On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 07:28:56AM +1200, Nick Rout wrote:
> so long as the writers of the clone programs can still sniff network
> packets between windows messenger and the server, it shouild be
> possible to emulate the msn package.
Microsoft could require that certain small parts of the MSN protocol
(e.g. authentication) are encrypted by a public key issued by Microsoft
as part of Windows.
The clone developers could see the packets passing in clear text (except
for the initial encrypted authentication packets). They could look at
the public key the legitimate MSN client is using, and use it to encrypt
authentication packets. They wouldn't be able to distribute that public
key due to copyright.
An individual user could copy the public key and provide the key to
the clone MSN client. But to do this, they would either have to obtain
it illegally, or buy Windows.
Game over.
Cheers,
-mjg
--
Matthew Gregan |/
/| [EMAIL PROTECTED]
