Searching for Privacy friendly Messenger

I have been searching for a privacy friendly messenger, but have had no luck. It seems all the popular messengers record your conversations online, and are not designed for privacy to begin with. I've heard of Tor chat, but I don't use Tor. Does anyone have any recommendations for a privacy friendly messenger? Anonymous chatting would be a bonus, but my main concern is that my conversation are not being stored remotely. I also want all communications encrypted, and no unique information being shared except what I explicitly allow. The only person that should have access to my conversations is the person i'm chatting with. Open source would be preferable, but not a must. I use W7 X64. I would be very grateful for any recommendations that fit my criteria. Thanks in advance!

 

pidgeon otr would be your best bet next to torchat , thou torchat doesnt have otr, theyre working on getting cam chat for pidgeon like msn messenger from what ive heard but its taking its sweet time


https://lists.torproject.org/pipermail/tor-talk/2010-February/006490.html




first post , all points towards pidgeon atm

https://tails.boum.org/forum/Update_on_TorChat/


and im not so sure if theyve fixed some security issues meanwhile like here:

http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2012/Feb/442

p.s.: hell id love for a fully secured messenger with cam chat feature too , one can only dream, i remember they planned an otr script for msn plus but dev on that was stopped


http://msghelp.net/showthread.php?tid=93836&page=3



https://github.com/prof7bit/TorChat/issues/8


torchat2 is moving to beta stage atleast the pidgeon plugin in the future there will be a standalone torchat2

https://github.com/prof7bit/TorChat

https://github.com/prof7bit/TorChat/downloads

 

Is there a fix in the changelog for the Pidgin exploit listed here. http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ChangeLog

 

not sure youd have to contact support over at pidgeon, thou id think so

 

Does anyone know of anymore messengers that are designed for privacy, but uses its own network instead of using plugins for popular messengers like AOL, Yahoo, ICQ, etc.. I want a messenger that uses its own network designed privacy, and even anonymity if possible. Years ago I used paltalk, but I don't think it was designed for privacy either.

 

Both parties may need to use the same program to accomplish what you want. I have 2 suggestions. TeamViewer (free) - creates an encrypted tunnel between machines with many options including 'chat'. CryptoHeaven (free 3 month trial 'unlimited' times) - fully encrypted webmail service that includes 'encrypted chat'!!!

 

Thanks for your suggestions Tabacoo! I'm researching your suggestions now.

 

You should really have a closer look at TorChat. From what you describe it seems it perfectly matches what you are asking for. Also it is not required that you need to somehow otherwise "use" Tor in any way for using TorChat. It comes as a standalone application bundled with tor.exe with no external dependencies, just unzip the folder and start the program, everything is pre-configured to work immediately. It will start and stop its own Tor daemon automatically, it can run from an USB drive (no installation), it does not require you to create an account anywhere (there is no central server who manages or even knows about the existence of the clients or their connections), it works behind NAT (no incoming connections needed), it communicates with each contact on your list through direct (p2p) hidden service connections. It will not write any log files by default (although you can turn on logging for individual contacts). The fact that it is using Tor-HS connections automatically makes all traffic (including file transfer) end-to-end encrypted and all connections are mutually anonymous.

You should give it a try.

The only other similar tool that I am aware of is i2p-messenger (which does the very same thing through i2p connections) but I haven't heard of this project for a long time now, don't know if it is still active.

Bernd

 

Thanks Prof7bit! I thought I had to have Tor installed in order to use Tor chat. I tried installing Tor once, and that machine would no longer connect to the internet. I'm not sure if my ISP blocks Tor or what else could have killed my internet connection. I didn't really do much trouble shooting since I needed to use that machine right away. I was just curious about Tor.

 

The Tails LiveCD includes Pidgin with OTR. -https://tails.boum.org/doc/anonymous_internet/pidgin/index.en.html- The latest version (0.12.1) was released on 2012-07-06. You could ask on tor-talk about unpatched vulnerabilities.

 

Tor chat will not work for me. I tried installing the bundle, and connecting. It would not work with the bundle either. I send a friend request, but the other person never gets it. They send me a friend request, and I do not get it either. So, much for Torchat. Really would like to use it.

 

How long did you wait for the connection? It can take up to 15 minutes to connect for the first time. If you live in a free country where your ISP or your government does not block all Tor connections (China, Iran) then it will just work, I cannot imagine any reason why it should not work for you. You should not give up after the first 5 minutes, maybe you did something wrong because my explanations were not clear enough or imprecise. Please help me improve the documentation by finding out what is missing in the documentation, what exactly it was that was not explained clear enough and made you use it wrongly. I need your feedback to further improve user-friendlyness. You can also use the "ask bernd" menu item to directly add me to the buddy list, so you can test it with a contact (me) that is guaranteed to be set up correctly and working, so you can rule out that it wasn't your friend instead of you who made a mistake.

BTW what "bundle" did you install? Torchat does not need to be "installed" in the usual sense of this word, you only unzip it and copy the bin folder to your Desktop. Vidalia bundle is not needed for it.

 

OTR is your best bet (Pidgin is the most popular client for using OTR). But it doesn't solve the issue of anonymity. For that you will need Tor as the others have said.

Another protocol to check into is SLIC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SILC_(protocol)

 

Bernd, Glad you're here!

