Off-the-record messaging

This article may be deleted soon.
	To oppose or discuss a nomination, please go to CZ:Proposed for deletion and follow the instructions. For the monthly nomination lists, see Category:Articles for deletion. Off-the-record messaging or OTR is a system for providing [[cryptography|encryption for [[Instant messaging (Internet chat) applications such as [[MSN and [[QQ. OTR includes a mechanism for [[information security#source authentication|source authentication and [[information security#integrity|data integrity protection; during a conversation, both players are assured that the other party is who they think it is and that the messages are received unaltered. However, it does not use [[digital signatures verifiable by a third party. After a conversation, anyone can forge messages after a conversation to make them look like they came from you, but no-one can prove a recorded message was actually sent by you. The system also provides [[perfect forward secrecy; if you lose control of your private keys, no previous conversation is compromised. It is an [[open source application, distributed both as a library for developers and as a pre-built plugin for the multi-protocol instant messaging client [[Pidgin chat client|Pidgin. There is a web site with downloads and extensive documentation.