AOL vs. Trillian

Trinition writes: "ZDNews is reporting that AOL is once again trying to shut out the competition. Trillian has been updated twice in the past 24 hours to work around the blocks AOL is throwing up to prevent the popular IM client from interoperating with the AOL Instant Messenger service. Will Cerulean Studios hold up better than those they follow in the footsteps of (i.e. Microsoft, AT&T and Jabber)?"

Fire!

I'm not sure of the current status of the application, but AOL has been doing the same thing to the OS X application Fire (a multi network IM client). Ever since it's release it's been a game of AOL blocking and subsequent update "fixing" the block,

Seems to me that all this extra programming is wasted cycles that could be better used for additional features for applications.

This is one area where greed is holding back innovation in the IM market.

Re:Fire!

Kinkatta. I am the lead developer of Kinkatta. Kinkatta uses the toc protocal so we don't have these login wars like oscar does. (although twice we did break something that caused us not to login, but that is another story). Because of this we have been using our coding time to write up a plugin system that allows me to talk to someone in another language (on the fly babelfish translation) or encryt messages, or append my current song in xmms to my info (get icefox2's info on aim to see for yourself what is playing in my room). These of course are just my example plugins that I have made and anyone can make cooler ones.

-Benjamin Meyer

Why the moaning?

It's AOL's software, AOL's servers and AOL's IM protocol. Why should they feel compelled to allow 3rd party software to access their network?

Re:Why the moaning?

Because...

1. They added an overlay protocol, TIC-TOC, to allow interoperability (although, very limited, and not kept up-to-date).

2. The FCC ordered them to demonstrate iteroperability. They chose their victim.. I mean, partner, to be some dot-com that is now bankrupt and defunct (nice loop-hole spotting, AOL!). I'm trying to find links on this to back this up, and I'll post them here when I find them (just couldn't let this go unanswered).

3. AOL accepts e-mail from non-AOL SMTP servers. These e-mails traverse the AOL network, tying up their resources, and ultimately being converted into some AOL format for display in AOL. Why don't they block that? Oh, because it adds value to AOL by allowing its users to interoperate with the rest of the world. The difference with IM is that AOL owns 90% of that world (ICQ & AOL), so they don't see any value added.

Re:Why the moaning?

The FCC ordered them to demonstrate iteroperability. They chose their victim.. I mean, partner, to be some dot-com that is now bankrupt and defunct (nice loop-hole spotting, AOL!). I'm trying to find links on this to back this up, and I'll post them here when I find them (just couldn't let this go unanswered).

Keep looking because you are wrong. Here is a link [net4tv.com]. The FCC only forces them to demonstrate interoperability of advanced IM services which includes Video conferencing and the such. Nothing was set about regular IM. Of course, this agreement lasts for only 5 years and can change at any time.

Re:Why the moaning?

Because if AOL rejected email, none of their users would stick around, would they?

This is exactly my point. AOL doesn't have a monopoly on e-mail users, so they allow interoperability. Its adds value to their service, so their users have good reason to stick around.

If AOL *didn't* have a monopoly on IM users, they would have their own service interoperating with the monopolistic ones (provided those hypotheitical monopolists would permit it). But AOL *does* have a monopoly on IM users (AIM and ICQ combined are HUGE), so they're going to be stubborn and lock out the competition.

Maybe not in the legal dictionary, but in my dictionary, this is *anti-competitive* and I want to see something done about it. I just hope someone with more legal knowledge than I can find the proper legal support to put this fight upon.

Advertisements

If I were AOL, I would certainly have a problem with Trillian, solely because it blocks the advertisements that are the only way that users "pay" for the service. It's much like network television, for which joe consumer doesn't directly pay for anything.

They have to make money in order to pay for the services, and Trillian is taking a small piece of that away. Right or wrong, AOL is doing what's in their best interests.

Re:Advertisements

While I understand the advertising argument, and I think it's valid, to a point, the comparison with network TV doesn't match up for me.

I mean, when you're watching TV, and a commercial comes on, you usually change the channel, or run to the bathroom, or the kitchen, or something, right? You don't sit there, dutifully watching the advertising, because you feel some obligation to "pay" for your show, right?

Trillian does what IM does, and it does it better. Bottom line. I know that AOL doesn't like it, but, instead of trying to stomp on Trillian, maybe AOL should notice that lots of users are taking advantage of what Trillian offers, and actually compete with Trillian, by writing software that does a similar thing, and letting the market decide what's going to be used, and what's going to be the Atari 7800.

