The SouthWest codebase is a talker server written in Visual Basic 6 for the Microsoft Windows operating system. It was inspired by Neil’s Unix Talk Server (NUTS). Included in at least version 1.0.0 was an HTTP server that runs on a separate port.
Talkers in the 1990s weren’t known for their security, but SouthWest has the (in)distinction of having been the subject of CVE-2002-0496, reported on 26 March, 2002, and described by Internet Security Systems:
SouthWest version 1.0.0 is vulnerable to a denial of service attack. A remote attacker could send a specially-crafted HTTP request to the HTTP server listening on port 5002 to cause the service to crash. The service must be restarted to regain normal functionality.
The codebase’s tag line,
The only true Windows talker server
isn’t quite true. The archive’s snapshot of SouthWest dates from sometime in 1999, but there was also CryptMCS which could compile on Windows and existed since at least 1997. Technically, since it was built on the cross-platform Java language, JOOT was another option for operators using the Windows OS.