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70-493: Messenger , also known as Facebook Messenger , is an American proprietary instant messaging service developed by Meta Platforms . Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the client application of Messenger is currently available on iOS and Android mobile platforms, Windows and macOS desktop platforms, through the Messenger.com web application , and on the standalone Facebook Portal hardware. Messenger

140-565: A computer , such as a mobile device , e.g. Siri . Software agents may be autonomous or work together with other agents or people. Software agents interacting with people (e.g. chatbots , human-robot interaction environments) may possess human-like qualities such as natural language understanding and speech, personality or embody humanoid form (see Asimo ). Related and derived concepts include intelligent agents (in particular exhibiting some aspects of artificial intelligence , such as reasoning ), autonomous agents (capable of modifying

210-476: A trade secret . Software can be made available with fewer restrictions on licensing or source-code access; software that satisfies certain conditions of freedom and openness is known as " free " or " open-source ." Since license agreements do not override applicable copyright law or contract law , provisions in conflict with applicable law are not enforceable. Some software is specifically licensed and not sold, in order to avoid limitations of copyright such as

280-507: A "mixed source" model including both free and non-free software in the same distribution. Most if not all so-called proprietary UNIX distributions are mixed source software, bundling open-source components like BIND , Sendmail , X Window System , DHCP , and others along with a purely proprietary kernel and system utilities. Some free software packages are also simultaneously available under proprietary terms. Examples include MySQL , Sendmail and ssh. The original copyright holders for

350-523: A February 21, 1997, internal Microsoft memo drafted for Bill Gates : Early versions of the iPhone SDK were covered by a non-disclosure agreement . The agreement forbade independent developers from discussing the content of the interfaces. Apple discontinued the NDA in October 2008. Any dependency on the future versions and upgrades for a proprietary software package can create vendor lock-in , entrenching

420-467: A Government Security Program (GSP) to allow governments to view source code and Microsoft security documentation, of which the Chinese government was an early participant. The program is part of Microsoft's broader Shared Source Initiative which provides source code access for some products. The Reference Source License (Ms-RSL) and Limited Public License (Ms-LPL) are proprietary software licenses where

490-618: A Messenger program for Windows 7 in a limited beta test in November 2011. The following month, Israeli blog TechIT leaked a download link for the program, with Facebook subsequently confirming and officially releasing the program. The program was eventually discontinued in March 2014. A Firefox web browser add-on was released in December 2012, but was also discontinued in March 2014. In December 2017, Facebook announced Messenger Kids ,

560-484: A convenient and powerful way to describe a complex software entity that is capable of acting with a certain degree of autonomy in order to accomplish tasks on behalf of its host. But unlike objects, which are defined in terms of methods and attributes , an agent is defined in terms of its behavior. Various authors have proposed different definitions of agents, these commonly include concepts such as: All agents are programs, but not all programs are agents. Contrasting

630-401: A copy can decide whether, and how much, to charge for a copy or related services. Proprietary software that comes for no cost is called freeware . Proponents of commercial proprietary software argue that requiring users to pay for software as a product increases funding or time available for the research and development of software. For example, Microsoft says that per-copy fees maximize

700-526: A data warehouse discovering information. A 'data warehouse' brings together information from many different sources. "Data mining" is the process of looking through the data warehouse to find information that you can use to take action, such as ways to increase sales or keep customers who are considering defecting. 'Classification' is one of the most common types of data mining, which finds patterns in information and categorizes them into different classes. Data mining agents can also detect major shifts in trends or

770-403: A direct evolution of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). MAS evolved from Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI), Distributed Problem Solving (DPS) and Parallel AI (PAI), thus inheriting all characteristics (good and bad) from DAI and AI . John Sculley 's 1987 " Knowledge Navigator " video portrayed an image of a relationship between end-users and agents. Being an ideal first, this field experienced

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840-405: A few ways which bots can be created to demonstrate that they are designed with the best intention and are not built to do harm. This is first done by having a bot identify itself in the user-agent HTTP header when communicating with a site. The source IP address must also be validated to establish itself as legitimate. Next, the bot must also always respect a site's robots.txt file since it has become

