Internet Relay Chat David Holl IS 373

Overview Introduction Standards Body History Specifications Advantages and Disadvantages Privacy Security Pervasiveness Reliability Robustness Interoperability Support of the community Maintainability Ease of use Application of IRC Conclusion

Introduction What is Internet Relay Chat? Multi-user chat program Users interact in channels Servers connect to each other to create networks Limited file sharing capabilities

Standards Body Created by volunteers RFCs with the IETF

History Created by Jarkko Oikarinen of Oulu University in Finland in IRC used in Gulf War and Russian Coup attempt RFC 1459 published in 1993 “Great Split” in 1996 RFC’s 2810 – 2813 published in 2000

Specifications RFC 1459 – first specification RFC 2810 – IRC architecture RFC 2811 – IRC channel management RFC 2812 – Client protocol RFC 2813 – Server protocol

Pros and Cons Pros Basic standard is widely used and most clients can connect to most servers Lightweight and flexible chat system Loose standard leads to wide variety of clients and servers Cons Somewhat primitive Very loose standard leads to incompatibility between servers, dividing up networks

Privacy Anything in a channel may be logged by any user IRSeek Generally IPs are concealed but are still recorded by the server and can be viewed To ensure private one-on-one communication use Direct Client-to-Client

Security Standard only briefly discusses security Authentication is done server side based on server-recorded passwords and DNS lookup Additional security up to extra features outside of the standard Primary security threat through filesharing Some server or client implementations may have security holes

Pervasiveness Implementations of the standard for nearly every OS with TCP/IP 500,000 to 750,000 users daily Hundreds of networks and servers Generally small, niche online communities

Reliability and Robustness Generally dependent on implementation Netsplits between servers disrupts networks; frequency is server-based Larger IRC networks fairly reliable

Interoperability Loose coupling Clients and servers meet minimum requirements of the standard to communicate Some servers cannot

Support of the Community IRC has a relatively small but active community Design differences cause passionate divisions (see “Great Split”) Community isn’t really active in further development

Maintainability Standard essentially hasn’t been updated since 2000 New standards unlikely to be written due to entrenched variations in implementations

Ease of Use Major clients are fairly easy to use Setting up a server requires both a UNIX system and some skill with it

Application of IRC Collaboration on software projects freenode General communications Avoiding communication blackout such as in the 1991 Russian coup attempt File sharing Direct Client-to-Client communication

Conclusion Useful chat program if somewhat primitive in appearance or functionality Loose standard causes some security concerns and reduces reliability and robustness Tightening the standard would meet resistance and might damage or destroy small but dedicated communities

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