AIM (software)

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AOL Instant Messenger
Developer(s)AOL LLC
Operating systemWindows (older versions for Mac and Linux)
TypeInstant messaging client
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.aim.com/

AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is an advertisement-supported proprietary freeware instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol. It was released by AOL in May of 1997.

About

AOL Instant Messenger (often referred to as "AIM," pronounced as an acronym or the word "aim") is an instant messaging application that allows registered users to communicate in real time via text, voice, and video over the Internet. It is maintained by AOL LLC. The official website is www.aim.com.

History

Since version 2.0, AIM has included person-to-person text messaging, chatroom messaging, and the ability to share files peer-to-peer with one's buddies. Versions 4.3 and later of the client software store one's contact information on AOL's servers, so one can keep track of up to 600 buddies from any computer with Internet access. In addition, somewhere in the 4.x versions, the AIM client for Microsoft Windows added the ability to play games against one another using the WildTangent engine. The first version released with WildTangent did not warn the user that it was going to be installed. Newer versions, however do, due to the fact that many users were frustrated with AOL, as many SpyWare scanners pick-up WildTangent as SpyWare, though it seems to be relatively harmless, outside of slowing system performance.[1] Stand-alone official AIM client software is available for free for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Mac OS X, Linux, Windows CE, and Palm OS.

AIM version 5.5 allowed Windows users to video conference with each other and with Apple Computer iChat users (which came out before version 5.5) when it was released in February 2004.

The successor to the AIM 5.9 versions became known as AIM Triton, which began with a complete code rewrite and a brand new UI engine, known as Boxely. The first renaming of the client was seen with the Beta 1 release 0.1.12 on April 25, 2005, and supported only Windows XP.[2] For the first time in AIM's development, these preview releases were made publicly available on the AIM home page for any user to test and provide feedback.

On September 29, 2006, the newest release of the AIM Triton 1.5 Beta was renamed to AIM 6.0, with a Beta 1 release made available. This version again changed the UI (albeit slightly). The final stable version of AIM 6.0 was released on December 15; new features included connection to AIM Pages, updates that make profile, away message, and general user updates into RSS feeds, new customization, the ability to send messages to users who are offline , buddy list capacity being increased to 1000 buddies, and compatibility with address book programs and sites through a "Universal Address Book" powered by Plaxo. The upgrade also added missing features from the first release including the 'Get File' function, global font customization, and a smaller size cache usage. Along with the release of AIM 6.0, AOL opened AIM to developers which allowed anyone to create a plug-in, or custom AIM client for Windows, Macintosh or Linux.

Version AIM 6.1, which was officially released on March 27, 2007, introduces over AIM 6.0 Buddy List docking, support for inserting images into Buddy Info, Color Picker for changing the highlight colors of the UI, improvements to how Linked Screen Names are displayed, the ability to sign on as invisible, several bug fixes, and improved Windows Vista support.

The software has a large share of the instant messaging market (with 52% of the total reported as of 2006), placing it ahead of the combined total userbase of the two closest rivals.[3]

fuck u

Apple iChat

Main article: iChat

Apple's iChat software was released in June 2003 for Mac OS X and was the first AIM-compatible client to allow for audio and video conferencing over the AIM protocol. While introducing it, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that iChat was the first AIM client not made by AOL to be officially recognized by AOL.

AIM Phoneline

Main article: AIM Phoneline

AIM Phoneline is a Voice over IP PC-PC, PC-Phone, and Phone-to-PC service [4] provided by AOL via its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) application.

Protocol

The standard protocol that AIM clients use to communicate is called OSCAR. Most AOL-produced versions of AIM and popular third party AIM clients use this protocol. However, AOL also created a simpler protocol called TOC that lacks many of OSCAR's features but is sometimes used for clients that only require basic chat functionality. The TOC/TOC2 protocol specifications were made available by AOL, while OSCAR is a closed protocol that third parties have had to reverse-engineer.

