I watched as a friend showed me how the “encrypted” traffic from MSN was easily viewable using free software he had for monitoring his network.

He knew what was said before his machine using msn had told him the message aswell as picking up other peoples conversations on the network.

It was quite disconcerting. I mean I’m not really bothered about people reading the random conversation I have with some people but on occasion I’ve known people to send passwords or usernames across MSN to help out people. Something which over a non-secure source is not a great idea.

We now use a program named Pidgin – its a multi-instant messenger that allows you to have all your contacts from multiple messengers (now including facebook with a plugin) like MSN, AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo all in one place instead of having multiple messengers open.

You can get a plugin thats like a little application that makes pidgin do more things that will encrypt traffic between your machine and your contacts machine. A friend has made up a guide to help you… if your interested that is.

LINKS:

• Pidgin.im
• Pidgin Encryption Guide

Hope its useful to you… I’ve found it useful and think its good to share.