Re: ICQ

[Travis Cole <tcole@iname.com>]

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On 30-Jul-97 Riku Saikkonen wrote:
>Travis Cole wrote:
>>If they are going to charge that much, then I don't really care for an ICQ
>>version for Linux.  But I still would like a program that allows me to tell
>if
>>my freiends are online and then message or chat them.
>
>To tell if someone is online:
> - finger
> - rwho (but rwhod isn't installed in most places)
> - talk (try to talk...)

Now if my friend runs Win95 and his ISP doesn't support shell accounts or
finger, then how is finger going to do any good?  You defeated your own point
of rwho.  And I think there are some Win95 talk clients but you need to know
your friends IP which can present a problem.

And I fully realize that ICQ at this point is only good if all parties involved
are running Windows.  I am trying to defent my point that ICQ for Linux would
be good.  Well unless I had to pay $10 a month for it.

>To message:
> - rwrite / rmsg, if installed (it's not in most places)
> - e-mail
> - perhaps ytalk (I seem to remember that ytalkd had a feature for this,
>   but I'm not sure)
> - IRC, if he's on there (tell him to be [1])
>To chat:
> - talk (ytalk for more than two people at a time)
> - IRC
> - one of the voice chat programs for voice
>

Once again same points.  Most of these are not supported for someone with Win95
and a dynamic IP.  The IRC networks are terribly unreliable and who whants to
keep an IRC clent open all day just to receive messages that you may not see
unless you can setup your IRC client to give you some kind of notification when
you are send a message.  I will admit I don't fully understand the feasablity
of your IRC suggestion, that may very well be possible.

talk, or ytalk, would work if you know the IP like I said before.

Most of your suggestion require the IP address of all you friends and if they
are on dynamic IPs this is hard.  The one option I do know to get around this
is http://www.ml.org

And the problem with email is how many people check their email every 2
minutes.  With ICQ the message when you send someone a message they are made
immediatly aware of it.  The also have the option of turning that notification
off.

>The major problem with these is that they're not installed everywhere. But
>neither is ICQ. And if we're going to get a system that's in common use, I'd
>much rather have it be something free, decentralised and tried-and-true
>(like IRC or fingerd+talkd+smtpd) than something proprietary like ICQ.
>

I also would much rather have something like IRC, finger, talk, or email but
finger and talk do not work well if at all with non Unix computers.  In light
of this a multiplatform program like ICQ may be better.

>It appears to me that the only "advantage" of ICQ is that it's being
>actively marketed...
>
>[1] In any case, he'll need to have something running to receive the
>    messages. Whether he runs some form of daemon (ytalkd, rmsgd, or some
>    custom thing), an ICQ client, an IRC client, or an e-mail notifier such
>    as biff (or, e.g., a procmail script that alerts him when he gets mail
>    from friends but not otherwise) doesn't really matter in terms of
>    functionality...
>
>    If he doesn't have fingerd running for privacy or security reasons, the
>    same reasons should not "allow" him to run ICQ either, because ICQ has
>    the same breach of privacy (but a good fingerd is more configurable) and
>    security (and ICQ is likely just as "secure" as MSIE).
>
>    If you're concerned about the security of IRC (i.e., crackers attack IRC
>    networks frequently), form a closed IRC server (or network) that only
>    your friends can access... The problem of crackers will most likely
>    be there in any popular "public" chat system. (Though the IRC protocol
>    is not very security-oriented; but you can do things like run your
>    closed IRC server so that it can only be accessed through ssh from an
>    authenticated machine.)
>
>--
>-=- Rjs -=- rjs@spider.compart.fi, rjs@lloke.dna.fi
>

You still seem to be assuming that every one has a static IP or that I can
easily find my friends dynamic IP and this is usualy not the case.  For email
notification if you are not directly on the network your email goes to (dial up
connection) then that may be a little to slow for what I would like. 

As for privacy and security I am not really too concerned, but probably should
be.

Also AOL just released a beta version of AIM, an ICQ like program.  There is a
java version out that works well in Linux.  Take a look at AOLs web page.

- -------------------------
E-Mail: Travis Cole <tcole@iname.com> -- <tcole@methow.com>
http://www.methow.com/~tcole -- Get my Public Key here
Date: 30-Jul-97
Time: 16:22:18
640Kb should be enough for anybody
                Bill Gates
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