Microsoft IM Blocking YouTube Links

A number of readers are sending word that the blogosphere and Twittersphere are alight with reports of Microsoft's new block on messages containing YouTube URLs. Both MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger reportedly implement the block. One blogger sniffed the network to discover that such messages receive a NAK from Microsoft's servers. Microsoft has been blocking messages by keyword, as an anti-phishing measure, for some time, but *.youtube.com would not seem to provoke much worry about phishing. Instead, as B.E.T.A Daily speculates, "This block seems to be related to the recent launch of Messenger TV in 20 countries which allows for sharing video clips from MSN Video on Messenger." Hard to get away with in an arena where you don't enjoy a monopoly.

Comments

First

[Joe Jay Bee]

Well, this is clearly designed to prevent Rickrolls.

In all seriousness, I've been sending YouTube links around (and receiving them) just fine. Dunno where the problem is.

Of course, if bloggers and Twitter users say it, it MUST be true.

Re:First

[dgatwood]

Well, this is clearly designed to prevent Rickrolls.

Well then gosh, we'd better block YouTube links everywhere. After all, won't someone think of the children? They could be scarred for life. :-)

Re:First

[Roadstar]

In all seriousness, I've been sending YouTube links around (and receiving them) just fine. Dunno where the problem is.

Well, I tried both Adium and the official Messenger for Mac, and YouTube links got blocked on both of them.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine tried to send me a youtube link yesterday. It didn't come through, though she got an error about it not being delievered. I told her to randomly insert spaces into the URL. Then it worked.

Re:First

[rob1980]

Same on Trillian... dunno what this guy is talking about, or when the last time he tried was

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

Three MS bashing articles in a row!
Free MS bashing on S(low)un(ews)day!

Feel free to go somewhere else. Here: I'll even help get you started

Re:First

[aliquis]

One could always hope that would be enough to move people back to ICQ/AIM, not likely thought, sad enough.

Re:First

[RinzeWind]

I tried this myself a few minutes ago and it failed.

But if a commenter on Slashdot says it's false, it MUST be false.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

I also have no problems sending youtube links. The account is a gmail account.

I guess if you still use hotmail or MSN for your email, you deserve to have your messages tampered with. Idiots.

Re:First

[Karganeth]

"This block seems to be related to the recent launch of Messenger TV in 20 countries which allows for sharing video clips from MSN Video on messenger."

My Guess is that they havent bothered blocking the URLs in those countries which havent had the launch of MessengeR TV.

Re:First

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Wow: Results 1 - 10 of about 20,400 for sites for whining Microsoft sycophants. I never knew there were so many!

Re:First

[Nagilum23]

MSN has been censoring messages for long, urls in particular (try a *.php url).
Just use OTR and you're fine.

Re:First

[LaskoVortex]

Same on Trillian... dunno what this guy is talking about, or when the last time he tried was

Joe Jay Bee (1151309) is either a microsoft fanboi or microsoft shill. Check out his previous comments. Also note how quickly he posted on this article. Some people live worthless lives as mercenary propagandists. I guess there is nothing any of us people who live meaningful lives can do about it.

Re:First

[TrancePhreak]

You're actually advocating people go back to AIM? Let alone the now bloated ICQ who was bought by AOL?

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

yea yea, quit making stuff up

Re:First

[silentcoder]

>After all, won't someone think of the children? They could be scarred for life. :-)

You're right... especially when they work out the high likelyhood they were conceived in the back of a car with Rick Astley playing !

Re:First

[Roadstar]

yea yea, quit making stuff up

How about checking the timestamps? My message was sent hours ago, and at that time YouTube links were blocked. Now the block seems to be removed. Maybe they received enough flak for it.

Re:First

[Anonymous Coward]

u r a l33t hax0r dude.

Re:First

[Joe Jay Bee]

Dude, I'm a Mac user, not to mention one who has submitted a package to Debian (a trivial, fairly pointless one yes, but a package nonetheless). You obviously didn't look back far enough to tbe one I made a few hours ago where I said that I'd like to not use MSN but have no real choice.

So yeah, not a shill, or a fanboi. :/

Re:First

[Annymouse Cowherd]

Or they could move to Jabber, it's equally likely.

Re:First

[cheater512]

Yeah everyone should just use Jabber. :)
Superior in basically every way except for a few minor features lacking and no one can control it.

Re:First

[TapeCutter]

Heh, I checked out his previous comments - turns out YOU are the propogandist.

Re:First

[Dan541]

I link people to articles on .php pages all the time.

MSN isn't blocking .php

Re:First

[SnowZero]

Don't let any company hide the truth from you:
www you tube com / watch? v=Yu_moia-oVI

Re:First

[ribond]

Messenger is sending youtube links just fine for me. I believe myself over slashdot.

Re:First

[RiotingPacifist]

just tried it now on kopete no problems

Re:First

[somersault]

I sent some about 4 days ago.. that was on the Mac version of Live Messenger though.

I did have issues a few years ago where some messages weren't getting through. Didn't work out what the word or phrase causing the block would have been, but there was a message I tried sending a few times and it just didn't get through. It made me wonder how much other stuff hadn't been getting through (as there is no warning that your message has been blocked). So me and my gf moved to Skype for a while (nowadays it's back to MSN as all my friends use it, and the skype interface brings up bad memories :P )

Re:First

[somersault]

For some reason I only get "Results 1 - 10 of about 3,250 for sites for whining Microsoft sycophants." Twitter must be doing well on his 'M$' bounty hunting.

Re:First

[letxa2000]

Agreed. I just sent a YouTube link from Miranda to MSN Messenger and then back from MSN Messenger to Miranda. Both worked fine.

Re:First

[Nagilum23]

Ah, ok, then they must have realized it was a bit too broad..anyway I hardly ever use MSN without OTR so I don't really care anymore.

Re:First

[UFNinja]

Parent is spot on. They are only trying to protect children from being rickrolled. I still have nightmares about the first time I was rickrolled. It was my college roommates. I never would have suspected that they would turn out to be such nefarious internet predators. I've never spoken about it in public until now.

Re:First

[Roadstar]

Agreed. I just sent a YouTube link from Miranda to MSN Messenger and then back from MSN Messenger to Miranda. Both worked fine.

Yes, the block seemed to be removed some hours after I posted my original comment as I acknowledged here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=549110&cid=23364362. But for some hours the block was there, and I wasn't the only one who saw it in action. Glad to see that it works now, though.

Re:First

[bad_sheep]

No, actually any page with download.php:

see http://www.eternalsuns.com/showthread.php?t=183 for instance.

This is an example of great security at MS (look, some pirates use download.php to infect your computer !), block keywords.

Re:First

[aliquis]

I saw the numbers on Jabberusers, but afamfg (as far as my friends goes) I only know one person except me which use jabber. Atleast I know a few which use ICQ still. Also in my opinion Jabber don't support as many features as ICQ so I'd prefer ICQ (except for the closed part.)

Re:First

[aliquis]

I know there was some talk about the AOL EULA for AIM which people didn't liked, but what more is bad with it? Bloated ICQ? The protocol? I have no idea. I don't use their client (which indeed suck donkey arse.)

I use ICQ in Adium, and most people which use it in Windows use Miranda. Neither of which I'd call bloated.

Re:First

[aliquis]

Few? Such as no offline messages, (how are file transfers?), no webcam, no voip, no users? Not to mention sort of no development of the protocol, clients or servers nowadays, or atleast so I'm told. There exist some decent clients thought (PSI, tkabber, adium, gizmo project.)

Re:First

[cheater512]

Offline messages: XEP-0013
File transfer: XEP-0096
VOIP: Cant find the spec but Google added it I think.
Webcam: I dont think there is any standard *yet*
There are also plenty of features the other IM protocols dont have.

All the big servers have had releases in the last two months and when on earth did Psi, Adium, Kopete, etc... throw in the towel?

You've been hearing shit. :P

Re:First

[mstahl]

Better block tinyurl links too then, as advised in this article.

Re:First

[aliquis]

Are those part of some "forced" standard or just additions? Because if the actual server software or the users clients lacks support it doesn't help much ... The benefit of a closed ones are that everyone run the same things atleast.

Yeah, I think you can "talk" in Google talk, but I doubt it's a jabber standard and will work against my adium ..

One feature I know about are the chat rooms, but then we already have IRC so who needs them? (Who needs IM at all considering we had IRC ..)

I just remember some old Slashdot article or whatever where it was told like it was 1 or 2 servers which people actually did something with and very few clients where anything actually happened.

I think Adium had some jabber features for their google summer of code, I don't run KDE longer since I'm on a mac and regarding Psi I have no idea but I would never use a jabber-only client unless it supports all msn/icq/.. features over transports, which they don't.

Re:First

[cheater512]

The Jabber protocol is just a basic set of rules.
Nearly everything is a extension.
It doesnt mean that every server doesnt support them.

I remember reading something about Google opening their voip stuff for everyone to use.
I'm not completely sure as I dont have a use for that feature.

Jabber is *somewhat* bigger than one or two servers. :P

I didnt think there were any Jabber only clients.
All the multi-protocol ones support Jabber though.
I know Kopete supports the transports which a few servers have enabled.
And if you run your own server then you can enable all the transports you want.

Re:First

[aliquis]

There exist many jabber-only clients.

Needs to be tagged...

[Anonymous Coward]

andnothingofvaluewaslost

I think somone at Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is just sick of being Rick Rolled

Its not censorship

[nurb432]

When its a private company ...

Oh but we have to sound sensational to get attention, don't we?

Re:Its not censorship

[wizardforce]

The definition of censorship doesn't depend on who is doing it.

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

When its a private company ... You're being sarcastic, aren't you? Well, I sure hope so, at least, since your post would be pretty stupid otherwise.

Re:Its not censorship

[Adambomb]

I agree entirely, and to take it a bit further..

This isn't only not censorship, it's not even evil. It's simply stupid.

When i think of the number of users who are consistently pasting youtube urls to each other...and then think of the number of users who would actually bother using the microsoft video service, i fail to see how there could possibly be a gain in this beyond drastically reducing the number of MSN and Windows Live messenger users in the end overall.

Maybe they just want to get rid of the hippies and only keep the userbase of controllable wallets? Beyond something bizarre like that, i fail to see the advantage in the end.

Re:Its not censorship

[NotBornYesterday]

Does this mean that when I make a call with my cell phone, Verizon can bleep me out if I mention a competitive service? If a company makes a communication medium available to me, and I use it, I expect that the provider of that service will not interfere with my communication unless I very specifically abuse the system or break the law.

Re:Its not censorship

[DAldredge]

No - this isn't government censorship. See entities and people other than governments can censor.

Re:Its not censorship

[Shatrat]

Yes, it is.
Just because there isn't a clause in the constitution dealing with non-governmental censorship doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re:Its not censorship

[Paradise Pete]

Oh but we have to sound sensational to get attention, don't we?

Seeing as how it doesn't actually call it censorship, I'd say *you're* the one doing exactly that.

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been through this: kdawson is a trolling fucktard.

Re:Its not censorship

[maxume]

Yes, but you are incapable of censoring me, whereas the government is capable of censoring me.

See, preventing me from using your resources to spread my message isn't censorship, because you aren't preventing me from spreading my message, you are preventing me from using your resources, which you have every right to do.

Re:Its not censorship

[nurb432]

Yes, they can. But you can also choose to move to another service.

Re:Its not censorship

[nurb432]

I clearly see the censorship tag on the story. You know, the guy with a black line across his mouth.

So no, i'm not the one doing that.

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it's anti-competitive behavior.

Re:Its not censorship

[Auz]

It is censorship, it's just there isn't a law stopping them from doing it.

Re:Its not censorship

[urcreepyneighbor]

The definition of censorship doesn't depend on who is doing it. Uh, yeah, actually it does.

Censorship is something the government can try/do, not a company or individual.

I think MS is being beyond stupid with this little game (if they are, that is), but it's their servers and their software.

Don't like it? Use something else. It's not like their aren't a hundred IM apps out there.

And most of them are populated with just as many "13/f"'s looking for love. ;)

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it does. If Slashdot doesn't like your definition, you'll be censored.

