Quote from: ryukafalz on May 18, 2011, 01:23:48 AM

Does an existing client installation (one that has already bootstrapped from the IRC channel) ever reconnect to IRC?

Unless you are using a "shy" client, one modified to not use IRC and be otherwise cautious about accepting new connections, then yes; the vanillia client will attempt to announce it's own IP address on the IRC channel so that other peers can easily find it. I'm pretty sure that a "shy" client has already been developed that functions in a "darknet" fashion, only accepting connections or attempting connections with nodes that have previously been approved by the user manually. These are not likely to show up on any graph or poll of the nodes, and certainly some exist behind Tor or I2P anyway. The point of the shy clients is to have one or more nodes that has the full blockchain on the p2p network that is intentionally difficult for a malicious node to locate. Thereby protecting the blockchain, and the shy client's owner, from direct attacks online or in meatspace.