[OTR-users] Question & Answer authentication on Yahoo

Ian Goldberg ian at cypherpunks.ca
Fri Sep 13 16:02:52 EDT 2013


On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 10:16:23AM -0700, sdenies at dcnteam.com wrote:
> I attempted to use the "Question and answer" authentication with a 
> coworker today and was unable to get it to work.  After starting an 
> unauthenticated chat, I would send the question, and he would never 
> receive it.  Similarly, he would send a question and I wouldn't receive 
> it.  We were able to send messages back and forth however.  After we 
> authenticated via fingerprint validation, I tried it again with a 
> different question.  He received the question, but it timed out after he 
> responded.  What would cause this?
> 
> In the past, I have noticed that otr/pidgin/yahoo silently drops messages 
> larger than a certain length.  Could this be it?

Yes, that's definitely it.  We've had reports in the past that Yahoo's
actual max message size is smaller than it is configured to be in
pidgin-otr.  Are you using pidgin-otr 3 or 4?  In 4, the max message
size is 799, while it used to be 832.  If you're already using 4, you
could try shrinking it a bit more.  Please report what smaller value
works.  (Note that you and your buddy will both have to do this.)

Here's how to shrink the max message size for yahoo yourself:

http://lists.cypherpunks.ca/pipermail/otr-users/2009-March/001625.html

   - Ian



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