How to find out if my IM messages are encrypted?

Question

I'm a Yahoo Messenger addict and I use it extensively with Pidgin on Debian. Unfortunately I moved to a place where I have to share a privately operated network connection with a lot of people I'm not really familiar with.

Without having details about the network architecture I think it would be really easy to monitor network traffic here.

I use https connections for all my mails, university stuff and social networks, so I'm not too afraid about those sites.

However it is a nightmare of mine that someone could read my private IM conversations and I didn't find any information about how the Yahoo Messenger is implemented on Pidgin and if my conversations are encrypted.

Can anyone help how to find out?

Related: [Method to find out if someone is logging a conversation on Yahoo Messenger](http://superuser.com/questions/175349/method-to-find-out-if-someone-is-logging-a-conversation-on-yahoo-messenger?rq=1) — Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007, Mar 25 '13 at 13:33

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 25 '13 at 12:54

2

To monitor your network you can use Wireshark. It's the most popular software to analyse your incoming and outgoing network traffic.

And I think you will find out Yahoo Messenger is sent in clear text format... But it's great to find it out yourself what's encrypted and what's clearly visible for everybody!

answered Mar 25 '13 at 12:54

Omega

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I doesn't seem to be available for Linux :-( – Lea Hammerschmidt Mar 25 '13 at 12:58
It is using `sudo apt-get install wireshark` in terminal :-) – Omega Mar 25 '13 at 12:59
@NickvanTilborg you can use `tcpdump` in linux does the same as wireshark and is probably built in. – MDMoore313 Mar 25 '13 at 13:00

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 25 '13 at 13:00

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Wireshark is a quick way to tell. In addition, if your IM traffic is in the clear, you can use a ssh proxy back to your home (or somewhere else) to encrypt your internet traffic, or even an OpenVPN setup. This will encrypt all your outgoing traffic, including your IMs.

answered Mar 25 '13 at 13:00

MDMoore313

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I try to connect to my university VPN once, but it didn't work :-| Seems like some ports are blocked... – Lea Hammerschmidt Mar 25 '13 at 13:04
If you *really* want to secure your internet traffic, and don't care about bandwidth, you can setup your own OpenVPN server at home, and connect to it from anywhere. It's a fair amount of work, but it's worth it imo. – MDMoore313 Mar 25 '13 at 13:12

How to find out if my IM messages are encrypted?

2 Answers2