Re:Its not censorship

[wizardforce]

you're being pedantic, and btw: various definitions: *The practice of suppressing a text or part of a text that is considered objectionable according to certain standards. *Action taken to prevent others from having access to a book or information; a public objection to words, subjects and/or information in books, films, and other media with the idea of depriving others from reading or viewing them. *Decisive acts of forbidding or preventing publication or distribution of media products, or parts of those products, by those with the power, either economic or legislative, to do so. censorship is the act of witholding information of some sort from the public in general by some means, there is no requirement that the government be involved, merely an entity powerful enough to do it and microsoft, as you should agree, is more than capable.

Re:Its not censorship

[Derosian]

First of all what wizardbooth said. "The definition of censorship doesn't depend on who is doing it."

Second of all we live in a capitalist society Companies are our government.

Re:Its not censorship

[RightSaidFred99]

And...? What's your point? The only bad censorship is government censorship. Any other form is perfectly legal. I'm "censoring" someone if I don't let them scrawl graffiti on my house, am I now the boogeyman? Your right not to be censored ends at my property, and sometimes well before.

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still censorship. It doesn't matter if it's a private company that's doing it.

But government censorship is a much bigger thing to worry about. Of course the private entity is ALLOWED to censor what they want. That doesn't mean we have to like it.

Re:Its not censorship

[Superdarion]

Let's not get entangled with semantics. It is, strictly speaking, not censorship, as you say, but that's not the point. The point is that MS is now filtering what you can say thru their "Communications device" and not for the user's safety, as they claim to do sometimes. But who knows... perhaps we should wait for a spokesman to give the official statement. As of me, I'd love to go back to ICQ.

Re:Its not censorship

[hairyfeet]

True, but if they are blocking Youtube while at the same time letting MSN clips through, isn't it just the same old anti-competitive BS that MSFT keeps getting busted for? You'd think after all the EU fines they would at least learn to be a little more subtle. Besides, who in the hell uses MSN clips? I thought the whole reason they wanted to buy Yahoo(besides the webmail) was because the MSN brand is so low it is practically off the charts. If they think simply blocking Youtube is suddenly going to make folks think MSN is great they've got another thing coming. But I'm not a big chatter so this is just my 02c on the subject.

Re:Its not censorship

[wizardforce]

Any other form is perfectly legal.

legal != morally or ethically correct.

I'm "censoring" someone if I don't let them scrawl graffiti on my house, am I now the boogeyman?

no, the right to free speech does not include destruction of prperty [an infringement on your rights] nor does it involve illegal trespass. which reminds me, where exactly does a youtube link fit into that on MSN? does that apply to phone calls too, after all it's their infrastructure you're using??...

Re:Its not censorship

[Curien]

The English word "censorship" has a long and glorious history of applying to entities other than governments. But by all means, continue with your Orwellian attempts to change the language to suit a particular political view.

Re:Its not censorship

[civilizedINTENSITY]

"Again: their server(s) and their software." But its not like the Rule of Law allows you to do whatever you want with something just because its yours. Nor should it.

Re:Its not censorship

[Curien]

Any other form is perfectly legal.

Yes and no. ISPs, phone companies, etc are all legally protected (much more than normal property owners) from liability for the content that crosses their networks so long as they don't cross a certain threshold of editorial control.

I'd say that this definitely crosses that threshold. IOW, MS is taking legal responsibility for the content of messages passed on their system. You could sue Microsoft if someone verbally assaults you on MSN, and you might actually have a chance in court.

So while the act itself may be "perfectly legal", it does have strong legal implications.

Re:Its not censorship

[wizardforce]

their servers, their software, their conversation? which brings up a few points, if a government owns the servers and software, does that mean that it's ok for them to do what they please with the data that comes across? why wouldn't that be censorship? if it is censorship, then why does this rule of yours that it is "their servers and their software" only apply to anyone except the government??? for that matter, would it by extension, be ok for them to modify, insert or otherwise mangle what you send down the line? after all it's their hardware and software and you've already tried to estabolish the idea that they can do what they like legally...

Re:Its not censorship

[TheLinuxSRC]

Actually, in GP's example, Verizon enjoys common carrier status. If they were to filter based on anything, they would lose that status.

Re:Its not censorship

[dcollins]

"See, preventing me from using your resources to spread my message isn't censorship, because you aren't preventing me from spreading my message, you are preventing me from using your resources, which you have every right to do."

You are totally incorrect. All censorship occurs in some context -- some censorship is small, others large. But it is censorship just the same.

Would you say, "My message gets blocked by the US government, but I can still publish it in Canada, so my message gets out somewhere, hence it's not censorship."? Or, "the NBC censor blocked that scene, but the CBS censor did not, therefore it doesn't qualify as censorship"? Ridiculous.

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

The definition of censorship doesn't depend on who is doing it.

Yes, but your right to complain about it does.

Microsoft doesn't owe you anything. THey let you use their servers for free, but they haven't granted you any inallienable rights. They can block all of your messages if they want to. They don't even have to let you install the software in the first place. Hell, I could argue that, using Linux, the official MSN Messenger client censors me completely by not even installing for me. Obviously, that wouldn't make sense.

Constitutional free speech means the government can't censor the people. It doesn't mean private entities have to allow you to say whatever you want. If you come in my house, I can kick you out for saying things I don't agree with. If you come in my store, I can kick you out for not wearing shoes and a shirt. If you use my server, I can kick you off for sending messages I don't approve of.

I completely agree MS blocking YouTube links is silly, childlike, and stupid, but it's on a completely different level than the government suppressing free speech.

Re:Its not censorship

[celle]

It is as long as get tax breaks which make them taxpayer supported and hence government connected. Besides anti-competitive practices is illegal by a monopoly and lets not forget altering privately owned machines without permission.

Re:Its not censorship

[celle]

Censorship is the end result, not how you get there.

Re:Its not censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't owe you anything. THey let you use their servers for free, but they haven't granted you any inallienable rights. They can block all of your messages if they want to. They don't even have to let you install the software in the first place. Hell, I could argue that, using Linux, the official MSN Messenger client censors me completely by not even installing for me. Obviously, that wouldn't make sense.

Yes, they do. We had an End User License Agreement, until we terminated it for their violations.

Re:Its not censorship

[TeacherOfHeroes]

censor, n. One who is empowered to examine manuscripts before they are committed to the press, and to forbid their publication if they contain anything obnoxious. [1913 Webster]

I'd say microsoft is pretty empowered and willing to forbid "publication" over msn of anythning that they find obnoxious. It also seems clear at this point that they find youtube links (or any form of competition, really) to be obnoxious.

Re:Its not censorship

[jeepien]

Censorship is something the government can try/do, not a company or individual.

That's nonsense.

While censorship is often defined as "official" suppression, the definition of "official" can include all levels of government, religious organizations, as well as private groups or even individuals.

What's important is not the legal status of the censor, but the relative power of the censor. Network censors are not governmental, but they are censors just the same.

Re:Its not censorship

[jeepien]

I'm "censoring" someone if I don't let them scrawl graffiti on my house, am I now the boogeyman? That depends.

Have you first promoted scrawling on your your house as the hottest new way for people to communicate with each other, and encouraged them to do so until one of them posted something you didn't agree with?

Then, yeah. You sorta are.

Re:Its not censorship

[Mr. Slippery]

Censorship is something the government can try/do, not a company or individual.

Incorrect. To censor is "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable; to suppress or delete as objectionable". I wish the fundamentalist capitalists who love this canard that "only governments can censor" would get over it.

Re:Its not censorship

[cheater512]

Companies can try and censor things.
They typically go for lawsuits as the means to censor though.

Of course there is nothing we can do about it part from ditching MSN (did it last year).
Google can try a lawsuit though.

Re:Its not censorship

[mqduck]

he only bad censorship is government censorship. Any other form is perfectly legal. I'm surprised this needs pointing out, but you're apparently using the logic that if something isn't illegal, it's not bad. All we have to do is pass a law and this move by Microsoft will outrage you?

Re:Its not censorship

[bogjobber]

See, preventing me from using your resources to spread my message isn't censorship, because you aren't preventing me from spreading my message, you are preventing me from using your resources, which you have every right to do.

Actually, it is censorship if they're blocking the message because of the content. They (usually) have the right to do it if it's on their network, but it most definitely *is* censorship.

Re:Its not censorship

[stefanPryor]

I am curious. You say "I'd love to go back to ICQ"
Why did you leave it in the first place? I don't understand, is there some kind of attraction to using Microsoft's chat program over any of the other available alternatives?

Re:Its not censorship

[efalk]

I would define censorship as the use of power to suppress information or ideas.

It might not be illegal when Microsoft does it, but it's still censorship.

Re:Its not censorship

[RightSaidFred99]

^perfectly legal^perfectly fine. I'm under no ethical obligation to allow you to use something I own to convey a message I disagree with or which isn't in my best interests. You're free to use another medium if you don't like it.

Evils of Outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the direct result of Microsoft outsourcing its network administration to the government of Pakistan.

When will the madness end?!?1!!

Rickrolls

[Rinisari]

This is deeper than Rickrolls, folks. Microsoft has absolutely no reason to block an entire website because of such a phenomenon. However, there's not much of a way of getting around it other than using a URL shortening service or complaining like mad to MSN.

It's reasons such as this that make me prefer AIM/ICQ and Jabber.

Re:Rickrolls

[quanticle]

Well, as far as AIM/ICQ goes, AOL controls all the servers for that protocol, so you're no better off than with MSN. AOL could choose to block all YouTube links tomorrow and you'd be just as out of luck on AIM/ICQ.

Re:Rickrolls

[zappepcs]

Well, yes young man, there is a reason for MS to block an entire website. We should remember the chair throwing that must have taken place when Google sort of White-knighted Yahoo recently. I'm reasonably sure that there are *SOME* MS employees who did not appreciate it.

Of course, it could also (put your hat on) be someone related to Yahoo! who decided to make MS look bad? Not sure how, but it's the other side of the conspiracy coin.

It's hardly good business to do this on purpose, and if it's an accident... Well, now why would you have any reason to build faith in MS?

Re:Rickrolls

[hclewk]

If AIM/ICQ actually did block YouTube links, then you would have a valid point. BUT THEY DONT!

You can't just say that you are SOL because some company could do something.

Re:Rickrolls

[aliquis]

What would be cool would be if all MSN-compatible clients except Microsofts rewrote all youtubelinks to something like http://www.messengersuckuseabetternetworksuchasicqaimorjabber.com/vatch.php?id=... which then forwarded you to the correct video. Working links and you informed them. But then Microsoft would block that url to .. ;D

Re:Rickrolls

[CastrTroy]

Which is why ICQ used to be nice it the good old days, when messages were sent directly between users. The servers were only to log in and get the IP address of everyone else in your list. I'm not sure if there's still any messaging protocols that work this way. It makes much more sense, and keeps messages much more private.

Re:Rickrolls

[scott_karana]

If by "private" you mean "broadcast in plain text". :)

Re:Rickrolls

[bhtooefr]

DCC on IRC works this way.

There's two issues with using a protocol like that... first, a port has to be forwarded in NAT, and second, it's a HUGE security risk, as everyone on your buddy list has your IP address.

Re:Rickrolls

[CastrTroy]

If all somebody needs is your IP address to attack your computer, there's probably other ways for them to get it. I think that files are still sent directly from user to user, so all you have to do is get somebody to accept a file. Or you could just send them to some website you control, and check your logs. If the only think protecting you from the people on the internet is the secrecy of your IP address, then you got big problems.

Re:Rickrolls

[neumayr]

OMG, the people I communicate with know my address!

Seriously, you can't hide your IP address, that's public information. Relying on its secrecy for security reasons is a bad idea[tm].

Re:Rickrolls

[bhtooefr]

Except I can do file transfers on every major IM service, while sitting behind a NAT, and with the other user sitting behind a NAT, so I'm not so sure that it's a direct connection.

But, yes, I know that relying on security by obscurity as the only method of protection is bad, especially when it's a public IP address that you're trying to hide. But, let's say you've got a reasonable amount of security against random attackers at your IP address, that don't really care to attack you, they just want to attack something. They'll give up.

