![]() Unlike with these services, the server facilitating the chat doesn’t read or record the communications messages are encrypted on each end of the conversation, with a new key pair generated for every new chat session. The total number of Cryptocat users will surely increase when the mobile version launches, too the iPhone version is expected some time this week, followed by an Android version by the end of December.Ĭryptocat succeeds because it’s as intuitive and accessible as Facebook, Skype, or Gchat, but it’s much safer. “It’s very crucial to offer a solid, respectable middle ground to those people.”Īnd people are flocking to the service in this Snowden-Greenwald era he says that about 100,000 people have downloaded the web app so far, and there are about 16,000 people using it each day. ![]() ![]() “Some people can’t use PGP, but at the same time they want to access an alternative that is at least safer than Facebook chat or Skype-and those are very unsafe options,” said Kobeissi in an interview this week. That said, not every story involves a Snowden-level leak, either sometimes journalists just need a safe, quick way to chat in a way that the text won’t be intercepted or read later by, say, a source’s boss. Not every journalist waiting for the next big scoop has a Laura Poitras on his or her side likewise, not every potential source happens to be an incredibly capable former national security contractor. Edward Snowden was only able to communicate with Glenn Greenwald and other journalists after Laura Poitras taught Greenwald how to implement encryption and other operational security measures. Journalists and others who are less technically-inclined-or just more impatient-will often jump on a less-safe platform if it seems like it will save them a lot of time and headache in the process. The encryption program Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), is as pretty-good as its name suggests (it is in fact excellent), but there’s a learning curve involved, and it only works when both the sender and receiver are using it. In other words, it doesn’t matter if an encryption program is safe if no one wants to use it. “You’re making accessibility and ease-of-use security processes-if those fail, it’s just the same as having encryption failure.” “This cuteness is a security feature,” Kobeissi explained in a recent TED talk. The aesthetics will be just as inviting when Cryptocat’s mobile version launches in a few days, too. The aesthetics of the program were his starting point, he said, as he set out to make an encrypted communication program that was accessible to everyone, regardless of technical know-how. This nostalgic and friendly vibe isn’t just an artistic whim of its lead developer, Nadim Kobeissi, who started the project three years ago as a 21-year-old college student in Montreal and recent émigré from Lebanon. ![]() The chatroom that you enter to start a new chat looks and sounds like something out of a videogame from the 1980s. The encrypted-chat program’s logo is a pixellated cat, and its homepage is colorful but uncluttered. Update, January 6, 2014: As of the end of December 2013, the Cryptocat app for iPhone had been rejected by Apple, but Kobeissi was optimistic the problem could be resolved.Ĭryptocat is really, really cute.
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