

This could have tremendous effect on people. It's BretVictoresque stuff,
things that could expand the space of thoughts we have, and vastly increase
our comprehention of information available.

~~~
Houshalter
Relevant, Making History Available:
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/j0/making_history_available/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/j0/making_history_available/)

>To my former memory, the United States had always existed—there was never a
time when there was no United States. I had not remembered, until that time,
how the Roman Empire rose, and brought peace and order, and lasted through so
many centuries, until I forgot that things had ever been otherwise; and yet
the Empire fell, and barbarians overran my city, and the learning that I had
possessed was lost. The modern world became more fragile to my eyes; it was
not the first modern world.

>So many mistakes, made over and over and over again, because I did not
remember making them, in every era I never lived...

~~~
TeMPOraL
A great article, thanks for linking it and also posting the most important
quotes for this discussion.

