[Tails-dev] Pidgin Protocols Safe?

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Author: adrelanos
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: [Tails-dev] Pidgin Protocols Safe?
Hi,

I am concerned about the many [1] protocols Pidgin supports.

The IRC protocol contains CTCP. A fancy feature, but bad for privacy.
(You already aware and have a todo ticket...)

Did you check, what kind of "innovative" features the other protocols
have? I didn't check, but could imagine they include something similar
like CTCP, dishonor proxy settings for file transfer, or send your IP
somewhere. (STUN)

Pidgin also contains STUN [4], a nice feature for clearnet use, but is
it safe in Tails?

I am sorry if I missed a previous discussion, but I haven't found any.

Many of the protocols are proprietary. I find their so called "privacy
policy" [2] and aup [3] highly questionable.

To quote just two sentences:
> "You agree that by posting any material or information anywhere on the

ICQ Services and Information you surrender your copyright and any other
proprietary right in the posted material or information. You further
agree that ICQ LLC. is entitled to use at its own discretion any of the
posted material or information in any manner it deems fit, including,
but not limited to, publishing the material or distributing it."

Is support for AIM/ICQ/MSN/[...] important? It's fine for circumvention,
if users want to chat with their existing list. But people looking for
privacy, why should they sign up for AIM/ICQ/MSN/[...]? It's sad, that
AIM is on the top of the protocol list.

Cheers,
adrelanos

[1] AIM
    Bonjour
    Gadu-Gadu
    Google Talk
    Groupwise
    ICQ
    IRC
    MSN
    MXit
    MySpaceIM
    SILC
    SIMPLE
    Sametime
    XMPP
    Yahoo!
    Zephyr
[2] http://www.icq.com/legal/privacypolicy/en
[3] http://www.icq.com/legal/usepolicy/en