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Unified Instant Messaging Clients?
Hynman writes "It's getting silly - I have 4 different types of messaging accounts: ICQ, AOL IM, MS Messenger, Hotmail and regular email clients all run on my computer at the same time, and they all have overlapping capabilities. Is there any effort out there to produce a unified messaging client, that supports all types of accounts, and will respond through the correct medium (i.e. the medium that the message is delivered in). Just plug in the account information for each medium, and it performs messaging functions of all services frome one program and one interface." This is why standards for instant messengers should be created. Something like this would be extremely useful. Comments?
Everybuddy aims to do just this - one client, multiple services.
This is a quote from the "Everybuddy" homepage: As of right now, Everybuddy has support for AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo! chat programs. It also has file transfer between other Everybuddy users, and planned support for file transfer to other users. You can find this at http://www.everybuddy.com/ I've tried the ICQ aspect but I suspect it's still in beat (current stable release is 0.0.6).
--8<--
that's just like asking why Netscape and Microsoft don't work together to keep their browsers compatible. IM clients are mostly commercial tools for those big companies... they want everybody to use THEIR stuff, not share a standard with other companies (unless they buy those companies :) ) Ricardo.
What happens when you go to the bathoom?
Is that most of those IMs are from the same companies:AIM && ICQ belong to AOL, Hotmail && MSIM belong to MS...
I undesrstand if AOL wants to block out MS clients from its service (although i think it's a pretty stupid move...), but why shouldn't they allow their _own_ costumers to use all of their features? This is just plain odd to me, if the purpose is to have a large DB of users as possible, why seperate it into two??
I strongly urge all companies and public interest groups to act in order to enforce a single, safe(!!) and working protocol...
To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. ---Euripides
One thing I'd like to see is an instant messaging client that converts messages into email and sends them to you. Then I could just check my inbox rather than inbox plus several messaging programs. Coping with outgoing messages would be more complex, but probably the Reply-To: address on the message would be something like 'icq-4929392@localhost', which the client could then pass on to ICQ.
The beauty of this is that you don't have to write yet another messaging client, even a grand unified one. You just need one wrapper for each protocol, to convert it to and from mail. There wouldn't be any noticeable speed loss, since the mail is being sent locally and outgoing messages are converted into ICQ (or whatever).
(Although I've never seen the point of instant messaging anyway, email seems easily instant enough to me.)
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
"Microsoft has pulled out of the fight claiming that to continue to squabble over standards would constitute an unacceptable security risk"..."[about Microsoft's MSN Messenger] AOL quickly cried foul claiming that Microsoft was hacking into its servers without authority and blocked access"..."[MSN messenger] now makes not attempt to access AOL Instant Messenging accounts"..."Microsoft claims to have 4.5 million using MSN Messenger while AOL has a more substantial 80 million users"
They go on to say that there are moves to establish a universal standard by the IETF, and the standard should be released by the summer of 2000.
Man's unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in.
72656B636148206C72655020726568746F6E41207473754A
Instant messaging? . . . An annoyance right on par with telemarketing, spam, junk mail and Geocities/Tripod pop-up screens.
"When I grow up, I'll be stable."
It's known as IRC, Internet Relay Chat. There is nothing an IM application can do that an IRC client cannot.
Plus there's the *NIX WHO command, which lets you know who's online, the ECHO command to send them instant messages, and the TALK command to chat with them.
IRC is for chating.. IMs are the *NIX WHO, ECHO, and TALK commands all rolled into one nice colourful package
Apathy -- The state of numbness of the mind. When you are apathic, you can think.
And if anyone wants to help building a decent IM, one that doesn't take 11 megs of memory, check out the Mozilla-IM newsgroup netscape.public.mozilla.rt-messaging on news.mozilla.org
Apathy -- The state of numbness of the mind. When you are apathic, you can think.
As a person of libertarian bent; real-time messaging poses a difficult problem.
The natural solution, for a grand public good such as this, is to let the government set the protocol, and run the server. For the US, this wouldn't even be a wild stretch of the constitution; for it's just a natural extension of the Post Office. Except for the inevitable DOS attacks, and the manpower and hardware needed to overcome them, I don't see it as being too expensive, compared to the trillions the government spends every year anyway.
But, the major powers fighting over this (AT&T, AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) are never going to propose that. They stand to make too much money off of advertising, to settle for something like that. And your average Republican member of Congress isn't going to know enough about computers to see how easy it would be; they're more likely to do nothing than to approve $25 million or whatever to set up the system. And, in turn, this will lead to a push by your average Democratic members of Congress, who on average know just as little about the internet, to force somebody to open up their servers. And, unlike the Cable TV connectivity, it'd be impossible to set up a way for Company A to reimburse Company B; so the Company running the servers would have to either A) incur a loss or B) shut down the system.
If it can be made to work, Jabber would make an excellent compromise. If ISPs ran Jabber servers, interconnecting in the same way an IRC network or SMTP servers work, everyone would benefit, but nobody could get a free ride (as MS, AOL, AT&T are all trying to get on each other).
I got a bunch of immature, hostile replys (fortunately no emails) for taking a strong, but unpopular, position yesterday. Should this posting be just as unpopular, I hope the discussion is a bit more mature, than just calling me a w4r3z d00d or something.
Oh yeah, and this is a US-centric post. International issues make it even trickier...
Hell, I'd be happy with a good standard for authenticated SMTP...
I like the idea of "instant messaging", but all the implementations are so clunky...
----- Leghorn "Not responsible for program content"
The problem with standards creation is that there is no economic incentive for AOL or MS to create them. If I am AOL and you are MS or an open source project, what incentive do I have to let you access my system. The entire point of offering IM is to control its users. For example if I'm AOL I may want to start selling advertisements on ICQ. This doesn't work to well for me if other organizations or companies can tap into my network and let people run a program that doesn't use the adds. If I allow this to happen I potentially run the risk of paying to maintain servers and support, but no revenue.
