{"id":86759,"date":"2018-07-07T13:17:08","date_gmt":"2018-07-07T17:17:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rbach.net\/blog\/index.php\/"},"modified":"2021-07-15T13:04:05","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T17:04:05","slug":"rip-yahoo-messenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/rip-yahoo-messenger\/","title":{"rendered":"RIP Yahoo Messenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do y\"RIP<\/a>ou remember Yahoo Messenger<\/strong><\/a>? It was popular in the late \u201990s and early 2000s when there were only two messengers to communicate with your friends and family. Well … the remnants of Yahoo nee Verizon recently announced<\/a> the end of Yahoo Messenger<\/strong>. Verizon<\/a> (VZ<\/a>)\/Yahoo announced that they will disable the Yahoo Messenger service after July 17th, 2018<\/strong>. (rb-<\/strong> yes Yahoo Messenger was still a thing – in the face of Apple<\/a>‘s (AAPL<\/a>) FaceTime<\/a>, Telegram<\/a>, Snapchat<\/a>, and Facebook<\/a>‘s (FB<\/a>) WhatsApp<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n

According to the Oath website<\/a>, YIM had 122.6 million users at its peak. In the FAQ announcing the shutdown<\/strong>, Yahoo said, “We know we have many loyal fans who have used Yahoo Messenger since its beginning\u00a0 … As the communications landscape continues to change over, we’re focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs.<\/em>” If you’re looking for a Messenger replacement from Yahoo, they recommend Squirrel<\/a>, which is in closed beta and by invite only. But why?<\/p>\n

YIM leaves a dubious security legacy, as all “free” web products do. In 2007 there were reports<\/a> that up to 75%\u00a0 of the users in Yahoo Messenger were SPAMBots<\/strong><\/a>. In 2010 all Yahoo systems and customer email accounts were hacked by the Chinese military in “Operation Aurora<\/strong><\/a>.” In Operation Aurora<\/a> the Chinese also attacked Adobe<\/a>\u00a0(ADBE<\/a>)<\/a>,\u00a0Dow Chemical<\/a>, Google<\/a>\u00a0(GOOG<\/a>) Juniper Networks<\/a>\u00a0(JNPR<\/a>)<\/a>,\u00a0Morgan Stanley<\/a>,\u00a0Northrop Grumman\u00a0(NOC<\/a>)<\/a>,\u00a0Rackspace<\/a>\u00a0(RAX<\/a>), and Symantec<\/a>\u00a0(SYMC<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I<\/a>n 2014 The Guardian<\/em> reported<\/a> that The British intelligence agency\u00a0Government Communications Headquarters<\/a> (GCHQ)’s secret\u00a0mass surveillance<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0program\u00a0Optic Nerve<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0National Security Agency<\/a>\u00a0(NSA) were indiscriminately collecting still images from Yahoo webcam streams<\/strong> from millions of mostly innocent Yahoo webcam users, among other things creating a database for facial recognition<\/strong> for future use. Optic Nerve takes a still image from the webcam stream every 5 minutes. Also in 2014 Yahoo was also hit by a hack<\/strong><\/a> that affected around 500 million people<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"mass<\/a>In September 2016,\u00a0The New York Times<\/i>\u00a0reported<\/a> that Yahoo’s security team, had pressed for Yahoo to adopt end-to-end encryption sometime between 2014 and 2015, but senior leadership resisted, “…because it would have hurt Yahoo\u2019s ability to index and search message data<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

In 2017 Yahoo announced<\/a> that all of its customer’s accounts were compromised<\/strong>. Allegedly Yahoo did not detect the full extent of the 2013 hack until\u00a0 4 years later. In 2017, Yahoo announced that all 3 billion accounts were compromised<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

You\"Yahoo\"<\/a> can download your chat history for the next 6 months at this download request site. Yahoo will email your chats to you. If you have anything you want to save from Yahoo Messenger, it’s a good idea to get a copy, because users will be unable to sign in to the service after July 17th.<\/p>\n

rb-<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

YIM is not the first long-standing chat app to shut down – AOL Instant Messenger<\/a> shut down December 15, 2017<\/a>. But Yahoo Messenger was one of the few old-school messaging services left.<\/em><\/p>\n

Related article<\/strong><\/p>\n