[OTR-dev] More on OTR implementation..

[Donny Viszneki]

I mentioned on the list earlier that I'm writing my own implementation
of OTR. I plan to release the code under an MIT/BSD style license. The
target platform of my implementation was previously unstated:
Javascript.

The goal of my project is to make it possible for people to have
private IM communications even from public terminals which are only
equipped with a web-browser (assuming of course that the actual
terminal is trustworthy and uncompromised.)

There are several stages of development which will open up the project
to a wider and wider user-base (for instance, the first version fully
working version will require the Firefox extension Greasemonkey to
work.)

The main web-based IM interfaces I'm interested in targeting are
Google's GTalk, and Meebo.com. I have some rather crafty plans to
enable end users to verify the integrity of the code they're running
from a public terminal, helping to ensure that their conversation is
safe (barring, again, the possibility that the terminal itself
represents a security breach.)

Up to this point, I've gotten a bit of the work done. I already have
written a very flexible and forward-looking multi-precision integer
arithmetic library for Javascript which overcomes many of the
limitations that exist in several of the MPI JS libs I've seen out
there. And I've written some of the groundwork for interfacing with
Meebo's web interface via Greasemonkey, intercepting messages as they
go back and forth, etc..

I'm writing mostly just to get the word out about my project, but also
to ask for some help identifying exactly which cryptographic
algorithms I'll need to implement for OTR. I've been reading the OTR
protocol specification a lot, but I would feel much more comfortable
getting confirmation from people on the list of exactly how far along
I am.

My background is not in math or cryptography (however I've found
through my research for this project that modular arithmetic and
number theory share a great deal of overlap with personal math studies
from my childhood) so you can keep that in mind if you'd like when
responding.

Also, on a slightly different topic, I was wondering where there might
exist a source of proposed improvements for a new version of the OTR
protocol? I think I have at least a few useful ideas for one or two
new OTR capabilities, and I'm curious how they might coincide with
pre-existing discussion on enhancing OTR.

Thanks in advance!