 

Thanks for your help Bernd! I'm not going to give up. It shows me as being online, and available for chat. It says the one friend I have is offline, and he is telling me he is online. It appears i'm connected only after waiting for about 2 minutes. It shows my Tor figure as having a green body with a yellow head which I believe indicates i'm online. It shows many Tor connections connected viewing them in my firewall. I have rolled back my machine, and reinstalled Torchat again without the Tor bundle because I don't want to use the Tor Browser. I didn't have any luck with the Tor Bundle installed anyways. Torchat has been running for about 40 minutes now, and I just added you (Bernd) about 15 minutes ago as a friend in order to see if maybe something is wrong with my friends Torchat settings instead of mine. Hopefully it will start working on its on soon. It just hasn't worked for me so far. Bernd, are you online now? I'm trying to connect to you.

 

as ive said pidgin and torchat plugin and then theres a ton of plugins for it one i recommend is otr and Pidgin-Encryption , not sure if you need the later if you already got otr thou heard that it cant hurt to have both ,theres quite a few themes for it too ,torchat plugin is in alpha stage atm but dev on it is going strong! , so you got both anonymity and security nothing can beat it, not to mention you get to be logged into all your other chat networks too

p.s> teamviewer chat isnt something id use for complete anonymous and safe chatting nor for file transfers , because it dont use tor hidden services, but for everything else like safe remote desktop sessions id recommend teamviewer over microsofts implementation, btw the tornetwork isnt as slow as it used to be , its become pretty zippy in the last decade where already moving towards tor2

 

Still no luck with Torchat. It looks as though everything is connecting alright, but it says my friends are offline. I can't even connect with Bernd using the build in direct link to his Tor ID for help. It shows me as being online, and available. It shows all my buddies as offline, and they are telling me they are online chatting with other users. I have tried deleting the entire Torchat folder, and starting over with a new unzipped Torchat folder over and over again. I've tried using Torchat with the Tor Browser Bundle installed, and also without it installed. I'm downloading Torchat from this page -https://github.com/prof7bit/TorChat/downloads I'm downloading 0.9.9.551 for Windows. I'm using W7 X64. I have tried shutting down Online Armor FW, and only using Windows FW. I have tired setting up port forwarding for all ports used by Torchat even though the documentation I read said it was not necessary. Any other suggestions?

 

Brosix uses its own network and encrypts everything even video and voice chat. BitWise IM has its own encryption if I am not mistaken. Jitsi is another one. You need to look at their docs though. The encryption is different for different protocols. Jitsi Features, ZRTP and SRTP FAQ. Here is some other pages you can look over Comparison of instant messaging clients - Wikipedia, Comparison of VoIP software - Wikipedia, and Comparison of instant messaging protocols - Wikipedia.

Besides the programs already mentioned for message encryption, there is a good program that I use to like. The program is SimpLite. But I wanted more. I wanted something that would encrypt everything including video and voice. Brosix was that program.

Brosix use to be listed on Comparison of VoIP software - Wikipedia. Brosix use to have a English Wikipedia page too. Here is a translated Brosix – Wikipedia page. Original Brosix – Wikipedia. I would recommend Brosix. When I was looking for a secure messenger, Brosix was the only one that clearly stated it encrypted everything including video and voice. It also has a Linux client.

 

Thanks Dread! I had not heard of any of the ones you mentioned. It seems you have put a lot of time in researching this. I have put some in, but wasn't having much luck. You may have just saved me a lot of time. I will look into the ones you have mentioned. I still am really interested in Torchat though, and I have also installed Pidgon with OTR with the other encryption plugin as well. I will look into the ones you have recommended.

 

Might also want to give this a look.

http://blog.crypto.cat/

 

And it's also the only one you listed that is 100% closed-source. I never trust or use closed-source software that is security related.

Your best bet is still OTR (whether it be with Pidgin or any other client that supports it).

 

You could try DeOps (Decentralized Operations), but it is still in development, I reviewed it in my blog a couple of months ago.

 

thanks finally someone said it , didnt want to be the only one stating the obvious , apparently some people here dont care , but open source is the way to go in this situation be it pidgin or something else , why do i suggest pidgin , well thats because its been reviewed by so many people and integrated into TAILS and those guys are even worse than me in picking security related software xD, not to mention its huge plugin library it works with just about anything and any chat network , hell pidgin otr with torchat plugin is one deadly combination that cant be beat as said anonymity + security find any other messenger that can do that and id be suprised for once, bitwise and broxis are NOT the way to go

p.s: box750 would you have a link to that deops program ? id like to check out what your talking about

btw has anybody checked out this jitsy program dread mentioned and its security implementations ?,apparently its open source hmmmm.....(doesnt trust it )

 

Jitsi is supposed to be good, but it's a VOIP client and didn't really fit into the OP's description of what he was looking for.

 

Thanks for all the suggestion! Yes, as soon as I researched Brosix I saw it was closed source so I decided against it. I'm using Pidgin with OTR right now, but the client itself is very buggy for me. It constantly crashes, and stops responding. The GUI acts very strange at time, and the box seems to expand to full screen for no apparent reason. Also for some reason I can't send any files right now using it, but others can send me files which I believe could be caused by my router since i'm traveling right now, and not using my own gear.