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AIM's New Terms Of Service
acaben writes "AOL has posted new terms of service for AIM, that include the right for AOL to use anything and everything you send through AIM in any way they see fit, without informing you. A sample passage: '...by posting Content on an AIM Product, you grant AOL, its parent, affiliates, subsidiaries, assigns, agents and licensees the irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide right to reproduce, display, perform, distribute, adapt and promote this Content in any medium. You waive any right to privacy.'"
In response, I have to say this: GPG goes over AIM very well. ;-)
Azh nazg durbataluk, azh nazg gimbatul, Azh nazg thrakataluk agh burzum ishi krimpatul! This sig blocked by Slashdot.
off-the-record messaging is a standalone library which has also been included in a gaim plugin - its encryption with NO digital signing at all, however it still provides authentication (unlike trillians secureIM, which doesnt let you know WHO the hell you're talking to, despite the encryption.) it works for both nix and windows versions of gaim - i'm no encryption expert, but i sure um...feel a lot safer when using it.
perhaps someone more qualified than i can peruse their whitepaper and give some more informed feedback as to the security/robustness of the protocol/implementation :)
They could scrub all the text for phrases like "I have a great idea" and then human parse them for interesting bits. Lots of false hits, but some gold in the rough to take, steal, and go to market first with the ideas? Who knows. Comb for ideas, sell to other companies and VC firms. Skim the filthy froth of the weary intarweb and sell it!
This is not a "if you don't like them don't use them" kind of argument.
What's wrong about this is how sneaky it is. Terms of Service agreements are not read by the vast majority of users. So, they're basically screwing their AIM users without informing them. I don't consider little lines in Terms of Service informing them.
So, let's hope the media and slahsdot and others can make people aware of this.
You wonder how privacy rights are lost. It's the naievety of the common man.
Philosophistry
AOL is not any different from a mail carrier service because they do the same thing - deliver messages from one person to another.
You do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy when using it.
Why not? Many people abuse telephone network by tying up lines for hours at a time, so what? It does not allow the phone company to record and sell conversations.
it'll be interesting to see how AOL claims to prove that any non AIM client users can assertively agree to this license. Last time i heard you cant agree to a contract by inaction. And to the best of my knowledge, i dont think any of the 'these terms may change at any time' have been tested in court by 'agreement by inaction'
so it remains to be seen.
Seeing as how these terms were introduced on February 5, 2004, I wouldn't exactly call them "new." In fact, I had already come across these ridiculous terms a few months ago in one of my first forays into the world of 'reading the licensing agreement.' I was a little taken aback at first, but then I realized that most of what I, and most people, say over IM is complete garbage anyway and probably hardly worth the expense of any kind of data mining. Plus, if I ever really wanted to send sensitive information, I'd find a better way. So essentially, I think, this is a non-issue. But I could be wrong.
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
They don't need an irrevocable, perpetual right to do that. A 10-minute right would be plenty.
and probably elsewhere.
Most people seem to be against this, but I, for one, welcome our lack-of-copyright-on-words enforcing overlords.
What I like about this is that there is no longer any doubt of whether or not you should encrypt anything sensitive - the answer is not "Maybe" but a resounding "Yes!"
If we're really lucky, it will also cause a unification of encryption standards across third-party (possibly even first-party) AIM clients.
Okay, nobody seems to get the point of this change, so let me spell it out for you:
ADVERTISING
They don't care about reading what 12 year olds gossip about, and they don't care about finding criminals, terrorists, or anyone else. They care about *making money* by selling targeted ads to you, and they will figure out what you like by parsing context out of your chat logs. Y'know, like Google does with Gmail and Google Groups. The TOS let them do whatever they want with the data so they can store it, mine it, and sell the results anytime they feel like with no consequences.
Which is why I've always used strong encryption to IM my friends. If AOL wants to break my 4096-bit RSA key to sell my "lol"s, then they're welcome to.
Technology is the solution to the erosion of our rights. If it's mathematically impossible to find out what you said, then... they won't know what you said. (Same for P2P. If you use Freenet you can legally share anything. Why? Because nobody knows (or can ever know) what you're sharing and what you're downloading. Laws don't solve problems!)
My other car is first.
It almost sounds like it might be time to "p2p-ize" a chat client. A combination of torrent/AIM-like functionality that relies on all of its users to provide the service to each other. That might make AOL very happy, but their paying customers are still stuck with an outrageously invasive policy. Oh, the irony.
I disagree. I use iChat on a Mac. I have a .mac account. I never signed up for an AIM account nor agreed to their terms of service.
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
Isn't AOL considered a "Common Carrier" and therefore immune from prosecution because they claimed that they do not, will not and cannot monitor the content going through their "wires". This was back in the days when ISPs were getting shut down if they allowed child porn through their servers or something like that -- and the bill came through that said that ISPs were responsible for the content of their users, unless they were Common Carriers such as AT&T and AOL (and any other big company that could afford to buy a Senator).
Now here comes along AOL saying that they WILL monitor and so, I have to ask, if we send child porn through IM, doesn't this mean that if AOL lets it go through, AOL can be taken down for allowing trafficing of child porn because they have given up their common carrier status?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Are you sure the provisions in the TOS don't cover AIM? Unless you have had a lawyer go over the TOS and verify that you would be best to assume the provisions apply to AIM as well.
I know a lot producers who use AIM. Here in the UK, where 98% of the Durm'n'Bass leave, people send each other tunes they are working on on AIM. That inculdes all the next big releases that will be cut to vinyl and end up in the big clubs in London. I guess we will have to find an alternative... /me goes warning all my Buddies...
Apple's iChat apparently makes use of the AOL network, but it is not AIM. I don't know if iChatters fall under this new license agreement.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
What about Apple iChat, does this apply to those users as well, particularly the users of (dot) mac accounts: they are paying for that name, they are not useing aim...
I'll say *never*.
base64/uu encoding of messages produces all standard characters. Unless AOL is going to try doing fuzzy-logic dictionary look-ups, and/or statistical analysis on ALL messages, there's no way they would even know the difference between encrypted and unencrypted messages.
The above methods would be impractical, and even if not, they would have to be very, very careful not to accidentally drop an unencrypted (though unintelligable) conversation.
Personally, I think AOL is going to eliminate encryption the same way the NSA did for e-mail... Just wait silently behind the curtain, and when there hasn't been any sign of evesdroping for some time, apathy will kick-in, and encryption will just fade-out on it's own.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
No, since not everyone IMs in English. Even speakers of non-Latin based languages often use the English alphabet in IMing (ex. Arabic and Hebrew). There is no way to distinguish these from an encrypted message.
I wonder how this will affect iChat users. After all, we can use the AIM service, but I don't think we go through a AIM TOS, because iChat is an Apple product. It'd be interesting to see.....
So if I understand this correctly, AOL is assuming the copyright on anything you post. So if you post something inflammatory, libelous, or hateful, AOL owns it....
So if someone wants to sue, they sue AOL?
Also they are taking *ON* a legal responsablity I think.
Follow me here.
Some dweabo posts on the forums or through IM or however it is worded. How to get the latest warez dl. *SINCE* AOL owns that post now they are legaly condoning it. They are also LEGALY tied to what is going on. They have abandoned their 'isp' rights and taken on the responsability to police for activities that are illegal in *ANY* form. Or they could face the wrath in a legal form by being sued...
If I were a lawer I would be licking my lips at this point. That could be BIG bucks...
Too bad Trillian's encryption scheme is snake-oil. It would be trivial for AOL to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks.