Keep in touch with all your friends and family using Pidgin, the free multi-protocol instant messaging program. Tutorial 6 - Your first private conversation

In this video, we take you through setting up and using the OTR plugin and demonstrate how to have a fully encrypted private conversation. Many users flinch when they hear terms like "private key" or "encryption plugin", but after watching this video, we're sure you will agree that having a private conversation with Pidgin and OTR is not that difficult at all.

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Additional Notes

Remember that conversations are encrypted when the conversation status is "unverified" or "private". Authenticating a buddy does not actually affect an OTR encrypted conversation in any way, it is purely for your peace of mind. Authenticating your buddies is a good idea and it improves your security, but it is not strictly necessary for an encrypted conversation.

If you need to properly authenticate your buddy by the manual authentication system, you should use an encrypted e-mail to send your fingerprint number. Normal e-mails can easily be intercepted and tampered with.

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