Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Net Messaging Standards War Brewing

Author:Mark J. Gardner
Posted:7/23/1999; 1:33:32 PM
Topic:Today's scriptingNews Outline
Msg #:8703 (In response to 8697)
Prev/Next:8702 / 8704

I can imagine a valid security concern: If AOL wanted to prevent someone from writing a Trojan horse client that steals AOL passwords they could add some kind of authentication that the client is their own and untampered. That would be a plausible reason for locking out Microsoft's client, as well as others, once AOL realized the vulnerability.

OK, but why not state that instead of accusing Microsoft of having malicious intent?

And why do it after publishing the protocol and even encouraging the development of third-party clients (such as Prodigy's and the Tcl/Tk and EMACS clients)? Didn't those clients have to prompt users for ID and password?

I still smell a rat here. AOL may have been OK with the idea of Unix and Linux hackers running their own freaky clients, complacently thinking that the Windows-using majority would still run AOL's client -- even to the point of running multiple IM clients, as I and others do.

But as soon as their portal competitors made it possible to not have to run AOL Instant Messenger at all, they pulled the plug lest they be robbed of that advertising audience. This whole "security" thing is a smokescreen.

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