X-Git-Url: http://git.silcnet.org/gitweb/?p=crypto.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=README;fp=README;h=a6121ea33cbe31bdd08a42ea2d70b03689d5a695;hp=4ed2fba46b2cbae88c5fb6a5382ed14b85d04192;hb=87f7fe2aac95581dbd3e6258b6276da08952c13d;hpb=bd548b5771a325d3dc051887d3fd0225550d4418 diff --git a/README b/README index 4ed2fba4..a6121ea3 100644 --- a/README +++ b/README @@ -1,119 +1,5 @@ -SILC - Secure Internet Live Conferencing -======================================== - -SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing) is a protocol which provides -secure conferencing services on the Internet over insecure channel. -SILC is IRC-like software although internally they are very different. -The biggest similarity between SILC and IRC is that they both provide -conferencing services and that SILC has almost the same commands as IRC. -Other than that they are nothing alike. Major differences are that SILC -is secure what IRC is not in any way. The network model is also entirely -different compared to IRC. - - -Running SILC -============ - -After installing the SILC to the system the SILC client is started by -giving command: - - silc - -If you want to run with specific configuration file give -f option. - -To run the server you should configure the server first. To run the -server give the command: - - silcd - -This will launch the server on to the background. - - -Features -======== - -Features to be included into the final release of SILC. [Note that the -current Developer's Version does not include all of these features, read -TODO file for more information.] - - o Normal conferencing services such as private messages, channels, - channel messages, etc. All traffic is secured and authenticated. - - o No unique nicknames. There can same nicknames in SILC without - collisions. SILC has unique Client ID's, Server ID's and Channel ID's - to assure that there are no collisions. - - o Secure key exchange and authentication protocol. SILC Key Exchange - protocol provides key material used in the SILC sessions in secure - manner. The protocol is immune for example to man-in-the-middle - attacks. The SILC Authentication protocol provides strong - authentication. Authentication may be based on passphrase or public - key (RSA) authentication. For clients there is an option not to - use authentication when connecting to servers. - - o All traffic is encrypted and authenticated using the best cryptographic - algorithms out there. Command messages, private messages and channel - messages are all protected by encryption. User can set private keys - for both private message and for channels so that even SILC servers do - not know the keys. Cipher keys are, by default, 128 bits in length and - public keys, by default, 1024 bits in length. - - o Supports data compression with GZIP to improve performance. - - o Supports SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 firewall traversal protocols. - - o SIM (SILC Module) support. Support for loading of shared objects at - run-time that provides new and extended features to both SILC client - and server. These can provide extra ciphers and extra features to - the software. - - o SILC client can be installed and used without root privileges. - - o SILC client can be configured by system wide configuration files but - with user specific configuration files as well. - - -History -======= - -SILC was released in the summer 2000 to the public, but the idea and the -protocol itself is quite old. The SILC was designed by Pekka Riikonen in -the year 1996 and first lines of codes were written in the early 1997. The -SILC has been rewritten three times since its very first version in 1997. -The first version included SILC client, very preliminary SILC server, RSA -implementation and 3DES implementation. The server actually was not usable -but the client looked pretty much the same as the first client released in -the summer 2000. The first version had also random number generator which -were based on the SSH's random number generator. The current RNG is based -on the first RNG but has been rewritten twice since the first version. - -The development of SILC was suspended in 1997 when Pekka got busy at -school and in work. The pause laster several months. The development -resumed in 1998 when Juha Räsänen and Pekka implemented the ElGamal -algorithm. However, for the same reasons as previously the development -stopped again, and was resumed again later in 1998 by doing rewrite of -ther SILC in C++. This was obviously a mistake but at that time it seemed -like a good idea. Again, in the winter 1999 the development suspended when -Pekka got busy writing his thesis and was forced to stop the development. - -Later, in 1999, it was decided that this time SILC will be rewritten from -scratch in the right way. C++ was obviously a bad choice so plain C -language was selected again. The protocol itself faced some rework by -redesigning some core parts of the protocol. The protocol was also fully -documented and the protocol specifications were submitted to the IETF. The -result of this development effort is the release now in public. Since the -release in the summer 2000 several other people have contributed to the -project as well. And, the development continues. - - -Contact -======= - -Feedback and comments are welcome. Bug reports should be sent to the -development mailing list. - -Official SILC project web site : http://silcnet.org/ -FTP archive for SILC project : ftp://ftp.silcnet.org/ -Development mailing list address : silc-devel@lists.silcnet.org -SILC Server : /server silc.silcnet.org +SILC Crypto Toolkit +=================== +The SILC Crypto Toolkit (SCT) is a high performance multipurpose cryptographic +toolkit.