This has been bugging me for a while. I have this ircbot that I run, and I have some commands that require to be locked down from all users other than myself (and a couple of other computers/users.)
Previously, I had it so then it would store a list of nicks in a database that would be allowed to access the administrator-only functions, however this proved to be insecure because any user could assume my nick if I disconnected and access these functions.
One method that I was thinking about was to have a module with methods for handling the 'login' and 'logout' functions (as well as storing the logged-in nicks), although that too could be troublesome. (See the nick change problem.)
What would be a robust and secure way of going about having 'admin-only' functions? Assume that I currently have no way to use DCC.