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July 04, 2008  
Subject: Live Messenger Conversation Privacy & Security
Group: microsoft.public.windows.live.messenger
Date: 4/24/2008 3:51:00 PM
From: =?Utf-8?B?SG93YXJk?= [Email Address Protection]

Hi all,

There are so many MSN conversation sniffer ads on the Internet. A search
with keywords: 'msn sniffer' returns 514,000 results. The first results says:
"MSN Sniffer - Caputre MSN chate on your network".
Apparently MSN chats can be intercepted on local networks. This seems to be
a very serious issue, but there seems to be no solution for this, and all
major IMs send plain-text.

Can anyone comment on this?

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Subject: Re: Live Messenger Conversation Privacy & Security
Group: microsoft.public.windows.live.messenger
Date: 4/24/2008 7:22:10 PM
From: "Jonathan Kay [MVP]" [Email Address Protection]

Greetings Howard,

Messenger conversations are sent in plain-text and as such, if network traffic is passing by
a node on a local network, it can be sniffed.

If this is rather troublesome, you can use something like Simp to encrypt the traffic:
http://www.secway.fr/us/products/simplite_msn/home.php

--
Jonathan Kay
Microsoft MVP - Windows Live Messenger
MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger
MessengerGeek Blog: http://www.messengergeek.com
Messenger Resources: http://messenger.jonathankay.com
(c) 2008 Jonathan Kay - If redistributing, you must include this signature or citation
--



"Howard" <Howard@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0659C33B-8F72-446E-BBE5-002890B01E07@microsoft.com...
> Hi all,
>
> There are so many MSN conversation sniffer ads on the Internet. A search
> with keywords: 'msn sniffer' returns 514,000 results. The first results says:
> "MSN Sniffer - Caputre MSN chate on your network".
> Apparently MSN chats can be intercepted on local networks. This seems to be
> a very serious issue, but there seems to be no solution for this, and all
> major IMs send plain-text.
>
> Can anyone comment on this?



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