Editing IRC (section)

=={{anchor|MultiUser Talk}} History== <!-- This section is linked from redirect "[[MultiUser Talk]]" -->
{{See also|IRCd#History}}
IRC was created by [[Jarkko Oikarinen]] in August 1988 to replace a program called MUT (MultiUser Talk) on a [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] called OuluBox at the [[University of Oulu]] in [[Finland]], where he was working at the Department of Information Processing Science. Jarkko intended to extend the BBS software he administered, to allow news in the [[Usenet]] style, real time discussions and similar BBS features. The first part he implemented was the chat part, which he did with borrowed parts written by his friends Jyrki Kuoppala and Jukka Pihl. The first IRC network was running on a single server named tolsun.oulu.fi.<ref name="stenberg">{{cite web
|last=Stenberg
|first=Daniel
|title=History of IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
|url=https://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html
|access-date=25 April 2016
|quote=I did not experience all of this. I found information on various places and I received information from various people in order to write this. People that have helped me with this include: Greg "wumpus" Lindahl, Vesa "vesa" Ruokonen, James Ng, Tuomas Heino, Richard (eagle`s on undernet), Ari Lemmke
}}</ref> Oikarinen found inspiration in a chat system known as [[Bitnet Relay]], which operated on the [[BITNET]].<ref name="founding irc">{{cite web
| url         = http://www.mirc.com/jarkko.html
|website=mIRC
| title       = Founding IRC
| access-date  = 8 April 2011
| last        = Oikarinen
| first       = Jarkko
| author-link  = Jarkko Oikarinen
|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110427030207/http://www.mirc.com/jarkko.html |archive-date= Apr 27, 2011
}}</ref>

Jyrki Kuoppala pushed Oikarinen to ask Oulu University to free the IRC code so that it also could be run outside of Oulu, and after they finally got it released, Jyrki Kuoppala immediately installed another server. This was the first "IRC network". Oikarinen got some friends at the [[Helsinki University of Technology]] and [[Tampere University of Technology]]<ref name="founding irc"/> to start running IRC servers when his number of users increased and other universities soon followed. At this time Oikarinen realized that the rest of the BBS features probably would not fit in his program.<ref name="stenberg"/>

Oikarinen contacted people at the [[University of Denver]] and [[Oregon State University]]. They had their own IRC network running and wanted to connect to the Finnish network. They had obtained the program from one of Oikarinen's friends, Vijay Subramaniam—the first non-Finnish person to use IRC. IRC then grew larger and got used on the entire Finnish national network—[[FUNET]]—and then connected to [[NORDUnet|Nordunet]], the Scandinavian branch of the Internet. In November 1988, IRC had spread across the Internet and in the middle of 1989, there were some 40 servers worldwide.<ref name="stenberg"/>

===EFnet===
In August 1990, the first major disagreement took place in the IRC world. The "A-net" (Anarchy net) included a server named eris.berkeley.edu. It was all open, required no passwords and had no limit on the number of connects. As Greg "wumpus" Lindahl explains:<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=History of IRC (Internet Relay Chat) |url=https://daniel.haxx.se/irchistory.html |access-date=2023-07-22 |website=daniel.haxx.se}}</ref> "it had a wildcard server line, so people were hooking up servers and [[IRC takeover#Nick collision|nick-colliding]] everyone". The "Eris Free Network", [[EFnet]], made the eris machine the first to be Q-lined (Q for quarantine) from IRC. In wumpus' words again:<ref name=":0" /> "Eris refused to remove that line, so I formed EFnet. It wasn't much of a fight; I got all the hubs to join, and almost everyone else got carried along." A-net was formed with the eris servers, while EFnet was formed with the non-eris servers. History showed most servers and users went with EFnet. Once A-net disbanded, the name EFnet became meaningless, and once again it was the one and only IRC network.<ref name="stenberg"/>

