How to set up censorship-free instant messaging (chat) by Dave Kimble at www.peakoil.org.au Instant Messaging or chat involves people having a chat client installed on their PC, logging in to a chat server with a username and password, and using the chat server to relay messages between people. Because this arrangement of data flow is different from web browsing and email, it requires a different encryption approach. Secure chat client proxy There is a free software solution for Windows from www.secway.fr/us/products/all.php Their SIMP-Lite product is a proxy that works with popular chat clients and handles all the encryption and unencryption and security protocols. It comes in several flavours for various chat clients : Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, ICQ/AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Jabber/Google Talk. You start up your chat client and SIMP and then if your correspondent has SIMP running too, you have the option to encrypt the conversation. The chat server cannot see what is in the traffic it is handling for you because it is encrypted. Nowadays chat has expanded to include not just keyboard text but also file sharing, whiteboard sharing, two-way audio, web-cam video - all of this traffic will be encrypted. One potential disadvantage of this method is that you are still reliant on the chat server to handle your traffic for you, for free. In these uncertain economic times, no one knows which mega-corporation is going to fail next, and which chat servers are going to suddenly disappear or become "pay per megabyte". Moreover I would expect M$ or Yahoo or Google to make whatever use they can of your traffic, including building up a profile of you and your chat-room activities, if not the actual conversation. Peer to Peer chat (without a server) Another solution is to do away with the chat server and clients model and have chat peers instead, that talk to each other directly. This is implemented in very minimalistic way by a free application called PSST. I have described this in detail at www.peakoil.org.au/chat/how-to-chat.php The only awkward bit is that you have to make contact with your correspondent first, by email or SMS or phone, to give them your current IP Address. (The chat server normally does this for you) You can always get your own IP Address from www.peakoil.org.au/chat/ip.php or there is a Firefox add-on called External IP that puts your IP Address in the web browser's status bar. The first chat message includes the IP address of the sender, so once you have initiated the chat, the return IP is known.