Big-O Software

If you want to talk to someone while away just send them a chat room invitation and you can talk with them and still be 'away'

You could make the encryption be per window so that it wouldnt affect everyone on your list and you would still be able to chat with normal AIM users..

Not letting other people see your communications is the point!! Only those that have the same key / pw or have a signed public key would be able to view your IM.

Take a look at what these guys are doing
http://www.johnytech.com/home.asp

Definitely add encryption to the next release! I don't think it would be that hard and it would be a nice feature. Possibly allow users the choice of the encryption algorithm, the pw or key they wish to use, and maybe include encrypted file transfer.