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The-worlds-dumbest-IRC-bot.md (6437B)

    

  1. ---
  2. title: The world's stupidest IRC bot
  3. date: 2021-03-29
  4. outputs: [html, gemtext]
  5. ---
  7. I'm an [IRC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat) power user,
  8. having been hanging out in 200+ channels on 10+ networks 24/7 for the past 10
  9. years or so. Because IRC is
  10. [standardized](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2812) and simple, a common
  11. pastime for IRC enthusiasts is the creation of bots. In one of the social
  12. channels I hang out in, we've spent the past 6 years gradually building the
  13. world's stupidest IRC bot: wormy.
  15. For a start, wormy is highly schizophrenic. Though it presents itself as a
  16. single bot, it is in fact a
  17. [bouncer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BNC_(software)) which combines the
  18. connections of 7 independent bots. At one point, this number was higher —
  19. as many as 11 — but some bots were consolidated.
  21. ```
  22. <@sircmpwn> .bots
  23. <wormy> Serving text/html since 2017, yours truly ["ps"] For a list of commands, try `.help`
  24. <wormy> minus' parcel tracking bot r10.b563abc (built on 2020-06-06T12:02:13Z, https://git.sr.ht/~minus/parcel-tracking-bot)
  25. <wormy> minus' dice bot r16.498a0b8 (built on 2020-02-04T20:16:14Z, https://git.sr.ht/~minus/dice-irc-bot)
  26. <wormy> Featuring arbitrary code execution by design and buffer overflows by mistake, jsbot checking in
  27. <wormy> Radiobot coming to you live from The Internet, taking listener requests at 1-800-GUD-SONGS
  28. <wormy> urlbot: live streaming moe directly to your eyeballs
  29. <wormy> o/ SirCmpwn made me so he wouldn't forget shit so much
  30. ```
  32. These bots provide a variety of features for channel members, such as checking
  33. tracking numbers for parcels out for delivery, requesting songs for our private
  34. internet radio, reading out the mimetypes and titles of URLs mentioned in the
  35. channel, or feeding queries into Wolfram Alpha.
  37. ```
  38. <wormy> Now playing: 8369492 小さき者への贖罪の為のソナタ  by ALI PROJECT from 禁書 (4m42s FLAC)
  39. <wormy> Now playing: 1045361 アキノサクラ by Wakana from magic moment (5m0s FLAC) #live ♥ minus
  40. <wormy> Now playing: d0b1cb3 Forevermore by F from Cafe de Touhou 3 (4m9s FLAC) ♥ hummer12007
  41. <wormy> Now playing: 0911e90 Moeru San Shimai by Iwasaki Taku from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Original Soundtrack - CD01 (3m3s FLAC)
  42. <wormy> Now playing: ac1a17e rebellion anthem by Yousei teikoku from rebellion anthem (5m15s MP3) ♥ minus
  43. <wormy> Now playing: a5ab39a Desirable Dream by GET IN THE RING from Aki-秋- (4m38s FLAC) ♥ minus
  44. ```
  46. Things really took off with the introduction of a truly stupid bot last year:
  47. [jsbot](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/jsbot). This bot adds a `.js` command which
  48. executes arbitrary JavaScript (using Fabrice Bellard's
  49. [quickjs](https://bellard.org/quickjs/)) expressions, and sending their
  50. stringified result to the channel.
  52. ```
  53. <@sircmpwn> .js Array(16).join("wat" - 1) + " Batman!"
  54. <wormy> => NaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaNNaN Batman!
  55. ```
  57. We soon realized, however, that what we had effectively created was a persistent
  58. JavaScript environment which was connected to IRC. This has made it possible to
  59. write even more IRC bots in the least practical manner imaginable: by writing
  60. JavaScript statements, one line at a time, into IRC messages, and hoping it
  61. works.
