I was on IRC in 93/94 (mainly IRCNet), a couple of years after it all started, and especially in those days it was a total shitfight. Technology around the plat

I was on IRC in 93/94 (mainly IRCNet), a couple of years after it all started, and especially in those days it was a total shitfight. Technology around the platform moved at a rapid pace and there was this constant race going on between network admins and malware writers. At that time IRC clients supported a lot of scripting and much of that was used for abusive stuff. Like auto ban/kick, forcing netsplits in order to become admin by abusing protocol issues etc. The problem was bigger than spam alone. It was so bad it put me off IRC for almost a decade before I got back into it. Since then IRC has actually evolved into a more mature userbase but its inherent lack of protection to this and the ease of writing a bot makes a few idiots capable of spamming the entire IRC world. Nevertheless like I said in another post I think this is just a tradeoff we have to learn to live with. Being fully open is great, but comes with drawbacks and implied trust. I still prefer it as it is.