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by dependenttypes 2104 days ago
There are private IRC channels (password protected or invite-only) as well as private messages.
1 comments
spijdar 2104 days ago
Hence the "usually" public, I presume. While this doesn't invalidate your point that IRC could use E2E encryption, I personally only use IRC for communication on public channels, where it would be largely pointless, unless you're assuming a really paranoid threat model, in which case public group conversation is probably not a good idea anyway.
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snvzz 2104 days ago
There's dcc chat, but then you trust the network in general in place of the irc network.

Fortunately, there's OTR, but client support is limited.

I wish the new ircstandarization efforts did work something out about e2e, at least for private messages.

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blibble 2104 days ago
exactly this

if it's public: who cares, and if it isn't: why are people trusting random IRC server admins

especially when there have previously been leaks from places like EFNet where admins have been caught running tcpdump or ircsniff.pl

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dependenttypes 2104 days ago
> why are people trusting random IRC server admins

e2ee means that you do not have to trust anyone

> if it's public: who cares

IRC also lacks end to end authentication, the server owner can pretend to be you.

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