What are TrivMONs?
The following information was elicited from a world famous IT specialist and trivia player. (:
On various networks you may come across TrivMONs - the name varies according to what the channel manager calls them - which look like they could be OPs but are purely a bot network.
They are hosted on different machines, locally or around the world, and their purpose is to make sure that the manager retains control of the channel.
These bots keep each other, plus the Triv Bot and the channel manager OP'd; and multiple bots on different machines are to cover redundancy (in case one or more bots get disconnected).
Traditionally, if no one on an IRC channel has OPs, there's no way to regain ops for anyone, save for everyone leaving the channel. The first one to join an empty channel gets OP'd.
Some IRC networks, if not most today, have ways around this, but "old school" networks like EFnet have no channel or nickname registering services and channel managers are often challenged by take-over attacks.
In addition to the above, the TrivMONs can be be set up to monitor the channel ban list. If somebody is banned from a channel, the ban never expires automatically or is removed by the server. But bots can be setup to remove bans after a certain time (say, 24 hours).
If a channel manager is not careful, TrivMONs set up to monitor the channel ban list can appear to go berserk, constantly parading in channel the removal and re-adding of the bans. This happens because the ban list can be set to permanent for some bots, but one of the other bots doesn't know it. So, when this ignorant bot sees that "hey, these bans were set yesterday, it's time to remove them" the other bots go "hey, these bans were supposed to be permanent, let's put them back".
Although not sentient beings, bot networks can be used by their host server staff for spying - more on this later - and bot commands can, of course, make them say stuff in the channel, but that is not generally the purpose for which TrivMONs are used.
On various networks you may come across TrivMONs - the name varies according to what the channel manager calls them - which look like they could be OPs but are purely a bot network.
They are hosted on different machines, locally or around the world, and their purpose is to make sure that the manager retains control of the channel.
These bots keep each other, plus the Triv Bot and the channel manager OP'd; and multiple bots on different machines are to cover redundancy (in case one or more bots get disconnected).
Traditionally, if no one on an IRC channel has OPs, there's no way to regain ops for anyone, save for everyone leaving the channel. The first one to join an empty channel gets OP'd.
Some IRC networks, if not most today, have ways around this, but "old school" networks like EFnet have no channel or nickname registering services and channel managers are often challenged by take-over attacks.
In addition to the above, the TrivMONs can be be set up to monitor the channel ban list. If somebody is banned from a channel, the ban never expires automatically or is removed by the server. But bots can be setup to remove bans after a certain time (say, 24 hours).
If a channel manager is not careful, TrivMONs set up to monitor the channel ban list can appear to go berserk, constantly parading in channel the removal and re-adding of the bans. This happens because the ban list can be set to permanent for some bots, but one of the other bots doesn't know it. So, when this ignorant bot sees that "hey, these bans were set yesterday, it's time to remove them" the other bots go "hey, these bans were supposed to be permanent, let's put them back".
Although not sentient beings, bot networks can be used by their host server staff for spying - more on this later - and bot commands can, of course, make them say stuff in the channel, but that is not generally the purpose for which TrivMONs are used.
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