Good News: WhatsApp Gets Serious About End To End Encryption

from the good-to-see dept

We recently noted that it was really good news to see companies like Google and Apple finally taking end user encryption seriously, and it appears that's spreading. The super-popular chat messaging app WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook not too long ago, just turned on full end-to-end encryption, powered by Open Whisper Systems, the makers of such great tools as TextSecure, which is the basis for the new encryption:

The most recent WhatsApp Android client release includes support for the TextSecure encryption protocol, and billions of encrypted messages are being exchanged daily. The WhatsApp Android client does not yet support encrypted messaging for group chat or media messages, but we’ll be rolling out support for those next, in addition to support for more client platforms. We’ll also be surfacing options for key verification in clients as the protocol integrations are completed.

WhatsApp runs on an incredible number of mobile platforms, so full deployment will be an incremental process as we add TextSecure protocol support into each WhatsApp client platform. We have a ways to go until all mobile platforms are fully supported, but we are moving quickly towards a world where all WhatsApp users will get end-to-end encryption by default.

It sounds like this project started prior to the Facebook acquisition, so it's great to see it continue to move forward either way. Just recently, the EFF rated various messaging apps for their security (which resulted in some controversy...), and WhatsApp didn't score all that well, while TextSecure got a perfect score. Making messaging more and more secure is incredibly important, so it's great to see it happening here.

Filed Under: encryption, messaging
Companies: whatsapp, whisper systems

Fresh Off Being Called Out For Collusion, Legacy Music Industry Players Cite Need For Greater Collusion On Political Front

from the yeah,-that'll-do-it dept

Just recently, we wrote about the collusive behavior by music publishing companies, led by ASCAP, to try to screw Pandora out of higher rates. A judge called them out for it and rejected their plan (though, with little in the way of other punishment). However, apparently the publishers and other parts of the legacy recording industry seem to think that in order to move the political debate forward, they need to all get on the same page concerning the story they tell to Congress.

Yes, despite all the statements since the death of SOPA about how the legacy players in the music industry have given up on legislation, that's bogus. Instead, they're trying to team up and get their story straight about what kind of legislation they want:

When it comes to the music industry’s lobbying efforts in Washington, it is time for some harmony.

That message has gained momentum among music executives, who worry that squabbling among the various players — record labels, music publishers, artists, songwriters — will undermine broader initiatives to push for new legislation and regulatory reform.

[....]

Music groups are pushing for a range of new laws and regulations that they believe are vital to help their businesses survive in the digital era. But the interests of these parties do not always align.

Oh, and don't expect any of this new "sing from the same songbook" effort to include actually working with fans to understand what they want, or with innovators to understand how these legacy players might embrace the future to improve their business. Instead, it's all about playing hardball politics to try to use new laws to prop up old business models. The article notes that the defeat of SOPA was a wake-up call to the various parts of the music industry to work together to stop "the increasing influence" from technology companies.

Of course, they're just playing the same old game: lobby, rather than innovate. Collude, rather than compete. It's an old strategy that worked for decades, but seems much less likely to work these days. That was the lesson of SOPA, but it appears that the legacy players still don't get it.

Filed Under: lobbying, messaging, music industry, sopa

DailyDirt: Technology Is Changing The Way We Talk Because Internetz, LOL

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Sometimes we can't even agree on the definitions of words, so it's not too hard to find examples of changes in communication technologies altering how we use words. Text messages on phones have made us lazy to spell words correctly or to spell out entire words or common phrases. Language is inherently flexible, and here are just a few ways some parts of our language have changed.

• Linguists are officially recognizing that "because" is being used in a new way and have dubbed it the "prepositional-because" when it is followed immediately by a noun. However, the prepositional-because isn't limited to being followed by a noun, it can also be followed by verbs, adjectives, interjections and adverbs. [url]
• In case you didn't know, the simple period as a punctuation mark can be used to indicate anger. Yes. It. Can. [url]
• The ubiquitous LOL is becoming nearly meaningless -- no one is really laughing (quietly or audibly). LOL can be used sarcastically to indicate something isn't funny or just whenever a person doesn't know what else to say... so it's the new "like, yeah, um, well, really" word. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: grammar, language, lol, meaning, messaging, prepositional-because, punctuation, text, words

The IRS And SEC Want To Snoop Through Your Email Without A Warrant; Don't Let Them

from the speak-up,-fix-ecpa dept

We've talked a lot about ECPA reform -- which is the incredibly outdated "electronic communications privacy act" which actually makes sure that you have less privacy than other forms of communication. This isn't necessarily on purpose, but because the law was written in the mid-1980s when email itself was a relatively new concept. It includes some bizarre distinctions between opened and unopened emails and if a message has been "left on a server" for more than 180 days (at which point it's considered "abandoned" and not subject to a warrant). Obviously it never anticipated the kind of internet we have today. It also goes against basic 4th Amendment principles and treats electronic messages differently from physical messages.

There actually is a fair bit of support in both Congress and the White House to fix this... if we can get enough public support behind it, which includes getting more people to sign this petition. As with SOPA, there's a strong suggestion that if this petition tips the scales at 100,000, we can get the White House to come out in favor of ECPA reform.

What's standing in the way? Well, a bunch of government agencies, honestly. There are the obvious ones like the DOJ and DHS. That's to be expected. They always want to make it easier to snoop through emails and written communications. But apparently some of the strongest voices trying to block ECPA reform within the government are coming from the SEC and the IRS, because they too see plenty of advantages in trying to snoop through emails without having to take the trouble of getting a warrant.

