[JDEV] The "OpenAIM" Project

[Adam Theo]

Hmm... A thought just occured to me when reading about these Socket
Redirects. I am not familiar with them, so they may already have this
ability.

The key would for any "permanent solution" to be completely transport
side. This is opposed to the client-side which would require users to
install new software (won't happen), or even server-side which would
require server admins to re-do their entire server installation. Here's
a solution: 

Modify Temas's AIM-T to find other AIM-T's on the Jabber network in a
DNS-like propogation system (how DNS entries spread accross the
internet). When someone connects to an AIM-T, any AIM-T, the collective
AIM-T's "shuffle" the users connections around, randomizing IPs and
distributing load. Once a hundred or so IPs are on this "OpenAIM"
network, it would be near impossible for AOL to track down even a small
percentage of the IPs... especially if the IPs are somehow transparent
to the client (to stop an AOL employee downloading and tracking AIM
connections through Jabber). The only IP the client would see is the
AIM-T at their home server, but the IP that actually is making the
connection could be any one of dozens if not hundreds. Alot of potential
here, folks... And this OpenAIM network would bring on alot of those
"multi-protocol" clients that are not yet 100% Jabber... I would see
Everybuddy and GAIM becoming full Jabber clients if we could pull this
off...

And in actuality, I think alot of the technology to do this is already
out there, it just needs to be pulled together.

Yes, I'm 100% behind this idea. I am a crappy programmer, but I would be
willing to dedicate some pocket money to help a programmer or two get
this up.... Whadda say? I know there are some problems, but instead of
shooting this idea down, how about we put our thinking caps on and
figure out viable solutions? Wow, I think this could work...