Around that time IRC was used to report on the [[1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt]] throughout a [[media blackout]].<ref>{{cite web
 |url=http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/report-ussr-gorbatchev
 |title=IRC transcripts from the time of the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt
 |access-date=8 April 2011
|publisher=[[ibiblio]]
 |location=[[Chapel Hill, North Carolina]]
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090628013626/http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/report-ussr-gorbatchev
 |archive-date=28 June 2009
}}</ref> It was previously used in a similar fashion during the [[Gulf War]].<ref>{{cite web
| url         = http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/Gulf-War/
| title       = IRC logs of events of the Gulf War
| access-date  = 8 April 2011
| publisher   = [[ibiblio]]
| location    = [[Chapel Hill, North Carolina]]
}}</ref> [[Chat log]]s of these and other events are kept in the [[ibiblio]] archive.<ref>{{cite web
| url         = http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/communications/logs/
| title       = Logs of major events in the online community
| access-date  = 8 April 2011
| publisher   = [[ibiblio]]
| location    = [[Chapel Hill, North Carolina]]
}}</ref>

===Undernet fork===
Another fork effort, the first that made a lasting difference, was initiated by "Wildthang" in the United States in October 1992. (It forked off the EFnet ircd version 2.8.10). It was meant to be just a test network to develop bots on but it quickly grew to a network "for friends and their friends". In Europe and Canada a separate new network was being worked on and in December the French servers connected to the Canadian ones, and by the end of the month, the French and Canadian network was connected to the US one, forming the network that later came to be called "The [[Undernet]]".<ref name="stenberg"/>

The "undernetters" wanted to take ircd further in an attempt to make it use less bandwidth and to try to sort out the channel chaos ([[netsplit]]s and [[IRC takeover|takeovers]]) that EFnet started to suffer from. For the latter purpose, the Undernet implemented timestamps, new routing and offered the CService—a program that allowed users to register channels and then attempted to protect them from troublemakers. The first server list presented, from 15 February 1993, includes servers from the U.S., Canada, France, Croatia and Japan. On 15 August, the new user count record was set to 57 users.<ref name="stenberg"/>

In May 1993, RFC 1459<ref name="rfc 1459 1 introduction">{{cite IETF|rfc=1459|title=Internet Relay Chat Protocol|sectionname=Introduction|section=1|page=4|idanchor=ietf}}</ref> was published and details a simple protocol for client/server operation, channels, one-to-one and one-to-many conversations.<ref name="stenberg"/> A significant number of extensions like CTCP, colors and formats are not included in the protocol specifications, nor is character encoding,<ref name="rfc 1459 2.2 character codes"/> which led various implementations of servers and clients to diverge. Software implementation varied significantly from one network to the other, each network implementing their own policies and standards in their own code bases.

===DALnet fork===
During the summer of 1994, the Undernet was itself forked. The new network was called [[DALnet]] (named after its founder: dalvenjah), formed for better user service and more user and channel protections. One of the more significant changes in DALnet was use of longer nicknames (the original ircd limit being 9 letters). DALnet ircd modifications were made by Alexei "Lefler" Kosut. DALnet was thus based on the Undernet ircd server, although the DALnet pioneers were EFnet abandoners. According to James Ng, the initial DALnet people were "ops in #StarTrek sick from the constant splits/lags/takeovers/etc".<ref name="stenberg"/>

DALnet quickly offered global WallOps (IRCop messages that can be seen by users who are +w (/mode NickName +w)), longer nicknames, Q:Lined nicknames (nicknames that cannot be used i.e. ChanServ, IRCop, NickServ, etc.), global K:Lines (ban of one person or an entire domain from a server or the entire network), IRCop only communications: GlobOps, +H mode showing that an IRCop is a "helpop" etc. Much of DALnet's new functions were written in early 1995 by Brian "Morpher" Smith and allow users to own nicknames, control channels, send memos, and more.<ref name="stenberg"/>

===IRCnet fork===
In July 1996, after months of [[flame war]]s and discussions on the mailing list, there was yet another split due to disagreement in how the development of the ircd should evolve. Most notably, the "European" (most of those servers were in Europe) side that later named itself [[IRCnet]] argued for nick and channel delays whereas the EFnet side argued for timestamps.<ref name="stenberg"/> There were also disagreements about policies: the European side had started to establish a set of rules directing what IRCops could and could not do, a point of view opposed by the US side.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irc.org/history_docs/TheGreatSplit.html |title=The Great Split |publisher=IRC.org |last=Engen|first=Vegard|date= May 2000|access-date=25 April 2016}}</ref>

Most (not all) of the IRCnet servers were in Europe, while most of the EFnet servers were in the US. This event is also known as "The Great Split" in many IRC societies. EFnet has since (as of August 1998) grown and passed the number of users it had then. In the (northern) autumn of the year 2000, EFnet had some 50,000 users and IRCnet 70,000.<ref name="stenberg"/>