910-796: A key indicator and can detect the presence of new information and alert you to it. For example, the agent may detect a decline in the construction industry for an economy; based on this relayed information construction companies will be able to make intelligent decisions regarding the hiring/firing of employees or the purchase/lease of equipment in order to best suit their firm. Some other examples of current intelligent agents include some spam filters, game bots , and server monitoring tools. Search engine indexing bots also qualify as intelligent agents. Software bots are becoming important in software engineering. Agents are also used in software security application to intercept, examine and act on various types of content. Example include: Issues to consider in

980-564: A license for the Internet forum software vBulletin can modify the source for their own site but cannot redistribute it. This is true for many web applications, which must be in source code form when being run by a web server. The source code is covered by a non-disclosure agreement or a license that allows, for example, study and modification, but not redistribution. The text-based email client Pine and certain implementations of Secure Shell are distributed with proprietary licenses that make

1050-560: A monopoly position. Proprietary software may also have licensing terms that limit the usage of that software to a specific set of hardware. Apple has such a licensing model for macOS , an operating system which is limited to Apple hardware, both by licensing and various design decisions. This licensing model has been affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit . Proprietary software which

1120-488: A new app aimed for persons under 13 years of age. The app comes with some differences compared to the standard version. In 2019, Messenger announced to be the 2nd most downloaded mobile app of the decade, from 2011 to 2019. In December 2019, Messenger dropped support for users to sign in using only a mobile number, meaning that users must sign in to a Facebook account in order to use the service. In March 2020, Facebook started to ship its dedicated Messenger for macOS app through

1190-459: A relationship of agency. The term agent is derived from the Latin agere (to do): an agreement to act on one's behalf. Such "action on behalf of" implies the authority to decide which, if any, action is appropriate. Some agents are colloquially known as bots , from robot . They may be embodied, as when execution is paired with a robot body, or as software such as a chatbot executing on

1260-413: A score of 2 out of 7 points on the scorecard. It received points for having communications encrypted in transit and for having recently completed an independent security audit. It missed points because the communications were not encrypted with keys the provider didn't have access to, users could not verify contacts' identities, past messages were not secure if the encryption keys were stolen, the source code

1330-766: A series of unsuccessful top-down implementations, instead of a piece-by-piece, bottom-up approach. The range of agent types is now (from 1990) broad: WWW, search engines, etc. Buyer agents travel around a network (e.g. the internet) retrieving information about goods and services. These agents, also known as 'shopping bots', work very efficiently for commodity products such as CDs, books, electronic components, and other one-size-fits-all products. Buyer agents are typically optimized to allow for digital payment services used in e-commerce and traditional businesses. User agents, or personal agents, are intelligent agents that take action on your behalf. In this category belong those intelligent agents that already perform, or will shortly perform,

1400-481: A single user or computer. In some cases, software features are restricted during or after the trial period, a practice sometimes called crippleware . Proprietary software often stores some of its data in file formats that are incompatible with other software, and may also communicate using protocols which are incompatible. Such formats and protocols may be restricted as trade secrets or subject to patents . A proprietary application programming interface (API)

1470-462: A software package may be ended to force users to upgrade and pay for newer versions ( planned obsolescence ). Sometimes another vendor or a software's community themselves can provide support for the software, or the users can migrate to either competing systems with longer support life cycles or to FOSS -based systems. Some proprietary software is released by their owner at end-of-life as open-source or source available software, often to prevent

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1540-487: A stripped-down version of Messenger with a reduced feature set. The app is aimed primarily at old Android phones and regions where high-speed Internet is not widely available. In April 2017, Messenger Lite was expanded to 132 more countries. In May 2017, Facebook revamped the design for Messenger on Android and iOS, bringing a new home screen with tabs and categorization of content and interactive media, red dots indicating new activity, and relocated sections. Facebook announced

1610-425: A technical measure, such as product activation , a product key or serial number, a hardware key , or copy protection . Vendors may also distribute versions that remove particular features, or versions which allow only certain fields of endeavor, such as non-commercial, educational, or non-profit use. Use restrictions vary by license: Vendors typically distribute proprietary software in compiled form, usually

