quakenet_auth is an Irssi script that allows you to authenticate to the IRC
Quakenet network's "Q" bot using their challenge-response authentication scheme
("challengeauth"), with the aim of being secure, simple and easy to use.

For information on the Quakenet challenge-response scheme, see
https://www.quakenet.org/development/challengeauth

Copyright (C) 2013 Andreas Bofjäll <andreas@gazonk.org>

WHERE TO GET IT

  The official repository is at github: https://github.com/andbof/quakenet_auth

BASIC INSTALLATION

  Download it and include it in your irssi scripts folder (usually
  "~/.irssi/scripts/), then load it ("/script load quakenet_auth.pl").

  If you'd like to always load it, create a symlink from your script into the
  autorun directory, usually "~/.irssi/scripts/autorun/".

USING IT

  To authenticate, use the /quakenet_auth command:

    /quakenet_auth myuser mypassword

  After a short while, you should get a notice from Q stating "You are now
  logged in as myuser".

  There is no reason not to use the latest algorithm provided by Q, which as of
  this writing is HMAC-SHA-256, so that's what quakenet_auth uses. You can
  change this in the source code if you like, but there should be no reason to.

THERE ARE A GAZILLION OF THESE OUT THERE, WHY WRITE ANOTHER ONE?

  As of this writing, Quakenet's own Irssi implementation just returns an
  HTTP/404 "not found": https://www.quakenet.org/development/secureqauth.txt

  I didn't fancy any of the third-party implementations Google turned up. They
  didn't seem secure and simple enough, so I wrote this one from scratch.

WHAT DO I GAIN BY USING THIS INSTEAD OF JUST /MSG:ING Q?

  If you /msg Q, your password is sent in clear text. Sniffing your password is
  trivial for anyone with network access, for example if you're on a public
  WLAN. Since Quakenet doesn't support SSL, this scheme is your best bet.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

  Licensed under the GPLv2 or later, see the COPYING file for details.