1.3 Privacy on IRC

1.3 Privacy on IRC
You should always keep in mind that messages you send to someone over IRC are passed along all the servers between you and and the person you are writing to. When you're sending a letter to someone, any postman on the way could open it and read its contents.

Well, it's the same on the network. Any IRC-Admin could compile their server in "debug" mode and log whatever messages are transmitted through his node, (it has already been done), so a good rule of thumb is not to trust the servers.

IRC IS NOT A SECURE WAY OF COMMUNICATION!

How to establish direct communications between clients will be explained later, (see DCC CHAT in section 2.5). This should be used when you wouldn't want anybody else on IRC to intercept your private messages.