[ from developer's site FAQ ]

This is a SILC network client

Q: What is SILC?

A: SILC (Secure Internet Live Conferencing) is a protocol which
provides secure conferencing services in the Internet over insecure
channel. SILC is IRC like although internally they are very different.
Biggest similarity between SILC and IRC is that they both provide
conferencing services and that SILC has almost same commands as
IRC. Other than that they are nothing alike.

Biggest differences are that SILC is secure what IRC is not in any
way.  The network model is also entirely different compared to IRC.

WWW: http://www.silcnet.org/