1680-542: A time. Messenger Rooms does not require a Facebook account. Messenger Rooms competes with other services such as Zoom . Back in 2014, Facebook introduced an unrelated, stand-alone application named Rooms, letting users create places for users with similar interests, with users being anonymous to others. This was shut down in December 2015. In April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic , Facebook revealed video conferencing features for Messenger called Messenger Rooms. This

1750-519: A transportation option, hotel chains can answer questions about accommodations, and air travel companies can allow for check-ins, flight updates and travel changes. At the 2017 Facebook F8 conference, Facebook announced a range of enhancements for bots: The slightly renamed "Discover" tab was officially launched in the United States in late June 2017. It is a video conferencing feature of Messenger. It allows users to add up to 50 people at

1820-768: A user's behalf, a software agent needs to have a complete understanding of a user's profile, including his/her personal preferences. This, in turn, may lead to unpredictable privacy issues. When users start relying on their software agents more, especially for communication activities, they may lose contact with other human users and look at the world with the eyes of their agents. These consequences are what agent researchers and users must consider when dealing with intelligent agent technologies. The concept of an agent can be traced back to Hewitt's Actor Model (Hewitt, 1977) - "A self-contained, interactive and concurrently-executing object, possessing internal state and communication capability." To be more academic, software agent systems are

1890-406: A work of free software, even copyleft free software, can use dual-licensing to allow themselves or others to redistribute proprietary versions. Non-copyleft free software (i.e. software distributed under a permissive free software license or released to the public domain) allows anyone to make proprietary redistributions. Free software that depends on proprietary software is considered "trapped" by

1960-484: Is a software library interface "specific to one device or, more likely to a number of devices within a particular manufacturer's product range." The motivation for using a proprietary API can be vendor lock-in or because standard APIs do not support the device's functionality. The European Commission , in its March 24, 2004, decision on Microsoft's business practices, quotes, in paragraph 463, Microsoft general manager for C++ development Aaron Contorer as stating in

2030-556: Is a table of features available in Messenger, as well as their geographical coverage and what devices they are available on. In addition there is a vanishing message feature. In addition there is an audio recording feature which allows audio recordings of up to one minute which may or may not be vanishing: In April 2016, Facebook announced a bot platform for Messenger, including an API to build chat bots to interact with users. News publisher bots "message subscribers directly with news and other information", while ride-sharing apps can offer

2100-489: Is no longer marketed, supported or sold by its owner is called abandonware , the digital form of orphaned works . If the proprietor of a software package should cease to exist, or decide to cease or limit production or support for a proprietary software package, recipients and users of the package may have no recourse if problems are found with the software. Proprietors can fail to improve and support software because of business problems. Support for older or existing versions of

2170-436: Is not synonymous with commercial software , although the two terms are sometimes used synonymously in articles about free software. Proprietary software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee, and free software can be distributed at no cost or for a fee. The difference is that whether proprietary software can be distributed, and what the fee would be, is at the proprietor's discretion. With free software, anyone who has

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2240-400: Is required for another party to use the software. In the case of proprietary software with source code available, the vendor may also prohibit customers from distributing their modifications to the source code. Shareware is closed-source software whose owner encourages redistribution at no cost, but which the user sometimes must pay to use after a trial period. The fee usually allows use by

2310-432: Is then passed to the agent's Reasoning or inferencing machinery in order to decide what to do with the new content. This process combines the event content with the rule-based or knowledge content provided by the user. If this process finds a good hit or match in the new content, the agent may use another piece of its machinery to do a more detailed search on the content. Finally, the agent may decide to take an action based on

2380-401: Is used to send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files, and also react to other users' messages and interact with bots . The service also supports voice and video calling . The standalone apps support using multiple accounts, conversations with end-to-end encryption , and playing games. Following tests of a new instant messaging platform on Facebook in March 2008,

2450-425: The first-sale doctrine . The owner of proprietary software exercises certain exclusive rights over the software. The owner can restrict the use, inspection of source code, modification of source code, and redistribution. Vendors typically limit the number of computers on which software can be used, and prohibit the user from installing the software on extra computers. Restricted use is sometimes enforced through