As I write this, I'm participating in a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Chris Calabrese from the ACLU, Mark Stanley from the Center for Democracy and Technology and Julian Sanchez from the Cato Institute. This coincides with a day of action involving a bunch of companies and organizations trying to get more people to speak out on the importance of ECPA reform. And, finally, the folks at TechFreedom have put together a great infographic, which we've also embedded below.

Filed Under: ecpa, ecpa reform, emails, irs, messaging, privacy, sec, warrants

DailyDirt: Make The Logos Bigger, Better

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Logos can convey all kinds of messages -- and instill a sense of confidence or demonstrate a lack of attention to detail. Some logos are fun. Others are serious. Some company logos don't change very much over a long period of time, but others seem to change with every passing design fad. Some logo re-designs are more successful than others. Here are just a few interesting logo collections of some branding campaigns that you might recognize.

• SB Nation's network of 300 blogs redesigned all their logos for a re-launch -- with just a single designer, Fraser Davidson, in 7 weeks. Designing 300 logos is hard enough, but add in the complication that none of these logos should in any way infringe upon their related sports teams' official trademarks.... [url]
• Imagine some popular corporate logos redesigned for a hipster blog or startup. You don't have to imagine it, there's a Tumblr blog for it. [url]
• The evolution of corporate logos is kinda fascinating. Apple's first logo in 1976 is really different from its current minimalistic logo. [url]
• Some logos have hidden messages in them. The Big Ten collegiate conference logo has a little nod to the fact that there are actually eleven teams in its organization. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: branding, design, logos, marketing, messaging
Companies: apple, pepsi

Google Sues The US Government For Only Considering Microsoft Solutions

from the hubris dept

Eric Goldman alerts us to the interesting bit of news that Google has sued the US government -- specifically the Department of the Interior, for not seriously considering Google Apps when it put out a Request for Quotation (RFQ) to handle its messaging needs. Specifically, the DOI stated upfront in the RFQ that the solution had to be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Google is making the argument that this is "unduly restrictive of competition," and it seems like they've got a decent argument there.

Most of the lawsuit details the history of meetings and conversations between Google and the DOI, where Google sought to convince the DOI that its solution was acceptable. The DOI justified limiting its offerings to Microsoft, by saying that Microsoft had two things that other solution providers did not: unified/consolidated email and "enhanced security." Google disputes this (not surprisingly) and notes various problems with Microsoft solutions -- including well reported downtime issues. Google protested the RFQ when it was released, but the GAO dismissed Google's protest saying that since Google does not have a GSA schedule contract (i.e., what you need to sell to the gov't), it was "not an interested party." Anyway, should make for an interesting lawsuit if it goes anywhere...

Filed Under: competition, department of the interior, messaging, single-source
Companies: google

Twitter As An Emergency Broadcast System? Doesn't It Have To Work Regularly First?

from the just-saying... dept

While we definitely found the story of a student in Egypt using Twitter to alert people that he had been arrested interesting, it does seem like a bit of a stretch to then say that it makes sense to create an emergency alert system via Twitter. Though it has some potential to be powerful, an emergency alert system needs to be reliable -- and Twitter is rather infamous for its pretty regular downtime.

Filed Under: communications, emergencies, infrastructure, messaging, stability
Companies: twitter

The True Cost Of SMS Won't Matter Much As Mobile Devices Advance

from the it-will-work-itself-out dept

Last week, Slashdot linked to an entertaining analysis of the cost of SMS messages. Noting that many carriers are raising their SMS prices despite increasing demand for the service — demand which should be spurring competition — the author of the post figures out the number of bits in a text message and concludes that transmitting data by SMS is about 15 million times more expensive than doing so over a commodity internet connection.

But of course this isn't really a fair comparison. A commodity internet connection doesn't afford the ubiquity that a cellular network does. Comparing the data rate and price of voice traffic is probably more instructive (although the two types of messages are admittedly not transmitted in the same manner across the network). Taking AT&T's overage charge of $0.45 cents/minute and 13kbps as a plausible bitrate for a GSM call, my calculator says that SMS data is a mere 316% more expensive than voice traffic.

That's still not great, though. And there's no question that SMS prices are going up even farther — in the past year or so the Consumerist blog has been full of posts encouraging various carriers' users to escape their contracts thanks to those contracts' newly-increased SMS fees. It's an unfortunate situation: very few consumers select a carrier on the basis of its SMS offerings, and few will leave their carrier over them, either, blunting the consumer response to price increases. Plus, as the technology has gained popularity the mobile operators have lost the need to encourage its adoption through cheap rates. It's not very surprising to see them conclude that the most profitable price point for SMS is higher than the one they had been offering.

Fortunately for the rest of us, this state of affairs doesn't seem likely to last much longer. Although there's little reason to have faith in the mobile market's ability to bend the carriers to consumers' will, new technologies are going to inevitably dry up the SMS bonanza. We're on the verge of the iPhone SDK's release, and Google's Android seems likely to find its way into many cheaper handsets. These and other technologies mean that the average customer will have access to bulk data services on their handset soon if they don't already. And once bulk data can be consumed, so many options for short message communication become available that SMS's specialized role will disappear almost immediately. Between web interfaces, widgets, IM clients and email apps, there are a vast number of ways to send short strings of text. Services like Twitter that offer a variety of input modalities will no doubt help to stitch together this looming surplus of communication options.

Given how few bits are required to transmit those messages (and the generic nature of those bits), there'll be no way for the carriers to keep short message transmission as expensive as it currently is — not without without pricing web browsing, email and other mobile data services into oblivion. I wouldn't expect SMS to disappear, but it seems safe to assume it'll start getting cheaper soon.

Filed Under: cost, data, messaging, mobile phones, sms