I've discovered that the same payload can be sent through Direct Connection with the receiver, even with the DC settings set to maximum (ie. allow only users on my contact list, allow DC upon authorisation, do not allow older version of clients to DC). If the sender is 'trusted' (ie. on the users' contact list), the sender can establish a TCP connection with the users' listening port even if DC settings are on maximum (in which case the receiver's IP & port are not given to the sender, but one can find this out in other ways eg. email header + port scan). Whereas having the payload sent through the server allows a possible remedy in having the server check for malformed packets, being able to send the packet directly to the client takes away that possibility. Again, this works only for ICQ2000 clients. ------------- Daniel Tan Class of 2004 Jerome Fisher Management & Technology Program University of Pennsylvania, USA datan@seas.upenn.edu datan@wharton.upenn.edu -------------