I know this won't happen, but I'm just saying.

And as far as the ads go, when I still used IM (before switching to Trillian), I altered my config files so I wouldn't see the ads, anyway. I thought everyone did that. ;)

Re:Advertisements

Ah, yes, but a lot of people take less issue with the ads than the other problems. Let's consider both:

1. A lot of corporations realize IM is here to stay. They might be willing to pay outright for an ad-free version (perhaps even branded), but AOL isn't offering one. Why? Are they too short-sighted to see it?

2. For lots of folks, including myself, its not the ads that bother me, its their development path. I'd like to see some useful features (like aliasing a buddy name so its meaningful instead of Fooboo24). I'd also like to see less bloat (rate your buddy, play games, buddy icons, etc.).

Trillian is not intended as a way to steal money from AOL (notice that Trillian is free to download and use?). It's an alternative with a lot of features that, apparently, people *do* want. AOL could truly squash Trillian if they adopted their features instead of this crap they're pulling now. Heck, why not just *BUY* Cerulean studios?

Only Trillian v0.7x affected?

Trillian is a very nice client - we use it almost exclusively here at work, as it lets us keep in contact with people using multiple IM platforms, and also doesn't ram ads down our throats.

One interesting thing is that the new AIM blocks only seem to affect Trillian v0.7x - some of our users still using v0.6x are still working fine, whereas us early adopters are having to update rapidly.

Luckily, the newest (v0.721) build includes an auto update function, so keeping up to date is likely to be much easier in the future. Bear in mind that there's a limit to how much AOL can do to break the protocols, as they don't want to shut out all of their previous clients.

Re:Only Trillian v0.7x affected?

Trillian is a very nice client - we use it almost exclusively here at work, as it lets us keep in contact with people using multiple IM platforms, and also doesn't ram ads down our throats.

Those ads are what pay for the servers, the infrastructure, the maintenance and enhancement of the software, etc. If you are using the service without the ads, you're getting a free ride on all the people who do use the service as intended.

Why do you think TiVo doesn't let you completely strip away ads and watch programmes seamlessly? Because without ad revenue there are no programmes, at least not on non-PPV channels. The TV companies know this, and the enlightened consumer knows it too.

IMHO, this is all about a minority of users wanting free beer, and dressing it up in free speech rhetoric. Don't forget that ICQ was a small company once... if you really need IM functionality and don't want to use a commercial service... implement your own for internal use.

The part that really sucks...

Is that they're killing off Trillian, and their first fix was to force them to turn off their "SecureIM" feature. Something that uses 128bit encryption between trillian clients. I loved that feature. The other odd thing is AOL isn't stopping third party clients from attaching to ICQ, another IM network that they own.

Oh well.. I'm glad I signed up for MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger and use trillian for both of those too..

As a Trillian and AIM user...

I must say that AIM is the best thing that AOL produces. (Not counting Winamp/ICQ as those are merely apps that they bought and haven't "AOL-ized" too much.) But some people I know are on AIM, Yahoo, and even ICQ. I tried out Trillian and now I'm loving being able to only run one IM client. (Plus it'll check for new Yahoo e-mail while I'm chatting with an AIM buddy.)

Back in July there was a story about AOL saying they were working on letting AIM access other messaging clients [slashdot.org]. I guess it's ok for AIM to access Yahoo/MS/etc buddy lists but it's not ok for another app to access the AIM servers. Nice double standard there AOL. (Apparently they want Open Standards for Instant Messaging to apply to everyone but them.)

Why is this so wrong?

No doubt the posts will soon start flowing in that AOL is evil for preventing this little company from accessing their network. My question is why is this wrong? Why should America Online not be the exclusive provider of America Online Instant Messaging functionality? Sure they do it to make money off of ads and exert some kind of institutional control. But do other companies have a right to be a part of this? Is it merely that AOL will have a monopoly on the instant messaging market? There certainly seem to be enough big competitors out there to prevent this. Just curious about why all the fuss.

PR spinning

"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.

Sometimes you have to just sit back and admire the pr spins people can put on an issue. Since Sept.11 the security issue is a no brainer. However, the system hacking aspect is just above and beyond. Kathy recognizes that one can use enough half-truths to defend her statements that trillian is hacking into AIM servers. It's absolutely amazing how such blatant blocking of a service can spun so effectively. AOL gets some kudos from me on reminding us here on just how evil they can be. It's completely deceptive and underhanded, and yet completely unprovable to any but the technically literate.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist. -Verbal Kint

I don't understand...

