hey guys, Iam concerned about my safty on irc and apparently everyone that i talk to doesnt have an idea how to secure themselves anywhere heh..


What i really want to do is mask my IP to the whole world.. I have been researching and i read that a BNC is a good idea but that costs money (i think) and or use a proxy server. Iam currently using IRSSI that is compiled properly to use proxy servers.. but every proxy i put in just doesnt connect properly to the irc servers.. i even tested them out with a proxy checker for connectivity,,



Anyone have any other ideas or can tell me more about the 2 that i have heh..

Thanks.

You need to make sure you are using a SOCKS proxy, not an HTTP proxy. This should (somewhat) mask your IP address, but this is not the greatest security ever, of course.

What I really want to do is mask my IP to the whole world.
Using proxies or asking for proxy methods usually is associated with activities that are not benign nor legal. Using a proxy has nothing to do with security, only "security by obscurity", which everyone know by doesn't provide security at all. Hiding behind a proxy or chained proxies is not going to help because IRC servers actively scan for them, because they are not reliable (in some cases they are cracked and used for whatever activity crackers benefit from) and because they still provide an audit trail (protocol). Then there are shell accounts. Granted, most of them need for a small fee, but the fact you will not be traced directly to your home or work IP address (unless one has an account on the box and account/network stuff isn't shielded) and features like Vhosts, egg and whatnot may be interesting.

The best prevention in general (when using more or less anonymous realtime electronic communication) is not to give people any reasons to try and pull tricks on you. Next to that any half-decent realistic IRC-HOWTO should tell you not to give away personal details to people you don't know, run scripts you don't understand, accept direct connections from people you don't know or run scripts or binaries for people you don't know. If you want a secured connection to the IRCd have a look at SILC.