I love elegant solutions to complex real world problems. Secure communication over IM is really easy to get wrong, but Off-the-Record has gotten it right. OTR provides encryption, authentication, deniability (you can’t prove it was me!), and perfect forward secrecy wrapped up in an elegant protocol using standard, strong cryptographic algorithms (AES, Diffie-Hellman, SHA-1).
Practically speaking, I’m a fan because it’s so simple to implement. Adium, my favorite Mac IM client, bundles OTR functionality so it “just works.” There are Trillian and Pidgin plugins for those wielding Windows or Linux so it’s a simple process to start communicating securely with just about anyone.
Now there’s no excuse – grab OTR and stop putting those IM’d passwords at risk!
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