Talamasca makes it possible to connect one (or more) IRC channels on a server not in your control to a server where you do have control. It connects to the first server as a user and the other as a server, then introducing the users on the 'user server' as real users on the linked server.

Users on the linked server see the users as 'real' users, while the users on the 'user server' see one user prefixing messages with the name of the user speaking on the linked server.

This setup in combination with the amazingly great BitlBee gateway allows one to setup a MSN/AOL/Yahoo/Jabber/whatever account and let people talk to that user, which will actually relay everything to a real irc server.

Typical Chat setup

+-----------------------+    +-----------+    +-----------------------+   ......................
|  BitlBee IRC Server   |    |           |    |     IRC Network       |   :                    :
|      #bitlbee         |----| Talamasca |----|       #channel        |...: Other IRC servers  :
|  Logged in as a user  |    |           |    | Logged in as a server |   : In the IRC Network :
+-----------------------+    +-----------+    +-----------------------+   ``````````````````````

Talamasca thus connects to the BitlBee server as a user, identifies itself, which then logs it into the various IM protocols BitlBee supports and for which accounts have been setup. It also connects to the IRC Network as a IRC server, creating the mirror channel #channel and adding the users on the BitlBee server to the IRC server and vice versa.Buddies joining #bitlbee thus automatically join #channel with the nick!ident@host that bitlbee gave them, saying something to #bitlbee will forward that to the #channel channel.Messages on #channel will be forwarded to #bitlbee as e.g. "user: I say something on IRC". As MSN etc users are mostly ignorant they won't see much of a difference anyway and IRC users can transparently talk to them thanks to BitlBee

Contact the author at jeroen@unfix.org
Alternatively one could use the bugtracking features of SourceForge.

The code for The Talamasca was written by Jeroen Massar <jeroen@unfix.org>
The CVS repository is at the SourceForge development networks located in the United States of America.
The copyright for this package is owned by Jeroen Massar <jeroen@unfix.org>
©2004-2005 Jeroen Massar <jeroen@unfix.org>
The package is in the public domain, if you modify or enhance it notify the author.The name 'The Talamasca' and 'We watch And we are always here' slogan are taken from The Vampire Chronicles series by Anne Rice, who is one of the best and intriguing writers IMHO and of course on my Leisure list. Talamasca is latin for Animal Mask, as this program was made to cooperate with BitlBee the logo represents a Bee Mask.

Current version is available and should be treated as a pre-alpha, theoretically it should work, but it might just not.

The latest versions are available from this aptable download dir

There is a nice mirror setup of websites located at:
http://unfix.org/projects/talamasca/ and http://talamasc.sourceforge.net
Downloading can be done from the SourceForge project page
Or from the aptable download dir:
deb http://unfix.org/projects/talamasca/download/ ./
deb-src http://unfix.org/projects/talamasca/download/ ./

Thanks must go out to SourceForge for such excellent development, bugtracking and distribution environment.

One can install the debian package by using the above apt'able url
or by compiling and installing it by hand:

• run 'make' in the toplevel directory, this will build the binary.
• Stick the daemon in a suitable directory or run make install.

Alternatively use 'make dist' which builds various distribution packages.

• Connecting as a user
• Connecting as a server (RFC1459 Server2Server)
• BitlBee support

• Unix box to run this on
• C/N line on the IRC network, of course with matching password and permission
• An IRC network or BitlBee to connect to

See above where to find the Testbed
Following items are currently on the todo list:

• Full IRC Commands
• Automatic BitlBee user acceptance
• Configuration
• P10 Server Linking
• TS
• Interoperability Testing
• Documentation
• much more