[JDEV] AIM- who needs AOL? (was Re: AOL)

[jabber at msg.net]

> to kind of picking up on some of temas' thread - forget about AOL.  They
> don't want to be part of the network, fine, forget about them.  Stop wasting
> cycles on figuring out how to dance around them.

I agree with the sentiment, but it's not that easy for some of us...

The #1 reason I first got involved with Jabber was because of the great
'transport' support for interaction with other IM systems, particuarly AIM.
I saw the Jabber system as a potential way to get all of my users to remove
the AIM client from the desktop, and yet still permit them to chat with AIM
users via a proxy, without the risk of the AIM-specific client exploits:

	http://www.w00w00.org/advisories/aim.html


> There are more important things to worry about.  Worrying about the
> important things  will make the network more valuable.  Making the network
> more valuable may  entice AOL to become part of it. Then they can build
> and run the AOL  transport.

Speaking of AIM, has anybody considered writing a 'reverse AIM proxy',
an application that would allow the AIM client to talk to what looks like an
AIM server, but actually just is a translator to a Jabber server? This would
let AIM users talk to Jabber using the same AIM client software the use today,
with just a change of the server name in the configuration file.

Most of the difficult part has already been done:

	http://www.proxide.net/
	http://www.ssnbc.com/wiz/
	http://reaim.sourceforge.net/
	http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail.php3?fid=1010382569


Warning about the ethics of the author(s) of 'AIM Filter':

	http://www.securityfocus.com/cgi-bin/archive.pl?id=1&start=2001-12-24&end=2001-12-30&mid=219171&threads=1


Jabber at MSG.Net