Secure private chat rooms
 

Anyone got any recommendations?
At the moment I use Yahoo or Windows Live messenger chat for coaching (I do mainly instant messenger coaching). I'm thinking of upgrading to a more secure and more anonymous service (by which I mean if someone hacks a client's messenger, they won't see any details of our chats).
One of the plus points of instant messenger is the ability for the client to have a complete transcript of the session so I need that facility.

Here's what I want:

A private secure chat room service where I can create temporary private spaces for myself and a client who will be invited by email to join and where I or they can keep a complete transcript.

It is best if it runs on javascript so noone has to download any software.

Also, need to be able to clear chat history and not have it saved for eternity on a remote server!

Anyone got any suggestions?

I looked at Chatzy but they don't appear to have any contact email address (leastwise that I can find on their site!) which I would also want in case of problems and also their faq doesn't answer the 'complete transcript' question. I used one of theirs earlier this year for an online funeral and was sad that they only stored the last page or so of chat but didn't tell you that until AFTER you had been going a while.

Otherwise, they would probably have fitted the bill.

This chat is based on Ajax-based software that allow creating of private chat rooms and it stores all logs in database:
Law of Attraction Chat: Login

Here's the vendor of it: BlaB! - AJAX/PHP chat script. Supports smartphones and can be intergated into various bulletin boards and CMS systems.

Gleb

Thanks.

Can you clear the database do you know?

Yes, if you installed it on the website you control - you can do anything.

Gleb

Good stuff. I'd also recommend looking into GoToWebinar, and Office Communicator's conference software. I use them both on our corporate side, they are as secure as our networks are, but your situation implies some interesting factors that would have to be accounted for.

GoToWebinar is my favorite service, I have no idea what the pricing is though.

I don't like GoToWebinar because on the occasions when I've tried to use it, it takes about half an hour to download the software (it doesn't seem to notice that it's already on my computer) and I'm always inevitably late for the call quite substantially. Put it this way, it's designed for those who have superspeedy broadbands, not for those using dongle broadband!

This is just for 1-1 client chats, not conferencing so probably top heavy for my needs. I'm looking at the Ajax thing.

Thanks though, I've never even thought about Office Communicator - will have a look into that a bit more!

That is a good point. On our corporate end, their are multiple T1's coming into the premise. I've never tried it from home. When it's working, it works well though!

ooVoo
 

My wife just used my computer to teleconference with some classmates on a program called ooVoo. Looked interested, and well developed. I've never used them, so I can't vouch for them. Might be worth looking into.

Do you want text based chatting or voice chatting?

What is your threat-model when you say secure? Skype for example has government backdoors.

Good point.

Text chatting.

I guess I'm not so worried about government monitoring - I doubt they care 2 pins about the sort of issues private clients have about tidying up their lives and sorting out goals and so forth - I'm more interested in a level of security above that of different messengers where anyone can get programs off the internet to read people's messages stored on their computers eg yahoo or whatever. So it's more about people's families and friends level privacy.

The link I sent you will work. The reason it will is because you can create password-protected chat room, give password to person. Chat logs are stored on your server only.
After chat you may delete room or change password so that other "users" of your client's computer will not be able to access past chat logs.
You control security and client's mistakes will not jeopardize privacy.
This is not the case with "secure" Skype, Yahoo etc, where person could by mistake leave auto-login on and have anyone using same computer to peek on history.

Gleb

Yes, iDream that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about. Your solution seems to be a good one.