- doc
- anonymous internet
- Chatting with Pidgin and OTR
For chatting and instant messaging, Tails includes the Pidgin Instant Messenger.
Dino is being considered as an option to replace Pidgin in Tails.
You can already try using Dino in Tails. See our documentation on chatting with Dino and OMEMO.
You can use Pidgin to connect to IRC or XMPP (also known as Jabber) servers. You can have several accounts connected at the same time.
Even though Pidgin supports other protocols, it is only possible to use IRC and XMPP with Pidgin in Tails for security reasons.
To start Pidgin choose Applications ▸ Internet ▸ Pidgin.
For more documentation, visit the official Pidgin FAQ.
OTR encryption
OTR (Off-the-Record) encryption allows you to have private conversations over instant messaging by providing:
Encryption
No one else can read your instant messages.
Authentication
You are assured the correspondent is who you think it is.
Deniability
The messages you send do not have digital signatures that are checkable by a third party. Anyone can forge messages after a conversation to make them look like they came from you. However, during a conversation, your correspondent is assured the messages are authentic and unmodified.
Perfect forward secrecy
If you lose control of your private keys, no previous conversation is compromised.
OTR is deactivated by default, and your conversations are not private.
File transfers are not encrypted by OTR. OTR only encrypts conversations.
To store your OTR keys and Pidgin settings across different Tails sessions, you can turn on the Pidgin Internet Messenger feature of the Persistent Storage.
In a private OTR conversation over IRC, a message sent using the
/me command is not encrypted. The person receiving
the message is notified by a warning.
IRC servers blocking Tor
Some IRC servers block connections from Tor because Tor is sometimes used to send spam.