Cryptocat, a web application for private chatting, now functions
on smartphones. In a demo at RightsCon, a gathering in Silicon
Valley that focuses on technology and combating human rights
challenges, Cryptocat unveiled its chat-based
cryptographically-based private mobile app, a tool they’ve been
cooking up this past year.
Cryptocat’s mission, according to its blog,
is “Making encrypted chat easy, fun, and accessible for everyone.”
While not as simple as using Facebook or GChat, it’s easier to use
than other encrypted instant messaging services. It’s available for
free from the Apple
app store.
Users of Mozilla, Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Mac OS X – and now
iOS, can use the app. It utilizes Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR), a
cryptographic protocol for secure instant messaging, and perfect
forward secrecy, a system that constantly generates new user keys
so snoops cannot decrypt older messages. Security measures extend
beyond the cryptographic protocols. According to The
Verge, the servers are
stored “in a Swedish nuclear bunker to protect them from
government intrusion.”
It took Cryptocat a year to transit to a mobile app. One might
think securing information would be a cinch, but secure
communications require complex cryptography. Developers have been
struggling to make secure communications, of all sorts, more
user-friendly. Cryptocat has been a main player in this
movement.
Private communications have come a very long way since
cypherpunks organized an esoteric email group focused on discussing
the technical aspects of encrypted communications in the 90’s. Not
to mention, Cryptocat has come a long way since
repairing a “rookie” cryptographic mistake made last year.
Privacy developments have been fueled by a newish hunger. In an
interview with Ars Technica last December, Cryptocat
developer Nadim Kobeissi
said:
‘Two years ago not a lot of people cared,’ he comments.
But times have changed. ‘Now a lot of people care.’
Innovative developers are feeding this hunger with an array of
technologies. The app comes hot on the heels of the Blackphone,
which
launched pre-orders for its cryptographically-secured phone
last week. Jeeves, a programming language in the making,
accommodates built-in privacy protocols. A MIT researcher even
proposes encrypting genetic information.
The hope is that privacy-centric technology would give consumers
more secure options to choose from. Someday they could make
bypassing National Security Agency intrusion easy and
difficult-to-enact legislative reform unnecessary.
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