Category Archives: Encryption

Ex-spy launches free email encryption service

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The surveillance bombshells revealed by Edward Snowden have prompted many Americans to reconsider what they say and do online.

Hoping to seize upon amplified privacy concerns, a former National Security Agency architect launched a free service this week that allows users to easily encrypt their Gmail, Yahoo (YHOO) and Outlook emails.

Virtru, which has received $4 million in angel financing, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday and has already attracted interest from a number of potential corporate customers, including big Wall Street banks.

There is mass concern about privacy. The issue is people dont know where to go to take action. Were trying to meet that need, said John Ackerly, a former White House official who co-founded Virtru with his brother Will.

While working at the NSA, Will Ackerly helped invent an encryption format that has become the standard for sharing sensitive data between U.S. intelligence agencies. Seeing the great demand to protect personal and commercial documents, the Ackerly brothers are now deploying that platform to a much wider audience.

Services like Virtru will probably give most commercial users a degree of security that only governments have enjoyed to this point, said Cedric Leighton, a former NSA official who does not know the Ackerly brothers.

'Very Hard to Break'

Virtru appears to be launching at a perfect time given the enormous amount of attention on government surveillance, which classified documents leaked by Snowden show is far greater than the American public realized.

According to a poll of 2,000 U.S. adults by Harris Interactive that Virtru commissioned, 73% of Americans online are concerned about the privacy of their email communications. But just 34% of online adults said they had taken steps like using a secure email provider or encrypted technologies.

While the Snowden revelations caused the country tremendous harm in terms of national security, John Ackerly said the issues are real and the balance of power has shifted away from the individual.

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Ex-spy launches free email encryption service

Google chairman says ‘encrypting everything’ could end China’s censorship, stop NSA snooping

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Washington, Jan. 25 : Google's chairman Eric Schmidt has reportedly said that encryption is the key to many of Internet's modern-day problems, including opening up countries with strict censorship laws.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Schmidt said that encrypting everything could end censorships by governments like China's in a decade, which he thought was responsible for 80 to 85 percent of world's industrial espionage.

According to The Verge, the chairman said that use of encryption codes could also help thwart the alleged mass surveillance activities carried out by the governments' intelligence agencies.

Schmidt said that Google was attempting to strengthen its encryption so the world's governments won't be able to penetrate it and obtain private data.

He further said that he saw the eventual relaxation of Chinese censorship over time as the number of people using social media in the country continued to grow.

On the controversial mass surveillance activities carried out by the US' NSA, Schmidt chastised the government saying that 'because you can do this monitoring does not mean you should do this monitoring,' the report added.

--ANI (Posted on 26-01-2014)

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Google chairman says 'encrypting everything' could end China's censorship, stop NSA snooping

Substitute for:Measurements. 1 Episode. Strength of the encryption algorithm – Video

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Substitute for:Measurements. 1 Episode. Strength of the encryption algorithm
not to be counted in Jan-Mar 2014 video plan In September we did set cash challenge with a prize 10 Lunaro == 2000$. Nobody did decryption of the message on ...

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Substitute for:Measurements. 1 Episode. Strength of the encryption algorithm - Video

Tennessee bill takes on NSA encryption-breaking facility at Oak Ridge/SHUT. IT. DOWN. – Video

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Tennessee bill takes on NSA encryption-breaking facility at Oak Ridge/SHUT. IT. DOWN.
By RealWorldReport Tennessee bill takes on NSA encryption-breaking facility at Oak Ridge http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2014/01/22/tennessee-nsa-bill-oak-ri...

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Tennessee bill takes on NSA encryption-breaking facility at Oak Ridge/SHUT. IT. DOWN. - Video

From NSA to Gmail: Ex-spy launches free email encryption service

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The surveillance bombshells revealed by Edward Snowden have prompted many Americans to reconsider what they say and do online.

Hoping to seize upon amplified privacy concerns, a former National Security Agency architect launched a free service this week that allows users to easily encrypt their Gmail, Yahoo (YHOO) and Outlook emails.

Virtru, which has received $4 million in angel financing, emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday and has already attracted interest from a number of potential corporate customers, including big Wall Street banks.

There is mass concern about privacy. The issue is people dont know where to go to take action. Were trying to meet that need, said John Ackerly, a former White House official who co-founded Virtru with his brother Will.

While working at the NSA, Will Ackerly helped invent an encryption format that has become the standard for sharing sensitive data between U.S. intelligence agencies. Seeing the great demand to protect personal and commercial documents, the Ackerly brothers are now deploying that platform to a much wider audience.

Services like Virtru will probably give most commercial users a degree of security that only governments have enjoyed to this point, said Cedric Leighton, a former NSA official who does not know the Ackerly brothers.

'Very Hard to Break'

Virtru appears to be launching at a perfect time given the enormous amount of attention on government surveillance, which classified documents leaked by Snowden show is far greater than the American public realized.

According to a poll of 2,000 U.S. adults by Harris Interactive that Virtru commissioned, 73% of Americans online are concerned about the privacy of their email communications. But just 34% of online adults said they had taken steps like using a secure email provider or encrypted technologies.

While the Snowden revelations caused the country tremendous harm in terms of national security, John Ackerly said the issues are real and the balance of power has shifted away from the individual.

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From NSA to Gmail: Ex-spy launches free email encryption service

Eric Schmidt: Encryption will break through the Great Firewall of China

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Summary: Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says the firm is intent on developing encryption services to "give people a voice" in strictly censored states.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt says that the tech giant's encryption services could eventually open up countries with stringent censorship rules.

At the World Economic Forum at Davos, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, Schmidt said that countries including North Korea and China could be opened up within the next decade through encryption technologies.

"It is possible, within the next decade, using encryption, we would be able to open up countries that have strict censorship laws [..] giving people a voice," Schmidt said.

In China, YouTube access is totally out of the question, and Gmail is accessible sporadically. According to censorship monitor Greatfire's latest data, Facebook, Twitter, blogspot.com, netflix.com, bloomberg.com and liveleak.com are also currently unavailable in all Chinese provinces.

Hundreds of domains are banned by the Chinese government for a number of reasons. Websites are often blocked for violating Chinese laws on free speech, may contain "terrorist' content or pornographic material, and social networks are a target due to their user content sharing nature, which would be impossible for the government to control.

In the wake of rampant domain blocking by the Chinese government -- including a number of Google services -- as well as the surveillance scandal involving the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) thanks to disclosures by former contractor Edward Snowden, Schmidt says Google has been working to improve and strengthen its encryption. The tech giant hopes to eventually create protocols that governments won't be able to penetrate or spy upon.

"This creates a problem for governments like Chinas, Schmidt commented.

While the Google Chairman views the Chinese as equals in the realm of technology, he also blamed the country for most of the world's cyberespionage campaigns. In May, current and former U.S. officials said that when Chinese hackers broke in to Google servers in 2010, rather than seeking data concerning human rights activists, the attackers were actually looking for information relating to U.S. surveillance and law enforcement.

Schmidt added:

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Eric Schmidt: Encryption will break through the Great Firewall of China