+The Secure Internet Live Conferencing (SILC) protocol provides secure
+conferencing services over insecure network channel. The SILC is IRC
+like protocol, however it does not support IRC. Strong cryptographic
+methods are used to protect SILC packets inside the SILC network. SILC
+provides all the common conferencing services like channels, channel
+messages, private messages, nicknames and various commands. Difference
+to other chat protocol is in the design of the protocol. The SILC
+protocol has been designed from the day one security in mind and it
+shows in the protocol design.
+<p>
+
+The network topology is also different to various other chat protocol,
+like for example IRC. IRC has tree style network where SILC has so
+called cellular network. A cell consists of a router, servers and clients.
+The cell can also have backup routers in case the private router becomes
+unresponsive.
+
+<p><br>
+<img src="silc_network.gif" alt="SILC Network" align="center" border"0">
+<p><br>
+
+The diagram above illustrates a portion of the SILC network. It shows
+two cells that both has several servers, and backup routers and several
+clients. Clients can connect to server and routers if they want to.
+The following sections will describe the entities of the SILC Network
+in greater detail.
+