AOL fixes Sent Items

There's hope to AOL.

They have finally fixed the long-standing, pesky issue with sent e-mails, which they "managed" even for IMAP accounts, by placing them into "Sent" folder.
While that was quite OK for web clients, this functionality posed a problem for signed/encrypted mail, as well as duplication of saved sent e-mails.

I wrote to AOL earlier last year and later in October and 3 months later (today) they do the fix. Hurray!

Hello,
there are some issues in your e-mail service.
More specifically, digitally-signed e-mails become "tampered with" in status, as they are automatically moved BY YOUR SYSTEM (not my e-mail client) into Sent Folder.
I am including one of many such e-mails in attachments.

It is also of note that I previously contacted you about this "auto copy" functionality - this feature is completely unneded on IMAP interface, as most IMAP e-mail client programs are able to perform this on their own.
It is exactly this feature that causes also troubles with signed and encrypted e-mails as I described in first paragraph.

In case you need more info/descriptions, please connect me to developers/admins.
I am a system engineering architect myself, in telecom.

Thank you.

And the response team strikes back:

Dear cubeover,

If you access your email using third party software, such as Outlook or Thunderbird, please read this important message.

We want to inform you of a change to our email infrastructure that will result in copies of sent emails no longer being automatically placed in your Sent folder when sent via third party email software, as of Tuesday, February 2, 2010.

In order for you to continue having your sent emails automatically placed in your Sent folder on February 2, 2010 or later, you will need to make a change in your email software settings no later than February 1, 2010. Please note that you will not be required to enter your AOL login and password as part of this process.

Below are links to help articles on how to update the settings for the most common email software

Outlook 2007

Outlook 2002/2003

Outlook Express

Thunderbird for Windows and Mac

Mail on Mac OS X

Please make the necessary updates as soon as possible.

The infrastructure change we are making will only affect email sent through third party email software. Email sent using AOL software (AOL 9.0, 9.1, 9.5, Desktop), AOL webmail, or a mobile device such as a Blackberry or iPhone will continue to have copies of sent email placed in the Sent folder.

Thank you for using AOL Mail.

Regards,
The AOL Mail Team

I can only add that of all times I tried to ask Yahoo! Mail team for similar fixes (mostly related to handling of international char encodings), none succeeded.
I got usual third-world support banter instead, and promptly decided to close my Y! account, few years ago.

ICQ denies older protocols

News of the day - today ICQ started denying older versions of it's protocols to be used.
This will inevitably break compatibility of many "3rd party" clients, but only for the good.

It's double fun for me, because only last month I sent "goodbye & see you on Skype" notes to all my ICQ contacts, citing many technical problems and low level of innovation which plagued the system for 7 straight years now.
I remember using video chat with Yahoo! IM back in 2001, and with this competing service there never was a missed character due to full international encodings support via UTF, much unlike among a multitude of clients on ICQ using different versions of protocols to connect and causing havoc trying to properly decode "code-page based" messages.
With ICQ, there never was a working video/audio connection, thanks to weak firewall/proxy support and to the need of direct connection.
File Transfers worked day in, day out.
Very annoying were "holes" in protocols, which allowed other clients unsolicited access to your real status.
E.g. one could see if I am really "Offline" or if I am, indeed, in an "Invisible" mode.
Many exploits existed to get the password of some notorious accounts (mostly 5-digit, and "beautiful" numbers).
It was also possible (protocols up to v8) to see the remote party's external IP, and learn geo position from that.
There was also a nice hack which allowed to delete yourself from the remote party's Buddy List, with no confirmation/acknowledgment needed at all.
Add the king of headache, Spam, to that, and you'll get the picture WHY.
Despite some efforts put into bringing all client to a common, compatible level, ICQ have not gone far enough, probably for the fear of alienating it's customers.

Could the actions today mean that the customers are fleeing away, and there's a need and the order "to do something about it"?
And just think of where they all are fleeing to?

With this new move - denying older protocols to be used, and enforcing only the new one, AOL is bravely stepping into the world of security and compatibility. Hopefully.
Every "serious" client app will probably be upgraded very soon.

Anyhow, thank you AOL, but I will stay out once I stepped out.
Nice move, though. If only a little bit sooner.

NB. A related post here.