About Instant Messaging and Privacy
When LGBTQ Ally Mentors are in their office hours, they are signed on to the AIM screen name "
SNC LGBTQ Ally," and their status message should tell you which mentor it is. When that icon is solid/dark, a mentor was logged in when you loaded this page; if it is light/faded, no mentor was logged. You can use
Pidgin (a free desktop client for Windows and Linux),
Adium (an equivalent client for Mac), or
Meebo (a web browser-based client) along with your AOL Instant Messenger screen name to contact us.
Unless you are using the OTR plugin for Pidgin or Adium (see below), instant messenger conversations are subject to the same privacy caveats as email, except that IT does not retain a copy of your messages. That is, your messages are sent in plain text over the Internet and thus could theoretically be intercepted and read.
You can use the OTR (Off The Record) plugin to encrypt messages securely while they are being transmitted - so even if they are intercepted, they could not be read. This is very simple and at its most basic, requires no messing around or special configuration to get it to work - you'll see a message when a secured conversation begins. If you'd like additional security and verification that you're talking with who you think you're talking with, you can start the AIM conversation, then call the Ally Mentor and set up a code word which you will both enter into the software. Note that this does not work with the regular AIM client, which is not recommended due to its ads, insecurities, and poor quality.
- Pidgin OTR for Windows:
download and install, then make sure to enable the plugin (see the instructions at the following link) and you'll automatically be encrypting all conversations with those whose software supports it. Look at
these instructions if you want to learn more or have added security (authentication/verification) using a code word.
- Adium for Mac OS X: OTR is installed by default and requires no configuration to handle basic encryption - it will start automatically. You can use the Pidgin OTR instructions above to set up a code word, if desired