===Modern IRC===
IRC has changed much over its life on the Internet. New server software has added a multitude of new features.
* [[IRC services|Services]]: Network-operated bots to facilitate registration of nicknames and channels, sending messages for offline users and network operator functions.
* Extra modes: While the original IRC system used a set of standard user and channel modes, new servers add many new modes for features such as removing color codes from text,<ref>{{cite web|title=Channel Modes|url=https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Channel_modes|website=UnrealIRCd documentation wiki|access-date=6 January 2018}}</ref> or obscuring a user's hostmask ("cloaking") to protect from [[denial-of-service attack]]s.<ref>{{cite web|title=Cloaking|url=https://www.unrealircd.org/docs/Cloaking|website=UnrealIRCd documentation wiki|access-date=6 January 2018}}</ref>
* Proxy detection: Most modern servers support detection of users attempting to connect through an insecure (misconfigured or exploited) [[proxy server]], which can then be denied a connection. This proxy detection software is used by several networks, although that real time list of proxies is defunct since early 2006.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.irc-junkie.org/2006-05-07/blitzed-open-proxy-monitor-shuts-down/|title=Blitzed Open Proxy Monitor Shuts Down|quote=The Open Proxy Monitor which has been provided by the Blitzed IRC network has been shut down…The database was so large that it is near to impossible for the team to backup, or find a new location to continue the service. Added to that, most of the team members do not possess the time anymore to keep the service running.}}</ref>
* Additional commands: New commands can be such things as shorthand commands to issue commands to Services, to network-operator-only commands to manipulate a user's hostmask.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}
* [[Encryption]]: For the client-to-server leg of the connection [[Transport Layer Security|TLS]] might be used (messages cease to be secure once they are relayed to other users on standard connections, but it makes [[Man-in-the-middle attack|eavesdropping]] on or wiretapping an individual's IRC sessions difficult). For client-to-client communication, [[Secure Direct Client-to-Client|SDCC]] (Secure DCC) can be used.{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}
* Connection protocol: IRC can be connected to via [[IPv4]], the old version of the [[Internet Protocol]], or by [[IPv6]], the current standard of the protocol.

{{As of|2016}}, a new standardization effort is under way under a working group called IRCv3, which focuses on more advanced client features such as instant notifications, better history support and improved security.<ref name="ircv3">{{cite web|title=IRCv3|url=http://ircv3.net/|publisher=IRCv3 Working Group|access-date=25 April 2016|date=2016|quote=The IRCv3 Working Group is a collection of IRC client and server software authors working to enhance, maintain and standardize the IRC protocol using backwards-compatible extensions.}}</ref> {{As of|2019}}, no major IRC networks have fully adopted the proposed standard.<ref name="ircv3usage">{{cite web|title= Networks - IRCv3|url=https://ircv3.net/support/networks.html|access-date=9 August 2019|date=2019}}</ref>

{{As of|2021|06|post=,}} there are 481 different IRC networks known to be operating,<ref name="networks">{{Cite web |title=IRC Networks - in alphabetical order |url=https://netsplit.de/networks/index.php.php |access-date=12 January 2022 |website=netsplit.de}}</ref> of which the open source [[Libera Chat]], founded in May 2021, has the most users, with 20,374 channels on 26 servers; between them, the top 100 IRC networks share over 100 thousand channels operating on about one thousand servers.<ref name="top 100">{{Cite web |title=IRC Networks - Top 100 |url=https://netsplit.de/networks/top100.php.php |access-date=12 January 2022 |website=netsplit.de}}</ref>

After its golden era during the 1990s and early 2000s (240,000 users on QuakeNet in 2004), IRC has seen a significant decline, losing around 60% of users between 2003 and 2012, with users moving to [[social media]] platforms such as [[Facebook]] or [[Twitter]],<ref name="pingdom">{{cite web|url=http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/04/24/irc-is-dead-long-live-irc/|title=IRC is dead, long live IRC|date=24 April 2012|website=Pingdom|access-date=25 April 2016|archive-date=15 August 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815064620/http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/04/24/irc-is-dead-long-live-irc/|url-status=dead}}</ref> but also to open platforms such as [[XMPP]] which was developed in 1999. Certain networks such as [[Freenode]] have not followed the overall trend and have more than quadrupled in size during the same period.<ref name="pingdom" /> However, Freenode, which in 2016 had around 90,000 users, has since declined to about 9,300 users.<ref>{{cite web|title=netsplit.de top 10|url=http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top10.php|access-date=15 January 2021}}</ref>

