Pastebin

A pastebin (or text storage site[1][2][3]) is a type of web application where users can store plain text. They are most commonly used to share short source code snippets for code review via Internet Relay Chat. The first pastebin was located at pastebin.com. Other sites with the same functionality have appeared, and several open source pastebin scripts are available. Many pastebins allow commenting where readers can post feedback directly on the page. GitHub Gists are a type of pastebin with version control.

History

Pastebins were developed in the late 1990s to facilitate Internet Relay Chat "chatrooms" devoted to computing, where users naturally needed to share large blocks of computer input or output in a line-oriented medium.

On such IRC "channels", where the formatting clues are subtle and several conversations can be closely interleaved, blocks of computer data nearly always "flood" the queue disrupting the intricate flow. Users are often warned to use a "pastebin" or risk being "kicked" for "flooding". By using a web link to a pastebin posting, an IRC user can avoid being "banned" for flooding a large block of computer data onto the IRC channel. Instead a reference to it is a one-liner, and the usual protocol of an IRC conversation.

A new class of IRC bot has evolved. In a chatroom that is largely oriented around a few pastebins, nothing more needs to be done after a post at its pastebin. The receiving party then awaits a bot to announce the expected posting by the known user.

Unforeseen uses arose for pastebins. Aside from sharing temporary blocks of unrelated computer data, pastebins are frequently used to anonymously publish texts online.[4][5]

Since pastebins are relatively simple to implement, writing a pastebin web-application is regarded as a good exercise for programmers. Representative pastebins now exist for many programming languages including Lisp, PHP, Perl and Python.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Robertson, Adi (3 April 2012). "Pastebin hiring people to proactively remove 'sensitive information,' says owner". The Verge. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  2. ↑ Notopoulos, Katie (3 February 2012). "Somebody's watching: how a simple exploit lets strangers tap into private security cameras". The Verge. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  3. ↑ Cheok, Jacquelyn. "First batch of personal data offenders slapped with fines, warnings". The Business Times. Retrieved 19 February 2017.
  4. ↑ "Pastebin to hunt for hacker pastes, Anonymous cries censorship".
  5. ↑ "Morgan Stanley Data Leak Not the First Headache for Pastebin".
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