[OTR-dev] Firefox add-on for using OTR in web-based chat

[Ian Goldberg]

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 12:39:28PM +0200, garulf wrote:
> Hi guys,
> I'm a computer science student and i was planning to dev a firefox
> add-on for using OTR in web-based chat scenarios (likes facebook and
> gtalk).
> 
> Basic idea is to intercept ajax call in both ways and ecrypt/decrypt
> messages.
> 
> I'm not sure what is the best way to implement otr backend. At first
> time i was thinking to develop a javascript implementation of OTR (i
> saw someone else have got same idea[0]). But i don't feel very
> comfortably with javascript, so i'm trying to avoid to rewrite all
> library in js.

That would indeed be quite challenging.

> The second idea is to develop an XPCOM component that works like an
> interface to the existing OTR C library. I never deal with XPCOM,
> but i think i can reuse all libotr code that way.

This would be extremely useful, I think.

> Third idea is to develop a standalone cli interface application to
> the library and call it using a pipe from javascript (add-ons likes
> firesheep and firegpg acts that way).

Hmm; I've never thought of that.  Does Javascript have a bidirectional
popen?  You'll have to both read and write from/to the (long-running)
process.  This could be plausible indeed.

   - Ian