Use the campus IRC server. Many modern windowing systems also have their problems. Although not obvious, most desktop environments such as CDE or KDE offer various network services, which they use to communicate with programs running on the desktop or other systems. Unfortunately they have rarely been written with enough thought given to security, and are generally vulnerable to buffer overflows and such exploits. If you do use it, bear in mind the possible exposure, and be extremely paranoid about keeping up to date with patches.
Some vendors are better at providing timely fixes than others.