I don't really understand why anyone gets upset whenever AOL blocks a non-AIM client from using their proprietary network and resources. AOL owns the systems that power AIM and should be allowed to prevent non-AIM clients from accessing them altogether, in fact, they have every right to protect their property and to see that their resources are used according to their will.

It has nothing to do with AOL being predatory (as mentioned in the article) or "selfish" (also mentioned in the article). It has everything to do with AOL protecting the resources that it, as a corporation, owns.

How Are the Changes Being Made?

Can anyone explain to me how AOL is changing their protocol without breaking their own IM? Is their client just more flexible, or does it have built in support for a dozen protocol revisions?

I would hope that whatever they're doing the clues as to what the next change might be are already there in the client. Perhaps we could build a fake ICQ server and run tests on the AOL client with slightly modified protocols to see what it supports. Then build in the same support into Trillian et al.

For me I'd love to stop using AOL's ICQ since I use OS X. The official client doesn't behave at all like a good OS X app should.

Re:How Are the Changes Being Made?

Can anyone explain to me how AOL is changing their protocol without breaking their own IM?

I don't work for AOL or CeruleanStudios, so what I'm stating here are my asumptions.

I think that the first thing that AOL did was to analyze the data. If they found a Trillian SecrureIM package, then disconnect the user. This is why disabling SecureIM solved the problem at first.

I'm not sure what happened in the second step, but one theory is that they started checking the version number submitted in the Authentication request(or something similar).

Right now, Trillian seems to be working (Version 0.721). However, I believe that AIM has a CRC capability. The server will send a CRC request to the client with an offset and a length argument. The client will CRC the number of bytes specified by length starting from the specified offset, and send back the result. If the CRC doesn't match, then disconnect the user. It would be very hard to reverse-engineer the CRC algorithm. I believe that this is how Jabber was stopped in the end.

They're not preventing AIM integration

For the millionth time, AOL is not preventing 3rd party clients from interoperating with the AOL Instant Messenger system. What they are doing is preventing 3rd party clients from using OSCAR, which is AOL's "private" protocol for AIM. They're not touching TOC, which is the protocol which AOL makes available for 3rd party clients to use.

Sure, flame me because:
1) TOC doesn't have all the features of OSCAR
2) TOC (might) use more resources than OSCAR on AOL's side, so you're doing them a favor.
3) AOL's required by the court to let us play in their sandbox.
4) AOL's a big bully.
5) Information wants to be free, man!

If AOL wants to make a subset of the features available to 3rd party clients, it's their prerogative. They own the servers, they wrote the service, they pay for the people to maintain the servers. And if TOC uses more resources than OSCAR on AOL's servers (which is just a rumor, and not confirmed from anyone with any authority), that's AOL's business, not yours. And no, AOL is not required by any court to let 3rd party clients play with AIM. They're only required to make the "next generation" AIM available to 3rd parties.

If you use OSCAR to connect to AIM and you don't use AOL's clients to do it, you don't get to complain when they change OSCAR around, regardless of whether they're deliberately blocking someone or just making modifications to the protocol for something else. Use TOC, or use another IM service.

-Todd

AIM service does some things *right*

I've mostly used AIM, largely because that's what most people I wanted to chat with used. (And I'm really irritated at losing contact with some Trillian using buddies.)

I tried ICQ, but AIM does at least two things better:
* the ICQ UI is a horrendous mess. AIM has a good, simple UI. Cleaner in many ways then the Trillian version I used. And as the release new versions of the AIM client, whenever they change default behaviors (like minimizing to task bar vs system tray, etc) they're very good at letting users get the old behavior back in the options menu.
* I have never received AIM spam, but those two weeks of ICQ were nothing but teen porn ads. I'm not sure if its ICQ numbering scheme that makes it so spam prone, or something AIM does better

There are somethings AIM doesn't do, like my friend pointed out ICQ has a cool autolog of conversations feature, but overall, AIM is a
good little client, other clients could take a few pages from its usability book.

Jabber

The main problem with AIM and Jabber is not the protocol, but AOL blocking the IP Address of Jabber's AIM transport. If it's moved to a new IP, it's usually blocked in a matter of only hours.

Apparently they notice when hundreds of client connections are coming off one IP Address, no problems.

lets make something clear

• AOL generates ad revenue on a per user basis, not on whether the ad actually made it to the client.
• What trillian does is not illegal, otherwise AOL would have taken them to court (which they did not do with MS/ATT/Jabber/Odigo et al).
• Reverse engineering for the purpose of interoperability is granted by law (see VCR).
• There are already hacks available for AOL/ICQ et al that strip the ad or replace the ad space and AOL takes no action against them.
  
