3

I was in an SSL secured IRC earlier and accidentally pasted and sent something sensitive in a channel in which I didn't have voice permissions.

I got the error:

You need voice (+v)

I'm new to IRC and don't know much about it, but was my message still sent to the server, can administrators of the room still see it, etc? How bad can it be, say if what I sent was my password?

Insane
  • 249
  • 2
  • 8

1 Answers1

8

There are a few different aspects to this question:

  • Did the message reach the server? Yes.
  • Can the IRC channel operators see it? No.
  • Would it be possible for an administrator on the IRC server to see it? Normally such things are not logged but it's their server so they could do whatever they want with the information that goes through it.
  • Could it get intercepted elsewhere in the process? It depends if you used a secure (SSL) connection or not. If you didn't, such a text message could be spied on its way to the server.
S.L. Barth
  • 5,486
  • 8
  • 38
  • 47
Julie Pelletier
  • 1,919
  • 10
  • 18
  • Yes, it was a secure connection, I'll add that in. – Insane Jul 09 '16 at 02:32
  • 3
    You can but I doubt you can get a more complete answer than this. – Julie Pelletier Jul 09 '16 at 02:33
  • No this is a good answer. But there's nothing IRC wise that allows anyone to see it, but you could setup a protocol on the server itself? – Insane Jul 09 '16 at 02:33
  • 6
    It's like having a reunion at your place. No one can be sure that you didn't hide microphones everywhere. – Julie Pelletier Jul 09 '16 at 02:34
  • Good thing it was a friends password and not mine ;) – Insane Jul 09 '16 at 02:34
  • 2
    I doubt you have a good reason to worry but if you really want to be safe, change the password. – Julie Pelletier Jul 09 '16 at 02:35
  • Yes, I informed them of what happened and they don't seem to care. – Insane Jul 09 '16 at 02:35
  • At least some IRC daemons (optionally) allow channel ops to see messages from users who are unable to speak. (For example, channel mode `z` on Freenode.) You'd have to check the implementation, and the channel modes at the time, or check if the error messages differ. Edit: Or that no one was opped at the time. – Matt Nordhoff Jul 09 '16 at 03:38
  • And a IRC client could implement a client side error message when the channel is +m and the user is not +v. I don't think many do, but this is one of the aspects you may need to consider. – allo Feb 02 '18 at 13:20