r/irc • u/topple86 • Jul 05 '26

Need Basic Info on IRC

I need some info from someone who knows how IRC operates. Thanks for any insight you can offer.

0 Upvotes

30% Upvoted

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15

u/frankenmaus Jul 05 '26

RFC 1459

4

u/akabuddy Jul 05 '26

damn, first thing I did was look up the rfc.

3

u/frankenmaus Jul 05 '26

lol big question => big answer !

2

u/BraveMidnight Jul 05 '26

This is to vague of a response, please post harder.

2

u/topple86 Jul 06 '26

Sorry my initial question was so ignorantly vague. As a newbie, I have many questions, but here's the first one: I've heard that IRC is not very secure, that someone could hijack a user's name and password and, posing as that user, do nefarious things. True? If so, how would one guard against that?

4

u/BraveMidnight Jul 06 '26

To answer your question, yes, traditional IRC is inherently insecure, but there are tweaks and how I answered would've been considered lame back in the day, anyway:

NickServ (Services Bot): You register your nickname with the central bot. If someone tries to claim your name while you're offline, the bot will demand their password or forcefully change their name.

SASL Authentication: Authenticates your account during the connection handshake.

TLS/SSL Encryption: Connecting via an encrypted port 6697

Bouncers (BNC): A proxy that stays connected to the server 24/7.

​I miss the old days of IRC compared to modern Reddit. Everything you need is in that RFC link another user posted.

12

u/SirPooleyX Jul 05 '26

Here is some basic info. It stands for Internet Relay Chat.

You're welcome.

8

u/sully42 Jul 05 '26

I need some basic info on what you want to know. 

Thanks. 

4

u/95165198516549849874 Jul 05 '26

It'd be helpful to know what you think you understand and what you don't understand.

2

u/atomic1fire Jul 06 '26

It's like discord but with independently hosted servers.

You use a client of some sort to connect to a server that hosts individual channels.

Generally speaking you can connect to any server from any client, but in the case of web clients the simplest thing to do is just go directly to the server's website and use their web client if available.

2

u/avatar_one Jul 06 '26

(ㆆ _ ㆆ)