LinuxWorld.com: How IRC Delivered The News

[ Thanks to Joe Barr for this link. ]

"The Internet failed in at least two areas this week as the world reeled from the insanity acted out in New York and Washington. On Tuesday, CNN.com and other major news sites were virtually unreachable by many. Though the sites were still active, traffic was more than they could handle. CNN.com responded by putting up a simplified, low-graphics set of pages covering the attacks that required less bandwidth and server load.

A far worse failure came from sites created by volunteers where survivors could let friends and families know they were safe. Unfortunately, some people listed as "safe" on some of these sites were not, and others have yet to be discovered.

One part of the Internet that delivered is IRC, Internet Relay Chat. Special channels ("chat rooms" AOL-speak) dealing with the tragedy appeared minutes after they occurred. One such channel, #worldtradecenter, was set up on the Open Projects Network. The OPN is home to many open source projects, vendors, help channels, user groups, and in fact to #slashdot itself."

Complete Story

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