As I see it this problem can be solved in one of two ways. Some authoritative force can require companies to allow open access to their systems. This will force companies to either shut down their IM's or come up with an alternative way to justify their expense.
The other way is some independent group coming up with a standard and creating good IM clients to support it. The problem with this will be that it faces an uphill battle with existing services, which is precisely the annoyance that brought this question.
It is late, but I'll happily follow any elegant solution to this problem. I'd just rather see a permanent fix than having a client that gets its access blocked every couple of months.
The IETF is currently organizaing a standard, and I believe MS and AOL are in on it, amazingly.
But who cares if they do have a standard? It doesn't mean anyone's going to use it. If none of the big guys implement it, or implement it strictly to the standard, we'll be stuck with clients that don't intercommunicate.
Now, if someone started an open source project, following the IETF developments, and there was a public effort to convince everyone to use these open clients rather than AIM, MSNMessenger, etc.
I for one, would certainly use it, and promote it to my friends and co-workers. I'd keep AIM on until enough of my "buddies" were phased over.
Well, the BeOS camp has had a project in the works for a while now and it's called Gimmick ( http://www.gimmick.org/ ). They've been releasing neat betas, and hopefully it could become a nice tool.
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence" - Napoleon Bonaparte
The Internet Engineering Task Force (http://www.ietf.org) is working on an instant messaging standard, known as IMPP (Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol). The Working Group has a few Internet-Drafts available at http://www.ietf.org/html.charte rs/impp-charter.html, but no RFCs yet.
My impression is that the design of this protocol (in opposite to e.g. ICQ) is good, and I think this will be _the_ IM protocol to use, when IETF's work is finished. AFAIK, at least Microsoft is going to use IMPP (this is the "open standard" referred to during the IM war with AOL).
The current Instant Messaging model suffers from several glaring problems stemming mostly from the reliance on centrally controlled messaging servers (that double as ad servers). Major issues with the current IM model include:
- Reliability: Does the whole world want to count on one company's servers to stay up 24/7?
- Security: What if someone breaks into the server that has your passwords? What if (hypothetically of course) an employee of AOL doesn't like you?
- Privacy: Isn't it a warm feeling knowing that all your text goes through some other company's messaging servers?
- Authentication: How the hell do you know who's on the other end of the line?
In light of these concerns it astounds me that bosses in some companies use ICQ to talk to their employees on the job. ICQ may be a fun toy but do you really want to bet your company's next product (or for that matter your company) on it?In order to achieve IM nirvana the best route is always to take the least broken existing solution and try to fix it. In this case the least broken solution is not AIM or ICQ. I nominate Unix talk and IRC as candidates for the least broken existing solution.
Either of the old Unix standbys offers decentralized communication independent of any master company. A decentralized protocol right away eliminates the reliability issue, and at least gives you a fighting chance to address security, privacy, and authentication. While security is never easy on the plaintext internet, many of the same techniques that are used to secure telnet (e.g. ssh, IPsec) apply equally well to messaging as long as the protocol is decentralized.
As for graphical interfaces, WinTalk and mIRC already deliver the required windowing interface to these protocols. Buddy lists can be implemented by
- Packaging a finger daemon with the chat client, so that people can use finger to see who's logged on,
- Packaging a finger client with the chat client, so people can see which friends of theirs are logged on,
- Anyone have any idea how to fix the problem of dynamic IPs?
It's not a perfect solution and there are still points that need to be worked out but I feel that the old Unix programs provide a much more solid foundation for achieving a 90% useful solution than the new breed of corporation-serving adware Instant Messaging programs.http://www.ietf.org/html.charters/impp-charter.htm l
N.
Could this not all be implemented on top of the
existing IRC protocol?
I'm sorry if I'm all wrong about IM's, I haven't really had much
experience other than "Hrrm, someone's been touching
*my* work computer, in *my* cubicle, hrrm, what's
this funny thing in the task bar, AAAAAAAAAAARGH!! AOL!! KILL IT, KILL IT!!! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!!"
(yes we run win9x, it's company policy, I have no choice)
but enough digressing.
Could not a slightly modified network of IRC servers essentially
duplicate all the features of an IM? For instance
seeing if they are online, file transfer, video conferencing could
easily be added via DCC or something like that. Why
must we reinvent the wheel when we already have
a protocol which can be modified to suit?
of course I could be completely wrong, so flame away.
----------------------
"Hope is the denial of reality, it is the carrot dangled before the draft horse in a vain attempt to reach it" - Raistl
There are severak IM clients that are attempting this, even if still in the beta stage. I'm surprised no one has mentioned AT&T's "I M Here" client. It was on Slashdot just a week or so ago. It already has support for AIM and MSN Messanger, with support for ICQ and Yahoo! pager in the works. Problem is, of course, that Tribal Voice developed it, and their apps for AT&T have been less than impressive. Oh, yeah, it's only good at work, since it only works with Windows 95/98 or NT. Wait a minute, maybe that's why no one posted it...
"137!! Why 137!"
www.everybuddy.com
It works pretty darn well already.
Nuff Said.
the thing is, it needs to be used by all your friends, and their friends need to use it if they use it, and it doesnt work out. If everyone (AOL, MS, ICQ) just agreed to merge into AIM, then you would have what you wanted....but for now, all you're going to get is comments like "____ is an open-source messaging system" and crap like that. peace d
Gimmick is a client being developed for the BeOS that can understand as many IM protocols as there is plug-ins for it. Drop an AIM plug-in into a folder, and you can get AIM messages. Drop an ICQ plug-in into a folder, and you can get ICQ messages. There is talk of a Jabber plug-in too. If there is anyone interested in it, please e-mail the guys who are working on it. They can use all the development help they can, and might be interested in helping port it to other platforms.
"I'd like to die quietly in my sleep like Grandpa, and not screaming like all the passengers in his bus."
That's the funniest thing I've ever read. I can't believe you haven't gotten any points for it.
Further proof that Signal 11 is running a conspiracy to steal all the karma points.
