Revision as of 12:36, 26 September 2010

Channel Security

There are several ways on locking down your channel to restrict access.

Secret channel

The simplest (and perhaps least effective) way to prevent any random user to enter your channel, is to make your channel secret:

 /MODE #channel +s

For instance if you want to make your channel #ourSecretHideout secret, you issue:

 /MODE #ourSecretHideout +s

This will hide the channel from the channel /LIST and from the /WHO and /WHOIS outputs on users (unless you share that channel with them)

Pros

1. Can be used on unregistered channels
2. Very simple to set
3. Prevents random users from knowing about your channel through the channel /LIST, /WHO or /WHOIS commands.

Cons

1. If someone mentions your channelname in a different channel, malicious users might find out about the channel as well.
2. You won't as easily get new users perhaps, since people with similar interests can't discover the channel through /LIST
3. Mode will be lost when channel is destroyed (for instance when no-one is in the channel anymore). This can be circumvented though for registered channels by adding the +s mode to the channel's ChanServ MLOCK setting.

Channel Key

One of the more naive ways to do this on a public channel is by setting a channel key:

 /MODE #channel +k key

For instance, to require people to enter the channel key 'mySecretKey' on the channel #ourStaffChannel, you'd have to use this command:

 /MODE #ourStaffChannel +k mySecretKey

If people want to join the channel then, they'd have to specify the key in the join command:

 /JOIN #channel key

For instance, to join our example room:

 /JOIN #ourStaffChannel mySecretKey

Pros

1. Can be used on unregistered channels
2. Very simple to set
3. Prevents random users from entering your channel when they see it in the channel /LIST.

Cons

1. Mode will be lost when channel is destroyed (for instance when no-one is in the channel anymore). This can be circumvented though for registered channels by adding the key mode to the channel's ChanServ MLOCK setting.
2. First user to enter will not need the channel key to enter, since the channel effectively doesn't exist at that point and thus has no key mode set. This can be worked around by requesting the ChannelKeeper bot to be added to your channel to keep the channel open.
3. It is harder for people to join the channel if they are using an applet.
4. Keys can easily be made useless if a bad user gets ahold of the key (either by someone else on the channel giving it to them, or by reading it on your website for instance). Also note that anyone in the channel can see what the channel's key is, because it is part of the channel modes and all modes are visible. So if someone gets invited to the channel, they can find out about the key as well.