Let's say that you have an enemy of some sort, though, that you have to communicate with. The instant they add you as a buddy, they've got your IP address, and will be able to do focused attacks.

Granted, Tor would get around all of that quite nicely.

This should surprise no one

[Presence2]

It's Microsoft. "What can we get away with today?" Enough said.

Re:This should surprise no one

[aliquis]

"You couldn't go there you wanted today!"

"Where shall we take you today?"

Or maybe the best one: "Where do we want you to go today?"

Re:This should surprise no one

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably just got tired of all the rickrolls in the office

Re:This should surprise no one

[Anonymous Coward]

Immediately believe everything you read on slashdot. Enough said.

This seems rather foolish

[AmonEzhno]

Refusing to carry the links of one of THE most popular web pages on whole internet seems like a poor business decision. If you can't share the links you want then many people are just going to switch.
I mean who doesn't share youtube videos over IM?
Sorry but this just seems ridiculous

Re:This seems rather foolish

[heatdeath]

The only thing they use blocking for is viruses or other malware prevention. It's a poor system, granted, but they still only use it for that.

I'm sure what happened was there was a virus reported that was using youtube profiles or video comments to spread, and somebody not very high up made a poor decision to just block everything from the domain.

I'm also sure as soon as people higher up figure out what happened, it will get removed. =P

Re:This seems rather foolish

[KrazyA1pha]

Well, someone certainly still has faith in humanity... N00b.

Re:This seems rather foolish

[TechyImmigrant]

If the IETF or W3C or someone mandated that all internet endpoints had a locally cached copy of a Rick Astley video, then direct access to youtube isn't required and MSN's blocking could be circumvented.

Re:This seems rather foolish

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I sort of like this. So many people send me youtube links that I have absolutely no interest in watching (even after telling them not to) that this works in my favour.

It would be better if you could have a whitelist of URLs that are allowed to be received, but this is fine for me.

Re:This seems rather foolish

[Anonymous Coward]

The multiyear block of any url containing 'download.php' is not justifiable.

Just use a different IM client...

[ZlatanZ]

It's Microsoft's app, they can do what the fuck they want with it. Use something else.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[quanticle]

The thing is, this isn't being blocked at the client level. Its the servers that are blocking these links. Even if you switch to a different client, like Adium, or Pidgin, these links will be filtered.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

That's okay, they're Microsoft's servers too. I agree with GP - if you don't like it, use a different service.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, sherlock. What idiot uses MSN anyway. You deserve it if you use it. Avoid their products like a hot rock. But, no, everyone will keep using it and complaining, LOL.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[Joe Jay Bee]

Herm, the idiot whose friends all use MSN? Trust me, I'd love to switch away from MSN - to Skype, or AIM or iChat or something that actually has video support under Mac OS X (to MS apparently OSX's APIs are just things that are there for other people), but everyone I know uses MSN. Everyone. So until I can somehow convince about 20 people to do something which to them is just too much effort, I have to use it. Sadly.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[skeeto]

Pidgin can still send YouTube URLs through MSN if you (and the person at the other end) use something like Pidgin-Encryption. The reason is because they don't know what you are saying in the first place: end-to-end encryption.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't cure this problem, but just for the fun of it get your friends set up with Firefox and Adblock, then add msn.com to the filters list.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[njcoder]

(to MS apparently OSX's APIs are just things that are there for other people) This is too easy, where do I start.

1. Yes those 2 other people are very upset MS hasn't joined the OSX API party.

2. OSX API? Which one? Cocoa, Carbon, Posix, Toolbox, Java?

3. Yes because it's great to have a separate source tree in a totally different language for 3% of the population. You never know when GNUstep will get really huge and you'll be ready for it.

4. "Hi, I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC. And I'm Microsoft's VP of not porting any more cool shit to OSX hippie!"

:)

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use the Pidgin encryption plugin, however, it encrypts messages before transmitting. The servers will have no idea what's in the message you're sending, so you can send what you like.

Re:Just use a different IM client...

[stefanPryor]

Pidgin can still send YouTube URLs through MSN if you (and the person at the other end) use something like Pidgin-Encryption. The reason is because they don't know what you are saying in the first place: end-to-end encryption.

wow that is really smart
thank you

Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[unity100]

if you can. in almost EVERY sh@t microsoft pulled in the last 6 months, you have been inventing lots of excuses. what is the reasonable excuse for this ? why shouldnt google censor keywords like microsoft, windows, xp, vista now ?

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[jeiler]

nb: I use Microsoft products, but I'm not a "fanboi."

what is the reasonable excuse for this ?

I don't know that there's any excuse for this. it sounds damn-foolish to me.

why shouldnt google censor keywords like microsoft, windows, xp, vista now ?

Because the folks at Google aren't idiots?

Like it or don't, Microsoft is the market--and though lately it sounds like they're doing everything possible to lose that position, they've got it for the time being. Why would Google block search terms for the leading OS and software producer?

But back to Microsoft--I don't know who the moron was who thought blocking Youtube was a good idea, but if it's actually a policy decision within Microsoft, it's a damn stupid one.

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[aliquis]

why shouldnt google censor keywords like microsoft, windows, xp, vista now ? Because Google don't do evil(tm.)

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[Irish_Samurai]

why shouldnt google censor keywords like microsoft, windows, xp, vista now ? Because Google has a nice monopoly on Search Marketing that they don't want to draw any attention to.

Because Google generates revenue from advertising using those keywords.

Because Google is to busy censoring other shit for China.

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[im_thatoneguy]

MS Fanboy at the ready!

Here is how I explain it:

Server glitch. Because I'm able to send Youtube links just fine. I"ve never had a problem sending youtube links.

I did have problems with AIM yesterday trying to send a legitimate License # to a co-worker for a piece of software with a floating license! And Aim blocks all kinds of comments.

In fact I've never had MSN Block a message.

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[unity100]

MS Fanboy at the ready! oh boy. i wasnt expecting anyone to do it that bluntly.

Server glitch. Because I'm able to send Youtube links just fine. I"ve never had a problem sending youtube links. great excuse. you should seek a job in govt.

I did have problems with AIM yesterday trying to send a legitimate License # to a co-worker for a piece of software with a floating license! And Aim blocks all kinds of comments. aol belongs to satan already.

In fact I've never had MSN Block a message. we had microsoft turkey block messages that contained rahip (meaning christian priest) in it.

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[ThePhilips]

Ms Fanbois - explain this, now

Please do not forget that most Msofties are not fanbois - they just do not know any better.

And most /. population hopefully knows alternatives - compared to usual M$ zealots. It's pointless to ask questions here. As long as inert mass of users will be - unknowingly, unwillingly - using M$ OSs they are just locked-in. Not because of M$ actions - but because they do not care.

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[im_thatoneguy]

No problem with Rahip on my end.

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[Khaed]

I did have problems with AIM yesterday trying to send a legitimate License # to a co-worker for a piece of software with a floating license! And Aim blocks all kinds of comments.

Really? I've never had a message blocked. What kind?

Re:Ms Fanbois - explain this, now.

[unity100]

incident was 4 months ago. or 6.

Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of AIM, or Yahoo Instant Messenger? (I'm leaving Google's IM service out for now - oops - I just mentioned it). As I understand it, both AOL and Yahoo have more IM users than MS does, so this has NOTHING to do with a monopoly.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[Stormwatch]

As I understand it, both AOL and Yahoo have more IM users than MS does

Depends where you look. Here in Brazil, for example, everyone uses MSN (usually the official client -- a security minefield and a disgraceful interface). And there was some story here, I recall, about how ICQ was still the leader at some countries.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[bdsesq]

so this has NOTHING to do with a monopoly.
No. But it has EVERYTHING to do with a monopolistic mindset.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[Gavagai80]

Hence the "hard to get away with in an arena where you don't enjoy a monopoly" comment. Meaning they're shooting themselves in the foot. The common person will simply decide MSN messenger is broken and switch.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[diegocgteleline.es]

Messenger is bigger than AOL+Yahoo

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[xaxa]

They do have a monopoly in the UK (and perhaps many other countries in Europe). No one I've ever met uses AIM, a couple of people use Yahoo but they seem to have MSN anyway.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[mutantcamel]

Just wanted to echo the same idea that here in China, MyQQ is the IM of choice of most of the Chinese internet users.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[aliquis]

Yahoos IM and Microsofts one are compatible so that's probably why they seem to have MSN aswell.

Here in Sweden everyone use MSN aswell, which suck.

I think ICQ was quite large in Germany still, Poland have their own IM-client and ICQ are still biggest in Russia aswell. So it all depends on where you live.

I guess people switched because of Hotmail being bought by Microsoft, included Messenger in the OS and the webcam support.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[marafa]

1.Reuters Messenger; a finance industry intended platform uses msn messenger.
i believe they have the whole shebang: a private network plus msn servers as well as a rebranded msn messenger.

2. "whats your hotmail?" is the method of asking someone for his email in egypt. and by automatic association, it is the person's msn messenger account

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[gaspyy]

It's interesting to note that the pseudo-monopoly happens 'organically', without any intervention; new users simply pick whatever their friends use.

Everyone I know in UK uses MSN. Meanwhile, everyone here in Romania uses Yahoo.

This is also true with other social networking, as here everyone is on hi5; myspace is seldom used while facebook is unheard of.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[thetoadwarrior]

All IM clients should work together, like Email. If everyone other than MS worked together than MS would have to.

The thing is though I'm not 100% MS would object seeing how they tried to have interoperability with AIM and YIM during their launch of MSN. They can't really change their minds and say that's not good any more.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[thetoadwarrior]

They have their client installed on everyone's XP and newer machine. They won't have a monopoly over night because people use what their friends use but they've done a lot better than Google which, imo, has a decent system since it allows you to chat in Gmail as well as in your client. They've added AIM functionality too to Gmail which is sweet.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[torkus]

And that data is very sketchy when you dig into it. For starters you're comparing 2006 data with 2007.

I can't speak for global use but in the US ... MS is definitely NOT the #1 chat client. i woudln't put it beyond MS to consider 'active' use having the thing installed and running in the background (which would be what...every windows installation?)

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[im_thatoneguy]

It's the girls. The girls choose one at random and the guys all switch to that.

MSN, SMS, MySpace... wherever the teenage girls go... the guys soon follow.

Teenage Girls sadly are dictating modern technology. Why do you think SMS costs so much? Highschool girls who don't have to pay for their cell phone bills, that's who!

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[Bonobo_Unknown]

If I had mod points I would give you one !

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[neumayr]

Yeah, and QQ certainly seems like a respectable company you'd really want to have control over your communication ;)
Okay, I'm kind of trolling - don't have any personal experience with them. But watching people use their service, helping clean computers from malware spread via QQ, and their market dominance scared me.

Re:Um, they don't have an IM monopoly!

[mutantcamel]

Well that's true. A lot of Chinese users are using MSN exactly because of that, but still a lot of Chinese citizens think that the Chinese government is doing good things :)...

And this was posted on the Slashsphere?

[Leafheart]

A number of readers are sending word that the blogosphere and Twittersphere WTH is a Twttersphere? A new form on the R5 space?

Re:And this was posted on the Slashsphere?

[Anonymous Coward]

English 2.0

DeviantArt

[Anonymous Coward]

DeviantArt is blocked too, which is really bizzare.

Re:DeviantArt

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Microsoft hates furries too?

No no

[DeadPanDan]

Messenger TV will have vastly superior anti-Rickrolling capabilities. The service that the article describes is a demonstration of the feature that will be in Messenger TV!

Re:No no

[aliquis]

Yeah, Microsoft are wellknown for their filtering capatibilities. Just see how noone receives spam on hotmail ;)

Re:I call BS

[stg]

That is very easy to test. I tested it yesterday with a friend and also today and in both cases the url send failed.

If I remove the http and www it works, it also works if I change the youtube domain name...

Re:I call BS

[ShinSugoi]

Just tried it. They are indeed blocking Youtube links; You'll get an error immediately if you try to send someone a message including a URL with youtube.com in it.

Nice Links - I guess it's Saturday

[iamhigh]

If the best source of news you can find is a blog with two columns devoted to ads, more ad space in the page that actual content, and that awful attempt at "web 2.0" design, then you probably shouldn't post it to /., or at least not on the front page.