Then write the rwrited daemon at the other side. Make it a combo comsat/talkd thingie. This is trivial stuff. Nothing to get a hard-on over.
... then MS would just come in and load an IM client on every WindowsXX box and drive AIM out of business... as well as ICQ, etc.
Therefore I'm against a standard, although I think it'd be great to see one implemented.
Anything and everything we can do to extirpate ubiquitous push-style advertising from our lives is a good thing. Captive advertising is supremely evil and deeply wrong. Fuck the advertisers. We want our minds back, and we want our children's minds back.
This `instant messaging` crud the peecee weenies keep having spamgasms over really seems like a poor reworking of known solutions. Who are they trying to fool -- purely numeric ID numbers? Blech.
I guess I start to believe the stories about this all being an advertising gimmick. Starts to make you sick.
It's also strange to see consumerist reworkings of the old standard BSD networking utilities. The scary thing is that even the oldest versions of these were better than this wintel junk. Didn't these people pay attention to existing technology? Or is the problem that these provided no vehicle for their obsessive advert crap?
The finger protocol could easily be used here. And should have been. All you do is have a version of a finger daemon that has an opt-in policy. If you don't have, say, a ~/.fingerable file, or whatever, it won't even look at you.
Right, so some of us don't work on *nix boxes.
everybuddy doesn't support us.
AOL hasn't folded ICQ into their messaging system for two reasons: 1) their internal instant message client has been around since AOL 1.0 or before and those that haven't upgraded to more recent versions could be out of luck 2) they sell virtual real estate at the top of their standalone app.
While theoretically, AOL could translate ICQ messages on their way through, even the naming conventions are radically different.
Sure, standards would be great, but don't look to AOL to implement them anytime soon.
Even if there is a standard, the real problem is the fact that you have to use one or two controlled servers. It's the only way any of these IMs will work. Who controls the servers then has your friends and family list for marketing purposes. I'm sure the privacy issues are more then trivial.
What is needed is a serverless IM. Tragic looks to be a good starting place, but needs a little help making it more robust and figuring out a better naming convetion. Once it really is peer to peer then privacy is only a matter of encryption, and the single point of failure in the server is gone.
I haven't managed to try this out yet (BeOS doesn't support CHAP, but that's another story), but it looks really promising.
They support ICQ, Jabber and AOL IM, so far they've released the ICQ part for testing and the rest is upcoming, although how upcoming is another matter - the last update on the site was August 2nd.
Gimmick
This whole system sounds like something that even an compsci undergraduate senior project would have been expected to do better. Really, I can't see what's so hard that it couldn't be put together in one day of rapid prototyping.
Sounds like a weekend's work for any decent Unix hacker. So how come it's so screwed up?
Sure, standards would be great, everyone should have one. :)
all the ICQ servers do is tell you the IP and the PORT of the people on ICQ. you send instant messenges DIRECTLY with a TCP connection. which is ideal, in my opinion.
My dad has always liked that quote. As for me, I hope somewhere out there or some groups of people out there would be nice enough to put in the time and effort to make an all-in-one "im" client and possibly have ports to most of the popular os's
The goal of computer science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it.
As much as I generally dislike government meddling, any universal solution is inherently monopolistic and should be government run or heavily regulated. Somehow the Post Office seems a better choice than the FCC. Of course, there is always anarchy, but MS, AOL, AT&T will always use too much muscle. Interesting times we live in.
www.epicware.com/fire.html. Fire has been around for the last 6-8 months. It currently supports AIM, ICQ and Yahoo. Is open sourced, based on open source protocols (libfaim, libicq, libyahoo), could be ported to Windows (if apple would release cocoa), has been ported to openstep, coul be ported to Linux (By way of GNUStep). It's pretty mature and has a nice UI.
I vote for "quinquenniad" as the quulist. :-)
Seeing that there are multiple projects going on, (jabber, everybuddy, i've seen a few others....) in attempt to merge current instant messaging protocols... err software... but anyway, won't this create the same thing, people having to use multiple instant messaging software to be able to communicate with people? oh well.
The feudal "client-server" mentality of lords and serfs is dead. A healthier, peer-to-peer relationship between equally respected and empowered freemen (well, free computers) is the only scalable system. Why do you think Linux already comes complete as a full computer, with inetd well populated? We don't need no stinking servers. We have our own daemons, and don't need AOL or anybody else to babysit our dumb terminals.
"task bar"? Sounds like some blue-collar hang-out.
Yup, definitely blue-collar. Real Men (tm) don't hang out in taskbars. They hang out in twmbars, and are proud! :-)
"It's getting silly - I have 4 different types of messaging accounts: ICQ, AOL IM, MS Messenger, Hotmail and regular email clients all run on my computer at the same time, and they all have overlapping capabilities."
I just don't understand this. Myself and several friends all got ICQ very early on, it has served us well. I cannot grok why one would load 4 clients? Is it necessary to make yourself accessible to every possible IM user on the planet? I realize it may be different for others, but basically the only people we want to IM are each other. I have zero desire to be accessible to 20 million AOL users, or the hordes who think those ridiculous "portals" with thier own branded IM's are cool.
As it is, my ignore list is easily twenty times larger than my contact list and all of us tend to view unsolicited IM's from lonely teen chatmongers and useless sales pitches demanding we "!!!!Go HERE NOW!!!!" as rude - I just don't get it.
All that said, a unified, standardized protocol only makes sense - I just don't understand the need that drives people to load multiple clients. Would someone clue me in?
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"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
IMHO I think that the AOL Instant Messenger interface is probably the most intuitive and easy to use. If anyone ever does make anything like this, it should use an interface similar to AIM, just without the advertisements =]
SuPz.orG
Most people do not like using AOLIM or ICQ, buit to keep in touch with several people I know in real life and over the internet, this is one of the few ways to do it in real time, aside from using my other phone line or email. But a standard seems to be a long time away, as most companies (AOL) value are based on thier messaging/chat capabilities (oh come on, when was the last time someone used AOL for everything aside from IMs and chat.)
