If you haven't noticed, there are so many different instant messaging programs these days. I mean, there's AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, Google Talk, IRC Chat and the list goes on and on. That's all good and well, but there's one little problem: all of those IM clients do not talk to each other.

For example, if you have a friend who uses AIM, you have to have AIM as well. If you have a friend who uses MSN Messenger, you need to have MSN Messenger too. And so on and so forth. Doesn't that just seem a little ridiculous to you?

Well, for this week's download, I found a program that simplifies all of that! It's called Pidgin and what it does is combine all the instant messaging programs together into one. All you have to do is install Pidgin onto your computer and enter in your usernames and passwords for the different IM programs you use. Pidgin will then do the rest for you! That way, all you have to worry about is one program and you can still talk to all of your friends, no matter viagra price what instant messenger they use. How cool is that?!

You can download Pidgin for yourself right here. Have fun with it!

Date: April 23rd, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

If you’re using MSN Messenger as your chat and videoconferencing tool, you may never use Windows Messenger anymore and have removed it from the startup group to keep it out of your way. However, you may have seen it pop up on occasion and had to struggle with closing it down. The reason that Windows Messenger makes these impromptu appearances is that Outlook, Outlook Express and even viagra cost some Microsoft Web pages can still make it load automatically. Fortunately, you can banish Windows Messenger from your desktop by making an alteration to the local group policy with the Group Policy Editor. Here’s how:

Note: This tip applies only to Windows XP Professional.

By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet. Posted January 29, 2008.

If only the government would warn you when it was recording your conversations, like Google.

Say what you want about Google being an evil corporate overlord that steals all of your private data, turns it into info-mulch, and then injects it into the technoslaves to keep them drugged and helpless. There are still some good things about the company. For example, Google's IM program, Google Talk, sends you a warning message alerting alternative to viagra you when the person on the other end of your chat is recording your chat session.

Just the other day I was chatting with somebody about something slightly personal and noticed that she'd suddenly turned on Record for our chat. I knew everything I was saying was being logged and filed in her Gmail. In this case I wasn't too concerned. For one thing, I wasn't saying anything I'd regret seeing in print. I'm used to the idea that anything I say on chat might be recorded and logged.

What was different about this experience was that Google warned me first — told me point-blank that I was basically under surveillance from the Google server, which would automatically log and save that conversation. I appreciated that. It meant I could opt out of the conversation and preserve my privacy. It also meant that other people using Gtalk, who might not have had the expectation that all of their chat sessions might be recorded, would be enlightened.

It also reminded me forcefully that Google is a far more polite and privacy-concerned evil overlord than the United States government.

Right now members of Congress are trying to pass a law that would grant immunity to large telcos like AT&T that have been spying on their customers' private phone conversations and passing along what they've learned to the National Security Agency. The law, called the Protect America Act, would allow telephone and Internet providers to hand over all private data on their networks to the government — without notifying their customers and without any court supervision of what amounts to mass wiretapping.

Last year the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued AT&T for violating the Fourth Amendment when a whistle-blower at AT&T revealed that the company was handing over private information to the NSA without warrants. That case has been working its way through the courts, and making some headway; in fact, it was starting to look like AT&T would be forced to pay damages to its customers for violating their rights. But the Protect America Act would stop this court case in its tracks by granting retroactive immunity to AT&T and any other company that spied on people for the NSA without warrants.

The whole situation is insane. First, it's outrageous that telcos would illegally hand over their private customer data to the government. And second, it's even more outrageous that when its scheme was discovered, the government tried to pass a law making it retroactively legal for AT&T to have broken one of the most fundamental of our civil rights: protection of our private data from the government.

Imagine what would happen if the phone and Internet systems in our country had the same warnings on them that Gtalk has. Every time you picked up the phone to make a call or logged on to the Internet, you'd get a helpful little message: "Warning: the government is recording everything that you are saying and doing right now." Holy crap.

The good news is that it's not too late. The Protect America Act must pass both houses of Congress to become law, so you can still alert your local congress critters in the House that you don't want retroactive immunity for telcos that are logging your private conversations for the NSA. Find out more at stopthespying.org.

And remember, everything you say and do is being logged. This polite message has been brought to you by the surveillance state.

As you have probably figured out, living in an electronic age has its downsides, with one of them being swamped by unwanted e-mail in our Inboxes. Those who indulge in such an act are called spammers and they are growing by the minute, making our lives much more difficult. There are several different kinds of spam going around the Internet these days, but one of the most recent is instant messenger (IM) spam. What that means is that even if you prefer to be invisible to everyone in an IM program, spammers can get you anyway. Now, even if you can’t completely eradicate such a menace, there are ways of bringing down their frequency. Here are a few simple steps you can follow to secure yourself from this new type of spam brigade!

Yahoo! Messenger

First of all, you need to set your profile to "Adult" and remove yourself from being listed on Yahoo!'s public directory. This is how you do it:

1.) Log in to your profile by visiting this link.

2.) Once you're there, click Sign In and log in using the same username and password you use for Yahoo! Messenger.

3.) Click View My Profiles and then click Edit, located next to your Yahoo! ID.

4.) Next, click Edit Profile Information on the next page. At the bottom of that page, put a checkmark next to the option of "Designate this profile as an adult profile" and uncheck the option that says "Add this profile to the Yahoo! Member Directory."

5.) Click the Save Changes button when you're finished.

How This Strategy Works

When you set your profile to "Adult," spammers will have to physically log in to Yahoo! before they can harm you, so it acts as a good deterrent for spammers. Similarly, taking your profile off the Yahoo! Member Directory will make your 100 mg viagra profile almost invisible to spammers. And that's exactly what you want to do!

