What is the best secure instant messaging program???

J

jyi786

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jun 13, 2002
Messages
5,760
Like the topic asks, what is the best secure instant messaging program? I installed and am playing around with Bitwise.

And, while I'm at it, is secure/encrypted instant messaging immune from packet sniffing?
 
I would go for pidgin and an encryption plugin. Alternately I believe you can use off-the-record for encrypting most IM client conversations.
 
To narrow things down a bit -- is this for you and your buddies or for a corporation? If the latter, you may want to look at hosting your own internal live messenger/communications server. If the former, go with one of the open source models and grab an encryption plug-in.
 
I'm going to use Pidgin + the encryption plugin.

The reason why I'm asking this is because I found out that my previous employer is now using packet sniffing. I still talk to a friend of mine who's still working there, so I don't want any of my info spread out.

Can someone who's using packet sniffing to monitor IMs on one network be able to read passwords from the IM party who is not on the immediate network? I don't think so, but I just want to make sure.
 
ajm786 said:
I'm going to use Pidgin + the encryption plugin.

The reason why I'm asking this is because I found out that my previous employer is now using packet sniffing. I still talk to a friend of mine who's still working there, so I don't want any of my info spread out.

Can someone who's using packet sniffing to monitor IMs on one network be able to read passwords from the IM party who is not on the immediate network? I don't think so, but I just want to make sure.
Click to expand...
No, public key encryption prevents the key from being intercepted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

Also be sure neither of you have logging enabled if there is a chance of the machine being scanned by someone else in the office.
 
Darakian said:
No, public key encryption prevents the key from being intercepted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

Also be sure neither of you have logging enabled if there is a chance of the machine being scanned by someone else in the office.
Click to expand...

So to get this straight, does this mean that even though I'm going to be using encryption on the IM (Pidgin + encryption plugin) does this mean that whoever is doing the packet sniffing will still be able to read our messages?
 
I use Psi + GPG. You physically or digitally exchange public keys with your buddy. The advantage is that GPG is extensible, Psi just happens to support it. For instance, you use the same GPG key pair for all encryption. If I want to send you a file encrypted that I only wanted you to be able to decrypt, I can do that using any old email client. You get the file, decrypt it (using your private key only) and boom goes the dynamite! No passwords (except for storing your private key), and you can revoke keys if you need, or set them to expire.
 
Not exactly the best in terms of ease of use, but security is 100%, I have been using Hamachi with its built in chat....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top