It's funny that someone of a "libertarian bent" would put such faith in a system of communication where political clout is allowed to coerce the choice of individuals. Remember that if ICQ is popular, it means that it is considered valuable by a large number of people. It may have shortcomings, but they who use it obviously think its advantages outweigh its disadvantages.
No person can make value judgements for another. Congressmen can and should be able to pass laws to protect individual rights, but to pass laws specifying what IM is "best" and creating a government monopoly on IMs is as ridiculous as the government mandating a person's favorite color.
I have a few questions though about a potential standardized protocol. First, would instant messages likely be sent in HTML format? Second, which of these AIM features would likely make it into the protocol? 1) Maintaining a profile for each online user, possibly with attributes like age, gender, e-mail address, etc? 2) Being able to poll for other users that are online, according to their attributes, in order to potentially meet new people? 3) Being able to tell how long another person has been online? 4) Displaying an away message when the user is not active with the client? My point is, I don't want to end up with standardized clients that only perform the most basic of functions. On the other hand, I'm also guessing that the above features would possibly get a little messy, what with multiple unrelated servers across the globe handling the IM's. Can anyone enlighten me? Lastly, an open protocol would be great, but a standardized quick-n-dirty cross-platform Instant Messaging API would be a welcome compliment.
And it doesn't matter, anyway. Apparently you've never read any papers on TCP splicing. I suggest you read the tehcnical literature before you go off solving the wrong problem the wrong way.
And we will call the desktop and small/medium server standard microsoft.
There shouldn't be standards in a consumer market like this. With strict standards you lose innovation. You wait until the best wins, and then use it. If you are that week willed to have a million messengers on your desktop, then that would fall into the territory of your problems.
There isn't enough work done in this arena to warrant a standards base yet. To do so at this juncture would certainly stifle growth and innovation.
- Reliability: Does the whole world want to count on one company's servers to stay up 24/7?
- Security: What if someone breaks into the server that has your passwords? What if (hypothetically of course) an employee of AOL doesn't like you?
- Privacy: Isn't it a warm feeling knowing that all your text goes through some other company's messaging servers?
- Authentication: How the hell do you know who's on the other end of the line?
Would it suprise you if I said you aren't the first to notice these problems. It's pretty much accepted that Network Presence/Instant messaging has to be a service provided by ISP's, preferably *your* ISP. Obviously, authentification and privacy issues are solveable and they don't really have to involve the ISP much. Where the ISP comes is mainly in two places: (1) making your presence/absence known to selected others via the as-yet-to-be-built Internet Presence network. (2) Providing store and forward for messages that can't be delivered due to the (temporary) absense of the recipient.The real question is, once we manage to produce a good solid NP/IP server/client system, how are we going to get the ISP's to adopt it? Keep this in mind: Neither AOL nor Microsoft has the slightest interest in ISPs support our NP/IP system! (Because they both want us to use their proprietary servers.) So we are going to have a big fight on our hands, and we're going to have to use some very powerful weapons indeed to get what we want.
For starters, we're going to have to reward the ISPs in some way. One idea just off the top of my head is to provide, in the clients, a clickable link for the recipient (and sender for that matter) back to a web page of the ISP's choice. This could be disabled by the user of course, but if the user clicks it the ISP gets some sort of benefit: as ad revenue, or the ability to promote it's own services to the recipient of an IM, or whatever. Another idea is to just include the winning NP/IM protocl in all new versions of the software that ISPs use. I.E, making it part of sendmail or the other mail clients, etc. (the force-feeding method) Another way is to organize some sort of email campaign to get the ISP's on board. We're going to have to have a good plan in place. Don't make any mistake about it: it's going to be an uphill battle.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
Is there a Win32 version of Everybuddy? I can't find a version anywhere on their web page. Interestingly, there is a choice to vote for a Mac version in their "Voting Booth" but no mention of Win32. Seems odd.
I looked a little closer at their Voting Booth and found:
:( "
"as much as i hate to ask. what about win32.. some of us are forced to use it at the the still
Divide the project up like this..
- A main program, whose purpose is to draw the IM windows and control the core function of the program.
- Libraries consisting of protocol definitions and translations.
- Libraries for the various features (chat, IMs, etc...)
With this structure, The EU has to only create the account and download the needed libraries.
Sound Good?
Dijital
Diji
"I came, I saw, I WTF'd!"
But this all seems pretty obvious stuff. Surely there are ISPs using DNS or IP hacks for clever routing of static names and addresses to dynamic connections? Firewall people have done some kinds of this for a long time.
I could be mistaken, but I thought all icq message and chat traffic was striclty between the clients and the server is used for authentication and tracking who's 'logged in'. If you send an icq message to somebody, you can do a netstat and see that you're connected via TCP to the other person's machine.
So, is there really a privacy concern when it comes to the actuall message you're sending? Sure, they can track your personal info, and even who you're talking to, but afaik, they can't see what you're talking about.
Actually Tragic deals with this issue. It keeps a list of the last known class C that each party came from. It then sends out a query to all 255 addresses in each. Unless you are using one of the really big ISPs you will probably be right more then wrong. Even some of them will work this way due to geographical issues.
Tragic could be extended to make this even more useful. Add an echo net like lookup feature. When it queries for a person, if it contacts a different tragic then they exchange some of their directory info. This way information passes around the net. You then search out via the new dir info and keep repeating the process until you find the person. A simple set of rules could maximize the search for a limited set of resources.
The only issue that tragic doesn't deal with well is the naming. I think this could be done with a unique serial number and then aliases on top of it. Use the aliases, and then add part of the serial number as needed until it becomes unique.
I've thought about extending it myself to get this functionality, but I don't have time to do it yet. If someone else does I'll definitly lend a hand.
Jabber (or something similar) will skyrocket to success once it is implemented for many of the same reasons that ICQ did the same.
It will only take a handful of people who are using AIM/ICQ/etc to realize that jabber is the answer to their problems. They will start using it. They will tell their friends about it. Their friends will want it. That's all it took for the other IMs.