Re:Nice Links - I guess it's Saturday

[Aranykai]

Seconded. Dont bother with the articles, they dont have any more information than the summary.

Why cant we go back to web 1.0? I actually liked being able to find information with a google search instead of using this tagging bullshit.

Re:I call BS

[Vampyre_Dark]

Mod me down. They literally must have implemented it in the last 15 minutes, because as of right now, they are blocked, but weren't (for me) right before the I posted the first time.

Re:I call BS

[Doppleganger]

I just tested with a friend, the same youtube URL failed to go through twice (and not a rickroll or anything, just a cat on a treadmill). Went through fine on yahoo chat, though. And she just tried sending one back, getting a message that it couldn't be delivered.

More sites appear blocked as well

[ThreeGigs]

deviantart.com
googlepages.com
mediafire.com
ebuddy.com
xanga.com

Workaround: don't add the "http://" in front of the address.

Re:More sites appear blocked as well

[thetoadwarrior]

Surprisingly no MS sites seem to have been blocked.

Re:More sites appear blocked as well

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more:
* .sytes.net
* /download.php

Re:More sites appear blocked as well

[Looce]

That workaround seems not to work. I just tried sending "www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGkxcY7YFU" to someone on my MSN contact list, and Pidgin has been reporting a switchboard error.

"youtube.com/watch?v=fbGkxcY7YFU" works, so does removing the hostname entirely. But leaving the "http://" out results in an error if you also have the complete hostname.

Re:More sites appear blocked as well

[yakumo.unr]

This is why I stopped using the official MSN client months ago, and swapped to pidgin, and now mostly Miranda IM (much lower resource use), if it really starts playing up as it's the servers blocking content and not the client then I can use the excellent OTR encryption plugin with those clients.

I got sick of being told something along the lines of 'a network error has occured' when they were actually just blatantly blocking normal URLs for no reason.

Remove http:/// or www. from them and they go through instantly without problem, hundreds of times, put the http:/// back and it's instantly "a network error".

If MS want to block URLs over their system then fine, but don't lie and make people think it's their network configuration/hardware/isp.

Re:More sites appear blocked as well

[AndGodSed]

The real uproar will come when slashdot gets blocked.

Re:More sites appear blocked as well

[Anonymous Coward]

And along the same lines, Yahoo! Answers actively removes answers with links to http://www.ubuntu.com as they are "in violation".

The new, more open Microsoft?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't get it, and it seems they never will.

um... still @ 95%

[toby]

I don't see any change to the monopoly position or behaviour, do you?

Nope, still the same old MS. And stories like this confirm - as hostile as ever to any whiff of fair competition.

Dear AC -1: your love letters notwithstanding, we're not going to rest till your beloved criminal monopoly is history. :)

Re:um... still @ 95%

[ribond]

Ok, so this is completely BS. I'm sharing youtube links with the wife next to me, and she's not enjoying it (so I know they got through)... If I want read make-believe "facts" I'll go read wikipedia or foxnews.com like everyone else.

vote with your wallet - upgrade messaging clients

[SgtChaireBourne]

... Use something else.

One of the best is pidgin, which runs a wide range of protocols. That's a step in the right direction and helps wean people off of MSN and into better services and more useful technologies.

However, from the article it looks like the problem is at the MS servers. So staying on MSN, even with a better client, is still helping feed money (via ads and such) into more anti-competitive behavior and barriers to interoperability.

What should also be mentions is that MSIE now gives 'security' warning messages when accessing Google's Gmail. No. I neither use nor condone use of MS in any way shape or form, but I do check up on those who claim they feel compelled to do so and use them to check periodically. Now that MS is going after Google, Gmail gets the errors. Now that MS is going after Youtube, it gets MS errors, too.

The courts don't won't can't keep up with all these illegal/unethical anti-competitive tactics. The only effective option is to just stop funding it. And that boils down to not using the products, formats, protocols or services tied to that company.

ah

[Ariastis]

Thank you MS, for handicapping the only online service you had that i found useful. Now I can switch in peace...

Re:ah

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you switch to Digg, too, while you're at it?

Take off your tinfoil hats...

[heatdeath]

"This block seems to be related to the recent launch of Messenger TV in 20 countries which allows for sharing video clips from MSN Video on messenger."

sigh.

When in doubt, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, it's "somebody did something stupid" - nothing more. When you have a URL filtering system, somebody's bound to screw up and do something stupid. How would blocking youtube drive traffic to MSN TV?

Re:Take off your tinfoil hats...

[Prisoner's Dilemma]

"somebody did something stupid", maybe.

Someone thinking they can get away with blocking stuff that helps competitors, more likely.

Microsoft using their size and market share to underhandedly block/undermine competing products, most likely.

Re:Take off your tinfoil hats...

[Sibko]

So let me get this straight, you think the simplest explanation is that someone screwed up and accidentally added youtube, a site that receives millions of visitors a month, is owned by Microsoft's rival Google, and is the most ubiquitous video sharing website in the world; to a blacklist. For several days. [And AFAIK, is still blacklisted.]

Personally, I think a simper explanation is that someone with poor judgment thought banning youtube links would somehow benefit Microsoft. Maybe the decision was a good one, or a bad one. But I certainly don't think it was just "It's an accident, lol!"

Re:Take off your tinfoil hats...

[heatdeath]

If you worked at microsoft, you would understand that what is perceived as insidious on the outside can be seen for idiocy on the inside.

Re:Take off your tinfoil hats...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think that the simplest explanation is that an automated security system in place accidentally hit a false positive. There have been a couple of worms targetting distribution over MSN Messenger lately, so more aggresive filtering to a common message and URL were probably implemented. Youtube links, being terribly common and similar in nature, may have tripped this. That also explains why other commonly references sites for which MS would have no understandable reason to block are also blocked.

Re:Take off your tinfoil hats...

[toddestan]

When in doubt, the simplest explanation is correct. In this case, it's "somebody did something stupid" - nothing more. When you have a URL filtering system, somebody's bound to screw up and do something stupid. How would blocking youtube drive traffic to MSN TV?

I think the fact they have a URL filtering system is enough to don the tinfoil hats. Maybe Youtube made it into the list by accident as you suggest, but why else would you have a URL filtering system?

Re:Take off your tinfoil hats...

[heatdeath]

It says something about Slashdot that wild speculation gets marked up as insightful, and realism gets marked as 'trolling'.

True, however...

[Reality Master 201]

The article didn't claim it was censorship. It made the (purely factual) claim that links to youtube were being blocked by msn messenger. Which they are.

Sounds like you're the sensationalist one out for attention.

Re:True, however...

[nacturation]

The article didn't claim it was censorship.

Sounds like you're the sensationalist one out for attention. Scroll to the top of the page. Notice the image of that guy with the black bar over his mouth which, if you mouseover it, has an ALT tag of "Censorship"? This was marked as being in the Censorship category, likely what the GP was referring to.

Naturally you'll now retract your accusation that the GP was seeking attention and perhaps draw less attention to yourself in the future.

Re:True, however...

[nurb432]

No, but the slashdot tag icons did.

Re:True, however...

[canuck57]

The article didn't claim it was censorship. It made the (purely factual) claim that links to youtube were being blocked by msn messenger. Which they are.

No problems with gtalk. Users being blocked ought to switch.

Wonder what Google will do to retaliate. MSN is Microsoft, YouTube is Google. Court or MS-WAR? (MS-Windows Annihilation and Replace). But this could get real interesting fast.

Re:True, however...

[bendodge]

Hopefully I can use this to get more people onto GTalk (which I prefer over MSN anyway).

But amazingly enough, all the issues seem to have cleared up now.

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Your bosses read:

"In fact, I sometimes get no work done because we spent a few hours checking out youtube clips"

and decided to act.

Now get back to work.

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

Pidgin chat log below. Ask someone to translate it for you (it's in Swedish). This was last night:

(12:19:30) Hanna: Men va fan
(12:19:49) Jan: Hm?
(12:19:50) Hanna: "Det gick inte att leverera fÃljande meddelande till alla mottagare:"
(12:20:13) Hanna: Jag fÃrsÃker skicka en YouTube lÃnk till lÃ¥ten/musikvideon
(12:20:19) Jan: Erhm?
(12:20:29) Hanna: Men det går inte
(12:20:43) Jan: Ta och slÃng in nÃ¥gra mellanslag.
(12:21:09) Hanna: www. youtube. com/ watch?v=cV6xBQDCTzg

Let me sum it up for those of you who can't/won't find a translator:
She: Wtf? I can't send you a youtube link
Me: Try inserting some spaces into it. ..and the link came through.

The problem was there. However, if the youtube-block was on purpose, I very much doubt it was made by someone important at Microsoft.

They are evil control-freaks, but they aren't stupid. .. well, most of the time.

It's true

[thetoadwarrior]

I'm on my laptop which is an XP laptop with Windows Live Messenger version 2008 (Build 8.5.1302.1018) and it won't send Youtube URLs.

There is absolutely no legit reason for them to do this.

Someone got Rickrolled

[darkmasterchief]

It seems like Gate's got tired of getting gayrolled by his buddies over at Headquarters. http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ssh71hePR8Q MSN on Crack

Re:Someone got Rickrolled

[Tranzistors]

Well, the link has nothing to do MS, but I sure as hell would like it to be blocked.

3 Microsoft stories in a row?

[pembo13]

The empire is striking back! Everyone, brace yourself!

easy solution

[geek-trick]

posting a link in the folowing form works: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=V79owj81p0o

from RFC 4824 : NAK is

[zukinux]

NAK is negative acknowledgment, which means that the sender recognized that it received an incorrect packet / missed a packet.
RFC 4828

Re:from RFC 4824 : NAK is

[heatdeath]

Not a TCP NAK, an MSNP NAK. MSNP messaging uses a NAK'ing model. (So, unless you get a response back, your message is assumed to have succeeded)

Re:from RFC 4824 : NAK is

[klapaucjusz]

Not a TCP NAK, an MSNP NAK.

The link was about SFSS, not TCP. SFSS is a link-layer protocol that has similar speed to MSNP.

(TCP doesn't use NAKs, although you might claim that SACKs are a form of NAK.)

Re:from RFC 4824 : NAK is

[Anonymous Coward]

Respectfully, TCP relies upon NAK, as must any reliable transport protocol, however TCP subsumes NAK functionality into duplicate ACKs.

DUPACK is issued by the receiver in the event that a corrupted segment is received, or in the event that an unexpected segment is received. The primary reason for DUPACK rather than an explicit NAK is that keeping the on-the-wire protocol simple was a design goal. It also has (well, had) the advantage of simplifying the transmitter's state machine.

SACK-as-NAK argument is possible only because SACK is an extension of DUPACK (and consequently of the DUPACK-subsumes-NAK argument above) which enables the sender to distinguish between missing data ("holes") and actually duplicate data; in the absence of SACK (or ECN) the sender must infer (i.e. guess) the meaning of the duplicate ACK (it does this with the three DUPACK heuristic).

But wait, there's more!

[justthinkit]

People with email@msn.com addresses never receive YahooGroups.com invites. I get them bounced back to me routinely.

This IM blocking is just another reason to boycott msn.com, hotmail.com & live.com.

[Of course, YahooGroups now adds spaces in URLs I try to send to my groups. I have to TinyURL everything these days.]

Re:But wait, there's more!

[BlueStrat]

People with email@msn.com addresses never receive YahooGroups.com invites. I get them bounced back to me routinely.

This IM blocking is just another reason to boycott msn.com, hotmail.com & live.com.

[Of course, YahooGroups now adds spaces in URLs I try to send to my groups. I have to TinyURL everything these days.]

Yahoo has been blocking Photobucket.com links for ages in Yahoo chat. This is nothing new. Seems like it's getting to be pretty much S.O.P. these days for large 'net-service companies that provide multiple services including IM/chatroom-type services. Just forbid URLs to competitions' websites and services from being communicated over your services, and to heck with what the user wants.

