>Now let me think. It's long time I idid this - not with SOCKS but FWTK.
>It was a short time limited experimental thing but I remember the main
>treats to security had to be handled at the client and server end. What
>I did was simply have fwtk's plug-gw listen to irc port from inside
>interface and connect it to ISP's IRC server. this was in effect a
>tunnel through the fw. most threats, like file transfer initiated by
>someone outside our network would work fine so these options had to
>disabled at the client so it was not too safe in my mind. The experiment
>was luckily discontinued very soon as it turned out not to be that
>usefull. My advice is you should consider very carefully before allowing
>indiscriminate use of irc.
>
>Sakari Myllym�ki
>
First of all you have to ask yourself if IRC ( and ICQ) is it an
application you need in a commersial company at all. Does it provide so
much more value, that you are prepaired to take the possible risks that
comes with it. For me it�s very hard to see IRC (and ICQ) as that valuable.
On the second hand both the above mentioned programs are heavily
compromised in several ways. There are many bots, scripts and hacks for PC,
Macintosh and UNIX which can compromise clients and channels. Not to forget
all the viruses specially written for IRC and lots of trojan horses that
may upload all the user information from the client to a channel invisible
to the user.
If you work for a serious organisation there is no way I could recommend
anyone to use IRC (or ICQ) whatever reason the user/users may have. There
are plenty of more convenient and secure ways to communicate, either over
the Internet or using ordinary phones or sometimes even snail-mail.
CU
Joakim
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