For people who have ISPs who won't provide a server, there will be a solution. The same solution for people who want an additional email address - third parties will provide it for free.
Hmmm... you're not running Unix on the other end? Oh yeah... I didn't think about that!
Your "solution" is painfully limited in the number of desktops it would reach. That's only one of the major problems. Once you start adding in the rest of the features currently offered by existing IM software (file xfers, online notification, etc), you're merely talking about creating a new competing system, for which you have to wean users away from the other systems.
It's not as simple as some of these glib responses make it sound -- if you want to have more than a couple hundred users for your spartan "system".
I think the point about authentication is a good one. Just how DO you know you've got who you think you do on the other end? But I think to *really* solve this problem you have to take a step back from the messaging client/server and examine the OS/computer. It would be better if the computer knew who you were based on physical characteristics, rather than some password that you might divulge to a "good friend". But the idea of scanning irises (irii? ;) or retinas would be a ridiculous waste of time. Instead, thermal imaging could be used to take a photo of your head. It would then be able to identify a positive match based on the formation of blood vessels, bone structure, etc (which even identical twins do not share). So you just sit down in front of the computer (no putting your eye up to a scanner, or thumb on a reader) and it knows who you are for sure. No need for a password, nothing. Then the OS would simply allow you to log into your account, or *whatever*... But then the instant messaging program would *also* know who you were. So if somebody else sat down at your logged-in computer, they could not read your messages or talk to your friends (pretending to be you).
Speaking of thermal imaging... What about an instant messaging system where the checksum for your thermal image of your face would be your "ID number". Entered in a database somewhere would be your identifying checksum, as well as the information about yourself that you wish to divulge (so friends can find you, etc). This has the advantage that the computer always knows exactly who is sitting down (or they would know that this person does not have an instant messaging account registered in The Database)... it would be an extremely quick and simple method of identification (it could spot you from several meters away, if it was set up to)... and just think of the Coolness Factor(TM). I'd pay some big bucks for that....
Just a couple of somewhat related thoughts I figured I'd throw into the mix, since I never hear thermal imaging mentioned (and it beats fingerprints, digital signatures [that will be cracked like nuts under a steamroller soon], and eyeball scanning). As you were, soldier...
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
I think that it is a very bad idea to have a single protocol. For one main reason, I believe that Microsoft would eventually beat the competition out. I can see it happening just as it happened with Netscape. Microsoft would "integrate" instant messaging with internet explorer and then everyone would just start using Microsoft Instant messaging instead of the most popular today aol im.
I am sorry, but I just think that a protocol is a bad idea when you look at how Microsoft has abused their market share to force other companies out of the market.
Ben
I'm so sick of these clueless newbie masses who use these stupid AOL or ICQ clients. Helllooo!!! Are you guys morons? We've been doing live chatting for YEARS with IRC. You can transfer files, join different groups, chat amongsts your friends in your own channel, chat with just another friend via a private message, dcc chat, use bots, etc. Why aren't these stupid clients using IRC as the protocol instead of creating a new one for every idiotic service, all of them incompatible?
I have seen it suggested several times to do an IRC-type thing, and one person even has suggested ways to tell if someone's online. This is a good idea, except would be messy in implementation, especially for people who have enough trouble with the systems as it is! (Like a lot of my friends)
So here's my idea: A client similar to AIM. It has a very user-friendly, and easy to use system. Yes, you #do# log in to a server. However, the server just knows when you're logged in, and gets your IP (although there are security worries here). You can have a "buddy" list, and the server can tell you which "buddies" are online or not. And like said, it would do this in a manner similar to AIM (minus all the stupid ads and buttons and stuff). However, if you wanted to talk to a "buddy" online, it would look like AIM does (because the HTML formatting I find really useful at times, and also the graphical smilies look cool :P), except, what happens is: your client knows someone is online. When you double-click on the name, a window opens (like AIM). You type some text in, and send. The server does not recieve the message. Since this is a "first window", your client instead requests fom the server the IP of the person you are trying to contact. The server sends your client the IP, and then your client sends the message to that IP. The only difficulty is the security with IP addresses. Which cannot be helped unless you have a central server (that would be able to store all the messages on with no problem). If someone disconnects and reconnects (with a different IP), then they would have to send an IM first (or you could have a req. for IP ever time you send a message, but that'd be to slow).
There are obviously problems. But you are never going to have a perfect IM client. Right now (though I somewhat hate to say it), AIM seems like the best to me. It's easy to use, user-friendly, has away messages (very useful), allows you to see how long someone's been on, and is all-around pretty easy to use.
And as long as we can keep Microsoft out of the race, I really don't care who uses the IM market. As long as it works, too.
But we still have a long way to go before we get an IM system that everyone likes and agrees with.
I was talking to a friend a while back, telling him that tomorrow's computers will not be like today's computers. I couldn't explain how they WOULD be, but just that they'd be *different*. Good technology is not complex, but simple (at least the fundamental ideas of it). Things will be unified more and more, until everything just works seamlessly with everything else. Clearly we won't have our current IP scheme forever, BUT... I think the instant messaging would be best applied (to some degree) at the ISP level. The ISP knows when you are online, and it knows your IP address. Perhaps a system could be set up that would have the ISP update an online database. Or perhaps the computers themselves could update the database... If some sort of "pointer" system was implemented (through the ISP, or through The Database, or whatever) it would not allow people access to your actual IP address, which could be a good thing (tho not a huge one)... That would be a pain tho, unless it was designed into the IM system from the start (Jabber?).
I don't know what I'm saying. Something about registering IP addresses with a somewhat central database (tho there could be more than one such database)... Yeah....
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
First AOL blocked Microsoft's IM from being compatible with their's, now AT&T is trying to make their IM client compatible with AIM, and AOL is blocking them, too. We know that Bill Gate$ is not happy with AOL, and also that he has quite a stake (about $5 billion) in AT&T. I think that Gate$ and Co. may just be trying to be compatible with AIM so that they will be blocked--it'll give them evidence for a possible future lawsuit against AOL.
