[JDEV] On Privacy/Invisibility (aka: Buddy Permit/Deny)

[Peter Millard]

Jim -

For those of us not some intimately familiar with the AIM client, perhaps
you could explain in more "jabber-ish" terms what these modes mean. Are they
"presence modes" (ie, determining who gets you presence info) or "message
modes" where you can determine who can send you messages??

More comments inline below:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Seymour" <jseymour at linxnet.com>
[STUFF MUNCHED]
> With server release 1.4.1, I found this model difficult to achieve, at
> best.  (At least not w/o maintaining a lot of local state information.
> E.g.: who you've denied in the past so if you later want to permit
> them, you can make the appropriate presence/roster changes.)
>
> This JEP was brought to my attention
>
>     JEP-0016: Server-Based Privacy Rules (jabber:iq:privacy)
>     http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0016.html
>
> I had considered submitting comments to the author.  (For example:
> "white- listing" needs to go in right at the start, IMHO.)  In the
> mean-time, server 1.4.2 has been released.  In the docs for that I find
>
>     JEP-0018: Presence
>     http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0018.html
>
> This seems to duplicate/trump/obsolete/whatever, JEP-0016, in a way?

Not at all.. Blacklisting + Whitelisting are VERY different from invisible
mode. JEP 16 deals with how clients can control what packets the server
(jabberd) delivers to it. JEP 18 deals with how the user can control WHO can
see them online (their availability information).

> As you might imagine, I'm wondering what to think of all this.
>
> Lastly, in any event, it seems to me the client code will have to know
> what version of the server it's dealing with so it can know what is
> supported and what is not.  (E.g.: 1.4.1 won't support "invisible,"
> 1.4.2 does.)  Is there a way to fetch the server's release level?

Servers that do NOT support invisible mode will return a presence error.
This is pretty easy for the client to trap and then send a normal
"available" packet and notify the user that the server doesn't support
invisible mode. You can try this against any 1.4.1 or JCS install.

Hope this helps.

Peter M.