Windows Live/Hotmail/MSN

Based on the same anti-spam principle of Yahoo!, here your job is to change your profile from "Social" to "Just Me." Follow these easy steps to do just that:

1.) Go here and sign in with your Hotmail/MSN/Windows Live e-mail address and password (which is the same as your messenger log in).

2.) Next, click Profiles on the sidebar to your left. Go to the next page and click "Edit your shared profile." Then on the next page, click Social and next to Permissions, click "Anyone on the Internet."

3.) Checkmark the option of "Just Me" and then click the Save button to finish.

All Other Instant Messengers

Pidgin is a cross-platform multi-protocol instant messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin is able to connect to every other chat service that exists in cyberspace. Some of them include AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MySpaceIM, Sametime and Zephyr, among many others.

Now, what you can do to protect yourself from being spammed over these instant messaging networks is to download Bot Sentry, which you can do right here. Bot Sentry is a Pidgin plug-in that allows you to ignore instant messages (IMs), unless the sender is in your Buddy List, in your Allow List or the sender correctly answers a question you have pre-defined, such as "How do you spell the number five?" If the answer is wrong, such users cannot contact you ever again. This works with all chat services that are connected to Pidgin.

There you have it. I hope this one helps eliminate some of your IM spam problems. Be safe!

What: U.S. Department of Justice seeks archived SMS text messages from Verizon Wireless without obtaining a warrant first.

When: District judge rules on October 30; magistrate judge completes review of archived text messages on Friday.

Outcome: Prosecutors receive the complete contents of defendant's text messages.

What happened, according to court documents:
It may not be that well known outside of police and telecommunications circles, but odds are excellent that your mobile phone provider saves copies of your SMS text messages. In a case that Police Blotter wrote about last year, federal police obtained logs of archived text messages from two unnamed wireless providers.

In addition, a judge in the Kobe Bryant sex case ordered the phone provider to turn over archived messages. Text messages were also part of the trial involving the attempted murder of rapper 50 Cent.

(By the way, here is one way to send almost-anonymous text messages.)

The most recent case dealing with SMS text messages does not involve a celebrity, though. It involves Susan Jackson, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud involving unauthorized transfers from her employer's bank account to her own NASA Federal Credit Union account.

To buttress her request for a minimum sentence, Jackson submitted letters that she said were from friends, employers, and relatives, but the U.S. Secret Service asserts the documents were altered or doctored. If that is true, it could amount to an additional charge of obstruction of justice.

One person allegedly said that Jackson urged him, "using text messaging and e-mail," to go along with the alterations.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked for a subpoena ordering Verizon Wireless to turn over the contents of text messages for phone number (301) 325-XXXX. The request was made under 18 USC 2703(b)(1)(b)(i) and (ii), which do not require probable cause and a search warrant. Instead, all prosecutors must do is claim–and this is much easier–that the records are "relevant and material" to an investigation. (The Justice Department says this is fine because the text messages were "opened communications," meaning that they were already read by the recipient and should therefore be easier to obtain.)

Jackson's lawyer opposed the request, saying that a proper search warrant was required. On October 30, U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts sided with the prosecution and said that only a subpoena was needed.

Verizon complied. It turned over three sets of documents: information about the cialis pill cutter account holder linked to that phone number, a list of the complete contents of the text messages sent or received by cellular telephone number (301) 325-XXXX between June 6 and October 31, 2007, and a log of whom Jackson sent messages to from her Verizon e-mail address. Note that Verizon did not keep copies of the actual contents of her e-mail messages.

Because Jackson alleged that the text messages might involve sensitive attorney-client communications, the court appointed a magistrate judge to review them. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay concluded that the text messages did not involve attorney-client privilege and recommended they be turned over to prosecutors "in their entirety."

Excerpts from Justice Department's brief:
Unfortunately, the defendant's Internet services provider, Verizon Internet Services, Inc., has advised the government that it does not store the content of its subscribers' e-mail communications…

It does maintain, however, a "transactional log" for its accounts, including the defendant's account…Since the information will not contain the content of any communications, it is not believed that the defendant has any basis to contest production.

Excerpts from magistrate judge's report:
Verizon produced a package with the contents of text messages that were sent or received by cellular telephone number (301) 325-(XXXX) between June 6 and October 31, 2007. While a few of the messages make reference to Jackson's court case or meetings with her attorney, none of them appear to contain any communications between Jackson and her attorney. For example, on June 6, 2007, at 3:11 p.m. the cellular phone number in question received a text message from cellular phone number (240) 687-(XXXX) that asked "When is ur crt. date?" and approximately one minute later cellular phone number (301) 325-(XXXX) responded "29th." Approximately four minutes later, the person sending messages from (240) 687-(XXXX) then asked, "Did u get all the letters u needed? And what is ur atty. saying?" to which the person sending messages from (301) 325-(XXXX) responded "I meet w/her on Friday." The undersigned did not locate any other text messages that appear to relate to Jackson's court case or that might constitute a communication between Jackson and her attorney…

Verizon made no representations that the package produced reflected all text messages sent or received by (301) 325-(XXXX). The government's subpoena requested text message information from June 21, 2007 until the date of Judge Roberts' Order on October 30, 2007. The messages actually produced cover the following dates (all in 2007): June 6, June 12-14, June 17, June 19, July 3-4, and October 23-31. Whether any messages were sent or received on other days during this time period, and if so why Verizon did not produce them, is unclear.

Verizon produced transaction logs for Jackson's e-mail address…The e-mail transaction log indicates the date and time that each e-mail was sent and the e-mail address of the recipient. The pages of the transaction log that Verizon provided contain records of e-mails sent by Jackson between June 11, and July 9, 2007. The log shows 33 e-mails between Jackson and her attorney, Dani Jahn of the Federal Public Defender's Office, between June 13 and July 9, 2007. Verizon did not produce the contents of any of these e-mails….