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.] Normal conferencing services such as private messages, channels, channel messages, etc. All traffic is secured and authenticated. 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. 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. 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. Supports data compression with GZIP to improve performance. 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. SILC client can be installed and used without root privileges. SILC client can be configured by system wide configuration files but with user specific configuration files as well.