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Yahoo Blocking Trillian Again -- This Time They Say They're Serious

from the not-letting-you-through dept

Wed, Jun 23rd 2004 11:15pm — Mike Masnick

In the ongoing battle to keep their markets smaller, rather than as large as they can possibly be, the various instant messaging platforms still refuse to come up with a single standard to communicate across systems. Every time I complain about this issue, someone says "just use Trillian." That would be a great solution if the various IM providers didn't keep blocking Trillian. Yahoo has now announced that, not only are they now blocking Trillian, they're going to continuously change their protocol to keep blocking Trillian. Of course, it was just a few months ago that they claimed the exact same thing, and just like with Microsoft, Trillian quickly patched through the block. However, the difference this time is that Yahoo is bringing up the dreaded "spam" excuse for why they're serious this time about the block. They claim they need to do so to keep out IM spammers, but it's also a convenient excuse to block out a third-party IM client on the misguided belief that a walled garden somehow helps them out, rather than taking away the network effects of an open, interoperable system.

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16 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 7:11am

No Subject Given
just avoid Yahoo
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- keith jones, 29 Aug 2006 @ 7:09am
  
  Re: Yahoo! are owned by mafia
  How much do you know about Yahoo? They are a very young company. Like many, I found myself looking at too much pornography on the Internet, spending my evenings talking to beautiful girls in chat rooms at a web site called 'Pornication'. I then entered a period in my life where nothing was going right for me. I hated the way of the world, and had become bitter and unpleasant, I tried to change, but it was difficult. I found myself seeking help from God, as many do when things get desperate. I asked him to find a use for me, since my life had become worthless to me. I was to sell up & walk a pilgrimage from England to Jerusalem, as penance. I went back to Pornication to see if there was anybody still there that I used to know. I wanted to tell them that they ought to find a better job. At first I was met with silence, then after a prayer that I could in someway help, I remembered what a chatter had commented a long time ago, that all these kinds of web siteswere owned by mafia. When I asked one of the girls they told me to be quiet, then a minute later said disreetly "it is". Communication on this subject was difficult because they were being monitored by someone called benice, meaning 'be nice' who was present in all of the rooms, which were being broadcast mainly from St. Petersburg Russia, or Canada, I think it was Ontario. Benice himself was based in Canada. I remember that he had a basic knowledge of Russian, but on one occasion rebuked a girl for typing in Russian. We were able to speak some here, subtly. benice couldn't watch any single girl all of the time. I was able through email correspondence to establish a St. Petersburg address, a webpage which I'd been led to had a link to a number of world wide addresses, listed for the purpose of '2257 compliance'. There were two St. Petersburg addresses listed, but a subtle hint gave me the target, Nastudio 11-17 Vishnevskogo ul. St. Petersburg was roughly the same distance from Jerusalem as England. I decided I may as well fly out there and when I was finished walk from there.
  
  I went to Nastudio, a large multi-story building & observed girls being led under escort from one large building to another nearby. I went inside asking to spend time with a girl. The doors on the flats inside were thick metal security doors. they seemed happy enough to let me see one, and asked me to wait on the stairway I could hear girls being led in below every half hour and taken to the floors above in the lift. After being left waiting for 3 hours i went back to my hotel. I hung around the area for a few days but they became aware of me and things stopped happening.
  
  On the other side of the street was a derelict building. I went over rubble to the top floor with an excellent view of the street. I watched into the early hours. Every half hour on the half hour lookouts would appear in the streets and alleyways bellow. A man would arrive and look up at the window, of a corner building. Then either a girl would be sent out to him, or they would leave after about five minutes. They were not only being led to and from Nastudio, but also the other large buildings within view. They seemed to own the whole area. Sometimes a man or woman with a dog would
  be sent across the street first. I later learned that the dog was supposed to be trained to stop them running. The mood of transfer was no longer relaxed, the escort was running ahead far enough to turn the key to the lock and open the door at the arrival of the girl. Reducing time on the street by a few moments. An ambulance showed up at the corner building which seemed to drop someone off or take someone on board, I couldn't see because it was obscuring the doorway. I'd see this ambulance again in Vishnevskoko ul. overlooking transfer another evening.
  
  The next evening I was pretty demoralized. It wasn't coming together. If I was in the street anywhere near the place they wouldn't bring anyone out. I just couldn't get close to one that I knew. Not all were captive, that would happen when they tried to leave. one evening Instead of walking on as I usually would when I came out of the entrance, I turned and sat on a wall with a bottle of beer. As I turned I saw an adrenaline rushed man come light footed from the side of the hotel in my direction. He had both his hands in stuffed into his coat pockets, and was tense. He stopped in his tracks about four meters away as soon as I saw him, turning his head to one side avoiding eye contact. It was very obvious he was going to knife me from behind had I not turned. It looked as though he was clutching knives tightly in both hands inside his coat pockets. He didn't look up as I passed him back into the hotel, this was the first of many would-be assasins of the next two years they've been much less bold ouside of Russia.
  
