4 SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing) is a protocol which provides
5 secure conferencing services in the Internet over insecure channel. SILC
6 superficially resembles IRC, although they are very different internally.
7 They both provide conferencing services and have almost same set of
8 commands. Other than that, they are nothing alike. The SILC is secure and
9 the network model is entirely different compared to IRC.
11 SILC provides security services that any other conferencing protocol does
12 not offer today. The most popular conferencing service, IRC, is entirely
13 insecure. If you need secure place to talk to some person or to group of
14 people over the Internet, IRC or any other conferencing service, for that
15 matter, cannot be used. Anyone can see the messages and their contents in
16 the IRC network. And the most worse case, some bad guy is able to change
17 the contents of the messages. Also, all the authentication data, such as,
18 passwords are sent plaintext.
20 SILC is much more than just about `encrypting the traffic'. That is easy
21 enough to do with IRC and SSL hybrids, but even then the entire network
22 cannot be secured, only part of it. SILC provides security services, such
23 as sending private messages entirely secure; no one can see the message
24 except you and the real receiver of the message. SILC also provides same
25 functionality for channels; no one except those clients joined to the
26 channel may see the messages destined to the channel. Communication
27 between client and server is also secured with session keys and all
28 commands, authentication data (such as passwords etc.) and other traffic
29 is entirely secured. The entire network, and all parts of it, is secured.
30 We are not aware of any other conferencing protocol providing same
31 features at the present time.
33 SILC has secure key exchange protocol that is used to create the session
34 keys for each connection. SILC also provides strong authentication based
35 on either passwords or public key authentication. All authentication data
36 are always encrypted in the SILC network. Each connection has their own
37 session keys, all channels have channel specific keys, and all private
38 messages can be secured with private message specific keys.
45 The SILC is distributed currently in three different packages. The SILC
46 Client package, the SILC Server package and the SILC Toolkit package. Each
47 package has its intended audience.
49 - SILC Client package is intended for end users who are looking for a good
50 and full featured SILC client. The SILC Client package currently includes
51 Irssi-SILC client that supports all SILC features, themes and much more.
52 It is curses based but has a possibility of adding various other frontends
53 to it. The Irssi-SILC client's user interface is based on the Irssi client
54 (see <a href="http://irssi.org/">Irssi project</a>).
56 - SILC Server package is intended for system administrators who would like
57 to run their own SILC server or SILC router. The package includes the
58 actual server but not the client. If you are running a server and would
59 like to connect it to the silc.silcnet.org router you can contact us.
61 - SILC Toolkit package is intended for developers and programmers who
62 would like to create their own SILC based applications or help in the
63 development of the SILC protocol. The actual development of the SILC is
64 done in the Toolkit and all the other packages are based on the Toolkit
65 releases. The Toolkit includes SILC Protocol Core library, SILC Crypto
66 library, SILC Key Exchange (SKE) library, SILC Math library, SILC Modules
67 (SIM) library, SILC Utility library, SILC Client library and few other
68 libraries. It also includes the Irssi-SILC Client, another client as an
69 example how to program with the Toolkit and the SILC Server.
76 SILC is an Open Source (or Free Software) project and it has been released
77 under the GNU General Public License. The SILC is free to use and everyone
78 is allowed to freely redistribute and change the SILC under the terms of the
79 GNU GPL. While there is no guarantee for the product, SILC is made as secure
80 as possible. The fact that the software and the protocol is open for public
81 analysis is a good thing for end user.
83 Specification of SILC protocol is available for anyone to look at. There
84 exist four Internet Drafts that have been submitted to the <a
85 href="http://www.ietf.org">IETF</a>. See <a
86 href="index.php?page=docs">documentation page</a> for more information.
91 Feedback and comments are welcome. You can reach me at the following address:
94 <a href="mailto:priikone at silcnet.org">priikone at silcnet.org</a>