Need feedback about project idea

[chaduke]

I'm considering writing a windows app that transfers EQ chat channel text to an IRC channel and vice versa.
I was considering just having mirc open and eqim (EQ Instant Messenger), capturing the packets going to each, parsing them, then sending them to the other program.
I checked out the mirc packets and they look easy enough, but eqim stuff is scrambled as I expected.

I'd like some suggestions on what path to take with this project. Thanks in advance.

Moderator :
I apologize if this post seems out of place in this forum, but it seemed to be the most logical place to ask.

[Ratt]

Well, you might consider writing a GAIM plugin for EQIM...

But what you're planning is a good idea, I'd like to see something like that. With the advent of EQIM, I can't imagine it would be terribly difficult... just perhaps a bit tedious on deciphering the chat protocol. Although, that would be tons easier than the datastream itself... because you can send known valid text whenever you want and use it to parse out the stream.

[chaduke]

I've used GAIM a little before but never really messed with the source, I'll have to check that out.
I'll also send some chat text over and over and examine the packets, hopefully it's not too complicated. I was kind of hoping someone here had looked at the EQIM stream already and was perhaps familiar with it. I can't really see why it would even need to be encrypted using EQIM, its only chat text after all.

Edit : I've been running some tests. If I type in groups of letters like 'aaaaaa' and 'bbbbbb', the packet information doesn't match character to character. Its showing a definite pattern from packet to packet, like the same two bytes change and the next two stay the same. I'm thinking it could be some form of compression. If anyone has info on this I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, is there a possibility of grabbing the text directly from memory?

[don'tdoit]

while I probably can't contribute much beyond helping test/submit bugs for your project, I will state that I would definitely be interested in the result of the project.

[ieatacid]

If you're familiar with eqwatcher, they seem to be starting on somthing similar to this: http://216.157.5.101/eqwatcher/forums/viewtopic.php?t=253