If you can read this, then I forgot to check "Post Anonymously".
Yes, the ICQ Homepage is truly an example of how NOT to create and maintain web pages: from its HUGE (atleast 400KB) front page that almost never updates, to its clumsy infrastructure and through its excessive graphics shananigans (can this be misspelled?), it is a mightmare to visit...
Your second comment is also true, but i rather think that the ICQ developers do actually understand the meaning of the terms Alpha, Beta and Build, but acknowledge the quality of their product, and therefore keep it under the Beta label...
To the fool, he who speaks wisdom will sound foolish. ---Euripides
I've been using computers for years and I must say, ICQ is one of the clunkiest hard-to-use interfaces I have EVER seen on ANY program. mIRC would be *much* easier to teach someone how to use. Even I can't figure out what the hell the difference is between "advanced" and "simple" mode on ICQ. It has an inconsistent interface, the menus are backass jackward and sometimes it just doesn't even work. Only reason I even touched it was to set it up for my mother because "everyone else was using it". IMHO AOL IM was MUCH easier to navigate even though I despise that as well. IRC for me.
So telnet to a unix box. People are lazy these days and are spoiled with their PPP interfaces. They need to know the power of dialing up to a terminal server and just getting a login prompt from a unix box. :-) The world is completely open to you at that point.
Free Unix is destined for world domination. Resistance is futile. Microsoft is irrelevant. KDE and Gnome will evolve until grandma can't tell them from Billware, at which point we win.
now THATS scary.
sirc is much nicer than mirc. at least you can write cool program macdros.
I see some people have already posted links to the everybuddy home page, but I would like to give an update as to what we are doing.
Yahoo messanger support is now there as of release 0.0.6, and we have someone working on MSN messenger support, so we should have 4 services running before the end of the year. We will support any part of these services as we can, including file transfer. These other features will take time to implement, please be patient or help out.
We are beginning to talk about creating an everybuddy server, which would hold contact info for all your accounts, so you would only have to log in once with your everybuddy account, and get all your icq, aim etc contacts.
If anyone has suggestions as to how we should implement the server with good security, feel free to join our mailing list or just email any one of us listed on the web site.
Someone asked about a win32 version, and the answer is yes we are working on it. We ran into a snag when we first tried to do this, and the win32 port of gtk isn't to stable from what I understand. Again, if anyone is interested in helping out, go to the web site.
There is a voting page on the web site that you can submit new feature requests. the new requests then get voted on, showing us which features are the most important.
The web site
The voting page
We can deal with dynamic IPs easily. Several organizations already offer dynamic domain names, including dynip.com and dhs.org.
For example, I could have a domain foo.dyn.dhs.org. Every time I go online, I tell dhs.org what my current IP is. Then you can use DNS to find out my IP.
If you're building a solution based on existing standards, DNS is the obvious way to mask dynamic IPs.
It's a Ford vs. Chevy thing. Some people are devoted to their client and refuse to switch. I personally prefer ICQ over AOL IM, but i have friends in many parts of the country. Most of us here in Louisiana use ICQ, but a large group of my friends in Washington use IM. They refuse to switch, so i'm forced to use 2 clients (from the same company ha!)
Perhaps the Gnome vs KDE arguement could be made, it's a matter of preference, and in this case, you have to do as your friends do.
I am that that is, not that that is not, that is.
The beauty of Instant Messangers is that people can send you messages when you're not there, and they're remembered for you when you go online again. This doesn't naturally happen on IRC. With IRC you have to be online 24/7 to be able to receive messages 24/7. (Or you could set up a note system on a bot (eggdrop has this functionality), but then people have to know what bot to leave notes to you on.)
Now I'm making IMs sound exactly like e-mail. But e-mail does not have features such as presence detection or seemless group interaction. IMs bring these nice features together with the good aspects of e-mail to produce something that IMHO will revolutionize electronic communications.
Comparing streaming video compression formats to messaging protocols isn't fair because there is a very real difference in the performance of the formats for video.
MPEG is absolutely the standard for TV-quality video compression (see DVD, DSS, DVB, digital cable, etc.). And there are plenty of companies that build streaming MPEG solutions; I work for one of them. MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are fine at 1+ Mbps but they look like crap at low (300kbps) bitrates, and getting something decent in the 300-800kbps takes some, uh, clever encoding that has only emerged in the last year. MPEG-4 is a good competitor (G2 and Microsoft's "MPEG-4" codec are both very similar to drafts of MPEG-4), but it isn't a standard yet, and interoperable implementations haven't started appearing yet. Real and Microsoft have done a great job of providing products that work in the insanely bandwidth constrained reality of the internet that most people use. And as capacity has increased an MP-3 server like Napster has caught on for audio streaming.
As the bandwidth goes to DSL/cable modem levels, if MPEG-4 is standardized and works well, I think you can expect to see several companies put out product in that space.
recently i have noticed that there is an overload
of the same posts and questions _verbatim_
moderate more so we all dont have to waste our
time.
Email requires DNS, or at least an IP address. IP addresses are assigned from ARIN or APNIC or the european one which escapes me at the moment. If you don't have an IP you can't do anything.
I've seen two or three multi-platform messengers, from jabber to even Microsoft's Instant messenger but there is a disturbing aspect here which has already been mentioned previously on slashdot and that is this: AOL blocks off access to all these other clients from AIM. They did it to MSN, and they did it to bantu.com. Once Mozilla's client is done, I suspect it will be the only one allowed to access AIM thus making it the only true multi-platform out there. Personally, I believe that AOL has crossed a line here. As a substution for now, I recommend the client at bantu.com, they have a java one that works on all platforms.
Ok, from what I've read, I seen plenty of suggestions, and everybuddy seems to be a good solution -- if you are running *nix. I have some computers I use that do not run *nix. Is there a working, funtional client for WindowsXX? Jabber has not been released, and I can't find a copy of "I M Here," it appears to be only for those people using AT&T as their ISP.
