The SILC server is available for free download from the silcnet.org web page. We are not aware of any other SILC server implementations, so far.

The SILC was developed by Pekka Riikonen in Finland. He also started the SILC project that now coordinates the SILC development. He has worked for years in the field of security, for example several years at the SSH Communications Security Corporation as Chief Engineer with responsibilities in IPSEC core development. The SILC Project consists of several volunteers who maintain the SILC Network, its routers and servers. Volunteers who provide the silcnet.

SILC stands for Secure Internet Live Conferencing. SILC is very much the same as IRC with the major difference being that all conversations are encrypted and much more secure then IRC. Wikipedia on SILC

SILC Toolkit is a package intended for software developers who would like to develope their own SILC based applications or help in the development of the SILC. The Toolkit includes SILC Protocol Core library, SILC Crypto library, SILC Key Exchange (SKE) library, SILC Math library, SILC Modules (SIM) library, SILC Utility library, SILC Client library and few other libraries.

The official SILC client is available for free download from the silcnet.org web page. There are also several independent projects working with the SILC Toolkit to come up with various other clients, mostly GUI clients. See our links page for links to other clients.

Question that is justified no doubt of that. SILC was not started to become a replacement for IRC. SILC was something that didn't exist in 1996 or even today except that SILC is now released. However, I did check out the IRC3 project in 1997 when I started coding and planning the SILC protocol. But, IRC3 is problematic. Why? Because it still doesn't exist. The project is almost at the same spot where it was in 1997 when I checked it out. And it was old project back then as well.

The topology of the SILC network includes SILC routers and the SILC servers (and SILC clients of course). Normal SILC server does not have direct connections with other SILC servers. They connect directly to the SILC router. SILC Routers may have several server connections and they may connect to several SILC routers. The SILC routers are the servers in the network that know everything about everything.

There has been others developing their own implementations of the SILC protocol as well. See our links page for links to those projects.

They are not actually. The SILC Client and SILC Server code is distributed in SILC Toolkit merely as example code for how to use the SILC Toolkit. The SILC Client and SILC Server distirbutions may include different code than what is found in the SILC Toolkit distribution. You should not use the client and server found in SILC Toolkit in production environment, but treat them merely as example applications.

In order to register your desired name, you must have 2 name servers. This is by ICANN regulations. This allows the root servers to tell other name servers where to find your page or site. Back to top

Dedicated Server and Virtual Server (VPS) hosting accounts can run their own name servers for even more flexibility and ease of use when setting up domain names. The process of setting up a name server requires that you contact the specific registrar where your purchased your primary domain name from - to 'register your name server'. You will simply contact them with the ip address (or 2) of your name server(s).

The AES is the only required algorithm. The protocol specification also lists optional algorithms like Twofish, CAST, etc., and you can negotiate other algorithms as well during the SILC key exchange protocol, if needed.

The required encryption mode currently is CBC with inter-packet chaining. The specification recommends implementations to use CTR mode as well, and defines randomized CBC (with random IV's) as optional mode. It is also possible to negotiate other modes during SILC key exchange protocol, if needed. We have also looked into so called authenticated encryption modes that NIST are currently considering. More information will follow later.

The required hash function is SHA-1, but also the MD5 is added to the specification as optional hash function. The SHA-1 is also the required hash function when used as part of HMAC to provide integrity protection for encrypted packets.

The MAC (Message Authentication Code) for SILC packet in the secure binary packet protocol is always computed after the encryption from the ciphertext. This is so called Encrypt-Then-MAC order. Same order is used for example by the IPSEC (ESP) protocol to compute MAC. A packet sequence number is also used in the MAC computation. The MAC itself is appended at the end of the packet and is never encrypted.

The transport is protected with session keys negotiated during the SILC key exchange protocol. SILC protocol defines secure binary packet protocol, which provides encrypted and authenticated binary packets. All data in SILC are sent using this secure binary packet protocol and all packets are automatically encrypted. This is analogous of using TLS/SSL to protect the socket layer, except that SILC defines the binary packet protocol itself.

Definitely yes. You can receive public keys when you negotiate for example private message key with some other client, and you must verify the key before accepting it. Reason are same as in previous answer.

The SILC protocol specifications has been submitted currently as individual submissions. There does not currently exist a working group for this sort of project. Our goal is to fully standardize the SILC and thus submit it as RFC to the IETF at a later time. This can happen only after we have requested the IETF to accept SILC as RFC. As of today, we have not yet even requested this from the IETF. We want to let the protocol mature a bit more.

SILC is not based on IRC. The SILC Client superficially resembles IRC client but everything that happens under the hood is nothing alike IRC. SILC could *never* support IRC because the entire network topology is different (more scalable and powerful). So no, SILC protocol (client or server) is not based on IRC.

Sure, that is possible, although, does that secure the entire IRC network? And does that increase or decrease the lags and splits in the IRC network? Does that provide user based security where some specific private message are secured? Does that provide security where some specific channel messages are secured? And I know, you can answer yes to some of these questions. But, security is not just about applying encryption to traffic and SILC is not just about 'encrypting the traffic'.

Yes. If your network administrator can open the remote port 706 (TCP) you can use SILC without problems. You may also compile your SILC Client with SOCKS support which will proxy your SILC session through the firewall.

We have tried to make SILC as secure as possible. However, there is no security protocol or security software that has not been vulnerable to some sort of attacks. SILC is in no means different from this. So, it is suspected that there are security holes in the SILC. These holes just need to be found so that they can be fixed. SILC's security features have been developed from attacker's point of view, and we've tried to find all the possible attacks and guard the protocol against them.

There is no channel registering service in SILC. However, SILC does support permanent channels. When you join a non-existing channel for the first time you will become the founder of the channel. You can then set a special founder mode on the channel which makes the channel permanent. When the last user leaves the channel when this mode is set, the channel will not be destroyed. If the founder mode is not set, then empty channels will be destroyed automatically.

Most definitely yes. The SILC protocol makes it impossible to send unencrypted messages or packets to the SILC network. All messages are always encrypted, either using session keys, or other secret keys such as channel keys or private message keys.

The Requested Attributes, or user online precense and information attributes, as they are officially called are an extension to the WHOIS command which is used to query information about other users in the network. Using the attributes it is possible to receive more detailed information about the user, such as their business card, pictures, public keys and certificates, user's mood, status texts and messages, geolocation, and other information.

Often people confuse that SILC services would be similar to IRC services, but this is not the case. The SILC services are actually protocol extensions that augment the features of the core protocol. Usually the services define their own protocol that all the parties of the service support. They are not robot-like services like in IRC where you talk to the services with messages. Off-line messages are messages that sent to users that are not in the network.

All suggestions and improvements are of course welcome. You should read the protocol specifications first to check out whether your idea is covered by them already. The best place to make your idea public is the SILC development mailing list. You might want to checkout the TODO list from the CVS as well.

Yes of course. Download the SILC server package, compile and install it. Be sure to check out the installation instructions and the README file. You also should decide whether you want to run SILC server or SILC router.

Yes. If your network administrator can open the remote port 706 (TCP) you can use SILC without problems. You may also compile your SILC Client with SOCKS support which will proxy your SILC session through the firewall.