AOL Locks Out AIM Screen Names 396
dshaw858 writes "According to a story on eWeek, AOL has mistakenly suspended a very large number of AOL Instant Messenger (one of the most widely used IM programs) accounts, by mistake. I don't know about you guys, but this happened to me and a large percentage of friends and coworkers. AOL says that a fix should be ready by Monday."
AOL is sadly the standard (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad there isn't a more decentralized open standard for instant messaging..
Re:AOL is sadly the standard (Score:2, Insightful)
AOL's fault? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my whole point. Instead of saying it's the user's fault and proprietary protocols lead to this sort of thing, why don't we use it as an opportunity? With the outage of AIM for a weekend fresh in their minds, talk to your friends. Let them know that you found a "cool, new program" called Jabber (or some other open-protocol service) that wasn't out for the weekend. Get a few to at least try it out.
If at least a few of each of our friends AND WE try a different protocol and chat program, there's a chance that we can finally stop making fun of AIM users. (I know it's fun, but wouldn't using a better protocol be even better?)
Just remember - AOL may have given us a golden opportunity here. Let's take advantage of it rather than complain for the next year.
Re:Closed Protocal (Score:2, Insightful)
The protocol is not the problem. Actually, there is no problem. This is a company hosting a free service on THEIR servers. In other words, it is none of your business whether they decide to contribute to the community and give up code or not. They definitely aren't setting a standard with their antiquated IM service compared to other alternatives. Would you really want the code? Just download jabber and be quiet until you get a grasp on reality.
Re:Closed Protocal (Score:5, Insightful)
Download an open source Jabber server, set it up. Create a ton of accounts. Then, turn it over to a team of staff members to run.
One day, when they accidentally delete some accounts, or lock some out, our make a typo in a
And I'd be equally stupid for saying so...
This isn't an issue of "closed protocol"/"closed source" and more of an issue of "poor management". This can happen just as easily (and arguably easier, in fact) with open source products.
Re:AOL is sadly the standard (Score:3, Insightful)
This would make sense, since what IM service we use is largely dictated by who we need to communicate with...
Re:AOL's fault? (Score:5, Insightful)
AOL Instant Messenger (one of the most widely used (Score:2, Insightful)
Future of AIM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Closed Protocal (Score:3, Insightful)
Is this Jabbers fault? No... it's your fault for b0rking your server.
I would be inclined to say it's your fault for hosting so many people on the same server with no "high availability" fail over system in place.
However, if 100,000 people is 100% of your network then that's really bad (this is the case of AOL) but if that 100,000 people on the same server is 1% of your network then it's not quite such an issue.
That said, I'm happy to blame AOL for being idiots... but blaming the OSCAR protocol just because it's closed is idiotic.
The fault of the protocol is that it doesn't allow multiple servers to be run by multiple providers - if it did then the scope for the fsck up would be a lot more limited. You will _always_ get screwups, part of protocol design is to limit the impact of said screwups. the AIM protocol (along with the MSN protocol, etc) were all designed by monopolies who wanted to be in charge of their own servers. The Jabber protocol was designed to be open and allow anyone to run their own server if they so choose.
Other Bad Things about the monopolistic approach to protocol design are:
1. If AOL wanted to discontinue the service they can just pull the plug on the servers and all their users are screwed (similarly they could sudenly decide to charge for the service)
2. If AOL want to completely change the protocol in an incompatable way then they can and that causes much hassle for the users.
The multiple independent server approach guarantees that you can continue using the service, even if you end up having to move to a new server, whcih I see as a Good Thing for the end user.
Re:Open IM (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for the lesson though... it'd have been better if ya, you know, commented on the point rather than just having a fan-boy outburst.
IF YOUR STAFF CRASH YOUR JABBER SERVER, I CANNOT TALK TO YOU. THIS IS NOT BECAUSE JABBER IS OPEN OR CLOSED, BUT BECAUSE SOMEBODY CRASHED THE SERVER.
