Google Instant Messenger Coming Really (or Not?)

bach37 writes "Google is rumored to launch its own instant messenger tomorrow." Other sources are reporting that talk.google.com is running jabber. Of course we've also had stories about all this being rumors

Re:180 degrees?

[the_mighty_$]

They already have an IM service. [hello.com]

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It's real: it's a Jabber server!

[YA_Python_dev]

This time is not a rumor!

Try it for yourself. Send a string like:

<stream:stream to='talk.google.com' xmlns='jabber:client' xmlns:stream='http://etherx.jabber.org/streams'>

to talk.google.com, port 5222. It will respond with a valid RFC 3920 [faqs.org] (Jabber) stream!

In other News -- Google Cap Up $Bn!

[shashark]

http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/050823/markets_stocks_befo rethebell.html?.v=1 [yahoo.com] Google Inc. (GOOG) rose nearly 1 percent before the bell on Tuesday after the Los Angeles Times reported the Web search company will launch its own instant messaging system
Shares of Google rose $2.54 to $276.55 on the Inet electronic brokerage system, from a $2.74.01 close on Nasdaq.

Boy oh Boy, that's almost $1 BN ($0.767 BN to be exact) jump in market cap. Tin foil hats and Conspiracy theorists, jump right in.

Jabber

[PhYrE2k2]

Jabber has server modules that connect you to most major networks. That's the real push for Jabber is that it bridges the gap. Until M$ blocks Google's IPs (heh), Google could technically put a bridge in there and make connections to Microsoft's servers for every user.

-M

Also get "not allowed" for bad passwd

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried using my gmail account name and a bad password. I got the "not allowed" response. I don't think there's anything to the "not allowed" vs. "bad passwd".

Re:180 degrees?

[TheRaven64]

I can confirm that talk.google.com is talking Jabber.

telnet talk.google.com 5222
Trying 64.233.167.125...
Connected to talk.l.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<stream:stream
to="talk.google.com"
xmlns="j abber:client"
xmlns:stream="http://etherx.jabber. org/streams">
<stream:stream from="talk.google.com" id="C12F7326" xmlns:stream="http://etherx.jabber.org/streams" xmlns="jabber:client">

The last line of this is the standard response sent by a Jabber server prior to negotiating a login.

Jabber's MSN transport

[bigsmoke]

There's actually a few public Jabber services already that have installed Jabber's MSN transport [jabberstudio.org]. If Google engineers are as good as they seem, they'll have no trouble at all to let you talk to your MSN friends.

Re:Take off your tinfoil hat for a little while

[Zebra_X]

No probably not. The difficulty of associating a particular user to ip traffic is extremely difficult and in some cases impossible.

Google can easily figure out who you are and what you are doing, what you are interested in, how you behave, and who you communicate with. Any service with google.com as the domain will allow them to cookie you - and provide visibilty of your identity across other google services, allowing them to easily aggregate your activities.

Really the reason that I bring this up is that people seem to *love* Google. I mean at $277/share i think it speaks for itself. There are a number of other companies who if they were doing such things, most people would take issue, and have in the past. Double click immediately comes to mind. Maybe people will start to figure it out when the love affair ends.

Re:180 degrees?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Hello Instant Messaging client is included with Picasa which is owned by google.

Cleverly it is used for picture sharing which avoids direct competition with the established IM clients.

http://www.hello.com/ [hello.com]

Posting only because I dont have mod points to push the parent post all the way up to 5

Re:Someone at google...

[dragonman97]

Nearly all Google's services work in such a fashion, though. For instance, sms.google.com sends you to google.com/sms, and similarly for many of their other tools. I'll wait for a real announcement before I assume anything.

Thank GOD for TRILLIAN

[Windsinger]

I agree, another damn IM. Thankfully there's Trillian. Now I'd just like Trillian to gobble up XFire's gaming support so I can rid myself of that very useful -- but horrible programmed (cpu intensive, crashes, leaks) piece of shit.

Google Maps file extension

[TeXMaster]

Google Maps uses the .kml extension (.kmz if compressed), where KML stands for Keyhole Markup Language, and XML format documented here [keyhole.com]

Re:180 degrees?

[87C751]

I can confirm that talk.google.com is talking Jabber.

Not anymore...

$ telnet talk.google.com 5222
Trying 64.233.167.125...
Connected to talk.google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.

?
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: http://www.google.com/talk/
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 151

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>302 Moved</TITLE></HEAD><BODY><H1>302 Moved</H1>The document has moved <A HREF="http://www.google.com/talk/">here</A>.</BODY ></HTML>Connection closed by foreign host.

Re:180 degrees?

[yEvb0]

If you use the free version of the Opera browser, you can choose between generic graphic ads, and google targeted ads; in that case, you have google ads all the time.

Re:180 degrees?

[shokk]

Remember the rumors about Google getting into VOIP? Eweek is reporting that it will be a text and voice chat.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1851272,00.as p?kc=EWRSS03119TX1K0000594 [eweek.com]

Re:It's real: it's a Jabber server!