2520-468: The machine language understood by the computer's central processing unit . They typically retain the source code , or human-readable version of the software, often written in a higher level programming language . This scheme is often referred to as closed source. While most proprietary software is distributed without the source code, some vendors distribute the source code or otherwise make it available to customers. For example, users who have purchased

2590-665: The COVID-19 outbreak. Group calls grew by more than 1,000%. In early 2018, the US Department of Justice went to court to attempt to force Facebook to modify its Messenger app to enable surveillance by third parties so that agents could listen in on encrypted voice conversations over Messenger. The court decided against the Justice Department, but sealed the case. In November 2018, the ACLU and EFF filed suit to have

2660-625: The Free Software Foundation. This includes software written only for Microsoft Windows, or software that could only run on Java , before it became free software. Most of the software is covered by copyright which, along with contract law , patents , and trade secrets , provides legal basis for its owner to establish exclusive rights. A software vendor delineates the specific terms of use in an end-user license agreement (EULA). The user may agree to this contract in writing, interactively on screen ( clickwrap ), or by opening

2730-517: The Goals with the Assets at hand, minimizing expenditure of the Assets while maximizing Goal Attainment. (See Popplewell, "Agents and Applicability") This agent uses information technology to find trends and patterns in an abundance of information from many different sources. The user can sort through this information in order to find whatever information they are seeking. A data mining agent operates in

2800-478: The Mac App Store. The app is currently live in regions including France, Australia, Mexico, Poland, and many others. In April 2020, Facebook began rolling out a new feature called Messenger Rooms , a video chat feature that allows users to chat with up to 50 people at a time. The feature rivals Zoom , an application that gained a lot of popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic . Privacy concerns arose since

2870-478: The account holder to scroll through the entire inbox to be certain every unread message has been seen. On October 13, 2020, the Messenger application introduced cross-app messaging with Instagram, which was launched in September 2021. In addition to the integrated messaging, the application announced the introduction of a new logo, which should be an amalgamation of the Messenger and Instagram logo. The following

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2940-458: The advertisements' placement in the inbox depends on factors such as thread count, phone screen size, and pixel density. In a TechCrunch editorial by Devin Coldewey, he described the ads as "huge" in the space they occupy, "intolerable" in the way they appear in the user interface, and "irrelevant" due to the lack of context. Coldewey finished by writing "Advertising is how things get paid for on

3010-500: The agent, or retrieval from bulletin boards, or using a spider to walk the Web. The content that is retrieved in this way is probably already partially filtered – by the selection of the newsfeed or the databases that are searched. The agent next may use its detailed searching or language-processing machinery to extract keywords or signatures from the body of the content that has been received or retrieved. This abstracted content (or event)

3080-680: The application's menu in Settings on Android devices, which returns the user to the log-in screen. After being separated from the main Facebook app, Messenger had 600 million users in April 2015. This grew to 900 million in June 2016, 1 billion in July 2016, and 1.2 billion in April 2017. In March 2020, total messaging traffic increased by 50% in countries that were on quarantine due to

3150-591: The basics to implement self-controlled work, relieved from hierarchical controls and interference. Such conditions may be secured by application of software agents for required formal support. The cultural effects of the implementation of software agents include trust affliction, skills erosion, privacy attrition and social detachment. Some users may not feel entirely comfortable fully delegating important tasks to software applications. Those who start relying solely on intelligent agents may lose important skills, for example, relating to information literacy. In order to act on

3220-416: The box containing the software ( shrink wrap licensing ). License agreements are usually not negotiable . Software patents grant exclusive rights to algorithms, software features, or other patentable subject matter , with coverage varying by jurisdiction. Vendors sometimes grant patent rights to the user in the license agreement. The source code for a piece of proprietary software is routinely handled as

3290-576: The case unsealed so that the public can be informed about the encryption/surveillance debate. This motion was denied in February 2019, and an appeal was filed in April 2020. Proprietary software Proprietary software is a subset of non-free software , a term defined in contrast to free and open-source software ; non-commercial licenses such as CC BY-NC are not deemed proprietary, but are non-free. Proprietary software may either be closed-source software or source-available software . Until

