This is a follow-up post to my first post about how to secure your mIRC client. Securing your IRC connection is important in order for you to stay anonymous.

One way of securing your IRC connection is by encryption using SSL.

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS), its successor, are cryptographic protocols which provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as e-mail, Internet faxing, and other data transfers. There are slight differences between SSL 3.0 and TLS 1.0, but the protocol remains substantially the same. The term “SSL” as used here applies to both protocols unless clarified by context. Read more…

I stumbled upon this article from indymedia.org that shows you step-by-step set of instructions on how to easily secure your irc connection.

* Downloading the software (Windows) *

Go to http://www.stunnel.org/download/binaries.html

Download two files:
the latest stunnel file (will have a red asterisk beside it probably)
scroll down to the bottom of the page and download the file openssl.zip
Make a new directory (folder), maybe call it “working” or something
Copy the “stunnel-4.05.exe” into the “working” folder. The file may be called something a little different, like “stunnel-4.06.exe” if there have been updates since this was written.
Copy the openssl.zip file into the “working” folder
Unzip the openssl.zip file in the “working” folder. If you get a folder as a result, maybe called “openssl”, copy the files inside it back out into the “working” folder and delete the empty “openssl” folder. Read more…

Just an addition, not all IRC servers supports SSL. Ask a server admin or a channel operator if you can use SSL.