[YA_Python_dev]

Try something like this (works under GNU/Linux, I think it should work under Windows too):

echo "<stream:stream to='talk.google.com' xmlns='jabber:client' xmlns:stream='http://etherx.jabber.org/streams'>" | nc -v talk.google.com 5222

If all else fails, you can type (or paste) the line yourself to netcat or telnet.

Hope this helps.

Re:180 degrees?

[YA_Python_dev]

Not anymore...

Yeah: it still works, you just need to send at least the start of a valid Jabber stream. Instead of "?" try sending:

<stream:stream to='talk.google.com' xmlns='jabber:client' xmlns:stream='http://etherx.jabber.org/streams'>

Re:Someone at google...

[Rude Turnip]

To test the theory, I just typed in lsjfsdlsjlsdf.google.com and Firefox came back with an error message. talk.google.com at least returns something from Google.

Re:Multiplatform? I think not.

[th3space]

Trillin Basic, as my understanding goes, isn't able to utilize this plugin...only those who shelled out 29.95 USD for Trillian Pro get to connect to Jabber services. I do wish that they made it available to the basic users as well, seeing as how having a Pro account is no longer worth it (no new skins for 3.x, no really decent plugins, etc)...oh well.

Re:if it comes out...

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Visiting places like http://www.google.com/ig [google.com] it's quite clear that it isn't a gmail account you got, but rather a Google account.

This article is useful

[sloths]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM .20050823.wgoogletalk0823/BNStory/Business/ [theglobeandmail.com]


" "It means other people and developers will be able to add value to our network by being able to add this to computer games, productivity applications and anywhere else they want," said Georges Harik, director of product management at Google. The new Google program features a basic user interface with few graphics, much like the main Google search site. It does not spawn pop-up windows or display ads like America Online's Instant Messenger. "We'll have an uncluttered interface that allows you to search over your contacts pretty easily," Mr. Harik said. "It just stays out of your way unless you want to connect to someone." Google Talk, which is being released in a beta test version, works only on PCs running Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Eventually, the company plans to release a version for Apple's Mac OS X. Google Talk also requires users to have an account with the company's free Gmail e-mail system. Gmail previously was available only to those invited by a current account holder, but now Google is opening up registration to anyone in the United States. And unlike Internet phone services such as Vonage and Skype, Google's voice service does not support calls to the regular telephone system. Mr. Harik also made clear that Google has no intention of trying to become a popular bridge to the other major instant-messaging providers. "We're not going to do anything like force other networks to interoperate with us," he said. "We're not going to arbitrarily break into their protocols." "

Re:Gabber?

[vrza]

If this rumor is true, and I run my own Jabber server, can my users connect through my server into Google's users?

That's a good question. At this moment, talk.google.com doesn't seem to be listening on port tcp/5269 (which is the standard Jabber/XMPP port for server to server communication), and c2s seems to require some special type of SASL authentification (maybe to discourage users to try connecting with a non-google Jabber client when the service starts). Of course, maybe they will enable s2s (and thus syndication with the rest of the Jabber network) when they officially roll out the service.

Speculations, speculations... Let's just wait till tomorrow and see, shall we?

Re:180 degrees?

[kg4eyf]

Furthermore, if you attempt to log in you get some more interesting stuff:

Looking up SRV: _xmpp-client._tcp.talk.google.com
Direct DNS failed.. Using server: talk.google.com
SENT:
RECV: X-GOOGLE-TOKEN
SENT:
RECV:
RECV: SSL status: "before/connect initialization"
RECV: SSL status: "before/connect initialization"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 write client hello A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 read server hello A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 read server certificate A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 read server key exchange A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 read server done A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 write client key exchange A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 write change cipher spec A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 write finished A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 flush data"
RECV: SSL status: "SSLv3 read finished A"
RECV: SSL status: "SSL negotiation finished successfully"
RECV: SSL status: "SSL negotiation finished successfully"
RECV: Cipher: name = EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA; description = EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA SSLv3 Kx=DH Au=RSA Enc=3DES(168) Mac=SHA1
; bits = 168; version = TLSv1/SSLv3;
SENT:
RECV: PLAINX-GOOGLE-TOKEN
SENT: encrypted password deleted
RECV:
RECV:
RECV: SSL status: "SSL negotiation finished successfully"
RECV:

They also have an SSL cert: /C=US/ST=CA/L=Mountain View/O=Google/OU=Buzz team/CN=gmail.com/Email=[e-mail]

Looks like it's set and ready to roll. I tried registering, and it doesn't support registration. I tried authenticating with my gmail id, and that didn't work. Perhaps they'll turn it on tomorrow! I also noticed that a different authentication mechanism is supported. X-GOOGLE-TOKEN. Maybe this will be tied to gmail somehow such that if you're logged into gmail, a password isn't required for talk.google.com.

There are 3 interesting ports open too. 5222 is the standard unencrypted or TLS port, which seems to work.

port 5223 is the SSL port, which also seems to work with the same cert as TLS on 5222.

port 5224 is interesting since it isn't a normal jabber port. It answers and behaves like 5222. It responds as googlemail.com rather than gmail.com. curious.