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Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is aform of real-time Internet textmessaging (chat) orsynchronous conferencing.It is mainly designed for groupcommunication in discussionforums, called channels,but also allows one-to-onecommunication via privatemessage as well as chatand data transfers via DirectClient-to-Client.As of May 2009, the top 100IRC networks served morethan half a million users at atime, with hundreds ofthousands of channels (thevast majority of which standmostly vacant), operating on atotal of roughly 1,500 serversworldwide.IRC was created by JarkkoOikarinen in August 1988 toreplace a program called MUT(MultiUser Talk) on a BBScalled OuluBox in Finland.Oikarinen found inspiration ina chat system known as BitnetRelay, which operated on theBITNET.IRC was used to report on the1991 Soviet...