Who talked about killing ICQ, or affecting it at all? Just as UPS thrives in competition with the USPS, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo Pager, and the rest would have the opportunity to prove their worth to the users.
AOL's services would clearly survive, due to the huge established user base. (Disclaimer... I've written an AIM client for KDE, so I'm biased)
My idea is for the IETF, NIST, or somebody to write a standard for real-time messaging. Then, the government can set up some central servers, to get the protocol running strongly. People will try it, because it has the government's name behind it.
Of course, it would be an open standard. So, clearly, clients could come out quickly, with strong encryption on the client side. I wouldn't propose something that would throw out privacy.
There's a TELNET standard. Does Microsoft control that? Nope.
There's an FTP standard. Does Microsoft control that? Nope.
There's a FINGER standard. Does Microsoft control that? Nope.
There's a TALK standard. Does Microsoft control that? Nope.
I think you get the picture. Standards are good.
OK, so what's wrong with a solution like Jabber? Why must the government tax everyone for the benefit of a computer elite? Government money doesn't grow in trees, after all.
"GNU idiots"? You're calling the IETF a "GNU idiot"? And the W3C? And the Open Group? These are "GNU idiots"? What about the POSIX standards -- these are GNU, too? Nope. You are cracked. The FSF is not standards conforming, and never has been. If you've ever developed something major under GNU C++, you'll see how they're just as into embrace and extend with their little proprietary hacks^Wextensions as Microsoft is. There's a damned good reason that there exist standards bodies outside of proprietary interests.
could you please teach me how to be an elitist dick-head??
Also...this >may come as a surprise to you...but, there are a few people, I think 3 or 4...who can barely open their web browser...much less use Unix, ytalk or irc...climb out of your hole...let go of your friction-burned shaft...go to K-mart and get a clue you fucking nazi.
http://praya.netpedia.net/
I know of a project to make a windows client supporting aim, icq, and irc (to be known as NexChat)... don't think it has a webpage but a beta will be available jan 1, 2000.... there are plans to implement any other type of IM support as well...
We really do need something like: Score -2 (Ignorant of issues, abusive devoid of content) A score of zero is just too damned high Is everyone here an idiot? (Score:0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 18, @02:56PM EST (#235) Jeez...you people are all a bunch of GNU idiots. Create one standard and Microsoft will quickly control it. Who in the hell is going to download ICQ, or AIM, or anything else, when Windows comes with an instant messaging client built in? And you wonder how Microsoft has so much power in the computer industry when they have idiots like you backing 'the competition'. It's thinking like this that destroyed Novell. All Microsoft had to do is replace Novells client (by shipping it with Windows 95), then bye-bye Novell. Microsoft is laughing all the way to the bank. Damn you people live in a dream world. I feel really sick...I think I'll go buy some Microsoft stock.
None of these are insurmountable obstacles, but you'll find that solving them puts you a lot closer to making IRC look like ICQ than making ICQ look like IRC. There are quite a few stupid decisions in the ICQ protocol, but simple things like using UDP instead of TCP, having the client send "I'm still alive" packets instead of the server tracking whether or not clients have responded to "You still alive?" queries, and having a username/password pair really do turn out to be the Right Thing To Do.
The TCL/TK client for AIM isn't dead, you can still get information/downloads from places like http://www.oaks.yoyodyne.com/tik. The current version is 0.75 and runs fine under TCL/TK 8.0.5 on UNIX, Windows and the Mac. We even have one implementation of SSL encrypted AIM based on TiK at this point.
%SYSTEM-W-ABORT, abort
Here's what I want to see out there, an IM client that does the following:
My biggest complaint about ICQ is that there are features in there which I never use... Birthdays, pictures, phone info, ActiveLists, multi-users per computer, the 'services' menu (ICQ pages, reminders, notes, todo, white pages), chat rooms, webdirect whatever, e-maildirect soemthing, directories, peoplespace, internet telephony support, greeting cards... I don't want any of it! Yet it's forced upon me, and it sits there, sucking up 10+ megs of memory that I could use otherwise (only 48 megs, I know, upgrade) and CPU time that I could really use.
I remember when ICQ was awesome... I have an old-school number, down in the millions (2513xxx), and I've been using it for three years or so. It used to load like a snap. Now, it takes forever to load, and once it does, usually I don't use it except now and then.
I suppose what I should say is I want MSNM and ICQ, but without the bloat. Eventually, ICQ is going to have a built in e-mail client (oh, wait, it does), and a built in browser, newsgroup reader, IRC client, dial-up and networking software, it's own TCP stack... I don't want an OS, I want an IM!
~Sentry21~
- Read Bill LeFebvre's article on Internet Black Holes to learn how the Real-Time Black Hole system uses DNS creatively. You can also go write to the source if you prefer. Here's an excerpt:
- Here's the abstract for TCP Splicing for Application Layer Proxy Performance, by Pravin Bhagwat et al.:
- Here's the abstract for Improving HTTP Caching Proxy Performance with TCP Tap:
- Cohen, A., S. Rangarajan, and H. Slye. On the Performance of TCP Splicing for URL-aware Redirection. In: Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Internet Technologies and Systems, pp. 117-125, October 1999.
- A Mobile Networking System based on Internet Protocol(IP) Pravin Bhagwat, Charles Perkins. Proceedings of USENIX Symposium on Mobile and Location Independent Computing, August, 1993, Cambridge, MA.
- A Mobile Host Protocol Supporting Route Optimization and Authentication IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, special issue on "Mobile and Wireless Computing Networks," 13(5):839-849, June 1995. c IEEE. Andrew Myles Department of Electronics
- RFC 2230 has some words that might be relevant here:
Happy reading.When I first heard about the Open Internet Message Protocol (OIMP), I thought this was what it was supposed to do--unify the several diverse messaging standards available on the internet. But looking at it's website, I'm not sure much of anything is going to come out of it. Anyone know more...?