Nevermind that most peoples' reactions that discover this that I've seen was anger, disgust, and frustration, along with a fierce determination to *never* use Flickr (Yahoos' photo/video upload service) just because of this stupidity, and even closing accounts there. Way to retain users, there, Yahoo!

I'm waiting to see if it comes to the point that things like the MSN Messenger installer silently removes competing IM/chat service client software. Or when things like Yahoo Messenger blocks the installation of competing services' software, or refuses to install while that software is present, and/or adds entries to the hosts file, blocking access to competitors'websites and services.

When will these corporations learn that users naturally tend to use multiple providers for any one function or service, and that these kinds of childish behaviors only alienates them?

Cheers!

Strat

Re:But wait, there's more!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hotmail also actively blocks (not just marks as spam, but blocks entirely) an invite to GMail. Hmmmmm... Shocking?

Re:But wait, there's more!

[Culture20]

Hotmail lazily blocks about 90% of all HAM emails (at least on the account I had a while back).

Re:But wait, there's more!

[Anonymous Coward]

Censorship to promote a government agenda is bad enough - but censorship to promote a corporate agenda is terrible!

Re:But wait, there's more!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Humans: correct in making the leap from wealth as currency to wealth as energy. But logic failure: wealth ultimately is extension of desire, fluctuating with emotions and state of mind. Desires: when all are supported in a purely adaptable system, true wealth is achieved."

    -- Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

YIM?

[Ihmhi]

Doesn't MSNM and YIM share a network now? Does Yahoo Instant Messenger block YouTube links as well? If not, why not just ditch MSNM completely and use YIM now that the networks work with one another?

one email to the EU coming up...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh well, if they want to incur further fines then pulling stunts like this is a perfect way to go about getting them.
One email to Neelie Kroes on its way....

They are gonna regret this

[eiapoce]

Ms has the habit of getting into troube. This time they performed exceptionally well.

We have a legislation here (italy) that state that tampering with electronic communications with the aim to impede or modify the contents of the messages is a felony. This is because the same legislation for standard mail has been applied to emails, phone conversations and IM.


By my point of view MS is getting sacked really bad in EU. (And they fully deserve it!)

Re:They are gonna regret this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not certain what's going on here. Are MS quietly dropping those messages (then this may be covered as illegal tempering with communications), of if they reject the message and inform the sender that it could not be delivered. In the latter case, they are unlikely to be liable.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[RightSaidFred99]

How is this insightful. By this retarded interpretation of the law, an IM that doesn't let me send you messages when you're marked "away" is breaking the law. Or one that doesn't let me send a .exe file as a link. Spam filters would break this law by your "logic". In short, your interpretation of the law is retarded.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[McD]

We have a legislation here (italy) that state that tampering with electronic communications with the aim to impede or modify the contents of the messages is a felony.

I'd imagine the spammers and virus writers love that.

If your ISP strips executable attachments from email, are they felons?

If an email provider tacks on a signature block or advertisement, are they guilty as well?

Sounds like a tricky thing to legislate, however well intentioned.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[The_Noid]

That's probably why all those things can be turned of or on with a simple toggle.
For example, I don't know of any ISP that strips executables without the client's consent.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[MulluskO]

The answer to what you see as a problem is likely answered by the notion of "agency" or on whose behalf the software is acting.

If the software blocks incoming messages at the behest of the recipient, as is the case with spam filtering and "do not disturb" type IM configurations, it's obvious that the software is acting as an agent for the user wherever the code is running.

The law is cheifly concerned with the actions of men and not of the tools they use. This is the right way to do things.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[Anonymous Coward]

...tampering with electronic communications with the aim to impede or modify the contents of the messages is a felony... mmm, spam

Re:They are gonna regret this

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure about Italy, but I guess it's similar in the Netherlands:

If your ISP strips executable attachments from email, are they felons? They are if they do not notify you of the modification, or drop the message entirely.

If an email provider tacks on a signature block or advertisement, are they guilty as well? They are if they are acting as relay, NOT when they are the service provider (e.g. an ISP adding a signature when you use their webmail service is allowed, but is not allowed when the mail agent is an offline program such as Thunderbird or Outlook)

Sounds like a tricky thing to legislate, however well intentioned. It seems to work fine for all other types of communication, including telefax and telephone. Why should e-mail/IM be any different?

Re:They are gonna regret this

[brainnolo]

Every ISP I used has the option to turn on or off those filters, this means that the user is supposedly aware of that kind of filtering (and can opt out). Indeed Microsoft may be violating some laws (and GP interpretation of said law doesn't look that flawed if you consider that detail).

Re:They are gonna regret this

[Baloo Ursidae]

How much do you want to bet that when it comes right down to it, Microsoft is going to argue that it's not actually IM because MSN Messenger doesn't use the de facto IM standard, XMPP?

Re:They are gonna regret this

[hemp]

Ms has the habit of getting into troube.

My wife does the same thing.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[Spy der Mann]

I agree. This isn't your common censorship where one person isn't allowed to do a public speech (i.e. newspaper).

This is tampering with PRIVATE COMMUNICATIONS. Microsoft has absolutely no right to offer an "instant messaging service" if they don't guarantee that the information I type at one end is unharmed when received by the other end.

This is, ladies and gentlemen, an intentional man-in-the-middle attack. Who knows if they won't block other URL's later? MSN messaging has just stopped being reliable.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[TapeCutter]

Yeah we have similar laws in Oz but if your read the fine print of most anti-tampering/impeadment laws you will generally find they are aimed at keeping common carriers in line and protecting common carriers from unauthorised attacks. ISP (especially those owned by phone companies) have the ISP company structured so that they do not have common-carrier status. Under these types of laws an email provider is not considered a communications carrier and can do whatever they like with THIER servers (ie: is it actually your email in the eyes of the law once it has traversed the common carrier and is on their server?).

Someone running an email service does not normally have a legal obligation to do anything to protect the contents of the email regardless of what the user expects. Posting comments to slashdot is also 'electronic communications', sure slashdot allow you to post almost anything but they are under no obligation to do so.

Now like everyone else here, I would like my email to be left alone but I am not willing to pay a dime to send youtube links to my friends. In other words beggars can't be chosers and this is why beggers with a bit of sense who want to ensure privacy use encryption.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[Darkness404]

A spam filter usually is user-added/removable. Most of the time you can even read your messages deemed as "spam". If your marked as "away" it is the person choosing to not receive messages. With this neither the sender nor the receiver can do anything about it. It is all about choice, with MS's way you get no choice, therefore it is more likely to be on the illegal side then the legal side.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[magus_melchior]

That might depend on how a court rules on the questions raised. I would hazard a guess that if a virus writer or spammer looks for damages due to mail fraud, the ISP has a reasonable defense, namely, they're protecting their customers from identity theft and fraud. If the ISP slaps on additional stuff that may obfuscate the message, however, that might be actionable.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[eiapoce]

I'd imagine the spammers and virus writers love that.

If your ISP strips executable attachments from email, are they felons?

Technically speaking I suppose they would not be liable. This is because the spammer/virus writer would have to be traceable to a phisical person/corporation. And since the latter is not possible then one of the prerequisite for the application of the law would be missing, e.g. a proper communication between two or more people. Note also that we have stingent laws for unsolicited mails.

Re:They are gonna regret this

[John Miles]

I screamed bloody murder when Google did the same thing to the DejaNews archive a few years ago, editing Usenet posts by the millions to mangle email addresses and obscure authorship. Nobody cared.

My guess is there's no way to force Microsoft or any other major information service to keep their hands off of other peoples' content.

Re:I call BS

[Anpheus]

Wow, a URL block fails to catch it if you change the URL's domain name? What happens if you change the TLD? Jesus christ, someone alert... the someone in charge of this madness! It must be stopped!

the real scary part...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't just that Microsoft is blocking certain links from being shared...

But that they have the ability to comb every single message for sequences of bits they don't like and have demonstrated the willingness to use it for their own purposes (they are NOT "thinking of the children"; but rather, their bottom line and market share, squashing the enemy, etc)...

How long (or has it happened already) until the Feds ask for transcripts of every chat session that contains certain keywords? Or perhaps, maybe they already have a hook into the service's main servers and can sift through all messages at their leisure.

They are also blocking mediafire.com links

[Vu1turEMaN]

I tried to send someone a mediafire download link the other day, and it was blocked every time i tried to send it to them. I had to tinyurl it just to get them the link, which is a PITA. This is total nonsense >.

Re:I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Saturday.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Correction, addendum

[Looce]

Sorry. I meant "Leaving the http:/// in results in an error". Actually:

www.youtube.com/: blocked
youtube.com/: not blocked
http://www.youtube.com/: blocked
http://youtube.com/: blocked /watch?v=something: not blocked if you omit the host

Hanlon's Razor

[geckipede]

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." I'm having a hard time believing that stupidity stretches this far. My guess is that the MSN block list is maintained automatically and somebody found a way to feed bad data into the system.

Re:Hanlon's Razor

[Fujisawa Sensei]

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." I'm having a hard time believing that stupidity stretches this far. My guess is that the MSN block list is maintained automatically and somebody found a way to feed bad data into the system.

I'm certain that stupidity stretches beyond imagination, or at least reason.

However nothing prevents Malice and Stupidity from being one and the same.

Re:Hanlon's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

Why, that's so simply logical it must be true.

Re:Hanlon's Razor

[Anonymous Coward]

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

I'm having a hard time believing that stupidity stretches this far. My guess is that the MSN block list is maintained automatically and somebody found a way to feed bad data into the system. riiiiight - and I believe the moon is made from green cheese

Slava

[home-electro.com]

Yes, that's right, youtube links ARE blocked.

Youtube isn't the only thing they've blocked

[Xenaero]

Although, it makes perfect sense now. I was trying to send a youtube link to a friend of mine and was wondering why it wouldn't go through. Suspiciously, it instantly said the message couldn't be delivered, which were the exact same symptoms of my googlepages links also being blocked. TinyURLing the links worked. Microsoft is blocking Googlepages, Youtube and others. What else is blocked that we don't know about? This almost makes me want to move to a third party client so I'm not being forced to abide by their restrictions.

Not content with youtube...

[Anonymous Coward]

I've had problems posting links to file sharing sites, specifically mediafire. Not that there's anything wrong with filesharing...

Let's convince everyone to switch to Jabber!

[ludw]

This seems like a good time to convince everyone to switch to jabber. Write something nice about why msn is so bad and jabber is so much better and send it to your MSN-only-friends. It's just a matter of reaching the critical mass of switchers.

Re:Let's convince everyone to switch to Jabber!

[Bragador]

This is what I was thinking. Also I kind of tried in the past since I'm using pidgin but most people like their emoticons and voice chat. They especially like their crazy, annoying, non ascii emoticons...

Also, I was using pidgin to get jabber through gmail. So basically I was connecting to google talk and I'm not sure google talk counts as jabber.

Also, removing freedom a small bit at a time will not create rage and indignation in society at large. We, here, understand what could happen but most people simply don't care. They still have their emoticons, dancing boobies and voice chat so they might be pissed but in a week everybody will have adapted.

Seriously, it's the boiling frog allegory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Encryption

[Psx29]

This is just another reason that people should be encrypting their chats with something like OTR so that not only can companies not filter anything but they also can't see the content of your IMs.

Re:Encryption

[Anonymous Coward]

Google for Torchat, it's much better than any other online IM solution I've seen, true encryption vs. pseduo encryption methods

It's easier this way

[ouder]

It's easier to just pretend you are a monopoly than it is to come out with a better product. If MS-TV was a better product than YouTube it might have a chance. Instead MS decided to make its IM services worse by blocking YouTube. That drives more people to use other IM's. This is the kind of corporate thinking that brought us Vista and will ultimately be the doom of MicroSoft unless they change their ways.

Download.php

[Skuldo]

Download.php, a phrase which is obviously solely used for malicious purposes, is also still blocked. More on it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Messenger#Filtering_controversy Useless fucking company.

Re:Download.php

[LingNoi]

I was about to mention the same thing here, they censor a ton of keywords and worse of all they don't send any error notice, it looks like it went through on your end and on the other side it look like you didn't send a message.

Stupid, all so they can compete with php..