3360-475: The configuration of each computer connected to the network. A special case of Monitoring-and-Surveillance agents are organizations of agents used to emulate the Human Decision-Making process during tactical operations. The agents monitor the status of assets (ammunition, weapons available, platforms for transport, etc.) and receive Goals (Missions) from higher level agents. The Agents then pursue

3430-576: The development of agent-based systems include For software agents to work together efficiently they must share semantics of their data elements. This can be done by having computer systems publish their metadata . The definition of agent processing can be approached from two interrelated directions: Agent systems are used to model real-world systems with concurrency or parallel processing. The agent uses its access methods to go out into local and remote databases to forage for content. These access methods may include setting up news stream delivery to

3500-402: The feature uses the same data collection policies as mainstream Facebook. In July 2020, Facebook added a new feature in Messenger that lets iOS users to use Apple's Face ID or Touch ID to lock their chats. The feature is called App Lock and is a part of several changes in Messenger regarding privacy and security. The option to view only "Unread Threads" was removed from the inbox, requiring

3570-476: The feature, then-titled "Facebook Chat", was gradually released to users in April 2008. Facebook revamped its messaging platform in November 2010, and subsequently acquired group messaging service Beluga in March 2011, which the company used to launch its standalone iOS and Android mobile apps on August 9, 2011. Facebook later launched a BlackBerry version in October 2011. An app for Windows Phone , though lacking features including voice messaging and chat heads,

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3640-572: The following tasks: Monitoring and surveillance agents are used to observe and report on equipment, usually computer systems. The agents may keep track of company inventory levels, observe competitors' prices and relay them back to the company, watch stock manipulation by insider trading and rumors, etc. For example, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has an agent that monitors inventory, planning, schedules equipment orders to keep costs down, and manages food storage facilities. These agents usually monitor complex computer networks that can keep track of

3710-530: The internet, including TechCrunch, so I'm not an advocate of eliminating it or blocking it altogether. But bad advertising experiences can spoil a perfectly good app like (for the purposes of argument) Messenger. Messaging is a personal, purposeful use case and these ads are a bad way to monetize it." In November 2014, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) listed Messenger (Facebook chat) on its Secure Messaging Scorecard. It received

3780-447: The late 1960s, computers—especially large and expensive mainframe computers , machines in specially air-conditioned computer rooms—were usually leased to customers rather than sold . Service and all software available were usually supplied by manufacturers without separate charge until 1969. Computer vendors usually provided the source code for installed software to customers. Customers who developed software often made it available to

3850-563: The legal status of software copyright , especially for object code , was not clear until the 1983 appeals court ruling in Apple Computer, Inc. v. Franklin Computer Corp . According to Brewster Kahle the legal characteristic of software changed also due to the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 . Starting in February 1983 IBM adopted an " object-code -only" model for a growing list of their software and stopped shipping much of

3920-465: The methods of achieving their objectives), distributed agents (being executed on physically distinct computers), multi-agent systems (distributed agents that work together to achieve an objective that could not be accomplished by a single agent acting alone), and mobile agents (agents that can relocate their execution onto different processors). The basic attributes of an autonomous software agent are that agents: The concept of an agent provides

3990-523: The new content; for example, to notify the user that an important event has occurred. This action is verified by a security function and then given the authority of the user. The agent makes use of a user-access method to deliver that message to the user. If the user confirms that the event is important by acting quickly on the notification, the agent may also employ its learning machinery to increase its weighting for this kind of event. Bots can act on behalf of their creators to do good as well as bad. There are

4060-411: The profitability of software development. Proprietary software generally creates greater commercial activity over free software, especially in regard to market revenues. Proprietary software is often sold with a license that gives the end user right to use the software. Software agent In computer science , a software agent is a computer program that acts for a user or another program in

4130-712: The public without charge. Closed source means computer programs whose source code is not published except to licensees. It is available to be modified only by the organization that developed it and those licensed to use the software. In 1969, IBM, which had antitrust lawsuits pending against it, led an industry change by starting to charge separately for mainframe software and services, by unbundling hardware and software. Bill Gates ' " Open Letter to Hobbyists " in 1976 decried computer hobbyists' rampant copyright infringement of software, particularly Microsoft's Altair BASIC interpreter, and asserted that their unauthorized use hindered his ability to produce quality software. But