  63. This has not been an entirely smart move.
  65. ![I say "I hate C++ templates", and the bot responds by writing "yeah, fuck C++
  66. templates!" with "C++ templates" displayed in rainbow colors. MartijnBraam
  67. follows up by asking "number of c++ programmers launched into the sun", which
  68. wormy claims is 367880 people as of 2009.](https://l.sr.ht/OCyx.png)
  70. One "feature", inspired by [Bryan
  71. Cantrill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30jNsCVLpAE), records every time the
  72. word "fuck" is used in the channel. Then, whenever anyone says "wtf", the bot
  73. helpfully offers up an example of the usage of the word "fuck" by printing one
  74. of the recorded messages. Here's how it was made:
  76. ```
  77. <sircmpwn> .js let wtf = [];
  78. <wormy>  => undefined
  79. <sircmpwn> .js on(/fuck/, msg => wtf.push(msg.text))
  80. <wormy>  => 25
  81. <sircmpwn> .js on(/^what the fuck$/, msg => msg.reply(wtf[Math.floor(Math.random() * wtf.length)]))
  82. <wormy>  => 26
  83. ```
  85. Here's one which records whenever someone says "foo++" or "foo\-\-" and keeps
  86. track of scores:
  88. ```
  89. .js on(/^([a-zA-Z0-9_]+)(\+\+|--)$/, (msg, thing, op) => { if (typeof scores[thing] === "undefined") scores[thing] = 0; scores[thing] += op === "++" ? 1 : -1; msg.reply(`${thing}: ${scores[thing]}`) });
  90. .js on(/\.score (.*)/, (msg, item) => msg.reply(scores[item]));
  91. .js let worst = () => Object.entries(scores).sort((a, b) => a[1] - b[1]).slice(0, 5).map(s => `${s[0]}: ${s[1]}`).join(", ");
  92. .js let best = () => Object.entries(scores).sort((a, b) => b[1] - a[1]).slice(0, 5).map(s => `${s[0]}: ${s[1]}`).join(", ");
  93. .js on(/^.worst$/, msg => msg.reply(worst()));
  94. .js on(/^.best$/, msg => msg.reply(best()));
  95. ```
  97. Other "features" written in horrible one-liners include SI unit conversions,
  98. rewriting undesirable URLs (e.g. m.wikipedia.org => en.wikipedia.org), answering
  99. "wormy you piece of shit" with "¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯", and giving the obvious response to
  100. "make me a sandwich".
  102. Eventually it occurred to us that we had two dozen stupid IRC bots storing not
  103. only their state, but their code, in a single long-lived process on some server.
  104. For a while, the answer to this was adding "don't reboot this server kthx" to
  105. the MotD, but eventually we did some magic nonsense to make certain variables
  106. persistent:
  108. ```js
  109. let persistent = {};
  110. function writePersistent() {
  111.   let fd = std.open("persist.json", "w");
  112.   fd.puts(JSON.stringify(persistent));
  113.   fd.close();
  114. }
  116. let persist_handler = {
  117.   set: (obj, prop, val) => {
  118.     obj[prop] = val;
  119.     writePersistent();
  120.   },
  121. };
  123. let p = std.loadFile("persist.json");
  124. if (p !== null) {
  125.   persistent = JSON.parse(p);
  126.   Object.keys(persistent).map(key => {
  127.     let proxy = new Proxy(persistent[key], persist_handler);
  128.     persistent[key] = proxy;
  129.     exports[key] = proxy;
  130.   });
  131. }
  133. exports.persist = (name, obj) => {
  134.   let proxy = new Proxy(obj, persist_handler);
  135.   persistent[name] = proxy;
  136.   writePersistent();
  137.   return proxy;
  138. };
  139. ```
  141. Anyway, there's no moral to this story. We just have a silly IRC bot and I
  142. thought I'd share that with you. If you want a stupid IRC bot for your own
  143. channel, [jsbot](https://git.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/jsbot) is available on sourcehut. I
  144. highly disrecommend it and disavow any responsibility for the consequences.