OTR stands for “off the record”, and it helps to ensure your privacy while you’re having an instant message conversation. Besides, this is like the big kid’s version of a secret decoder ring, woot! ;-D

To use this you’re going to need a copy of Trillian Pro, so go get it!

What it does “under the hood” is encrypt your messages so that only you & the other person can read them, but unlike other encryption options it doesn’t digitally sign those messages. In fact, it’s specifically designed to provide you plausible deniability, or it does its best to do so.

Trillian already supports a type of encryption called SecureIM. The main limitation of SecureIM is that it works only through ICQ/AIM, so you receive no chat privacy unless everyone else that you know will agree to use ICQ/AIM too.

In steps the OTR plugin for Trillian Pro. This handy dandy plugin will allow you to have private conversations over MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Rendezvous, and Sametime. Obviously this is a lot better than being restricted to one or two chat networks, and considering that it’s a free plugin that’s pretty darn easy to install you shouldn’t have too much trouble convincing your friends to use it.

Note: Rendezvous is another plugin for Trillian Pro that allows conversations over your home network without touching the ‘net (or so I understand it), and well, I’ve never heard of Sametime before.

I still need to test this to see if it works with SecureIM but it should. Hey, I kind of enjoy the thought of combining two methods that ensure the privacy of my conversations.

It’s pretty easy to tell from my other blog posts that I embrace privacy. Why? Because it’s my privacy, of course! I should hope that more people would actually like to protect their personal information & conversations. Hopefully my contact page and these type of blog posts will assist some people in doing exactly that!

• OTR Trillian Plugin
• Trillian Pro

~Steph

Technorati Tags: privacy, security, encryption