IRC Encryption

[prig0011@gold.tc.umn.edu]

There was a thread a while back about encrypted conversations on channel 
#freedom on irc. I came across the software I believe they are using. Its 
a package called Circ, and it is available from archives of 
comp.sources.misc volume 38 issue 10. It is interesting in that it uses
RSA for key exchange, and triple DES for the encryption. The Circ package
includes an earlier implementation "socks" which is a stand alone 
encrypted irc client. I think this is what they use on #freedom. This is 
an interesting tool for a couple of reasons. irc can be as anonymous as 
you want to make it. There are ways of hiding what site you're coming 
from, your real username, you can change your nick often as you want, and 
it's got a high enough usage that you can lose yourself in a crowd.
It supports background file transfers. You can create a channel and lock 
it to uninvited people. It is supported pretty much net-wide, if you can 
telnet, you can irc. Interesting stuff, and I'll be playing more with it 
in the near future.

BTW: my nick is cryptical on irc. :)