Secure Instant Messaging

‘Yahoo Inc. said it will expand a service to the United States that lets people make phone calls using its instant messaging software.

The “Phone Out” service has been available in several countries since December.

People using it can make calls from their computers for 2 cents a minute or less to about 30 phone markets, and at varying rates to about 180 countries.’

Read more at Yahoo! offers phone via instant messaging

‘The Open University has selected FaceTime Communications to prevent worms and viruses from using instant messaging (IM) to invade and exploit its UK student network. The Open University is the world’s first successful distance learning university with more than 180,000 students that interact online from home around the world.

FaceTime’s IMAuditor was chosen to fully integrate with the Open University’s existing diverse infrastructure and to meet all the management requirements desired by the Open University staff, including flexible reporting, management and scalability. The solution provides the Open University with the ability to tailor the settings to respect users’ privacy which is very important to the Open University educational community. ‘

Read more at FaceTime Secures Instant Messaging For Distance Learning University

Om has screen shots of the new Yahoo Messenger Beta that has VOIP integrated into it. He writes:

‘I had reported earlier that the new and improved (hopefully) Yahoo Messenger Beta (code named Postman) was going to hit the web this week. This is a Windows PC only release and is still a beta version of the IM+VoIP client is going to be released tomorrow. More photos are here and here. This is Yahoo turning the heat on Skype!’

Read more at GigaOM : » New Yahoo Messenger …Screenshots

‘EQO Communications has released a mobile instant messaging (IM) service for Skype, according to a press release.

The software is available free as a Beta product to customers via the EQO Web site and supports more than 40 handset models from vendors such as Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson.’

Read more at Mobile IM for Skype

‘Research experts at FaceTime Security Labs™ identified and reported a new threat affecting instant messaging (IM) applications.

Acting on an anonymous tip, researchers have uncovered two “botnet” networks that collectively represent up to 150,000 compromised computers, one of which is being used as a vehicle to fraudulently scan desktop and back-end systems to obtain credit card numbers, bank accounts, and personal information including log-ins and passwords. The operators could potentially launch these scans from any computer on the botnet to mask their actual location.’

Read more at New Botnets Utilizing Instant Messaging

‘IM Interactive and Akonix has announced the launch of IM Interactive’s IMProv Center, an innovative development and hosting portal for creators of IM bots built upon Akonix’s leading real-time and presence based communications development platform, L7 Builder.

The online portal will enable developers to quickly and easily create new bots using Akonix L7 Builder’s IM and presence technologies. Bots developed through the IMProv Center are then licensed to be deployed over the MSN Messenger Network, a worldwide network community of approximately 205 million users.’

Read more at Secure Developers Portal for Instant Messaging Bots

‘Instant messaging is a popular way for workers to communicate. It is also gaining popularity as a way for attackers to spread viruses, according to ScanSafe, the latest firm looking to secure enterprise IM.

ScanSafe IM Control, announced today, marks instant messaging’s evolution to arranging business deals and swapping corporate data, according to Dan Nadir, ScanSafe’s vice president of product strategy.’

Read more at ScanSafe Intros IM Security Management

‘The results of a new survey published in the journal of the oldest computer association in the world, the Communications of the Association of Computer Machinery, highlights the sobering fact that messaging communications are overtaking telephone voice contacts as the preferred alternative to increasingly difficult face-to-face meetings between inter-enterprise business associates and decision makers. Whereas the phone ranked a perceived “richness” score of 25.91 (out of a maximum of 40), email achieved a score of 25.83. “This surprising result may signal that frequent email use and technologies such as Instant messaging, automatic messaging, and voice mail, may blur the perceived differences in the richness of email and the phone.”

The study report concludes, “The main lesson learned is that distributed (business) relationships involving complex tasks can be maintained by increasing the frequency and flow of (all forms of) communication.” ‘

Read more at SIP Unified Communications Is All the Buzz

‘San Diego-based Akonix Systems announced today that it has rolled out new software that provides comprehensive, mluti-tiered security for public and private instant messaging.’

Read more at Akonix Rolls Comprehensive Instant Messaging Security Bundle

‘Microsoft today also released Messenger for Mac 5.1, the latest version of the company’s instant messaging conversation. Version 5.1 offers the following new features for customers using Live Communications Server, including: file transfers sent to external contacts will now be encrypted for better security outside of the firewall…’

Read more at Microsoft Messenger for Mac 5.1 released | MacMinute News