Protocols/MSNP/Scenarios/WebTV

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Convert from markdown, plus archived URLs largely moved:

**Due to the current lack of sufficient sources for WebTV info pertaining to Messenger, this page won't be updated for some time.**

# Authentication

For MSNP versions < 8, on receiving a server-side subsequent `USR` (`USR MD5 S`), instead of hashing the password locally, WebTV/MSNTV clients delegate the hashing to a WTVP (WebTV Protocol) service on `wtv-passport:/messengerlogin` where it sends the MD5 challenge and email (split into the username and domain parts). The service then returns the challenge response on a successful lookup of the email being a valid Microsoft account (note that WebTV/MSNTV subscriber accounts and Microsoft accounts/Passports were separate from each other). The fact the service does not send the password at all in the request hints that passwords were assumed to be stored in cleartext and were retrieved from Microsoft's databases as such.

The same `wtv-passport` service is used for MSNP8 connections as well, but is assumed to accept and return different data, and we have yet to get information on how that works.

*TODO: Logs of request and responses of official `wtv-passport` service.*

# Identification

On real hardware, it's been observed that WebTV build 2.8 (MSN TV) sends a `CVR` after logging in:

```
CVR (TrID) 0x0409 webtv 2.8 MIPS msntvim 2.8 msntv
```

It identifies the client as `msntv` version 2.8, and the OS as `webtv` with the same version. It also identifies the running architecture as MIPS, with the client library being identified as `msntvim`. We've yet to determine if older builds (2.5 - 2.7) send this on real hardware as well. It's been known that the 2.5 version of the WebTV Viewer doesn't send any `CVR`s but the reason for this is unknown.

# WebTV/MSNTV-first commands
## `IMS`

`IMS` is a WebTV/MSNTV-first MSNP command with little documentation on its resulting behavior. So far it's been determined that it was introduced by MSNP3, and the only (surviving) mentions of it reside in [archives](http://web.archive.org/web/20070609031946/http://msnpiki.msnfanatic.com/index.php/MSNP8:Miscellaneous#Disabling_Instant_Messaging) of [MSNPiki](http://web.archive.org/web/20100817050916/http://msnpiki.msnfanatic.com/index.php/Command:IMS) (along with an [earlier archive](http://web.archive.org/web/20080423201511/http://msnpiki.msnfanatic.com/index.php/Command:IMS) of the individual page on it that erroneously refers to it as `ILM` in the title, initially written by "Leadpumper"; the correction was added in by "BiM"), with the first [mention](http://web.archive.org/web/20070218124123/http://msnpiki.msnfanatic.com/index.php?title=MSNP8:Miscellaneous&action=history) being written by a user named "MrData" around February 2006.

`IMS` toggles whether a user can send `XFR`s for switchboards and receive `RNG`s or not. Its inferred usage is when a WebTV user doesn't want to be pestered by any users wanting to message them, although we've only seen this command being triggered by WebTV Viewer 2.5 after an undetermined amount of idle time. The desktop MSN Messenger clients on the other hand don't even mention the command in the binary strings.

`IMS` only requires two parameters: the TrID, and a value of either `ON` or `OFF`, corresponding to the ability of whether the user can create switchboards and be invited to them (`ON` for yes, `OFF` for no). The response contains three parameters: the TrID, a number which has only been observed as `0` for the time being (this can possibly be another flag), and the value the user specified for turning on/off switchboard usage. An example of the request and corresponding response is shown below:

```
>>> IMS (TrID) ON
<<< IMS (TrID) 0 ON
```

The behavior that results from a user setting `IMS` to `OFF` has so far been undocumented completely, but we assume that `XFR`s are simply ignored and `RNG`s aren't sent to the user at all (with normal errors being sent to inviters).

---

This is all the info we have so far on MSNP on WebTV/MSNTV. We will update this page when we get more information.