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AT&T Re-ignites Instant Messaging War

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it's-baaaaccckkkk! dept.

travisd writes "Looks like AT&T Worldnet is trying to play Microsoft - no, not in being a monopoly, but in trying to horn in on AOL's IM turf. The Washington Post has the story. " Yes, it's the return of the IM Wars - we had covered this this past summer. Microsoft was in the right on this one - a standard does need to be made, by an industry-wide group.

4 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. Imagine... by imac.usr · · Score: 4

    if you couldn't call your friend's house because they were using Microsoft Phone and you had AOL's You've Got A Phone. Sometimes standards are a good thing.

    Apple was supposedly working with AOL to integrate AIM into the system at some level. I wonder whatever came of that...







    --
    I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
  2. Why AOL? by JohnG · · Score: 4
    There is no doubt that there needs to be standard, MS is right about that, but why does it have to be AOL's standard? IMHO AOL has every right to keep others from using thier protocol if they want and Microsoft shouldn't have kept bypassing the security features, that was just wrong, they wouldn't like it if we bypassed their security features.
    Am I taking AOL's side here? No. I think that if AOL wants to keep the their protocol non-standardized then Yahoo!, MS, and AT+T need to get together and make a standard protocol. Soon people will drop AOL's IM because they can communicate with more people through the new standardized system and AOL will suffer for its wrongdoings.
    MS nor AT+T is accomplishing nothing by keeping this war going on, except maybe for once MS is in the role of the good guy and they don't want to lose that :)

  3. Whip out the chessboard, it's *GAME TIME* by Effugas · · Score: 4

    From the recently posted C|Net article about AT&T being blocked by AOL:

    Despite warning signs, AT&T executives had been hopeful AOL would cooperate, especially given the online leader's recent push for so-called open access to cable networks.

    It took nearly everything I had to not break out in a fit of laughter upon reading this. AOL is desperate to get direct access to *some* form of high speed gateway, to the point where they dumped a couple hundred million into *satellite* technology(DirectPC, to be specific. Great for rural areas, but rather horrific to scale--and one way, too).

    So here you have AOL, banging on the doors, trying to get the law (very very justifiably!) twisted so that, gee whiz, there can actually *be* ISPs that don't own the direct lines of communication.

    Meanwhile, at the very same time, Microsoft is banging on their door, trying to be an IMSP(Internet Messaging Service Provider) that doesn't own all of the direct communication servers.

    The communications architectures are publically supported(guess whose land all that fiber's going over!), while the Instant Messanging systems *aren't*, but those are just *details*. On one hand, AOL wants open access to AT&T's property, and on the other, AOL wants closed access when it's their own damn network!

    Oh, what a brilliant gambit on the part of AT&T, calling them on an apparent contradiction! I honestly would not be surprised if the only reason AT&T ever partnered with Tribal Voice in the first place was because they realized AOL Just Couldn't Win Both Battles--and either way, their "enemy" would be weakened by either loss.

    AOL's counter should be interesting. I know some of the guys at AOL--hell, one of 'em is probably the single smartest networking guy I've ever met. We're talking about a company that, in response to Microsoft's attempts at circumventing their network security, consistently and repeatedly exploited security holes in Microsoft's AIM client, and likely threatened to announce exploits for their client unless Microsoft caved in. (They did.)

    AOL is bound to have a truly fascinating response to all this. I, for one, am going to be watching, popcorn in hand.

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com

  4. Microsoft hacking = right??? by |DaBuzz| · · Score: 4

    Microsoft was in the right on this one - a standard does need to be made, by an industry-wide group.

    When did hacking into a network and leeching it's resources for your own gain become a valid action when striving for industry wide standards?

    I'd like to see standardized IM as much as anyone, but saying Microsoft is right is a bit far fetched. Microsoft is wrong for hacking into AOL's IM infrastructure after access was denied and AOL is wrong for exploiting their own client software to keep MS out ... they should have found a better way to do it.

    What if I wanted to get in on this exploding new technology called ... email, but instead of setting up my own mail server, I hacked into yours and pointed all my users to it, then when you fixed your server so I couldn't get in, I hacked into it again to give my users free use of a resource I don't own, maintain, or hold accountability for?

    And don't respond back with "email is an open standard, while IM is not" because that's not my point, my point is MSN HAS their own IM infrastructure and could have used it, but they decided to leech on the resources and investment of another company and when they were asked/told/forced to stop, they hacked it again. They are FAR from right in this case.