Can I send a message to an IRC channel without joining it?

Question

Can I send a message to an IRC channel without joining it?

Are there usually any security restrictions set on production IRC servers to stop this?

Answer 1

From RFC 2811 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2811#section-4.2.4):

4.2.4 No Messages To Channel From Clients On The Outside

When the channel flag 'n' is set, only channel members MAY send messages to the channel.

 This flag only affects users.

I've never seen a channel that wasn't set to +n, however. (Although I haven't really looked.)

In summary: theoretically it is possible, but most servers are probably set to not allow it by default.