Icq

[Shawn K. Quinn]

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On Friday November 8 2002 15:36, MindFuq wrote:
> To get to my question, does anyone know if there is any tool that
> supports both ICQ messages and GPG?

If I am not mistaken, I get the impression AOL's long-term goal is to=20
deprecate ICQ in favor of AOL Instant Messenger. (AOL has owned ICQ for=20
quite some time now and has in fact re-engineered the latest ICQ=20
software to use the OSCAR protocol instead of the original Mirabilis=20
protocol).=20

IMO, a likely reason that AOL wants to deprecate ICQ is because by=20
default AIM sends all messages through the server *without encryption*.=20
I think this can be worked around but a better solution is to not use=20
any AOL-owned IM service at all (especially in light of the fact that=20
AOL forces a proprietary mail client on all of its users and it does=20
not allow for any external plug-ins at least as of LTIC, meaning the=20
use of encrypted e-mail through AOL is painful at best). It makes much=20
more sense to me to either start a new IM service with an emphasis on=20
security or adapt e.g. Jabber to use OpenPGP keys when available. I=20
only trust AOL nominally more than Microsoft myself and it would not=20
surprise me one bit if the existence of an encrypted IM solution=20
specific to ICQ that was widely deployed was used as an excuse to=20
shutdown ICQ. (And yes, AOL could shut down ICQ tomorrow and there is=20
not a damn thing that any of us could do about it except start our own=20
IM service, or switch to Jabber.)

- --=20
Shawn K. Quinn
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