Is LAN messenger safe?

Christine Jewett:

I run a public-facing department within city government. Our staff chose LAN messenger to communicate internally in our building primarily as a safety tool, to alert staff when an irate or dangerous member of the public was on site, etc. We have been using LAN chat for sixmonths & love it. The IT technician  discovered that a staff member was using it and blocked it, out of vague network security concerns. (he also is opposed to "modern" things like email & remote desktop access. 

Looking for info to show that LAN messaging apps is not a threat, but a great tool. Thanks for your help.

Anthony Chatterton:

Hello! First of all, thank you for your question.

The main goal of security is: all LAN messenger traffic remains in your network.

No traffic outside the company building or outside your office floor if you wish.

If you trust your local network connection, you can also trust LAN messenger.

If not, you should know that all traffic is heavily encrypted with a 256 bit AES encryption algorhytm shared only in the  dedicated p2p connection between 2 LAN messaging clients. This makes external access is a really difficult  thing for a hacker.

And you can always say: if your IT staff doesn't trust his local network, the problem is not LAN messenger but the network.

Sorry for the humour. It's safest thing to get people to use LAN messenger. 

Our office uses it at work and despite this I have had to fight against the distrust of people who see evil in a "messenger".

LAN messenger is an app designed to have a "intranet messenger" safely inside your office.

As I know that some army and goverment security departments in the world is using it after testing its reliability for months.

But in the end you should believe my words and I don't know how convincing I can be.

If I anyone  created malicious  commercial software, he will loose all credibility about his IT work.

I don't know what to tell you more..

And thanks again for having used and appreciated LAN messenger for months.

Christine Jewett:

Thanks so much for the clear answer. Of course, the real issue here is NOT the software, but the mindset. All I can do is try to educate and have faith that human beings can learn and evolve. A big thanks for offering such a simple-to-use and (therefore) elegant program. After trying several alternatives, ALL of my staff are on board and love what you've suggested. It keeps my staff safe. 

Thanks again.

Version 1.2.37

Ropkus:

Hi,
great to hear about the update to LAN Messenger!

I'd like to get an idea what has changed from 1.2.35 to 1.2.37, is there a changelog available?

I've installed the new version on a client with Windows 7 Pro x64 but when I start lmc.exe I get an error saying libeay32.dll is missing.

Also I've noticed that the size of lmc.exe has heavily increased compared to the old version (the old one was 1.7 MB, the new one is nearly 50 MB). What's the reason for this?

Marco:

I've done a bit of Googling, and the Libeay32.dll file is related to OpenSSL and secure communication over networks. I'm curious too to see the ChangeLog, as it seems strange to need SSL communication over a LAN connection?

Helper:

The Qt was updated from 4.8 to 5.5.1 static build. That is why .exe size increased. The Qt dll are included in the exe now. Th Qt size is larger with each version, and static build allow to save some bytes.

Yes, it is openssl. The messenger use it for encrypting messages. openssl also must be linked statically (dll is embedded in exe), but something went wrong...

Ropkus:

Hey admin,
thanks for your answers.

Any chance to get a changelog? Did you perhaps fix the problem that the program frequently crashes?

Helper:

There is one big change Qt 4.8 -> Qt 5.5.1

I don't want to move further before updating framework and libraries. Some errors may be fixed there.

libeay32.dll error fixed, installer updated.

Subsin:

How can i get lan messenger on ubuntu amd64

Helper:

Ubuntu 16.10 Can you run 'lmc' in Terminal to see error?