Where is the antitrust when you need it.... ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just waiting to see another nice fine on you microsoft just can't wait for it coming... (in EU at least)

works fine here so far.

[PPNSteve]

No problem posting spewtube links here .. with or without the http / www.

Gotta be some kind of selective filtering involved. Or someone's looking for attention.

Re:I call BS

[eihab]

It's Saturday. I'm at work you insensitive clod!

Seems fine over here...

[Karganeth]

I am sending and receiving youtube links perfectly. I am in the UK.

Re:Seems fine over here...

[Karganeth]

D'oh. It's probably because I'm not in one of the 20 countries "which allows for sharing video clips from MSN Video on messenger".

Re:Seems fine over here...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in Canada which, I do believe, is one of the 20 countries...and I can still send the links.

Put tinfoil hats back in drawer...

[TheNetAvenger]

Earlier today some youtube links were being blocked.

Friend in Belgium alerted me to the issue, as trying to send a link across the room to her friend would even fail.

After some investigation...

It looks like it was a temporary error in the server response, so instead of saying yes, it would just deny the link out of default, suspecting an attack or a bot.

The server responses are now working correctly and so are the links.

Back to your tinfoil and OFFICIAL MS IS ALWAYS EVIL CLUB of the insane...

PS - How come when Google/Firefox re-routes or blocks URLs, (in error or for questionable reasonss) it never makes it to the front of SlashDot?

Get over MS, they dumped you or you them, they are your ex girlfriend, you have a new girlfirend(OS), quit stalking her... (Wait, bad analogy in a geek forum.)

Star Wars Episode III screwed you, get over it... (Better analogy?)

Re:Put tinfoil hats back in drawer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Friend in Belgium alerted me to the issue, as trying to send a link across the room to her friend would even fail.

So, um... *cough* Does your house straddle some border or something? Was this "alert" a series of words spoken to the air? *chuckle*

This is being blocked on the server side. The IM makes trips through the server, so location is moot... yes?

Re:Put tinfoil hats back in drawer...

[TheNetAvenger]

So, um... *cough* Does your house straddle some border or something? Was this "alert" a series of words spoken to the air? *chuckle*

This is being blocked on the server side. The IM makes trips through the server, so location is moot... yes?

Are you on medication?

A FRIEND of mine contacted me that LIVES in Belgium. I mainly reside in the US.

As for location, there is no real relavance except some people were purporting it had to do with MSN TV that rolled out in places like Belgium, but NOT in the US.

Also many US people testing it weren't showing the error, this could be based on how the servers are provisioned by location, etc. (There is not just ONE COMPUTER all IM goes through for MS Messenger.)

IM filtering happens on EVERY IM provider's servers, mainly for security from bots, and other little tricks. When a response don't get a 'pass' it defaults to failing, to error on the side of security. This is what was happening... (Imagine MS erroring on the side of security instead of letting a bot take over the network? AOL fans paying attention here?)

It could have been the result of a set of IM filtering servers at Microsoft, it also could have been some bad packets through the backbone heading into those servers. (A freaking rogue router could malform the IM packet enough to trigger something like this.)

So ya, it was an ERROR on the SERVER side, not sure if it was a problem with the server, a bad router out in the internet, or just a squirrel shorting out out a switch in Chicago for all I know... Which is what I pretty much said before, just in simpiler terms.

I admit the grammar I used wasn't perfect, but it was understandible...

So, why did you post a response asking the same thing again?

Possible alternate explaination

[ayana]

I'm one of the seemingly many who submitted this to Slashdot, and it certainly annoys me, however... I was thinking, what if Microsoft are doing this because of Youtube having rather a lot of unauthorised copyrighted content? You can often find whole episodes or even whole seasons of TV shows on Youtube, split up into 10 minute segments in Youtube's fantastic, high resolution better-than-bluray quality, and perhaps Microsoft had some legal paranoia that if they allow links to potentially copyrighted material, they could get in legal trouble... either that or they're in so deep with the media companies that they want to act as "Copyright Cops". In favour of this theory, there's that whole story posted recently about the Zune potentially refusing to play "pirated" content. On the other hand, I've not heard anything about them blocking popular torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, and if they're setting up a competing service I can see them pulling this sort of crap. Whatever the truth turns out to be, this whole thing is very, very weird.

As long as ....

[PPH]

... they don't block tinyurl.com.

TinyURL.com

[rfroberg]

What if you use TinyURL.com, is that blocked as well?

Hoorah! Unrelated topic!

[Aphoxema]

I love Microsoft. They give me something new to laugh at almost every day now. I really have /. to thank to keeping me informed on the comical goodness.

WTF

[Jrabbit05]

It's back, is there a press release or are they denying this?

because they don't :)

[someone1234]

Never seen Google or Firefox blocking an URL, but i read Google does something in China. So it is false that it doesn't make to the headlines.
Truth is, i have never seen M$ blocking one either, but it is because i don't use M$ IM.

Re:because they don't :)

[TheNetAvenger]

Here's a cute one:

For quite a while, when you clicked a link from Google Search it rewrote the URL redirect and sent the information to Google...

(Simple MouseDown JavaScript)

It still may do this in Firefox, can't remember if this was totally removed after a few consumer group complaints or not. IE doesn't respect this type of redirect, and can't test at the moment.

Re:Where did you want to go today?

[RadioElectric]

Who's been a naughty boy then?

Off the record

[drsmall17]

Simply use OTR (Off the record) and you can send all the youtube videos you want. Better yet, use Jabber, and go for a more decentralized messengering system. :)

Re:I call BS

[rbanffy]

Where are you and your friend?

Just testes this in Brazil (sender and receiver) with the url "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w" and it worked. The traditional http://server.com/download.php is still blocked.

workaround

[zentrii]

Other clients like pidgin should fix this by transforming youtube.com to something else like you0Xf675xctube.com then when another client that supports this workaround receives this special url it changes it back to youtube.com

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[perlchild]

Quite simple: profit

They've been convicted of monopolistic practices. They keep up at them. They get fined for each time they do, but the fines never address the problem.

I would see one solution: if their online services get caught trying to participate in monopolistic practices, make sure the court orders them to sell the online service to a hostile party. Not just a third party, it has to be someone who has a fiduciary responsability to make microsoft shares worth zero. Tell them right now that's the next penalty for this, and we'll see if they do it again.

I can just imagine msn being owned by a consortium of ibm and aol(ok ok I need a better example...)

Re:Where did you want to go today?

[Anonymous Coward]

twitter

DUH

Moderators: Please note

[Anonymous Coward]

Mactrope, willeyhill, inTheLoo, Erris and gnutoo (among others) are sockpuppet accounts of twitter. He uses them to game the moderation system. This whole thread is just twitter replying to himself to see if someone thinks there's an interesting discussion going on and gain karma to get his accounts out of the -1 posting default he's at for trolling.

Re:Moderators: Please note

[stefanPryor]

I don't understand.
Why would he not just create another account.
Surely this is more simple than attempting to bring an account posting at -1 into good standing?
Although I admit I am not an expert on the ins and outs of the moderation system

Re:Moderators: Please note

[mvdwege]

I keep hearing this.

Not to say that twitter isn't an egomaniacal bastard, but I sure would like to see some proof for once.

Mart

Re:Moderators: Please note

[Willuknight]

It's happening to me as well :\ had to spell out an address last night

Re:Moderators: Please note

[Willuknight]

yeah it does it for me as well ~_~ feaking microsoft

Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

Just tested it, and youtube links worked just fine, with or without the leading http:///

Stupidity

[Count_Froggy]

Microsoft once again proves they are more stupid than AOL... nuf said.

Re:I call BS

[stg]

I'm in Brazil, just tested and it does work now.

but 'apt-get install msn' fails

[sjwest]

what am i doing wrong ? - humour

People use MSN Messenger?

[Awptimus Prime]

For real, does anyone use this horrid IM service? If you have friends that do, remind them Microsoft runs it, then show them how to set up a AIM, Yahoo, or Gmail account. Then get them a simple client like gAIM.

All my non-geek friends are now cruising with gAIM and really happy.

Re:People use MSN Messenger?

[Yvan256]

First, let me say that most of the people I know in Canada use MSN. It used to be ICQ, people switched and I have no idea why.

Second, getting people to switch from MSN to something else and trying to explain to them how/why Microsoft is "a bad idea" is simply impossible most of the time. They either call you an Apple fanboy or a Linux zealot.

Third, even if they'd want to switch to something else, they can't because their friends also use it. So unless you can convince everyone on everyone's list (basically, the whole internet), you can't make these people switch.

In my defense, I had my HotMail account way before they were bought by Microsoft. And these days this account is only used to talk to my friends on MSN.

Re:People use MSN Messenger?

[somersault]

You could always get them to use one of those multi-protocol clients. Personally I just use MSN. And I did have ICQ for a while before that.. also had a short time of AIM alongside MSN, and quite a while of using Skype too.

Re:People use MSN Messenger?

[Yvan256]

I do use a multi-protocol client (Adium). However, getting my friends to use a multi-protocol client is usually met with resistance ("it doesn't look exactly like MSN Messenger") or with a question mark ("why would I want to sign up for other things if all my friends are on MSN?").

I do have an idea: try to ditch MSN and tell my friends that if they want to contact me, they'll have to use something that's Jabber/XMPP compatible (with a link to compatible clients).

Re:People use MSN Messenger?

[somersault]

That's one way of finding out who your friends really are ;) I've downloaded extra clients just for one friend in the past, but it didn't last that long because I could already speak to them in a MUD.

FOSS IM Network

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any other networks that can be used where privacy is guranteed? That way we won't have to deal with this mess by Yahoo or MSN or whatever when the update their protocols or put in filters. There already are gpl'd messenger clients, all that is needed is a open network to manage all of this, anyone know of one off the top?

May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[Anonymous Coward]

Once again, Twitter, Slashdot's most maniacal anti-Microsoft troll, beats on the truthout.org dead horse. Of course, Twitter and Marc Ash are cut from the same cloth. They both believe that they are so noble, and their causes so righteous, that they can freely stoop to any depth, and engage in whatever underhanded behaviour they please.

Marc Ash was caught spamming totally unrelated Yahoo! Groups by joining and blasting emails through group addresses.

Twitter threadjacks a story, then shills his comment with three of his army of sockpuppets, including two accounts that are impostors of his critics.

And Slashdot does nothing.

Instead, Rob Malda posts this gem to the front page, claiming that Microsoft "prefers" Flash to Silverlight because Microsoft doesn't have some super-special-secret transmogrifier that could spontaneously transform each and every Flash animation on each and every web site Microsoft owns into Silverlight content, and didn't use it the very minute Silverlight 1.0 was released to the public.

Slashdot has turned reason and common sense and honesty against its own readers.

Delete your bookmarks, people. Redirect slashdot.org to 127.0.0.1 in your hosts file, in case you get the urge to go back. There's no point.

There are plenty of places where advocacy of Free and Open Source software is done without the community being exploited. Slashdot is no longer one of those places. Their hatred of Microsoft has become all-consuming, and they're proud of it. Time to leave them shouting into empty space.

Re:May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL Twitter has nothing to do here, we are talking about twitter *users*. Are you sure you are not a vb script? Because you seem to be astroturfing on cruise control.

Re:May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[jonasj]

Instead, Rob Malda posts this gem to the front page, claiming that Microsoft "prefers" Flash to Silverlight because Microsoft doesn't have some super-special-secret transmogrifier that could spontaneously transform each and every Flash animation on each and every web site Microsoft owns into Silverlight content, and didn't use it the very minute Silverlight 1.0 was released to the public. but at least it said "from the recoding-takes-time dept."...

Re:May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[driftingwalrus]

You're new to slashdot, aren't you?

Re:May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[stefanPryor]

Thank you for bringing this to my attention, it is very relevant and interesting data that provides additional context to the information presented.

I am curious to know how you figured this out. You must read slashdot very closely.

I would not worry about this guy posting because he is apparently posting at -1. (Actually I don't know for sure because I have post ratings disabled in my user preferences)

In response to the claim "slashdot does nothing", do you think something should be done over and above the applied results of the moderation system, and if so why?

I think most data contains a certain bias, however this does not eliminate its utility as data.

