Here’s how to chat with your Facebook friends using encryption

Facebooks messaging application doesnt support encryption, but an open-source chat program, Cryptocat, has made it possible to chat with friends there over an encrypted connection.

The programs founder, Nadim Kobeissi, wrote Monday that the latest 2.2 version of Cryptocat can log a user into Facebook and pull his contact list in order to set up an end-to-end encrypted conversation.

Effectively, what Cryptocat is doing is benefitting from your Facebook Chat contact list as a readily available buddy list, he wrote.

The move could augment Cryptocats user base since new users wont have the chore of building a new contacts list, although they would need to download Cryptocats browser extension or iPhone application to benefit from encryption.

The security of emails and messages was brought sharply into focus by secret documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealing sophisticated online surveillance techniques used by the spy agency.

Facebook has said it could enable end-to-end encryption between users exchanging data, but said such technology is complicated and makes it harder for people to communicate.

Messages exchanged using Facebook are protected by SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption, but that only encrypts data between an end user and Facebook. The social networking service would have access to the clear text of those conversations, which potentially could be surrendered to law enforcement under a court order.

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If two people are using Cryptocat, Facebook will know an exchange occurred between the two users and the time of their chat. But the messages themselves will only say: [encrypted message].

The fact that Facebook knows two people are chatting, a type of information known as metadata, should not be a deal breaker, Kobeissi wrote. Users presumably know theyre divulging that information already to Facebook by using their service.

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Here's how to chat with your Facebook friends using encryption