Botnet for academic purposes

I want to make a botnet, maybe with virtual machines or something. I've heard that some botnets are IRC-based. Any ideas about where to start for making a botnet? I am less concerned with the getting-people-to-install-shit angle, and more interested in the concepts of stealth, steganography, command & control, and distributed systems stuff.

>>31
because 0-days are more valuable for primary targets, like people your're are spying on. if you attack researchers with 0-days, researchers will sooner or later reverse those 0-days and then the exploit will be burned. it's better to keep a low-profile and only use 0-days in targeted attack so that it will take longer before they get burned.