IRC (Internet Relay Chat) Turns 38 Next Month
IRC began in August 1988 at the University of Oulu (Finnish: Oulun yliopisto). From what we can gather, its creator [1, 2] still works for GAFAM. He worked for Google in the US, now he works for the US (via Google) from within Sweden.
Wikipedia says: "In 2016 he moved to Kirkland, Washington and since 2021 he has again been working in Stockholm, Sweden."
He will turn 60 the same month IRC turns 39.
In hindsight, and assessing by netsplit.de, IRC did well because over 300k users are on significant networks (simultaneous, also counting bots and cross-network overlaps):
Our IRC network still attracts the intrigue and constant attention/monitoring from GAFAM people. If "time is money", then they sure invest a lot of money in spying over IRC. █
Image source: The first IRC server, tolsun.oulu.fi, a Sun-3 server on display near the University of Oulu computer centre
