[OTR-dev] session termination

Scott Ellis mail at scottellis.com.au
Tue May 29 09:13:55 EDT 2007


yeah i think gaim can go offline/online fine, and the resend  works for
that....but i don't think that happens if you actually exit gaim - that
causes loss of session keys and makes the sent message unreadable

because i can't find a reliable way of sending a message before a protocol
goes offline (and btw i don't think that's 100% doable even for gaim - e.g.
OS shutdown) - and i don't really want to anyway as i explained previously -
i have used a 'broader interpretation' of the spec to include a user going
offline as an indication that the session is over and therefore a reason to
move into the 'finished' state. the only real problem with this as i think
Ian mentioned is that an attacker who can mess with your online status can
stop the session - which i think is a small price to pay to avoid usability
issues which are significant to some people

using two gaim instances is no guarantee it's a miranda bug - two miranda
instances work fine together too. it's a matter of interpretation of the
specification...there are a number of problems i outlined in previous mails
with gaim's interpretation, and imo less problems with miranda's


On 5/26/07, Paul Wouters <paul at cypherpunks.ca> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 25 May 2007, Tim wrote:
>
> > I assume the same thing will happen if both communication partners use
> > Gaim. If communication partner now looses his internet connection and
> > then exits Gaim, he will lose the session keys as well and thus his
> > offline messages.
> >
> > In my opinion a message transport protocol should above all be reliable.
> > The bug I described makes instant messaging with OTR unreliable, because
> > one can't be certain all the messages sent can be read.
>
> It is still reliable, in that when the user comes online, OTR kickstarts
> and (assuming the queue didnt fill up) will detect unreadable messages,
> and will perform a resend. I know this works fine for me. If you send me
> a message when offline, when I come online, gaim-otr detects an unreadable
> message re-initiates otr. The gaim on the other end will then resend the
> message.
>
> So, I think you are being bitten by a Miranda specific bug. Feel free to
> install Gaim for windows and proof me wrong (at letoams at jabber.xs4all.nl)
>
> Paul
> _______________________________________________
> OTR-dev mailing list
> OTR-dev at lists.cypherpunks.ca
> http://lists.cypherpunks.ca/mailman/listinfo/otr-dev
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cypherpunks.ca/pipermail/otr-dev/attachments/20070529/8a73cab9/attachment.html>


More information about the OTR-dev mailing list