[CLOSED] Can Tweener be given the "real account" treatment? (Companion thread to "MSN 7.5+ Authentication: The Patchening")

If you haven’t read “MSN 7.5+ Authentication: The Patchening”, then I recommend you do so, as you’ll get some background knowledge on what the heck I’m talking about: https://wink.messengergeek.com/t/msn-7-5-authentication-the-patchening/4549/

Anyways, so as some of you know, I have plans for MSN 7.5 to utilize the actual RST service via proxy, now that I have more knowledge on how the heck it does that. But I forgot to address something that ties into what I’m doing: Tweener/Nexus authentication.

MSN Messenger versions 5.0-7.0 use it, so why not find out how that could utilize real accounts?

First, I’m a forgetful person, so sorry that I didn’t mention it in the first place. Second, it’s actually pretty simple. I briefly mentioned how in the thread that predates “The Patchening”, but let me explain it again so you don’t have to read the walls of text before and after it, also because I didn’t explain any other core things:

When MSN Messenger connects to m1.escargot.log1p.xyz/nexus-mock, the server can set up a proxy to the real RST.srf at https://login.live.com/RST.srf like the RST.srf on the Escargot server can possibly do, but this time, we can get away with using a template version of the SOAP request, since the reply won’t need any service-specific things. All we care about is retrieving the token.

When the RST reply is sent back to the server, it should check for any errors specified in the SOAP. If so, reply with the Tweener-equivalent error to the client. If not, then retrieve the token sent in the RST reply.

It’s not over though, because we also have to get the authentication cookies MSN needs for things like e-mail and other supplementary services. This isn’t that much of a daunting task, as there is documentation for that, too. It’s mainly for Skype authentication, but as it doesn’t require the verification of a Skype user’s credentials, it isn’t too hard to implement with other services, as well, aside from the aforementioned web scraping needed to be done.

So now, at this point, we have the user’s Passport token and their respective authentication cookies. Stuff them into the Tweener reply, and MSN should be happy and login as normal. :stuck_out_tongue:

If it isn’t daunting to implement, why not implement it now?, you may be asking? It’s all simply in the name of fairness. MSN Messenger 5.0 - 7.0 users could use their real accounts, but 7.5+ wouldn’t? Doesn’t seem balanced, don’t you think?

Anyways, I’ll be checking what’s on my to-do list. Mostly upping my programming skills, I see. :stuck_out_tongue:

3 Likes

What’s a Tweener lol? /s

It’s the unofficial name for the authentication system Microsoft used for MSN Messenger authentication circa 5.0 - 7.0. The official name given by Microsoft was Nexus. :stuck_out_tongue:

Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to that. :stuck_out_tongue:

JUST adding TWN/Tweener aka Nexus classic will support most Windows Mobile Clients, can’t say the same about Windows CE.

only joking, they CANNOT have pocket MSN, or it will use the MSN Login, not a messenger one.

Sorry for the bump 11 months later, but a while ago I found out that the original Nexus/Tweener services are still up, and even though plans for intertwining MSN with Microsoft are out of the window (Escargot’s planning to become a megaserver hosting frontends that support various protocols that work under one core backend, meaning they can receive messages from each other and allow all accounts to access them out of the box, meaning if the MSN frontend were to be intertwined with Microsoft, then it’d possibly interfere with your access to other frontends as profile info could get overwritten and we’d have to make sure the account on our side is on Microsoft’s side, meaning deleting an account that’s probably meant for other frontends), if we were to continue doing so, we could just proxy Nexus instead of doing mock RST and outsourcing cookies from some other part of Microsoft’s login system