Pidgin is a useful app bundled with many Linux distros and I’m sure this plugin works; though looks like loads more effort than many will be prepared to bother with. I presume it allows the use of commercial IM services by sending IM’s using whatever valid character codes are permitted but which would appear to eavesdroppers is gibberish in any language .
I’m sure it works but would have the nagging concern that the business model of the commercial services is based around the messages being in plaintext and parts of them being harvested for marketing purposes.
The intention would not always be the same as feds/NSA but to gather data on public reaction to consumer products (the data would be anonymised other than stuff like geographic locations). I expect there are already lawyers for Microsoft, Google etc who are worried about “reputation damage” of the messengers being used for the “sexy talk” stuff on here (as there have already been problems with underage users, stalkers and even blackmail leading to teenage suicide) as they are increasingly pitching these services at the middle aged and elderly (who
This makes me concerned that should the use of this encrypt add to any concerns that the commercial services will actively hand over this traffic to the feds; even more so in countries where there is any sort of political upheaval. The encrypted text may be of little use in itself; but associated with it would be other metadata that could identify folk.
Of course you can set up your own chat servers using cheap hardware which might be a lot safer but even then these can be located; or with hosted services the feds just “follow the money”.
