Encrypt Instant Messaging with Pidgin Encryption

I never got used to install and run Instant Messaging clients, maybe because I always had other ways to chat with friends and contacts. Instead of using Instant Messengers I used Internet Relay Chat, Skype, Teamspeak or forums. Still, a lot of users do use IMs heavily and those that use Pidgin, which is a client that connects to many networks, can now encrypt their messages with Pidgin Encryption.

The only real problem that most users could face is that every participants needs to run the plugin to be able to encrypt the chat. Windows users simply download and install the plugin. The last step would be to activate it in Tools > Plugins. This generates the RSA keys that are used to encrypt and decrypt the messages.

A click on the key icon and the selection of Enable Encryption starts an encrypted session. The public key of your contact will automatically be downloaded to your computer and will be used to encrypt your messages to him and vice versa.

Features:

• Automatically creates a public/private key pair for you upon loading the plugin
• Automatically transmits your public key to other users.
• Supports 512 – 4096 bit keys.
• Saves keys of known users, and warns you if their public key has changed.
• Embeds all encryption and keys inside HTML, so if the other user doesn’t have the plugin, they will get a little message telling them about the plugin, and won’t get a screen full of garbage.
• Stores keys in human readable files in your .gaim/.pidgin directory, in case you ever need to copy/edit them by hand. Which you really shouldn’t have to do.
• Automatically recognizes if you are chatting with someone who has the plugin- see the Preferences dialog.
• Available for the Windows version of Pidgin.
• Modular and extensible. If you want to define a different type of encryption, you can use this plugin as a wrapper to take care of transporting the encrypted binary over the IM pipe.

Read More:

Pidgin Encryption

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Saturday October 13, 2007 -
Tags:encryption, im, instant messanger, pidgin