The largest IRC networks have traditionally been grouped as the "Big Four"<ref name="the book of irc">{{cite book |last      = Charalabidis
 |first     = Alex
 |title     = The Book of IRC: The Ultimate Guide to Internet Relay Chat
 |url-access = registration
 |edition   = 1st
 |date      = 15 December 1999
|publisher = No Starch Press
 |location  = [[San Francisco, California]]
 |isbn      = 978-1-886411-29-6
 |page      = [https://archive.org/details/bookofirc00char/page/61 61]
 |chapter   = IRCing On The Macintosh: Ircle
 |quote     = On large networks such as the Big Four{{mdash}} EFnet, IRCnet, Undernet, and DALnet{{mdash}} trying to list the thousands of channels with Ircle always causes you to disconnect due to the flood of information, while other clients can usually manage the feat, if you are on a direct Ethernet connection.
 |url       = https://archive.org/details/bookofirc00char
}}</ref><ref name="encyclopedia of new media">{{cite book
| editor-last = Jones
| editor-first = Steve
| title       = Encyclopedia of New Media: An Essential Reference to Communication and Technology
| url = https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofne00jone
| url-access = registration
| edition     = 1st
| date        = 10 December 2002
| publisher   = [[SAGE Publications]]
| location    = [[Thousand Oaks, California]]
| isbn        = 978-0-7619-2382-4
| page        = [https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofne00jone/page/257 257]
| chapter     = Internet Relay Chat
| quote       = Today there are hundreds of independent IRC networks, but the "Big Four" are EFNet, UnderNet, Dalnet, and IRCnet.
}}</ref><ref name="the imac book">{{cite book
| last        = Rittner
| first       = Don
| title       = The iMac Book
| edition     = 1st
| date        = 3 March 1999
| publisher   = Coriolis Group
| location    = [[Scottsdale, Arizona]]
| isbn        = 978-1-57610-429-3
| page        = 215
| quote       = There are several large networks: EFnet, UnderNET, DALnet, and IRCnet make up the Big Four.
}}</ref><ref name="information technology for management">{{cite book
| last1       = Turban
| first1      = Efraim
| last2       = Leidner
| first2      = Dorothy
| last3       = McLean
| first3      = Ephraim
| last4       = Wetherbe
| first4      = James
| title       = Information Technology for Management: Transforming Organizations in the Digital Economy
| edition     = 5th
| date        = 7 February 2005
| publisher   = [[John Wiley & Sons]]
| location    = [[Hoboken, New Jersey]]
| isbn        = 978-0-471-70522-2
| pages       = 106&nbsp;– 107
| chapter     = Communication
| quote       = The largest networks have traditionally been grouped as the "Big Four": EFNet, IrcNet, QuakeNet, and UnderNet.
}}</ref>—a designation for networks that top the statistics. The Big Four networks change periodically, but due to the community nature of IRC there are a large number of other networks for users to choose from.

Historically the "Big Four" were:<ref name="the book of irc" /><ref name="encyclopedia of new media" /><ref name="the imac book" />
* [[EFnet]]
* [[IRCnet]]
* [[Undernet]]
* [[DALnet]]

IRC reached 6 million simultaneous users in 2001 and 10 million users in 2004–2005, dropping to around 350k in 2021.{{citation needed|date=January 2015}}

The top 100 IRC networks have around 230k users connected at peak hours.<ref name="netsplitde-top100">{{cite web |url=http://irc.netsplit.de/networks/top100.php |title=IRC Networks&nbsp;– Top 100 |website=irc.netsplit.de |publisher=netsplit.de |access-date=15 January 2021 }}</ref>

===Timeline===
Timeline of major networks:
* [[EFnet]], 1990 to present
* [[Undernet]], 1992 to present
* [[DALnet]], 1994 to present
* [[freenode]], 1995 to 2021
* [[IRCnet]], 1996 to present
* [[QuakeNet]], 1997 to present
* [[Open and Free Technology Community]], 2001 to present
* [[Rizon]], 2002 to present
* [[Libera Chat]], 2021 to present