In fact, I am not sure how I would define "un-biased data" when talking about any finite collection of data.

When you say "slashdot has turned reason and common sense and honesty against its own readers", which entity are you meaning to refer to? The editors?

Re:May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[mvdwege]

Re your Silverlight-versus-Flash comment: it is a known part of the Microsoft culture to 'eat your own dogfood'. The fact that they apparently have not even made an effort to roll out Silverlight on their own site is remarkable in the light of this.

So stop whining.

Mart

Re:May 10, 2008: The day Slashdot died.

[Anonymous Coward]

To those mods who modded this insightful: what are you doing still on slashdot if you agree with this?

It still does...

[Animaether]

...though I don't think it's a mousedown javascript. Rather, a javascript - or something - sets the browser status bar to the correct site - but when you actually click the link...

For example
1. go to www.google.com
2. search for "slashdot"
3. hover over the very first link
3-1: The status bar reads "http://slashdot.org"
4. right-click on the link
4-1: The status bar changes to reflect the actual URL
5. Copy the link location
6. Paste it somewhere
6-1. The actual URL turns out to be: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.org%2F&ei=GARBLE&usg=MOREGARBLE
( 'weird' stuff substituted - who knows wtf that information is )

I'm pretty sure they didn't do this in the past, as I remembered looking at the source of the page and thinking "that is some lean html right there". Now, however.. they must be wasting gigabytes a day thanks to links like that. But I suppose they can afford it, and for them it's a nice metric to see which links got clicked, etc.

Re:It still does...

[Yvan256]

Looking at the source, there is an "onmousedown" event, but it just doesn't seem to work for me as the copy/paste of the link results in the plain "http://slashdot.org", just like the status bar.

Re:It still does...

[someone1234]

Weird, this doesn't happen to me. (Using firefox on linux). Allowing all scripts to run.

Re:It still does...

[CTachyon]

Disclaimer: as of recently, I now work for Google, but I don't speak for Google in any way, and I don't have anything to do with web search. I had noticed this and pondered it before I started my employment.

I'm pretty sure they didn't do this in the past, as I remembered looking at the source of the page and thinking "that is some lean html right there". Now, however.. they must be wasting gigabytes a day thanks to links like that. But I suppose they can afford it, and for them it's a nice metric to see which links got clicked, etc.

My educated guess is that they're doing it to count hits, presumably so they can (a) collect stats about how far people go down the list of search results, and more importantly (b) collect stats about how accurate the search results were: if the first link was clicked quickly, it must've been a good result; if there are long delays, lots of links clicked, and the first 3 results were never clicked, it must've been an awful result.

Again, this is without any insider insights into what the web search team is actually doing, mind you, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Regarding bloat: it's not as bad from a bandwidth perspective as you make it out, but the added latency was very annoying for me when they first started doing that. Adding another round trip to Google before I can see my result does have an annoyance impact. There are a few Greasemonkey scripts out there that purport to undo the Javascript and purify the result links; however, I never got any of them to work for me.

Hopefully Google's web search team is working on something more asynchronous/AJAX-y that can report back in the background.

what are the odds

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another thread that looks suspiciously like this one. Anyone notice any similarities?

Remember when

[Arancaytar]

Remember when vertical integration and vendor lock-in could be excused by laziness or incompetence rather than maliciousness?

Good times.

Of course, vertical integration always ran the risk of losing the market share you leveraged rather than gaining the market share you tried to win.

works now

[n0rton]

It didn't work for me before, but now it does, the block seems to be lifted for some reason and i have checked with a few people on msn and they also confirm that the block has been lifted!

Fixed Already?

[SirLurksAlot]

Is it possible they've fixed it already? I just sent a youtube link from one of my accounts to another, and it went through just fine. I was also able to receive a youtube link from my other account. Furthermore, TinyURL seems to work just fine as well, so even if youtube is being blocked it's not as if there aren't work arounds for it. I'm guessing some MS engineer borked their servers accidentally.

Sure it is

[Steve Franklin]

How long do you think a phone company that didn't let you connect to Verizon would last? Especially if that company were number 3 or 4 in the market? Does MS not understand that they are selling a service?

As for whether it's censorship, I don't think that's the point. The point is, it's stupid. It degrades their own product to the point that no one will want to use it. Kind of like Vista....

Re:I call BS

[Mateo_LeFou]

The latest versions of Vista Genuine Service Pack Premium are able to tell that when you type domain name X, you really meant domain name Y.

For example, it knows utube.com means youtube.com (and should be blocked) and it knows that google.com means "live.com" and so on.

Their brilliance brings a tear to me eyes.

Thats computer tampering

[Greymoon]

Thats computer tampering which is a federal felony. When can we expect Balmer to be arrested?

Re:Thats computer tampering

[somersault]

A person commits the offense of computer tampering when he knowingly and without
          the authorization of a computer's owner, or in excess of the authority granted
          to him
          (1) Accesses or causes to be accessed a computer or any part thereof, or a
                    program or data;
          (2) Accesses or causes to be accessed a computer or any part thereof, or a
                    program or data, and obtains data or services
          (3) Accesses or causes to be accessed a computer or any part thereof, or a
                    program or data, and damages or destroys the computer or alters, deletes
                    or removes a computer program or data. Doesn't look like it to me.. for one thing you have to choose to use messenger (I won't say you have to choose to install it because there is an old version of messngers that comes with XP by default). There's probably even something in the Messenger EULA that they can do whatever they want with your messages :P

Re:Thats computer tampering

[Greymoon]

(3) deletes ... ... data. Jail

It's actually funnier than that

[Mateo_LeFou]

I'm pretty sure these over-the-top moves by MS are calculated to fail. No one in her right mind thinks people will actually *stand for youtube being filtered.

The game is: filter it, then when you bring it back you can stump about how willing you are to interoperate and play ball. What was formerly understood as basic Net behavior now seems like a nice gift that MS gave you.

They do this for every service (Xbox Live)

[Doug52392]

You can't use words that are copyrighted, product names, or even "Windows", and (oddly enough) "Linux" in an Xbox Live Gamertag or description...

I just wanna say

[Anonymous Coward]

F U Microsoft

Trivial to get around

[paratiritis]

Algorithm:

Step 0: M$ blocks youtube

Step 1: Someone creates an add-in that intercepts youtube links,creates tinyurl links and automatically replaces them.

Step 2: M$ blocks tinyurl

Step 3: .....

.........

Step n: M$ blocks all sites they don't own

Step n+1: The 3 remaining people still using M$ messaging clients abandon them

See? Simple

Re:I call BS

[mabhatter654]

the point is that it's VERY specificly looking for "youtube.com" in the domain. That's a fairly popular site so why would they block it?

I can't wait for the day Google starts abusing it's power and directs all searches of Microsoft.com to Ubuntu.com!!! Microsoft's own search tool is poor at looking up their own support site. IF google really wanted to hurt Microsoft, they'd simply stop indexing their sites!

You've got it all wrong

[CSMatt]

Microsoft is trying to lessen the stupidity of YouTube comments by blocking the posters of said comments at the source.

Re:Stevie Baller,

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really sad to see someone descend to this level. It's clear to everyone on Slashdot that you are being shunned by the community, first for trolling (not unlike this) and then for creating ten or twelve different accounts that shill each other's posts.

Microsoft has nothing to do with this twitter, it's your own toxic brand of "evangelism" that turns people off. There are plenty of people on Slashdot that criticize Microsoft and do it in an intelligent, composed way that is well-received. I mean, even here you continue to do it - can you provide proof that Windows Update deletes Netscape bookmarks? Of course you can't. Why do you make things like these up? How does that help you or free software? Heck, you don't even see the problem, do you?

Maybe one day you'll understand why people like you are so damaging to free software and open source.

-JC (posting anon because the moderation on this thread is punishing anyone who disagrees with you, or points out your team of sockpuppets, as usual)

Oh Irony

[Toreo asesino]

Then fire the PR company you pay to harass Slashdot. It's obvious they can't control a single individual much less sway public opinion on Slashdot. I often wonder, Twitter, if it is you that is on the MS payroll list; you're that good at promoting free software (which FOSS being pretty good as it is, is a shame).

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god, will someone please mod this off the default page view PLEASE

Sorry to break the anti-MS circle-jerk...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but it's not true. I'm sending YouTube URLs through MSN (OSX, Adium) to a friend (WLM, Vista) with no issues. Even Rick rolls.

Re:I call BS

[ozbird]

(and not a rickroll or anything, just a cat on a treadmill).

Won't somebody think of the dumb animals?

Re:Encryption and P2P

[klapaucjusz]

This is just another reason that people should be encrypting their chats with something like OTR

While I warmly recommend OTR (and use it myself whenever possible), the right solution is to switch to a peer-to-peer model for IM, where the clients connect to each other directly without going through the server. The server then only serves for locating clients, and for off-line messaging.

This can be done in addition to end-to-end encryption, as done by OTR.

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[TheP4st]

We are getting tired of this twitter....

"We are..."?

Are you always referring to yourself as we?

Well wait...

[OMNIpotusCOM]

I thought this was a ridiculous and trolling post, but then I go back in my RSS and find this...

Re:Well wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which has a categorical denial at the bottom.
That was a fake news item too.

Re:Well wait...

[OMNIpotusCOM]

Oh well, the world is right again. Back to knee-jerk news headlines on Slashdot

Skunks attack alligators

[baomike]

Gee , it's kind of hard to decide which side to root for on this one.
A pox on bother their houses.

Re:Stevie Baller,

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm having some real problems trying to imagine the mindset of the person who modded this informative and the reply below as troll.

But I suppose that's what sockpuppets are good for, modding yourself up.

What am I missing? The links seem to work

[Anonymous Coward]

I just sent a few test URLs to my wife. They went thru.

Re:

[clint999]

Heh, I checked out his previous comments - turns out YOU are the propogandist.

Twatt3r has no sockpuppets

[twatt3r]

You probably still use closed-source, proprietary bread you buy from a store.

I insist on open-source, GPL bread, with recipes freely available. You can't know your food is safe unless you can debug the source yourself.

Compile times for sourdough are a bitch, tho.

Wait, I forgot. "M$ Windoze lulz."

Re:Twatt3r has no sockpuppets

[somersault]

Hehehe.. should have their own personal twitter parody..! I may call mine twoddle if I ever get the urge.

Re:vote with your wallet - upgrade messaging clien

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather than linking to pidgin, which is run by people who don't care what the user wants, link to funpidgin.

From the horse's mouth

[Anonymous Coward]

twitter deserves frequent ridicule and criticism because he frequently does
things which are wrong. He is either too stupid to understand the social
harm he does or is too greedy to care and he should be called to task each
time he is caught saying or doing the wrong things. This is an impossible
task for any single person, of course, but it's easy for the community if we
cooperate and share what we know.

(with apologies to the Baton Rouge LUG)

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[somersault]

I'm pretty tired of it too, he was just talking about me and him of course! Well - me, him and everyone on slashdot who has been paying attention ;)

Re:I call BS

[Warll]

The latest versions of Vista Genuine Service Pack Premium Would you like fries with that? PS: Is it possible that you are talking about Windows Vista SP1? Or was there another one I was not aware of?

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[MidnightBrewer]

Order a company to sell their product to another company as punishment, and make sure it's somebody that doesn't like them? I can't see this going very well.

Monopolies aren't inherently bad; abuse of monopolies is. While we're on the extreme solutions front, a more fitting punishment might be to force Microsoft to shut down its MSN video service for a year. Thing is, such punishments don't work if you don't actually solve the original problem, which is that they are unfairly blocking YouTube links.

Emil

[Anonymous Coward]

Let your thoughts be known to the EU Competition Regulators. Email them here: comp-market-information@ec.europa.eu.

Not a once-off.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not aware of Firefox or Google redirecting or blocking any URLs. When you say "Google," which service are you referring to, anyway? Can you provide some examples of URLs that are blocked/redirected by Firefox or Google, please?

MSN Messenger has been blocking http://.googlepages.com/ for months. This is not a once-off.

Not blocked here..