Weaknesses

AIM is known for security weaknesses that have enabled exploits to be created that use third-party software to perform malicious acts on users' computers. Although most are relatively harmless, such as being kicked off the AIM service, others perform potentially dangerous actions such as harvesting IP addresses and sending viruses over a direct connection. Some of these exploits rely on social engineering to spread by automatically sending instant messages that contain a URL accompanied by text suggesting the receiving user click on it, an action which leads to infection.

Miscellaneous

AIM Pages was released in May 2006, allowing the 63 million AIM users to create an online, dynamic profile. The buddy list serves as the basis for the AIM Page social network. An AIM Page is built using modules following the ModuleT microformat.

Since August 2005, AOL has also launched the webmail service AIM Mail; it is free and can be accessed by all AIM users.

Configuration

AIM is different from other clients such as Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger in that it does not require approval from one buddy to be added to another's buddy list. As a result, it is possible for users to keep other unsuspecting users on their buddy list to read their profiles or see if they are online (if the other user had blocked them before). However, one can block another user from communicating and also enhance privacy by selecting a menu option allowing communication only with those on one's buddy list.

Terminology

AIM and AOL use several terms for elements of their instant messaging, which are different from other messengers. These include:

  • Away message: A function of some instant messaging applications whereby a user may post a message that appears automatically to other users if they attempt to make contact when the user is unavailable. It is analogous to the voice message on an answering machine or voice mail system.
  • Block: If a user is feeling threatened or annoyed by someone, he can "block" the sender, which prevents the sender from contacting the user with his or her current screenname, as well as removes the user from their buddy list.
  • Buddy List: The centerpiece of AIM, a list containing the status of up to 1000 buddies stored on an AIM server so you can access this list from any instance of AIM. The status of the buddies can be seen as 'online', 'away', 'idle', 'mobile', or 'offline'.
  • Direct connection: AIM users can, instead of relaying messages through the AIM server, connect to each other's computers directly via this method and send various forms of media.
  • Screenname: Term for user name with AOL origins. These are available for free with registration at the AIM website.
  • Spim: Spam over Instant messaging. The spam problem in e-mail has the potential to spread to Instant Messaging, in the form of on-line advertisements. As a closed network, AOL has been able to block most spam, but some still passes through to users.
  • Rate limiting, which prevents a user from sending too many messages in a short amount of time. Once a user is rate limited, they are temporarily unable to send messages, but may still receive messages.
  • Warning: If a user feels a received instant message is inappropriate, he can "warn" the sender, which increases the sender's warning level. Warning levels reduce the rate at which users can send messages and can eventually cause a given screen name to be unable to sign-on for a period of time. The warning feature is no longer supported in AIM Triton or AIM 6, although warnings have not been disabled serverside, meaning that older AIM clients, third-party clients, or user-written add-ons may still allow users to bypass the "soft" removal of warning capabilities.
  • An AIM Closed List, Allow Only, Buddies Only, or Privacy refers to the option on the AOL Instant Messenger client to allow only users on a user's buddy list to contact them. This is to prevent harassment or spamming and is also a secure way to chat.
  • Icon A small, personalized picture that a user can set up to appear whenever they message another user.

Versions

The official versions of the AIM software are as follows:

Note: This list may be incomplete.

  • AIM 1.5.234, with an unknown release date (for various Linux distributions)
  • AIM 1.5.286, with an unknown release date (for various Linux distributions)
  • AIM 4.3, with an unknown release date (for Mac OS 8.6 and earlier)
  • AIM 4.7.1333, released on February 18, 2004 (for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9)
  • AIM 4.8.2790, released on November 26, 2001 (for Windows 95)
  • AIM 5.0.2829, released in September 2002 (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.1.3101, released in November 2002 (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.2.3292, released in July 2003 (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.5.3595, released in May 2004 (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.9.3702, September 2004 (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.9.3797, unknown release date (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.9.3844, unknown release date (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.9.3857, unknown release date (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 5.9.6089, released on August 31, 2006 (for Windows 98/NT4/ME/2000/XP)
  • AIM 6.0.28.1, unknown release date (for Windows 2000/XP/XP/Vista x64)
  • AIM 6.1.32.1, released on March 27, 2007 (for Windows 2000/XP/XP/Vista x64)
  • AIM 6.1.41.2, released on May 3, 2007 for Windows 2000/XP/XP/Vista x64)
  • AIM Triton 1.0.2, released in November 15, 2005 (for Windows 2000/XP)
  • AIM Pro 1.3 build 260, released on November 1, 2006 (for Windows 2000/XP)
  • AIM Express, unknown release date, online version.
  • AIM ET / LAIM / AIM Lite 0.31 Beta, released on December 11, 2006 (for Windows 2000/XP/Vista)
  • AirAIM unknown release date, online version

