--- title: How one IRC bot took over the internet | daily.dev description: curl, the ubiquitous data transfer tool found on roughly 20 billion devices, started as a simple IRC bot built by Swedish developer Daniel Stenberg in the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-irc-bot-took-over-the-internet-osrsulhpk twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: How one IRC bot took over the internet | daily.dev og:description: curl, the ubiquitous data transfer tool found on roughly 20 billion devices, started as a simple IRC bot built by Swedish developer Daniel Stenberg in the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-irc-bot-took-over-the-internet-osrsulhpk og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/oSRSulHPK.png og:image:alt: How one IRC bot took over the internet og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # How one IRC bot took over the internet **[Coding with Lewis](https://daily.dev/sources/codingwithlewis)** · 1 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary curl, the ubiquitous data transfer tool found on roughly 20 billion devices, started as a simple IRC bot built by Swedish developer Daniel Stenberg in the 1990s to display live currency exchange rates. What began as a tiny side project grew incrementally — protocol by protocol — into critical internet infrastructure. The story highlights a recurring pattern in open source: the most foundational software is rarely designed to be important; it usually starts as a personal itch-scratch that quietly becomes indispensable. The flip side is a sustainability concern: one person in Sweden still maintains code that, if broken, could affect billions of devices. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#open-source](https://daily.dev/tags/open-source), [#curl](https://daily.dev/tags/curl) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-irc-bot-took-over-the-internet-osrsulhpk) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"How one IRC bot took over the internet","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-irc-bot-took-over-the-internet-osrsulhpk","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-irc-bot-took-over-the-internet-osrsulhpk"},"datePublished":"2026-07-01T16:05:47.110Z","dateModified":"2026-07-01T16:06:03.635Z","description":"curl, the ubiquitous data transfer tool found on roughly 20 billion devices, started as a simple IRC bot built by Swedish developer Daniel Stenberg in the...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CpFH1YnJjFY/hqdefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CpFH1YnJjFY/hqdefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Coding with Lewis","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Coding with Lewis","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--St-eJIdL--/f_auto/v1728073102/logos/codingwithlewis","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/codingwithlewis"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/how-one-irc-bot-took-over-the-internet-osrsulhpk","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"open-source,curl","timeRequired":"PT1M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"How one IRC bot took over the internet","description":"curl, the ubiquitous data transfer tool found on roughly 20 billion devices, started as a simple IRC bot built by Swedish developer Daniel Stenberg in the...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CpFH1YnJjFY/hqdefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-07-01T16:05:47.110Z","duration":"PT1M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/oSRSulHPK","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/CpFH1YnJjFY"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Coding with Lewis","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/codingwithlewis"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"How one IRC bot took over the internet"}]} ```