There was a thread a while back about encrypted conversations on channel #freedom on irc. I came across the software I believe they are using. Its a package called Circ, and it is available from archives of comp.sources.misc volume 38 issue 10. It is interesting in that it uses RSA for key exchange, and triple DES for the encryption. The Circ package includes an earlier implementation "socks" which is a stand alone encrypted irc client. I think this is what they use on #freedom. This is an interesting tool for a couple of reasons. irc can be as anonymous as you want to make it. There are ways of hiding what site you're coming from, your real username, you can change your nick often as you want, and it's got a high enough usage that you can lose yourself in a crowd. It supports background file transfers. You can create a channel and lock it to uninvited people. It is supported pretty much net-wide, if you can telnet, you can irc. Interesting stuff, and I'll be playing more with it in the near future. BTW: my nick is cryptical on irc. :)