Bots

AOL and various other companies supply robots on AIM which can receive messages and send a response based on the bot's purpose. For example, bots can help with studying, like StudyBuddy. Some are made to relate to children and teenagers, like Spleak or AOLSafetyBot, an AOL-run bot that provides information about staying safe online. Some like FashionCF give advice, and some are general purpose, like Smarterchild or the popular AIM Bot FriendBot. Other capabilities include games, calculators, sports results, web search, and much more. Prior to the inclusions of such bots, the bots DoorManBot and AIMOffline provided features provided today by AOL for those who needed it. Many AIM users utilize bots such as Smarterchild to take verbal abuse.

URI scheme

AOL Instant Messenger's installation process automatically installs an extra URI scheme ("protocol") handler into some web browsers, so that URIs beginning "aim:" can open a new AIM window with specified parameters. This is similar in function to the mailto: URI scheme, which creates a new e-mail message using the system's default mail program. For instance, a web page might include a link like the following in its HTML source to open a window for sending a message to the AIM user notarealuser: 

<a href="aim:goim?screenname=notarealuser">Send Message</a>

To specify a message body, the message parameter is used, so that the link location might look like this: 

aim:goim?screenname=notarealuser&message=This+is+my+message

To specify an away message, the message parameter is used, so that the link location might look like this: 

aim:goaway?message=Hello, my name is Bill

When placing this inside a URL link, an AIM user could click on the URL link and the away message "Hello, my name is Bill" would instantly become their away message.

In addition, these can be placed and used within AIM.

Malware

Viewpoint Media Player is a program that is installed during the installation of AOL Instant Messenger that is a plugin for displaying graphical content in the software's own proprietary format. According to the software's end user license agreement, Viewpoint Media Player collects usage information and forwards it to Viewpoint servers. Each installation of Viewpoint Media Player contains a unique alphanumeric identification number that can be used to uniquely identify an installation of the software.

AOL Instant Messenger has been known to be plagued with an influx of viruses and trojans, which are transmitted when a user clicks a malicious link. When a user is affected, the link may be inserted into the user's profile or away message, with no way to remove it. The worst case is when the Trojan causes the user to automatically send messages containing the malicious link to people on the user's buddy list in an instant message conversation window. These links are often well disguised as links to pictures of the user (i.e.: "Click here to see pics of me from vacation!" or "Is this you?"). Some of these links automatically download a malicious com file to the user's computer, thus infecting it.

On September 18, 2006, research experts led by Christopher Boyd and Wayne Porter at FaceTime Labs, the threat research division FaceTime Communications, identified and reported a new worm known as W32.Pipeline that is propagating over AOL Instant Messenger. The worm delivers an executable file disguised as a JPEG, which in turn calls out to various host computers that download a variety of infection files including rootkits and Trojans that may further propagate the worm through the user's AIM Buddy List.

Advertisements

On the buddy list window of AIM, there are many advertisements that load upon startup of the program. However, there are many ways to stop these ads from showing.

For example, in the Hosts file, you would enter this line of text: 

  0.0.0.0 ar.atwola.com

You can also use 127.0.0.1, which your computer pings itself to try to find the ads. With 0.0.0.0, your computer would search the IP 0.0.0.0 to find ads, even though the IP is non existant.

See also

Other clients

Other links

References

  1. ^ Spyware or Slyware?
  2. ^ http://web.archive.org/web/20050429015433/http://beta.aol.com/projects/tritonbeta/
  3. ^ http://www.bigblueball.com/forums/general-other-im-news/34413-im-market-share.html
  4. ^ AOL Launches AIM Phoneline

External links


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