> My suggestion is not to use IRC for anything, at all, ever It is not surprising to me, that a first reaction goes in the direction of something like "If you dont like it, dont use it". People use such lines if they dont want to deal with the facts of a person. I cant force anybody to take privacy related topics serious. But... Imagine a similar (fictive) example: To be able to use the LaunchPad website you have to register an account and give your phone number so your account can be enabled after a callback. Then you run into a conflict with a person. And the admin of the LaunchPad website reveals your phone number to exactly that person that you had a conflict with. You see? If you like Internet Relay Chat or not, the fictive example is about a similar situation with the same result: Private and sensible data is revealed. Now my point is - If you use your private and sensible data on some random porn site or if you go with some warez kids, then you cant exepct that admins of such sites respect your privacy. But we talk about Peer Directed Projects Center and Freenode. This project is not only tax exempt and so this hobby of a few people is indirectly sponsored by society. This project also tries to get sponsorship of big and famous companies and projects. So the least thing to expect is that the leader of this network and board member of this priviledged project does not send a secret phone number to the other conflict party for whatever reason. Another thing I expect is that when conflict management of these people fails so badly, that they dont send people to contact a lawyer that is paid by donations. Donations that are made for projects and not for support of a few admins who try to win a cyber game. -- greetings, Patrick Frank