• AOL lies and states that it's a security issue and accuse the competitor of "hacking" to attempt to turn public sentiment against the compititor. If it were "hacking", AOL would be able to call the police, file a lawsuit, or notify the FBI. Since this is not "hacking", in their modified sense of the word, then no law has been broken and AOL can do nothing but shuffle their protocol to attempt to block people out. This comes down to basic fraud.
  
• The ruling when AOL/Timewarner merged was that they could do so only if they opened their IM service. As far as I know, no timeline was put on that interoperability and therefore AOL could stall indefinitely. The makers of Trillian appear to just be helping we the consumer receive what the ruling had already requested, but in a significantly limited fashion (I.E. not true interoperability)
• AOL took no action against Trillian until it gained significant popularity. Only then did it become a "security concern". Meanwhile any client under a million users is not technically a "security concern". So any of you hackers out there who want to hack into AOL's service feel free to get 900,000 of your compatriots together and nail their system. If there are security concerns with AOL's AIM protocol then why do they suggest that it is the best and most secure and want it as a standard above all others? If there is a security concern with the use/implementation of that protocol why not simply plug the hole and be done with it? Why? Because they are lying about the security risk implemented by alternate clients.
• Why is it that no other im system has shut out Trillian? Because the rest of the IM systems/companies want interoperability and are working to that goal, only AOL remains apart from that venture because they are serving their own greed and monopolizing the IM market through preditory practices. AOL has the potential to make MS look like an amature when it comes to market predation.

Since I signed up with a user name on AIM they make money off of me. They use me as a resource to fund their activities therefore I will use them as a resource for mine. If through my choice of clients I consume more resources than they gain from me then it's time for them to look at a different business model. The last time I looked the majority ad on AIM was still for AOL's own over priced service. I did not, upon signing up with AIM, agree to use a particular client to consume said resource therefore they should not block me from use because of my choice. Saying that there is no "business relationship" makes it appear that AOL wants one, this is not the case as has been proven time and time again. AOL does not want business relationships that will do nothing to further their capture of market share.

The IM world is a damn mess...

This is a perfect example why open standards and RFCs have stopped this mess from occuring in other areas.

Imagine incompatible e-mail clients, online services, DNS, news, etc...

Instant Messaging should be decentralized. This is what happens when commercial interests drive communication "standards" over the net.

Remember pre-popular-internet when mail programs wouldn't talk to each other? Exchange, cc:mail, lotus notes, and a host of others? Remember early online services that didn't permit access to content outside their worlds? MSN, AOL, Compuserve, Genie, etc...?

There should be an RFC, each ISP or provider should host their own IM server, their customers connect to it using the client of their choice, and outsiders send messages in for instant delivery based on a standard naming convention.

But we'll never get there now, it's too late. I'm just thankful the rest of the net isn't in this mess.

AOL's "OpenIM" response

Here's AOL's response to an open IM network:

http://aim.aol.com/openim/ [aol.com]

The core issue...

remains completely un-addressed.

IM is really nice, and is basic infrastructure at many organizations. As a freelance programmer, I've focused on Yahoo I/M for my I/M needs 'cause there's a decent Linux client.

But the core issue is that there is no real standard for IM chatting! In the absence of a real standard, ICQ/AIM have taken force.

Jabber might get there, eventually. Who has submitted the jabber reference to the IETF/IEEE to make it a standard?

What we need is a IETF/IEEE standard. One that is distributed. Reliable. Cross platform. Based on XML or other widely acceptable format.

I suggest using a topology much like POP3/SMTP. Your ISP should provide IM service so that other IM clients can resolve you by your email address.

DNS records would contain an "IM" record along with "MX", etc.

Include PKI so that you can have "secure" connections that do not go thru a central server, and business will jump all over it since existing IM clients are unencrypted and therefore very insecure.

Utilizing openssl and other standard libraries, I bet 2 or 3 qualified programmers could come up with a functional reference in a few weeks.

So, why hasn't this been done?

Re:Way to go AOL

how the hell is it a monopoly? is MSN messenger just a figment of my imagination?

they spent R&D money developing AIM, testing it, promoting it, upgrading it, etc. why in the hell should they be forced to open it up to people who want to piggyback on it? that's total and utter bullshit, and one of the things i can't stand about the slashdot crowd. .

gotta have everything, who cares if they spent a chunk of change and man-hours working on it, i want it, so it should be free and everyone should be able to use it.