As much as you think it can unite warring cultures, send men to Mars and create water-powered cars, open source/protocols/technologies still can't save you from human error... which is exactly what caused this AOL problem.
What's in an IM? (Score:2, Insightful)
As for it being one of the most widely used, that's probably true. But to all those who think the AIM protocol or whatnot is junk, one could say the same about any other protocols. Instead, one should be asking yourself as to what another person would say had a bunch of friends were on Yahoo! or Messenger? To me, I've a bunch of people on AIM. And sure enough, there are people who has a bunch of people on Yahoo! as well. You use whatever IM protocol your contacts use. And if you need to use multiple protocols because someone is on a different IM network, it's easy to solve that problem as there's gaim, Jabber, Trillian, and IM2 available.
I do not see why people are picking points on this. We just use whatever IM network we end up using. We deal with it and perhaps like it. So everyone, let's all run along now and go about on our usual routines.
Proprietary IM drawbacks painfully revealed (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's not even mention that they probably log all messages that has ever been sent through them, just like Google logs all search queries.
Jabber doesn't have these problems and it's an open standard with free software available.
You can setup your own servers. It can talk to other jabber servers. You can use SSL/TLS encryption to talk to your server and you can use OpenPGP end-to-end encryption if you want no cleartext available at the servers. There are tons of clients available for all imaginable platforms, from mobile phones to Windows.
Go Jabber!
Re:OLD news. (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense, but you really should have had that information backed up somewhere - it's not AOL's fault that you didn't.
2. Given that you were given a way to recover your AIM account - sign up for AOL and then cancel after a short period - I can't believe that you didn't take that option. After all, you could probably have got what you needed to get done within a month's free trial, and even if you didn't it wouldn't have cost you that much to recover the information. Just how much is all that data - "at least a couple hundred contacts (personal and professional)" - worth to you anyway?
Not taking this option seems ridiculous to me, especially as it would have cost you very little if anything at all. Seems like you really cut off your nose to spite your face by not even trying that route. "Of course, why would I want AOL?!", you asked. Seems to me that you'd want it (albeit for a very short while) so you could get your vital data back.
3. Just what did you expect AOL to do? Did you expect free tech support for life as well as a free instant messaging service from them? And do you really blame them for your decision not to back up your data? It might seem harsh, but if you go through life looking for altruism and miracles all the time then you're destined to live a life of disappointment.
Sorry, but I find it hard to be sympathetic: you did everything that you shouldn't have and somehow you have the impression that none of the blame is yours. It's like someone setting out on a drive across a desert without checking their oil level, breaking down because of it, then eschewing the help offered by the one garage that can help you get out of the mess because it would cost you a few bucks, and then blaming the car manufacturer and the garage owner because you didn't get to your destination on time.
I have one piece of valuable advice to you: learn from this mistake and next time, if you've got so much at stake, take the help that's offered to you.
Use BitlBee (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you tried BitlBee [bitlbee.org]? It lets you access the lesser networks from IRC. In my experience, it has been rock solid.
Re:It won't help! (Score:2, Insightful)
Most people I know don't use AIM because of the wonderful featureset or reliability of the service, they use it because everyone else they know uses it. That's certainly why I use AIM.
Anyone else find this suspicious? (Score:3, Insightful)
Upset former employee's parting shot maybe... or me being paranoid. (more likely)
Re:AOL is sadly the standard (Score:2, Insightful)
Also I think there is an adoption time that is associated with each. For example many early adopters seemed to pick ICQ because of it's initially advanced features. Yahoo was big a bit after, again due to advanced features, but I personally never had a big group of people on it. AIM and MSN appear to draw a lot of the more recent adapters I think since they come with systems already (AOL or Windows). My younger cousins are only MSN and my grandparents are AIM (AOL).
And what does this all mean? I have to use ALL of them. *blah!!!* ROFL