[We Have No Product] [The Swindle
Okay, calling this a solution might be a stretch, but I certainly don't run 4 clients on my PC. I use ICQ. Anyone that wants to be able to IM me needs to run ICQ as well. This rarely becomes an issue, and when it does, most people seem open to at least running ICQ in conjunction with whatever they have, until they give up the other comletely and become ICQ users. I'm not saying to make ICQ the standard, but just decide what you want to use and stick with it. ICQ just seems the logical choice, seeing as I can run it on my Win boxes *AND* *nix boxes.
I'm suprised nobody has gotten a patent on the process of sending a message over the internet and having it appear instantly on the recipient's monitor.
I rarely use X, as a matter of personal preference and lack of mounsing space. So...is there a console version? Or do I still have to suck down two consoles running zicq and claim?
This message is part rant, but also an introduction to an idea currently in development...
...after all, intercommunication is all about the people.
/. if people are interested.
:)
Sometimes, a good idea is struck upon. Yes, ICQ was great -- I was one of those first few who jumped on that wagon. It was great at the time -- revolutionary. It changed that way I and many other people communicated online.
But online intercommunication has outgrown that technology. It has grown beyond instant messaging and chat. The numbers are too great to run effectively with a centralised server model. People want security. People want authentication. People want open architecture for plugins. People want to communicate from one platform to another, from one OS to another, and they want it to be seamless.
People want more than ICQ or AIM or any of these instant messaging and online presence clients can offer. No kludge to bring them together is going to solve that. No standard to unify the current technology will be able to give the people what they want.
And so it is time to return to the drawing board...
I am a member of a team that has been busy with a new idea and, when the chalk-dust settles, we will be letting everyone know more.
For now, I will say this:
Our project will be a freely available, OpenSource, server-less, intercommunication technology that will (IMHO) change the way we communicate online. It will provide CORBA interfaces to plugins, and expandability is one of our key concerns. It is, we think, what the people have been asking for.
Initial development under linux has already started and we will be releasing initial betas as soon as they are available. Ports to other platforms are a priority.
Oh... and please don't bother looking for further information on this subject online (there isn't any yet); It will be made available RSN (once we have our website up and running). I'll try to get them to put something on
(I doubt this will get moderated anywhere except down, but hey -- worth a try
Everyone does of course realise that developing another protocol (of which there are at least three in development that I know of) will simply be another protocol? It won't be the take-over one, it will just add to the mess.
What we need are good clients using well-written libraries for each of these types of IM systems. This is more complicated than people realise, but still appropriate and possible.
Note: I'm biased as the maintainer of libicq.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
started out right, they allowed people to see when their friends were online, message them, chat with them and send files to them. None of these were new ideas, most of them came from IRC while the interface came from Prodigy's old messager. Now people want to add every function under the sun to these damn things. ICQ is now taking up 10 megs of memory and I'm just sitting online. I hate the thought of the instant message clients because I don't want some nut to interupt me while I'm working with an oversized window. I'm just ranting because I find the direction these things are moving to be assanine. ICQ added stuff I would see in an office suite as part of the STANDARD features. Come on, how about a Lite client for people who don't want bells and whistles. I've had some bad mojo with the GNU clients by the way, when I used them and when other people used them. I think the best version of messager out right now is ICQ for the Mac. I have it on my powerbook and it runs fine and doesn't have a bunch of extra crap I'll never use.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
And the answer was as I suspected. They will support it, but only if it's already popular. ... . You'll see countless free jabber servers popping up everywhere on the net, and people will use those, until it will become so popular that ISP's will have to support it.
But, contrary to what people are thinking, that's not a big problem. You see, the jabber server-side doesn't HAVE to be at your ISP. It just needs to be on "a" server. So I think it will go just like with email, irc, news, dynip,
www.yetanotherimstandard.org
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
Did you read my whole post? I said Jabber would make an "excellent compromise". I like Jabber, and have been hopeful about the idea since I first heard about it.
Fewer and fewer machines will accept connections from anyone on the internet due to more and more firewalls.
I had to gripe just to get port 22 opened on our firewall.
Many of us have to deal with Windoze users, firewalls, and other realities.
I have finger disabled, and often stay logged in when I leave my machine (locking the screen).
Finger looks pretty worthless to me (in the real world).
Instant mesaging protocols so far did nothing that IRC protocol can't or doesn't do efficiently, so I would rather prefer improvement of IRC clients/scripts (yes, scripts exist not only for ops wars and flooding), so they will provide functionality, "instant messenger" do now. For me ircII on console and XChat in X already provide everything I need, and the less people will sit on the networks that don't interoperate with IRC, the better.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Having 4 things to access 1 service is outragous. AOL is being _EXTREMLY_ idiototic by doing this. Why cant there just be 1 service, with all these services merged into one program..when i say all i mean like IRC, AOL IM, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo! Chat, etc.
But because of AOL's proprietariness(i spelled that wrong i bet) thats not possible. IMO, the DOJ should nab AOL for anti-trust for dominating the IM market.
Over at Epicware, Eric Payton and company have released a msging client called Fire.
http://www.epicware.com/fire.html
Current it handlers AIM, ICQ and Yahoo.
The application runs on MacOS X/OpenStep, not the current MacOS. It also runs on NT if you have WebObjects installed (and hence the YellowBox/Cocoa/NeXTSTEP libraries)
It is an opensource project. It's only a matter of time before someone brings it to linux.
cheers,
-j
How did you manage to get this far in the discussion without reading the Ask Slashdot question that's being discussed? Are you one of those people who can only post complaints and insults because you have no actual skills?
The original question is about unified messaging clients, i.e. programs that let you communicate with ICQ, AIM, and all other IMs using a single client. Kind of makes your message pointless, doesn't it?
I was thinking more along the lines of low-bandwidth media. Streaming MPEG for (slow) internet access exists, as you have said, but its interoperability factors aren't quite there yet. Meanwhile, Real and Micros~1 will continue to attempt to hold on to their proprietary advantages.
My journal has hot