  I wasn't going to be able to extract anyone, I began walking on to Jerusalem, on my way lobbying Russian authorites and international organisations. I would learn more from the captives over the next two years. There were thousands of them, they would be locked up with no hope of release, lest they talk, some would try to run during transfer, the lookouts would converge on them and they would be knifed and taken inside, where they would sometimes die. Trouble makers would be flogged or electricuted, and if persistant exported somewhere even nastier. I discovered also that the girls were becoming pregnant, through enforced unprotected prostitution, the children being raised in captivity for lives of abuse. It emerged that Nastudio are also a part of Yahoo! management, Yahoo! being mafia owned, part managed by mafias the world over, and used by them for safe communications. My account information and location on login were being passed to Nastudio for my extermination. Also wthin a few days of my letters to authorities and organisations, the criminals obtained copies, and my location at the time of posting from the postmarks. More than two years down the road, due to almost absolute corruption of Russian authorities i've still been unable to help these people. Girls persisting in speaking to outsiders like me have had family members killed, and even their babies executed. I've also had my family located and threatend because by the will of God they've been unable to stop me. it's best to use MSN to search for related matter, they have full co-operation from Yahoo! ifriends is also mafia owned and fully cooperative, some of the Nastudio girls can be seen there. I’m not spamming, I’ve nothing to sell, I just want everyone to know what’s happening, because it will help them.
  
  Keith Jones
  
  Most recent letter to authorities here:
  http://community.channel4.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/503603557/m/9910018204
  
  More detail here:
  http://www.forum-central.com/thread5975.html
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  - anon, 4 Nov 2008 @ 1:08pm
    
    Re: Re: Yahoo! are owned by mafia
    update is much more interesting here http://endmafia.com
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 8:57am

So ditch Yahoo....
I don't know why people get upset about Yahoo IM, just use the superior ICQ or even Jabber (if you have Pro) which add SECURE instant messaging.

Personally I think Yahoo's gripe is that YAHOO can't spam people using Trillian, they can only put banner ads on their own client.

Linux's GAIM never seems to have any problems connecting to all of Trillian's protocols though...
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- Mikester, 24 Jun 2004 @ 9:40am
  
  Re: So ditch Yahoo....
  I think you hit the nail on the head. I wouldn't be too surprised to learn the the 'real' reason for either Yahoo or MS to block Trillian is that THEY can't spam users through the in-program advertising. Having users connected to your network but not using your software artificially inflates usage numbers reported to advertising sponsors.
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Andy, 24 Jun 2004 @ 10:50am

they've done it with miranda too
Miranda doesn't work either (totally free opensource equivalent of trillian). This harms the end user as they have to keep downloading new versions with the new protocols. And surely a protocol is not meant to change all that often by the definition of the word?
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Daniel Scott Miller, 24 Jun 2004 @ 4:21pm

This is not a conspiracy
Why does everyone assume it's a Yahoo conspiracy? It's their network, they have the right to do whatever the hell they want, and if blocking third party apps is their desire, so be it.
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- Anonymous Coward, 25 Jun 2004 @ 11:54am
  
  Re: This is not a conspiracy
  no one is saying this is a conspiracy and no one is denying (I think) their right to do what they are doing.
  
  We're all just saying this is stupid :)
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  - Adam, 25 Jun 2004 @ 5:23pm
    
    Re: This is not a conspiracy
    Yahoo certainly has a right to block 3rd party people - I'm surprised they're not sueing (like most cashcow corps do).
    
    If Yahoo REALLY wanted to hurt Trillian, they'd get a team of developers (like 1 or 2...) to change the protocols every 48 hrs and write the Yahoo IM client to auto-update to these protocols so they're not interrupted. I'm a faithful user of Trillian but if i had to patch every 48 hours i would definitely stop using it.
    
    Oh yeah, and Yahoo IM sucks anyway... use ICQ!
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keith jones, 8 Jul 2006 @ 7:37am

HACTУДИO http://www.secure-ebook.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=59
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- keith jones, 10 Jul 2006 @ 7:23am
  
  Re:
  sorry, try this one (HAСTУДИО) http://www.extreme-chat.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20&sid=7e58f1481497089048fscebf31322b8f
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
kj, 15 Sep 2007 @ 12:44pm

http://s216606257.websitehome.co.uk/1.html
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anon, 9 Jul 2008 @ 2:31pm

Yahoo! Mafia
Here's someone else having grief with Yahoo mafia
http://news.cnet.com/5208-1038-0.html?hhTest&forumID=1&threadID=10346&messageID=7 6947&start=-1
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keith, 25 Jul 2008 @ 6:13am

sabotaged link
RE: above link
It didn't take them long to sabotage that link. I copied it here http://s216606257.websitehome.co.uk/tony.htm
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3rdf, 22 May 2009 @ 10:49pm

erfeChina printing industry developed this years, who can tell us? China based plastic injection molding services with low costs and supeior quality Steel and aluminum scaffolding for construction is a very useful tool.
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dirt kicker, 11 Jun 2009 @ 9:02am

Laziness = not optional
It's not stupid, if I wrote an instant messaging prog I would assume it would be my right to allow / disallow third parties from benefiting from it. If you don't like it, write your own super app if you are able, if not, just have the two running side by side. DON'T BE LAZY.
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