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Internet Relay Chat

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

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Internet Relay Chat

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  1. Internet Relay Chat David Holl IS 373

  2. 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

  3. 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

  4. Standards Body • Created by volunteers • RFCs with the IETF

  5. History • Created by Jarkko Oikarinen of Oulu University in Finland in 1988 • 1991 - 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

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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. 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

  10. 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

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

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

  13. 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

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

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

  16. 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

  17. 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

  18. Resources • http://irc.netsplit.de/ • http://trout.snt.utwente.nl/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Board=2&Number=194218&Searchpage=2&Main=36021&Words=Wikipedia&topic=0&Search=true#Post194218 • http://www.mirc.com/khaled/faq.html • http://www.quakenet.org/history.php • http://www.irc.org/history_docs/jarkko.html • http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/ • http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1459 • http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2810 • http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2811 • http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2812 • http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2813 • http://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html • http://www.irc.org/history_docs/ • http://www.livinginternet.com/r/r.htm

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