So, the IRC log service is down — it’s apparently been banned by freenode despite not being against their network policy.
I’m working on a new architecture model that will allow specific servers’ outbound connections to route through a high availability proxy I own as a hub, which will then serve as a load balancer routing through a few hundred potential virtual private servers also configured to be simple proxies. It’s kind of neat– so, on ban or disconnect, any subsequent connections will automatically cycle to a new connection with a new identity, effectively making the system undetectable. This would require moving the log collector over to a dedicated logging account, which I think is where this system is at anyway now.
Alternative is I’m working on negotiations to have them unban the system if I implement user access control and a way to set specific networks and channels as private to keep everyone happy. If they go with it, I won’t need to build it, but, I’m building it anyway just in case so that I don’t have to deal with that ever again.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about IRC over the years, it’s that while it’s important to work with the authorities that be, you should never depend on their discretion because many of them simply don’t have it.
So, freenode should be up soon but highly restricted. And if not, if you wait a little while longer: this will become a non-issue as freenode would then become a publicly-logged, google-indexable network where anything that ever gets said gets published.
But hopefully we’ll just end up implementing user access control because that’s alot of (fun) work.
2016-05-05 Update: After some lengthy negotiation the ban has been lifted, but I’m building the proxy support out anyway just in case we run into more issues. After all, it is IRC.