[OTR-users] "Your message was not sent"

John-Nicholas Furst j-n at john-nicholas.net
Tue Sep 21 16:50:56 EDT 2010


Option B does sound like the best bet, but to confirm my understanding of
the OTR protocol, shouldn't sending the message after the other end quits
still be encrypted on your end such that if anyone were to intercept
either in between or on his end it would not be in plain text but in
encrypted un-intelligible text?

John

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Andy Rossmeissl <otr at brighterplanet.com>wrote:

> Hello,
>
> Please forgive me if this has already been discussed on the list.
>
> Let's say I'm having a private conversation with a friend via Pidgin. He
> quits his IM client. I receive a message saying that he "has ended his/her
> private conversation with you; you should do the same." Later, he restarts
> his IM client and I attempt to send him a message. My message is discarded
> and in it's place I find an error message: "Your message was not sent.
>  Either end your private conversation, or restart it." At this point I have
> to grab my mouse, head up to the OTR menu, restart the private conversation,
> recall my unsent message (luckily Pidgin remembers it), and re-send.
>
> This happens to me I don't know how many times per day. A very large number
> of Adium users have reported the issue at [1], and a bug was opened with
> Pidgin [2], but the buck tossed immediately to OTR.
>
> The problem is that the conversation state is stuck in limbo. Either of
> these alternatives is preferable:
>
> a) When my friend quits his IM client, thereby ending our private
> conversation, my client should automatically end it on my end as well, or
>
> b) when I send my message after he has restarted his client, my client
> should recognize the privacy-state mismatch, attempt to restart the private
> conversation, and send the message only at that point.
>
> I recognize the risk in option (a): Having missed the notice about the
> private conversation ending, I could inadvertently send a sensitive message
> to my friend in cleartext.
>
> I don't see the risk in option (b). Of all the times you folks have
> received this error, after how many of them did you *not* fumble around for
> the "restart private conversation" command?
>
> Unfortunately I'm not a C developer, so I regret not being able to
> contribute a patch. But I would certainly contribute to a bounty for a fix
> to this.
>
> Best,
> Andy
>
> [1] http://trac.adium.im/ticket/6742
> [2] http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/6431
> _______________________________________________
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> OTR-users at lists.cypherpunks.ca
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