[Anonymous Coward]

I just sent a youtube link to a buddy, got through, no problem..
Maybe this is limited to some countries? (Im in .dk)

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[rtb61]

Can't lose twitter, other wise we would lose the opportunity of being called twitter sock puppets or twitter with yet another user name. Friends of twitter unite, it is so much fun annoying the micro-softies after all the take it so well.

On a serious side the micro-softies should expect it, after all those years from windows 3, windows 95, windows 98, windows NT etc. where they flooded forums with, windows runs perfect, windows never crashes, you have configured windows wrong, you are an anti-windows zealot, seriously what do they expect but to be taken the piss out of at every opportunity, it is fun, it is humerus, in fact it chair throwing, monkey boy dancing, developers developers developers, hilarious ;).

Is anybody surprised that M$ would block a competitor to try to gain a competitive advantage, here's betting they lose more users who wanted to see the youtube videos than they gain going to their video site, next thing you know you will be forced to install and run 'silverfish' in order to view videos on that site ;D.

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[Viper Daimao]

that makes no sense. if they participate in monopolistic practices in an area where they don't have a monopoly, then they get punished real quick by the consumers. It's their online messaging service, they can block what they want. What right do you have to force them to sell anything? If you don't like ms communicator, go use aim, yahoo, jabber, whatever.

I think you've rather proved the GP's point

[SEMW]

The fact that they apparently have not even made an effort to roll out Silverlight on their own site is remarkable in the light of this. That fact that you believe that that "have not even made an effort to roll out Silverlight on their own site" rather proves the GP's point. TFA made it quite clear that they have start to roll out silverlight -- the Microsoft Home Page and MSDN both use silverlight, for example -- but that the rollout is happening quite slowly and cautiously. However, as usual on Slashdot, the summary simplified and exaggerated the actual story to the point of being fabrication ("Microsoft still has not adopted Silverlight, and uses Flash all over it's websites"); and of course, on Slashdot, no-one reads TFA.

Re:I think you've rather proved the GP's point

[mvdwege]

Rolling something out slowly, and continuing to use a competing product on the majority of their pages does not qualify as an effort in my opinion.

Especially not since they both 100% control their web environment, and the technology they are rolling out. If they don't have a staging farm where they could do a full rollout, and if they don't make the effort to plan that rollout to coincide with the release of their newest product (which they are touting as a Flash-killer, with lots of hoopla), then they do get a black eye, publicity-wise.

But then again, why would they care, as there are plenty of people out there willing to do the hard work of justifying their decisions for them.

Mart

And we should be surprised why, exactly?

[ibm1130]

Nothing that M$ does to beat down competition should surprise anyone anymore.
They are after all M$. Its what they do.

Spammers/Crackers/BotMasters won't go to court

[Anonymous Coward]

'cos what they're doing is illegal. They won't be making a case of "SpamKing vs AOL" because when SpamKing turns up, there'll be a bunch of police officers there to arrest him for spamming.

Same with Botnet creators, virus writers and so on.

The minute they turn up they're arrested. If they don't turn up, they'll lose in absentia.

Re:Threadjack - M$ Blocks Political Email. Re:Firs

[perlchild]

My point is, the people who chose to use MSN last year had no idea this year they'd engage in monopolistic practices. But at this point, everyone seems to be on msn. I'm looking for a way to punish them THROUGH the network effect of their own network, and affecting their bottom line by doing so. By switching to some other network(that doesn't have 40 million people on it) I contend I'm punishing myself more than Microsoft, which is a far from ideal solution. On the other hand, as long as they have the monopoly, and as long as they don't fear it being taken away, they can just abuse it every chance they get. They'll just get piddly fines. If you don't like "force them to sell", you could substitute "nationalize". Several years ago, they've been found guilty of anticompetitive practices, and while IANAL, I do believe that doesn't just make them a monopoly, but an illegal monopoly. They keep abusing that monopoly, I think it should be taken away. When AT&T's monopoly got broken up, they didn't leave the company and network intact and say "consumers, please use something else". And that was a legal monopoly, as I understand it.

"Twittersphere"

[colourmyeyes]

Does anyone else get the urge to choke users of this term? It's somehow even worse than "blogosphere."
Dammit! Strangle!!!

Re:Stevie Baller,

[Anonymous Coward]

I run circles about their mod bombs

I'm not sure if they are "mod bombs", but you sure as hell don't seem to be running any circles around them.

Could it be ....

[jopet]

that you use the google bar and/or have enabled google history? This is not normal behavior.

http://messenger.sapo.pt/

[higuita]

you have all that that already,

offline messages exists for many years
file transfer have both p2p and via server proxy
webcam and voip, there is no standard in xmpp yet, but its being made and many companies already use then

you may not know, but MANY products use xmpp (aka jabber), they just dont call it by its name, they just brand it...many of the jabber deploys are for internal use only

one of the best examples is the messenger from sapo, a ISP from Portugal

http://messenger.sapo.pt/

then have their own client (but of course, accept others jabber clients) with webcam and voip support, including free voip to land phones and paid for cell phones and international (ie: out of Portugal) phones, SMS support and other (useless) things that people from MS messenger like... the windows client isnt gpl nor open source, but there is some hope that this could change.

the best thing is that they paid psy author to work for then in psy, to add missing features, so that Mac and Linux users could use it as easily as in windows... of course, you can also use the psy in other servers.

both sapo and gmail might define the standard for voip and webcam in xmpp

as for users, AIM is still the king, but MSM gained alot... ICQ almost disappeared, absorver by AIM, and yahoo is slowly following... jabber is increasing, specially with gmail. AOL is testing a xmpp version of AIM (and so ICQ also)
and yahoo can only save it self by doing the samething, migrate to xmpp. there is no douth that xmpp will be the standard for IM, just like SMTP is for email... jabber can talk with MSM, AIM, ICQ, yahoo, and of course, other jabbers, and so is the only universal IM protocol

Re:http://messenger.sapo.pt/

[aliquis]

First of all, thanks for your extensive reply, it's much appreciated since I indeed don't follow the development of Jabber that much, I use to always have an account but since noone else does it's not much use for me so. I've tried lots of clients thought to see which ones could do what and worked best for me. Anyway:

For me the additions of support for offline messages, file transfers, webcam and voip don't mean much if not (almost) all servers and clients supports them. I have no idea if file transfers use to work, the other guy I used jabber with used it in bitlbee in irssi and I don't think that supports file transfers for any IM protocol, if most jabber supports it's that's fine. I have not having offline messages, MSN didn't supported them for long and even now Adium does not support them for MSN which is sooo annoying. Afaik I haven't been able to send offline messages to people on jabber so.
Same with gtalks voip, if they are the only ones who support it what good is it for me? I have understood that one can do a lot with XMPP, but aslong as their isn't a least common feature set it's quite useless anyway.

Sapo looked cool, to bad it only seems to be on portugese.

PSY? I can't find it, do you mean PSI?

What are the best jabber client to use? Which ones does support file transfers, avatars and offline messages with eachother? Which ones does offer voip and webcam support aswell in a standard way which works with other clients?

Do you speak for USA or for the world at large? All I know is that everyone here in Sweden uses MSN, and a few of my most nerdy friends still have ICQ running but everyone got MSN aswell so it's really no use (except it's superior..)
And that's kind of all that matters to me since those are the people I talk to. I would have a hard time convincing anyone to use Jabber because noone would see a use for it considering noone else uses it.

Are Sapos and Gtalks voip and webcam functionality compatible with eachother or not?

If AIM and ICQ moved over from Oscar to Jabber it would really own because then there would be enough users to foster further development.
I don't see why Yahoo would have to move over considering MSN is _EVERYTHING_ when it comes to instant messaging over here.

Regarding Jabber transports I've always seen them as lame hacks to make it kind of work because people don't have any friends which actually use Jabber anyway. I've added all my friends thru them but since avatars don't show up, file transfers don't work, and so on it's useless and I'm forced to use a clients which supports many protocols anyway and then I have removed them from the jabber transports. I also don't like the idea that everything I send are sent over the jabber server aswell or that my login details are stored on it (thought that can be solved by running your own jabberserver.)

Anyway, in my opinion Jabber sounded cool the first time I heard about it whenever that was, but kind of nothing have happened at most clients still look like crap and it don't support most of the features the other IM clients/protocols has so it's rather useless.

What would make me switch would be a client which is well integrated with the OS (which in this case is OS X, adium don't do webcams and voip in any protocol so I guess that is screwed, iChat sucks balls and there is no chance Apple will improve it between OS releases. Btw, there is one thing I would like to see in all Jabber clients aswell, shared desktop/applications, image shows, webcam with multiple people & voip and so on in a way compatible with iChat.), got support for avatars, file transfers, offline messages, voip and webcam and either many users or transports which can handle all the native features of each protocol aswell, that is it need to be able to send files to an MSN user aswell, or even run a webcam session.)

Before that it will just be another account in my multi-protocol-capable client which more or less are only used to earn nerd points and not for chat.

Twatt3r has no sockpuppets!

[twatt3r]

I think Microsoft made "twitter" a "feature" of Slashdot. But, it's obvious he can't control a single individual, much less sway public opinion on Slashdot. He is also a paranoid idiot who howls at shadows while I laugh my ass off at his bombed mods. Surely you have better things to do (like find a job), and your "advertising" could be spent in more productive places.

I suggest full-body submersion in a sulfur geyser.

Wait, I forget. "Hehe M$ Windoze lulz."

Microsoft-Facebook Debacle

[karaokedagger]

Chuh - maybe they're trying to block this video: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=fuS0dEfDjTo :)

Private messaging

[Craig Ringer]

Your best bet is Jabber (XMPP). You'll be familiar with it as Google Talk, but it's a standard protocol that's been around a lot longer than Google's service.

Jabber doesn't seek client-to-client connections. This is a nightmare to achieve with "modern" IPv4 networks, which are full of flakey firewalls, NAT setups of varying levels of insanity, etc. What it does do is let you control your own server or use one you trust.

There actually is a
direct client to client facility for Jabber, but I don't know how widely the extension is implemented.

Jabber/XMPP also supports encryption - both at the transport level using SSL (for if you trust the server but not the network) and at the message level using various public key schemes.

Curiously Enough

[Xenaero]

...Youtube links work again! Good work, Slashdot, protecting the rights of Internets users everywhere using the power of publicity or something!

Openfire and Spark

[aliquis]

The Openfire server seemed quite nice, and Spark supported many platforms aswell, but I have no idea if the gateways support what I want. Are those common among the clients so the feature sets are the same or does each server implement their own so some can support more functionalites?

Avatar supports in IM gateways

[aliquis]

Sorry for my spam of replies to your post, but I guess this can help more people out.

Seems like Openfire did indeed had support for avatars thru transports aswell!
"1.2.0 -- October 31, 2007
Improvements
[GATE-10] - Buddy icons are now retrieved from AIM/ICQ, XMPP/GTalk, and MSN"

Seems like file transfers aren't there, but atleast the server doesn't crash:
http://www.igniterealtime.org/issues/browse/GATE-310

And there are support for offline messages (I don't understand if there was for MSN aswell but maybe:)
"1.1.1 -- August 19, 2007
[GATE-196] - ICQ offline messages now working properly"

So atleast they do something :), if file transfers worked aswell it would be close enough for me :)

Cool with server in Java aswell, thought most people here don't like Java but I don't like them ;)

Mac user ? Adium's OTR at play ?

[DrYak]

I'm a Mac user And what do you use as a IM client ? Adium ?

Maybe, the fact that you don't get your URLs blocked whereas some people do, is linked to the fact that Adium supports Off-The-Record encryption out of the box, and thus microsoft can't use filtering on something that's end-to-end encrypted ?

Re:Mac user ? Adium's OTR at play ?

[Joe Jay Bee]

When I made the original post, I was using the official MSN for Mac. I have, however, since switched to Adium (basically due to the fact that MS don't seem to give a fuck about Mac users any more).

Money Rules the World

[stribijev]

They speak about freedom of speech, but see what is happening: everyone is against letting a competitor to be present on their market. It is even more interesting as Microsoft was going to absorb Yahoo, but the latter struggled against it. I hate competition that strips users off the right to use anything in their posts or entries. Microsoft does not let us use Yahoo links now, what it might come up with next?