Comment 32 for bug 950790

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=770682 alleges that setting NSS_SSL_CBC_RANDOM_IV=0 globally is a security problem. As an alternative, what I did was this:

Create the following file in /tmp/pidgin

#!/bin/sh
NSS_SSL_CBC_RANDOM_IV=0 exec /usr/bin/pidgin "$@"

Then run the following commands:

sudo cp /tmp/pidgin /usr/local/bin
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/pidgin

This is just a different way to implement the workaround so that the NSS_SSL_CBC_RANDOM_IV variable is only set for the Pidgin process instead of globally in your environment.

It should not hurt if /usr/local/bin/pidgin remains in use even once a proper fix is deployed, assuming you have a modicum of trust for your local environment (and if not, you should hardly be using SIPE for messaging in the first place).