Collaborate Disseminate
The move was announced on Thursday by Open Whisper Systems, the software organization behind the open source Signal Protocol, which has been implemented by Microsoft to offer the feature. Private Conversations The option, named Private Conversations, i… Continue reading Skype users are finally getting end-to-end encryption
In its sustained quest to bring encryption to all existing Web sites, Google has announced that it will start enforcing HTTPS for the 45 Top-Level Domains it operates. How will it do that? You may or may not know that, since 2015, Google has been offering domain name registration services, and it operates domains such as .google, .how, and .dev (among others). And now, Google will start adding them to the HTTPS Strict Transport Security … More → Continue reading Google to enforce HTTPS on TLDs it controls
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator, is threatening to ban the use of popular encrypted messaging app Telegram. The request Roskomnadzor is a federal agency tasked with overseeing that the media, telecoms and other mass communications providers comply with existing laws and adequately protect the confidentiality of personal data being processed. It’s head, Alexander Zharov, claims that Telegram (the company) has not responded to repeated requests to fill in a form with information on the company that … More → Continue reading Russia threatening to ban Telegram encrypted messaging app
As the UK gets hit by terror attacks one after the other, the government’s cry for making sure terrorists and criminals can’t find “safe spaces” online has become a constant. Some European legislators, on the other hand, are asking for European citizens’ right to end-to-end encryption in all forms of digital communications – current and future – to be enshrined in law. Respect for private life The proposal comes from the European Parliament’s Committee on … More → Continue reading As UK govt calls for encryption backdoors, EU lawmakers propose a ban on them
“Users’ goal to communicate with others overrides everything else, including security,” a group of researchers has concluded after interviewing sixty individuals about their experience with different communication tools and their perceptions of the tools’ security properties. Adoption of secure communication tools hinges on many things It has long been thought that usability issues are the main thing preventing users from adopting secure communication tools, but the results of their research show that it’s not the … More → Continue reading What’s really stopping users from adopting secure communication tools?
Confide, the encrypted instant messaging application with a self-destructing messaging system that has become popular with White House staffers, is not so secure after all. IOActive released today the results of the company’s recent research into the app, and noted that they found several issues which could be exploited by an attacker to impersonate another user by hijacking their account session or by guessing their password, learn the contact details of all or specific Confide … More → Continue reading Encrypted messaging app Confide suffers from many security issues
For the sixth year in a row, Internet freedom is declining. According to the latest Freedom on the Net report, 67 percent of all Internet users now live in countries where online criticism of the government, ruling family or the military is subjected to censorship, and such activity can result in individuals getting arrested. Also, more governments have come to realize the power of social media and messaging apps, and are actively trying to censor … More → Continue reading Internet freedom around the world keeps decreasing
Following Donald Trump’s victory in the latest US presidential election, many people begun to worry about the surveillance capabilities that will now effectively be left in his hands once he assumes the position. Some have called on tech companies to make it impossible to provide information about users that might be the next targets of the nation’s intelligence agencies, and on users to preventatively protect themselves by encrypting their phone and computer, switching to end-to-end … More → Continue reading New users flock to ProtonMail in wake of Trump’s victory
A group of computer science and cryptography professors and doctoral students has effected a security analysis of the secure messaging Signal Protocol – specifically, of its Key Agreement and Double Ratchet multi-stage key exchange protocol (the effective cryptographic core). The results of the analysis are encouraging. “We have found no major flaws in the design, and hope that our presentation and results can serve as a starting point for other analyses of this widely adopted … More → Continue reading Signal Protocol’s crypto core has no major flaws, researchers find
Facebook Messenger’s Secret Conversations feature, which allows end-to-end encryption of messages exchanged by two users that have enabled the option, has finally been rolled out to all Messenger users. Announced in July, Secret Conversations is based on the Open Whisper Systems’ Signal Protocol. The thing to keep in mind is that the feature is not turned on by default, so you have to actively choose to secure your messages. Another option that the feature gives … More → Continue reading Facebook Messenger end-to-end encryption rolled out for all users