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What is it?
Top Secret Messenger (TSM) is a powerful and secure public-key encryption with fully and seamlessly integrated plugins for popular instant messengers and e-mail clients such as, ICQ Instant Messenger (America Online), MSN Instant Messenger (Microsoft), Outlook Express and Outlook (Microsoft), and Miranda MSN and ICQ clone (as well as many others currently in development)
What makes TSM so unique?
TSM was the FIRST product to offer powerful and secure encryption for instant messengers! It is still the ONLY such product to provide support for all ICQ versions, going back as far back as ICQ 98. The plugins that we develop for it are completely integrated into these programs, providing our unique transparent encryption feature allowing our users to automatically encrypt and decrypt their messages with no additional mouse clicks! Simply clicking on the Send button automatically encrypts the message with the correct public key of the receiver and the incoming messages are decrypted automatically as soon as they open. You can also optionally password-protect your private key, without which no decryption can be performed, thus effectively preventing anyone on your machine from decrypting your messages without knowing your password.
Registered Version's Features
- Strong Public Key Encryption and Digital Signatures based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography
- Quick and Easy Management of Public Keys
- ICQ Plugin's features:
- Complete integration with ICQ 98, ICQ 99a, ICQ 99b, ICQ 2000a, ICQ 2000b, ICQ 2001, ICQ 2002, and ICQ 2003a
- Easy-to-use Encrypt buttons right on ICQ's message dialogs
- Support for Automatic Real-Time Transparent Encryption of Messages (Just click on the ICQ's "Send" button, like you normally do, and TSM picks the correct public key of the receiver and automatically encrypts the message before sending it)
- Support for Automatic Incoming Message and History Decryption
- Support for decryption of encrypted History Messages and permanently saving them in ICQ message history. (Not available for ICQ98)
- IntelliCrypt Feature - Intelligently selects the public key of sender or receiver without having to select it from the public key list during manual encryption/decryption operations via dialog buttons.
- Outlook Plugin
- Complete integration with the Outlook client (Version 2000 and later only)
- Automatic encryption (with digital signing) and decryption of e-mails similar to our other plugins
- Supports both plain-text and HTML-formatted e-mails
- Outlook Express Plugin
- Complete integration with the latest Outlook Express version
- Automatic encryption and decryption of messages similar to our other plugins
- Supports both plain-text and HTML-formatted e-mails
- Miranda ICQ/MSN Plugin
- Complete integration with the Miranda ICQ/MSN clone
- Transparent encryption and decryption of messages sent with Miranda
- Quick and Easy Plugin Management
- Optional Private Key Encryption (additional protection against trojan horse programs or other users on your machine stealing your private keys)
- Optional password-protection feature that prevents anyone from decrypting your messages without your password.
- Easy Clipboard Encryption/Decryption
- Splash Screen can be turned off
Limitations of the Trial Version
The trial version is given as simply a demo of the TSM technology. It is using very weak 8-bit encryption keys, as opposed to military-strength 1 307-bit keysizes in the registered version
It only includes the ICQ plugin and does not offer Automatic Encryption/Decryption features or Message History Decryption.
Why do I need to encrypt my instant messages and e-mails?
There are a number of reasons for doing that.
- There are various hacking tools available that can quite easily intercept online messages, whose content, unless encrypted, will be fully available to the attacker.
- There are also even more tools that let people send "spoofed" messages. These are messages that appear to have come from someone that you know, when in reality they were sent by the attacker trying to social engineer his way into your system). If all your conversations with the people you know and trust are digitally signed, you'll easily identify that the message did not come from a friend.
- In the case of ICQ, all offline messages are stored on AOL's servers and who knows who might have intentional or unintentional access to them! AOL itself warns in ICQ's End User License Agreement that
"By using the ICQ Software and the Internet in general, you may be subject to various risks, including among others: Spoofing, eavesdropping, sniffing, spamming, breaking passwords, harassment, fraud, forgery, "imposturing", electronic trespassing, tampering, hacking, nuking, system contamination including without limitation use of viruses, worms and Trojan horses causing unauthorized, damaging or harmful access and/or retrieval of information and data on your computer and other forms of activity that may even be considered unlawful."
- In the case of e-mail, your messages will go through a number of mail servers before reaching their destination. If you want to ensure that the contents of your e-mails will remain only between you and the person who is receving them, encryption is the only way to guarantee it.
How easy is it to encrypt my instant messages and e-mails with TSM?
The key feature that distinguishes TSM from all other encryption applications is its complete integration with the products it has plugins for it.
In the case of ICQ, TSM adds a button to ICQ's message dialogs allowing you to have access to powerful encryption with just one click of a mouse! The registered version goes even further by introducing Automatic Encryption/Decryption features that automatically encrypt messages as soon as you click on the ICQ's Send button and, similarly and decrypts them as soon as you receive them without any intervention from you!
The plugins work in a similar automatic way with Outlook Express and Miranda.
Can I use TSM to hide my ICQ message history or Outlook Express e-mails from other noisy people with access to my computer?
Absolutely. Registered version of TSM has a password-protection feature that prevents anyone from decrypting your messages without your password.
Requirements
- Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000/XP
- 32 MB of RAM
- 486 or higher processor
- For ICQ Plugin only: ICQ 98, ICQ 99a, ICQ 99b, ICQ 2000a, ICQ 2000b, ICQ 2001, ICQ 2002, and ICQ 2003a
- For MSN Plugin only: MSN Messenger 4.x and 5.x
- For Outlook Express plugin only: Outlook Express 6.0 and above (5.0 and 5.5 have also worked in testing but are not officially supported)
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