Is AOL AIM safe?

  • Thread starter Thread starter securityphobe
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securityphobe

I haven't installed a messenger client in years. Do I need to watch or
close any ports, or reopen services for this?

Is it worth installing if I want to keep in touch with old AOL friends?
 
I haven't installed a messenger client in years. Do I need to watch or
close any ports, or reopen services for this?

Is it worth installing if I want to keep in touch with old AOL friends?
Click to expand...

Of course it's safe, what are you fearing it will do - kill babies?
 
Is it worth installing if I want to keep in touch with old AOL friends?
Click to expand...

Have been running it fine. If you uset the AIM free incoming
telephone you have to open specific ports for UDP incoming. If you
control outgoing ports there will also be a few you need to open. I
figured out their host addresses and opened the ports for the specific
hosts. A total of 4 are required for incoming phone. Maybe I am
paranoid, but I won't post them as the newbie hackers would go to it.
I don;t use instant AIM text so I cannot give any info there, except
the method below would work as well.

I have ghostwall, a basic and good lightweight firewall. I simply
kept trying to use the AIM services and watched what ghostwall
stopped, and added a rule to allow it, until it worked right. The
process works with any firewall.

The "support" at AOL/AIM was worse than useless, but they were useless
with a smile ;-)
 
Ignore the replies from smart-a**es.
This link may be of some interest:

http://www.aim.com/help_faq/security/faq.adp
Click to expand...

Sounds like a mini-Microsoft daily news item. I have been using AIM
for years to keep in touch and no issues. If you want to run from
everything that -might- invade then shut off your computer and go
outside and play. I use a firewall, spyware and hosts file and do
not worry and never a need. To the original poster I would encourage
you to add a few AOL sites to the hosts file to keep AIM ad free but
contrary to the FAQ, you do not need to put on a foil hat and cower
in the corner.
 
You may want to look at third-party instant messenger clients, such as
Miranda (http://miranda-im.org/). It supports all the major IM's. It's
very stream-lined and doesn't have all the crap associated with the actual
client(s). I can't say how well it works with AOL's network but I've been
using it for ICQing for a long time now and love it.
 
Computerflyer said:
Have been running it fine. If you uset the AIM free incoming
telephone you have to open specific ports for UDP incoming. If you
control outgoing ports there will also be a few you need to open. I
figured out their host addresses and opened the ports for the specific
hosts. A total of 4 are required for incoming phone. Maybe I am
paranoid, but I won't post them as the newbie hackers would go to it.
I don;t use instant AIM text so I cannot give any info there, except
the method below would work as well.

I have ghostwall, a basic and good lightweight firewall. I simply
kept trying to use the AIM services and watched what ghostwall
stopped, and added a rule to allow it, until it worked right. The
process works with any firewall.

The "support" at AOL/AIM was worse than useless, but they were useless
with a smile ;-)
Click to expand...


And not posting the port numbers is going to deter hackers? Lol...
 
I haven't installed a messenger client in years. Do I need to watch or
close any ports, or reopen services for this?

Is it worth installing if I want to keep in touch with old AOL friends?
Click to expand...

I Cygwin has an open source "DOS box" client, naim, which does AIM,
IRC, ICQ and Lilly, whatever that is.

So if hackers want to play with AIM, they've got a source code for the
protocol easily accessible. I don't know if it has been done. It
certainly has been done with IRC.
 
I prefer to use Trillian free version.
supports 4 widely used IM clients in one module.



(e-mail address removed)



I haven't installed a messenger client in years. Do I need to watch or
close any ports, or reopen services for this?

Is it worth installing if I want to keep in touch with old AOL friends?
 
Did you even notice that there was an FAQ? *I* don't care about something
that happened *yesterday* with AIM, let alone 2005 as I don't use AIM any
longer, but it was part of the material.

Sorry the article mentioned an incident from 2 years ago, I was mainly
interested in the FAQ's for the OP. I'm not telling the OP to go running
scared, just be aware. BTW, these are *AOL's* "warnings", not mine.

--

Curt

Windows Support Center
http://aumha.org/
 
Of course it's safe, what are you fearing it will do - kill babies?
Click to expand...

most instant messengers will route themselves through the udp
protacol unless you have that switched off.
I don't think you will have problems apart from that. Hope this
helps. shaun
 
I haven't installed a messenger client in years. Do I need to watch or
close any ports, or reopen services for this?

Is it worth installing if I want to keep in touch with old AOL friends?
Click to expand...

No need to. Get Trillian. It's free.
 
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