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ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

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Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#71

Post by j2bax »

josefresco wrote: post #58
j2bax wrote: post #35

Did anyone else used to "hack" people on ICQ? If I recall correctly, ICQ would expose users IP address if they didn't intentionally hide it. My friend and I would get to chatting with strangers and then exchange photos... Only ours wasn't a photo, it was something that opened a backdoor into their computer that would allow us to take over their PC. We never did anything harmful but might have gotten a few people in t…

Ummm I didn't but I knew people who did ;) ;) Your description matches "my friends" experience 100% Back when hacking was more about pranking and fun.

Yeah it was 100% fun, no malicious intent. Judging by the downvotes, people don't find it amusing. I can see that now that I'm not a dumb teenage... but it made for fond memories none the less! And the fact that pretty non-technical 15 year olds could pull that off in a matter of minutes, probably drove companies to take security a bit more seriously (hopefully)!

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#73

Post by SwellJoe »

"(UINs used to be rather expensive, by the way)"

Anyone know what the author means by "expensive" in this context? It's a six digit number, exclusive to ICQ, how could it be "expensive"?

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#74

Post by hal9000xp »

I'm former ICQ backend developer (2010 - 2014).

I started to work at Mail.Ru in 2010, when Mail.Ru bought ICQ from AOL.

I was enjoyed working with ICQ backend code-base written by AOL (although to be honest not all code was high quality).

Here are some quick facts about ICQ backend infrastructure:

1) ICQ servers has over 2'700'000 lines of code which is written in C and C++;

2) ICQ has its own TCP/IP implementation which works in the user space;

3) Concurrency based on event-driven model (epoll), each instance handles many requests semi-simultaneously;

4) About 60 different interconnected internal services;

5) Each kind of backend service is a cluster of more than a hundred of instances;

6) C core-code is written in old-school style and I liked that;

7) OSCAR protocol is defined in TCL files. Our custom build system created C-functions which pack/unpack OSCAR messages;

8) Huge portion of core code-base was dedicated to create very scalable distributed server architecture;

Note that all publicly available information in the Internet about ICQ protocol describing legacy binary protocol called OSCAR. Native modern mobile client uses HTTP based protocol which supports recently added features.

According to Mail.Ru Group audited annual report, in December 2013 ICQ had 11 million monthly active users.

P.S. I would prefer not to discuss marketing/business side of ICQ because I personally had fundamentally different opinion from AOL/Mail.Ru product owners. I was quite happy with plain minimalist Pidgin ICQ client. Also, I'm not aware of new features this guy describing. Many things in code-base may be changed since I left the company.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#75

Post by swozey »

SwellJoe wrote: post #73

"(UINs used to be rather expensive, by the way)" Anyone know what the author means by "expensive" in this context? It's a six digit number, exclusive to ICQ, how could it be "expensive"?

A handful of years ago (~10) I was offered BTC (way before their $100+ value) and I think $75-200 for my 6 digit number. People used to sell Myspace UIDs as well, Facebook too before they converted to usernames.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#76

Post by cm2187 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #72
cm2187 wrote: post #49

The sad reality is that ICQ was more functional and cross platform than IM are on skype 20 years later...

Kinda the point now a days. Everyone wants platform lock-in.

yeah but platform lock-in shouldn't prevent me from sending an IM from skype for MacOS to skype for Windows...

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#77

Post by mahyarm »

sofaofthedamned wrote: post #26

Everybody is missing the elephant in the room with ICQ, which is why it was popular: In my mid 20's, i'd come back from the pub drunk, login, search for girls online now near me and send them messages. Was usually somebody drunk at the other end, had a few fleeting relationships from that. Nothing since, including Facebook, has had that same immediacy.

Tinder is kind of like that? Wechat has something similar in China. I worked at a messaging company, and I found out those kind of 'unsolicited date messaging' features are a really good way to scare away your female users pretty quickly.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#78

Post by JustSomeNobody »

cm2187 wrote: post #76
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda the point now a days. Everyone wants platform lock-in.

yeah but platform lock-in shouldn't prevent me from sending an IM from skype for MacOS to skype for Windows...

No, it shouldn't.

But, that's MS for ya! (Ducks and runs)

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#79

Post by SwellJoe »

swozey wrote: post #75
SwellJoe wrote: post #73

"(UINs used to be rather expensive, by the way)" Anyone know what the author means by "expensive" in this context? It's a six digit number, exclusive to ICQ, how could it be "expensive"?

A handful of years ago (~10) I was offered BTC (way before their $100+ value) and I think $75-200 for my 6 digit number. People used to sell Myspace UIDs as well, Facebook too before they converted to usernames.

Weird. I should have sold mine rather than throwing away the little scrap of paper I'd written it on.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#80

Post by Terr_ »

j2bax wrote: post #35

Did anyone else used to "hack" people on ICQ? If I recall correctly, ICQ would expose users IP address if they didn't intentionally hide it. My friend and I would get to chatting with strangers and then exchange photos... Only ours wasn't a photo, it was something that opened a backdoor into their computer that would allow us to take over their PC. We never did anything harmful but might have gotten a few people in t…

No, but I was a moderator or helper in #NoHack on DALnet for a while, giving people removal instructions all day :)
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