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12 <h1>Frequently Asked Questions</h1>
14 <i>Q: What is SILC?</i><br>
15 A: SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing) is a protocol which provides
16 secure conferencing services in the Internet over insecure channel.
17 SILC is IRC like although internally they are very different. Biggest
18 similiarity between SILC and IRC is that they both provide conferencing
19 services and that SILC has almost same commands as IRC. Other than
20 that they are nothing alike.
22 Biggest differences are that SILC is secure what IRC is not in any
23 way. The network model is also entirely different compared to IRC.
26 <i>Q: Why SILC in the first place?</i></br>
27 A: Simply for fun, nothing more. An actually for need back then when
28 it was started. SILC has been very interesting and educational
32 <i>Q: When will SILC be completed?</i><br>
33 A: SILC still has a lot things to do. The time of completion is much
34 related to how many interested people is willing to join the effort.
35 It will be ready when it is ready. The reason for release of the
36 current development version is just to get it out and people aware
37 that something like this exist. SILC is not ready for production
38 use so it is not expected that there is that much of a hype around
39 SILC. I don't have to hurry... :)
42 <i>Q: Why use SILC? Why not IRC with SSL?</i><br>
43 A: Sure, that is possible, although, does that secure the entire IRC
44 network? And does that increase or decrease the lags and splits in
45 the IRC network? SILC is not meant to be IRC replacement. IRC is
46 good for some things, SILC is good for same and some other things.
49 <i>Q: Can I use SILC with IRC client? What about can I use IRC with SILC
51 A: Answer for both question is no. IRC client is in no way compatible
52 with SILC server. SILC client cannot currently use IRC but this may
53 change in the future if IRC support is added to the SILC client.
54 After that one could use both SILC and IRC with the same client.
55 Although, even then one cannot talk from SILC network to IRC network.
56 That just is not possible.
59 <i>Q: Why SILC? Why not IRC3?</i><br>
60 A: Question that is justified no doubt of that. I didn't start doing SILC
61 to be replacement for IRC. SILC was something that didn't exist in
62 1996 or even today except that SILC is now released. However, I did
63 check out the IRC3 project in 1997 when I started coding and planning
66 But, IRC3 is problematic. Why? Because it still doesn't exist. The
67 project is at the same spot where it was in 1997 when I checked it out.
68 And it was old project back then as well. Couple of months ago I
69 checked it again and nothing were happening. That's the problem of IRC3
70 project. The same almost happened to SILC as well as I wasn't making
71 real progress over the years. I talked to the original author of IRC,
72 Jarkko Oikarinen, in 1997 and he directed me to the IRC3 project,
73 although he said that IRC3 is a lot of talking and not that much of
74 anything else. I am not trying to put down the IRC3 project but its
75 problem is that no one in the project is able to make a decision what
76 is the best way to go about making the IRC3 and I wasn't going to be
77 part of that. The fact is that if I would've gone to IRC3 project,
78 nor IRC3 or SILC would exist today. I think IRC3 could be something
79 really great if they just would get their act together and start
83 <i>Q: How secure SILC really is?</i><br>
84 A: A good question which I don't have a answer. SILC has been tried to
85 make as secure as possible. However, there is no security protocol
86 or security software that has not been vulnerable to some sort of
87 attacks. SILC is in no means different from this. So, it is suspected
88 that there are security holes in the SILC. These holes just needs to
89 be found so that they can be fixed.
91 But to give you some parameters of security SILC uses the most secure
92 crytographic algorithms such as Blowfish, RC5, Twofish, etc. SILC
93 does not have DES or 3DES as DES is insecure and 3DES is just too
94 slow. SILC also uses cryptographically strong random number generator
95 when it needs random numbers. Public key cryptography uses RSA
96 and Diffie Hellman algorithms. Key lengths for ciphers are initially
97 set to 128 bits but many algorithm supports longer keys. For public
98 key algorithms the starting key length is 1024 bits.
100 But the best answer for this question is that SILC is as secure as
101 its weakest link. SILC is open and the protocol is open and in public
102 thus open for security analyzes.
104 To give a list of attacks that are ineffective against SILC:
106 <li> Man-in-the-middle attacks are ineffective if proper public key
107 infrastructure is used. SILC is vulnerable to this attack if
108 the public keys used in the SILC are not verified to be trusted.
110 <li> IP spoofing is ineffective (because of encryption and trusted
113 <li> Attacks that change the contents of the data or add extra
114 data to the packets are ineffective (because of encryption and
117 <li> Passive attacks (listenning network traffic) are ineffective
118 (because of encryption). Everything is encrypted including
119 authentication data such as passwords when they are needed.
121 <li> Any sort of cryptanalytic attacks are tried to make ineffective
122 by using the best cryptographic algorithms out there.
124 <i>More to come later...</i>