4200-436: The sensation of success unless the repetition of the simple tasking is affecting the overall output. In general implementing software agents to perform administrative requirements provides a substantial increase in work contentment, as administering their own work does never please the worker. The effort freed up serves for a higher degree of engagement in the substantial tasks of individual work. Hence, software agents may provide

4270-561: The software from becoming unsupported and unavailable abandonware . 3D Realms and id Software are famous for the practice of releasing closed source software into the open source . Some of those kinds are free-of-charge downloads ( freeware ), some are still commercially sold (e.g. Arx Fatalis ). More examples of formerly closed-source software in the List of commercial software with available source code and List of commercial video games with available source code . Proprietary software

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4340-484: The software. This is particularly common with certain programming languages . For example, the bytecode for programs written in Java can be easily decompiled to somewhat usable code, and the source code for programs written in scripting languages such as PHP or JavaScript is available at run time . Proprietary software vendors can prohibit the users from sharing the software with others. Another unique license

4410-402: The source code available. Some licenses for proprietary software allow distributing changes to the source code, but only to others licensed for the product, and some of those modifications are eventually picked up by the vendor. Some governments fear that proprietary software may include defects or malicious features which would compromise sensitive information. In 2003 Microsoft established

4480-476: The source code is made available . Governments have also been accused of adding such malware to software themselves. According to documents released by Edward Snowden , the NSA has used covert partnerships with software companies to make commercial encryption software exploitable to eavesdropping, or to insert backdoors . Software vendors sometimes use obfuscated code to impede users who would reverse engineer

4550-606: The source code, even to licensees. In 1983, binary software became copyrightable in the United States as well by the Apple vs. Franklin law decision, before which only source code was copyrightable. Additionally, the growing availability of millions of computers based on the same microprocessor architecture created for the first time an unfragmented and big enough market for binary distributed software. Software distributions considered as proprietary may in fact incorporate

4620-535: The term with related concepts may help clarify its meaning. Franklin & Graesser (1997) discuss four key notions that distinguish agents from arbitrary programs: reaction to the environment, autonomy, goal-orientation and persistence . Software agents may offer various benefits to their end users by automating complex or repetitive tasks. However, there are organizational and cultural impacts of this technology that need to be considered prior to implementing software agents. People like to perform easy tasks providing

4690-419: Was not open to independent review, and the security design was not properly documented. As stated by Facebook in its Help Center, there is no way to log out of the Messenger application. Instead, users can choose between different availability statuses, including "Appear as inactive", "Switch accounts", and "Turn off notifications". Media outlets have reported on a workaround, by pressing a "Clear data" option in

4760-495: Was released in March 2014. In April 2014, Facebook announced that the messaging feature would be removed from the main Facebook app and users will be required to download the separate Messenger app. An iPad -optimized version of the iOS app was released in July 2014. In April 2015, Facebook launched a website interface for Messenger. A Tizen app was released on July 13, 2015. Facebook launched Messenger for Windows 10 in April 2016. In October 2016, Facebook released Messenger Lite,

4830-894: Was seen as a response to the popularity of other video conferencing platforms such as Zoom and Skype in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic . Messenger Rooms allows users to add up to 50 people per room, without restrictions on time. It does not require a Facebook account or a separate app from Messenger. When used, it only prompts the user for basic information. Users can add 360° virtual backgrounds, mood lighting, and other AR effects as well as share screens. To prevent unwanted participants from joining, users can lock rooms and remove participants. Some have voiced concerns in regards to Messenger Room's privacy and how its parent, Facebook, handles data. Messenger Rooms, unlike some of its competitors, does not use end-to-end encryption . In addition, there have been concerns over how Messenger Rooms collects user data. In January 2017, Facebook announced that it

4900-634: Was testing showing advertisements in Messenger's home feed. At the time, the testing was limited to a "small number of users in Australia and Thailand", with the ad format being swipe-based carousel ads. In July, the company announced that they were expanding the testing to a global audience. Stan Chudnovsky, head of Messenger, told VentureBeat that "We'll start slow ... When the average user can be sure to see them we truly don't know because we're just going to be very data-driven and user feedback-driven on making that decision". Facebook told TechCrunch that

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