"Internet Relay Chat, at the time, you had to know your stuff, " Howe said.

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For years, software was swapped for free via Internet Relay Chat, an early form of online information exchange.

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Luis Corrons, technical director of Panda Labs, said during its investigation of Anonymous' attacks its analysts got talking to some of the activists via Internet Relay Chat (IRC).

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All four of the men, who were arrested in December 2010 and January 2011, were already on bail and banned from accessing Internet Relay Chat (IRC) networks, a popular channel for communicating among supporters of Anonymous, a nebulous collective of web activists and pranksters.

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Indeed, within days of the recent denial-of-service hacks, authorities quickly focused their search on an Internet Relay Chat braggart with the moniker "mafia-boy" and on "Coolio, " the alias of the person who allegedly hijacked the domain of RSA Security and redirected it to a defaced site.

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In a supplemental appendix, the USSS cited the increasing diversity of the criminal underground, with bad actors clustering around Internet Relay Channels (IRC), Internet-based chat rooms, or Web-based forums.

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