IRC Warfare is the glorified name given to the act of being an a$$hole to other people online. It didn't take long before people discovered ways to have 'virtual violence' using electronic attacks to hack, corrupt or simply disconnect other users of IRC.

There are other methods and tactics also available through IRC to attack, hurt and diminish other users. Simply using the nick of a victim to get them a bad reputation is a basic form of IRC Warfare. In fact that is the one good argument for networks that allow nickserve name registration.

Other more direct attacks include: flooding, nuking (newking) and hacking. In general these are petty attacks by petty little people and should not be any cause of genuine fear if you keep your wits about you. Flooding and Nuking are an annoyance mostly rather than any real risk, and hacking generally needs you to mistakenly run a trojan.

That is a general statement however. There are real hackers on the net who do not need you to run a program in order to gain access to your system, but these are very unlikely to trouble you. Real hackers have far better things to do with their skills than bother people who don't have much of value to steal.

Every idiot who has downloaded a nuke program will try to bluff you into the notion that they are a powerful hacker you should fear. A real hacker doesn't advertise his skills while the authorities might still be looking into some of the crimes they have commited.

The chances are that if you are attacked (unless you started it) that you are confronted by a weedy little bloke who loves the idea of being feared for the first time in his sad and unfulling little life. He has downloaded a script or application that he barely understands and is using it to impose his will where his weak charisma falls short.

In IRC Warfare, as in all life, those with real power don't need to show it. Anyone needing to go to extremes to get respect obviously isn't worthy of any really. Real power lies in the security not to waste it in idle demonstrations.

All you need to defend yourself and combat the trouble makers is some knowledge. Knowledge of what the tactics of IRC Warfare are and how to defend yourself. Knowledge of who is trying to attack you and how. Knowledge of what to do with the above information.

Knowledge is what I shall seek to give to you here. I am not going to give you nukes or floods to respond in kind. I am going to give you the knowledge to rise above the petty squables and treat the idiocy of IRC warfare with the contempt it deserves.

Non-Technical Attacks
The non-technical attacks are the simple tactics such as smearing the name and reputation of a victim. Or even simple verbal abuse. While this category contains the most basic and simple forms of attack these are often the most damaging.

Flooding Attacks
The use of floods is the basis of many attacks. A flood being a surplus of data which overloads the ability of the receiving system to handle. In this guide we cover IRC floods, ping floods and ICMP floods are covered in the Nuking Attacks guide.

Nuking Attacks
Nukes and nuking work on one of two methods. Flood nukes, using pings or ICMP protocols in overload quantity, and Exploit nukes that attack small bugs in the protocols or handling codes of either the operating system or an application.

Trojan Horse Attacks
This is what the so called 'IRC Warriors' think is hacking. What it is, is fooling a victim into installing a secret server that allows others to access the victim's system. We shall also deal with viruses (virii) in this section. The trojan horse was the tool of the Greeks to end the seige of Troy, which appeared to be a gift from the gods, but instead was a vessel for the enemy.

True Hacking Attacks
If attacked by a true hacker, you should never be aware of it. it is the related Cracker who is the one who adjusts and damages systems to leave his mark. The cracker is more dangerous depending on how reliant on programs he is to do his hacking.

The True Nature of IRC Warriors
This site contains a wonderful true illustration of exactly who some of these KewL d00dz, the IRC Warriors, wannabe hackers really are from a man who has plenty of personal experience.

Choose a Subject from the list to continue. (Some subjects contain several tutorials.)