From WikiLeaks

Whistleblower? Journalist? Citizen journalist? WikiLeaks writer, volunteer, supporter or techie? Get advice and talk with people like you on the WikiLeaks secure chat (also good for safe interviews with anonymous sources).

Please be patient. Participants are often busy with other tasks. Depending on time of day you may need to wait several hours for a reply.

Make sure to _not_ use your real name!

Contents 1 Notes about our IRC server 2 How to connect 2.1 Web chat 2.2 Pidgin 2.3 Other clients

Notes about our IRC server

We have set many security related features for our server. That is, but not limited to:

1. Many common commands are disabled, for security reasons. There is no whois, for example.
2. User's ident (the common "user name" or "real name" field in IRC clients) is always changed to "user".
3. User's host is always set to "chat.wikileaks.org".

How to connect

Depends on your preferences, you can use any standard IRC client, or the easy to use, fast web interface. The former is usually more convenient, while the latter needs no setup or downloading of any program. We have prepared small information on how to connect with popular clients, but for most people the web-interface may be of more interest.

Web chat

1. Web chat is located at chat.wikileaks.org
2. You don't need to download or setup anything. You don't need to have java nor flash installed, it should work for anyone on any modern browser.
3. Go to chat address, enter your nick (or leave default random) and click "connect". In few seconds you will be taken to our official IRC channel.

Pidgin

Pidgin is a multi-protocol chat client that supports MSN, Gtalk, AOL, Yahoo, MySpace, ICQ, IRC and many more concurrently.

1. If you don't already have it, download and install http://www.pidgin.im/
2. add a new acount
3. select "IRC" from the drop downlist
4. enter a nickname of your choice
5. enter the server name chat.wikileaks.org
6. click the "advanced" tab
7. for the "port" field enter 9999
8. click the "use SSL" (encryption) checkbox
9. save and connect to the server

Other clients

• enable SSL (encryption). Some older clients do not support SSL.
• connect to chat.wikileaks.org port 9999
• for most clients the one-line command is: /server chat.wikileaks.org +9999
• or: /server -ssl chat.wikileaks.org 9999
• once online you should automatically join the WikiLeaks channel