Tag Archives: XMPP

Briar – Next Step of The Crypto Messenger Evolution

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Update: Há uma versão em português. Who still remembers ICQ, AIM and MSN? My first messenger was ICQ and I liked the fact that it was instant. In those days, I didn’t think much about security and was probably too young anyway. We can count ourselves lucky if those tools even used transport encryption. This means that our messages are encrypted on the way from our computer to the server, so nobody can see the content of the messages while they are in transit. Whoever has access to the server however can know the content since all messages get decrypted … Continue reading →

What to use instead of WhatsApp and Threema?

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WhatsApp is a messaging app for smartphones that allows you to send (text) messages free-of-charge. After WhatsApp’s recent acquisition by Facebook and in the face of the NSA revelations, many of the millions of WhatsApp users are looking for secure and trustworthy alternatives. Because this effects so many people, we at the Free Software Foundation Europe would like to be able to promote an alternative that respects your freedom and privacy. Therefore we decided to do some research and to hold a workshop on WhatsApp alternatives during our latest FSFE team meeting. While most tech-people really didn’t see the point … Continue reading →

Dark Mail as Next-Generation Email to Stop Spying

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The people from Lavabit and SilentCircle announced their Dark Mail Alliance which is going to develop a new end-to-end encrypted protocol to better secure email. Since, the media reports about this were scarce on details, I watched the recording of their presentation and will summarize what is interesting to me below,  in case it might also be interesting to you. They call their new Dark Mail system peer to peer. The end-to-end encryption should be integrated into the protocol and keys should be generated on the users device without any interaction by the users so it will be as easy … Continue reading →

XMPP Interview und Document Freedom Award

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Wie Matthias scheibt, hat dieses Jahr die 1&1 Internet AG den deutschen Document Freedom Award erhalten, weil sie für alle E-Mail-Kundinnen auch automatisch einen XMPP-Account bereitstellen. Der Document Freedom Day in Deutschland stand also ganz unter dem Motto I’M the World! Ich habe kurz vorher dem Deutschlandradio Wissen ein Interview (leider nur mp3) gegeben und dort XMPP bzw. Jabber erklärt. … Continue reading →

Microsoft denies certain countries access to its messenger

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My recent blog entries were about Skype and about how companies might eventually abuse the power they have over some of our technology. Many of my arguments against Skype also apply to Microsoft’s instant messenger. Now Microsoft gave one more example that this abuse actually happens. Ars technica writes: Microsoft this week decided to turn off its Windows Live Messenger service for five countries: Cuba, Syria, Iran, Sudan, and North Korea. […] The user is not informed as to the actual reason for the block. Currently, it’s not clear how broad the block is or how long it will last. … Continue reading →