A Slashdot article (http://developers.slashdot.org/story/09/06/10/2142256/Yahoo-Releases-Open-Source-Hadoop-Distribution) points to the fact that Yahoo! will release its own version of the Apache web server. Yahoo! has used the Hadoop (http://hadoop.apache.org/core/) variety of Apache for years in its search engine and now some of those special modifications can be used under an open source license. What makes Hadoop unique is its ability to process vast amounts of information while in a cluster. The official Yahoo! announcement can be found at http://developer.yahoo.net/blogs/hadoop/2009/06/yahoo_distribution_of_hadoop.html.
The facts as given are not directly related to Yahoo! Messenger but this may give an indication as to what server software Yahoo! is using for Messenger. To my knowledge Yahoo! has never stated what is running Messenger on the server side of things but I have seen an Apache signature many times.
http://developer.yahoo.com/hadoop/
http://ostatic.com/blog/at-hadoop-summit-yahoo-announces-its-tested-distribution
Yahoo! has released yet another patch to Yahoo! Messenger (http://www.ymessengerblog.com/blog/2009/02/24/update-for-90-installation-fixes/) which brings the version to 9.0.0.2136. This is the third “fix” release since the beginning of this year and once again it will resolve problems with instillation and conflicts with third-party software.
An updated version of Yahoo! Messenger, version 9.0.0.2112 (http://messenger.yahoo.com/download/win), was released on January 12, 2009. The latest release includes some bug fixes, changes to the message typing notification, easier SPAM reporting, and a new offline messages window. More information can be found at the Official Yahoo! messenger Blog (http://www.ymessengerblog.com).
While updating YCC Yahoo! Bot Maker I noticed that I hit the registration limit (999 error) much earlier than usual and all servers (North America, Europe, and India) all started giving me errors at the same time. Upon inspection I found that all registration now redirects to https://login.yahoo.com no matter what region you try to sign in from. This means that you will no longer be able to jump to the Europe or India server to get additional names made and all names count toward the overall ban limit. This may be the end to an era of creating 30+ accounts from a single IP. I feel that this is a move long overdue from Yahoo!
Jerry Yang the current CEO and one of the original founders will be leaving the CEO post soon and returning to the position of “Chief Yahoo” (http://tech.slashdot.org/tech/08/11/18/0151242.shtml). Many are speculating that pressure from the Microsoft take-over offer a few months ago has led Yang to step down from his current position. Several stock holds expressed anger when the Microsoft proposal was not accepted. The search for a new CEO should take several months and there might even be an announcement sometime in January (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200811181727DOWJONESDJONLINE000659_FORTUNE5.htm) (http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/18/technology/yahoo_ceo.fortune/?postversion=2008111816).
Yahoo! has released an updated version of Messenger and is now at version 9.0.0.234 (http://www.ymessengerblog.com/blog/2008/11/18/updated-90-addresses-vista-issues/). This is apparently due to some problems with the previous version working under Microsoft Vista after the official Vista version was discontinued.
Yahoo! announced on their official Messenger blog (ymessengerblog.com) that unspecified changes will be made to the way firewalled users will use Messenger. The article mentions that only users that are using version 8.x and signed in from behind a firewall will be affected. An official message will be sent by Yahoo! urging users to upgrade to the latest 9.x version of the software.
From a programming standpoint this will most likely only affect Messenger operations that require a peer to peer (p2p) connection such as file sharing. When performing a peer to peer operation, Messenger makes a discussion (largely based on the firewall settings but not always) to either create a true peer to peer connection or to use the Yahoo! servers to create a pseudo peer to peer connection. The pseudo p2p connection uses a Yahoo! server as a proxy to create the connection because one of the clients does not have to ability to accept unsolicited connections. I do not know why this is only affecting 8.x users because the 9.x series has the same capability to offer proxy connections. Perhaps this is a drive to get users to switch to the latest version but at any rate, users of 8.x software should still be able to use that version as long as you don’t need to use the pseudo p2p connection.
Yahoo! has changed their profile system and more has changed besides the layout of the page. When transitioning to the new system all of the user data was cleared and pages for aliases were removed. Additionally, personal information such as age and location are now protected in a manner similar to Facebook or MySpace where you must be accepted by the user.
Apparently many users are not happy with the new system as shown in (http://www.yprofileblog.com/blog/2008/10/17/managing-your-alias-and-profile/), (http://www.ymessengerblog.com), and (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/19/017209). I personally noticed the changes when I looked up someone’s profile and saw that all of the information had been cleared. If for some reason you consider you profile page a work of art and need all of the information back then you can request a copy of the old profile page from Yahoo! Customer Support at http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html.
During the University Yahoo! Hack Days (http://developer.yahoo.com/hacku/) a developer discovered or announced a vulnerability in Zimbra (http://www.zimbra.com/) that sent the password as cleartext over the network (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10053870-83.html). The vulnerability has already been fixed (http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10054675-83.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5) but it is recommended that if you used Zimbra, you should change your Yahoo! password.
From my standpoint this was surely a big goof for Yahoo! but I don’t think it will yield any substantial results. Before this article I had never heard of Zimbra and the attack is only possible if you can tap into the network between the user and Yahoo! (man in the middle attack). Unless you have a highly targeted attack is it doubtful that this will yield any Yahoo! credentials.
Yahoo! announced today that Yahoo! Messenger is now officially at version 9 (http://www.ymessengerblog.com/blog). The final version is similar to beta but there have been additions such as:
• New skins
• Return of the (original) emoticons
• Ignore list enhancements
• Pingbox
To me the most interesting is Pingbox which allows script to be added to any website that allows IMing to your Messenger account anonymously. Details on Pingbox can be found at http://messenger.yahoo.com/pingbox.
