Using IRC for Electronic Meetings?

paenguin asks: "Our Linux User Group sometimes needs to hold Exec meetings, electronically. We have used IRC in the past, but it leaves us with a problem: there is no easy or built-in way to prove who is who. Do Slashdot readers know of a way to provide non-repudiation over IRC, or of another open source method of holding group electronic meetings where we can verify that everyone is who they say they are?" Wouldn't a private IRC server, with a combination of suitable IRC services (ala NickServ and ChanServe) and fairly restrictive policies, be one solution to this problem? How would you set up such a system? For those willing to brave the setup hassles, might some form of secure IRC also be an option?

Comments

Re:Don't you have OSS IM software?

[acaird]

Jabber and OpenLDAP can do this. It might be a bit overkill, but it certainly works, and has decent client support for Linux (and other Unixes), Windows, and OS X.

Jabber also supports SSL and is extensible (so can support things like group-conference room logging).

Re:IRC is probably not what you want

[spitefulcrow]

Yeah, SSL-enabled IRCds are available, including UnrealIRCd (www.unrealircd.com). Haven't tried to use the SSL myself, but it's a good IRCd with a nice set of features and good Services integration. I think you can even have SSL server links as well as client connections. The network I frequent uses Anope (www.anope.org) IRC Services, which include the password-based nick registration system mentioned above.