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

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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.

(Click to enlarge.)

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

OpenStack Summit opens with an open-source gospel reading

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Summary: Jonathan Bryce, executive director of the OpenStack Foundation, believes the future belongs to those in any company who can embrace not just the OpenStack cloud, but the open source method and its hyper-accelerated rate of IT change.

ATLANTA, GAJonathan Bryce, executive director of theOpenStack Foundation, kicked off theOpenStack Summitwith about 4,500 developers, end-users, and executives with a sermon on the gospel of open source software development.

Bryce opened with a pep talk to the OpenStack faithful. He talked about how the open source method had enabled OpenStack to hit its release dates for its latest version, Icehouse, while bringing in thousands of developers from hundreds of companies. At the same time, he mentioned the Internet is what enables programmers and reviewers to work in real-time.

From there, he said that software is now enabling everything. "We're living in a software-defined economy. Every company competes with a start-up. The barrier of entry is now very low. The technology shift of development to open source and the Internet has made it very cheap to build new software and this, in turn, is increasing the velocity of money." In short, "Any organization's ability to do great things with software is arguably its core competence, no matter the industry, vertical, or category," argued Bryce.

He added that "real business is being done on OpenStack today." OpenStack commercial users are embracing this agile infrastructure. They are not just buying software for a three-to-five year cycle. They, especially the "super-users," are now getting involved in creating software rather than just buying it.

In Bryce's view, super-users are those individuals who "make their organizations competitive in a software-defined economy. Super-users are change agents who enable their organizations to build deeply strategic software. Super-users are uniquely effective because they understand the power of great software in context."

These super-users may work in technology companies like Cisco, Dell, or Netflix, but they also work in businesses such as Bloomberg, Comcast, Walt Disney, and Wells Fargo Bank. These companies take advantage of OpenStack, and other open source software stacks, not simply to cut IT costs but to get exactly the features they need from their software.

Walt Disney's director of cloud services and architecture, Chris Launey, a super-user in Bryce's view, came on stage and said that in a world where "people can now set up a WordPress-powered content site in 20 minutes with a credit card are not going to settle for an IT environment where they have to put in tickets." Disney wants to make it as easy for their staffers to work at the office with their corporate programs as they do from their home with public cloud services.

Launey added that at Disney, and he thinks, at any forward thinking company, you should not have to choose between good, fast, or cheap. Instead, today, "it's fast, fast, fast. We change little bits all the time. It's all about faster pizza with an extra helping of faster." For example, Disney went from playing with OpenStack to deploying pilot projects in three months.

"When you get tech people together, they talk about shadow ITas a bad thing. It's not," commented Launey. "Shadow IT is great, it shows where the problems are and where your people are finding problems. You shouldn't put obstacles in front of people." Instead, Bryce added: "We need to use more carrot rather than stick in corporate IT."

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OpenStack Summit opens with an open-source gospel reading

German lawmakers want to question Edward Snowden on mass surveillance

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German lawmakers decided this week they want to question former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden as part of a parliamentary inquiry into the mass surveillance of German citizens, which he exposed.

"A majority of the committee has decided that we want to hear Mr. Snowden," said Roderich Kiesewetter, the conservative head of the committee set up to investigate the activities in Germany of the US National Security Agency (NSA).

It has not yet been decided whether Snowden, who was granted asylum in Russia, should be invited to testify in person about the NSA surveillance that has soured ties between Washington and Berlin. Snowden risks being arrested and extradited if he sets foot in any US-allied country.

He was charged last year in the United States with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified intelligence to an unauthorized person.

An option would be for him to testify from abroad but the German opposition argues that Snowden would only be able to express himself freely if he were in Germany.

Angela Merkel's conservatives have so far rejected this, fearing that bringing Snowden to Berlin could further damage relations with Washington which have suffered from revelations that US spies had tapped the German chancellor's own phone.

The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), who share power with Merkel's conservatives in a 'grand coalition,' have said they are open to questioning Snowden in Germany or Russia.

(Reporting by Hans-Edzard Busemann; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Stephen Brown)

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/140509/german-lawmakers-decide-question-snowden-about-mass-surv

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German lawmakers want to question Edward Snowden on mass surveillance

HP pivots, says open sourcing SDNs is right

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Seven months after dismissing OpenDaylight, HP has raised its membership in the vendor-driven open source SDN consortium to its highest and most expensive tier.

HP is now a Platinum member of OpenDaylight, raising its status from a lower tier Silver member, which it has been since the consortium formed a little over a year ago. HP has upped its investment and participation in OpenDaylight because open source software-defined networking is "completely consistent" with what HP has been doing in terms of openness, interoperability and standards, says Sarwar Raza, director of cloud networking and SDN, HP Networking.

"OpenDaylight is at a stage where the collaborative approach provides a great forum to promote interoperability and openness," Raza says. "Our strategy is to drive an open ecosystem...and embrace open source as a way of getting things done."

+ MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Everyone wants open source SDNs +

What's interesting is that just last fall, HP dismissed open sourcing SDNs, and OpenDaylight. Ex-HPer Mike Banic had said when he was vice president of global marketing for HP Networking that open sourcing SDNs was "wrong" because it means passing the burden and investment of ensuring enterprise-class functionality, reliability and performance onto the customer.

And Bethany Mayer, formerly senior vice president and general manager of HP Networking (who has transitioned to a new role at the company), said at that time she didn't know why customers would use an OpenDaylight controller.

"Using an open source controller in the enterprise can be tricky and dangerous," Mayer said at last fall's Interop New York conference.

(Mayer's former role in HP Networking has reportedly been filled by Antonio Neri, previously senior vice president of technology services.)

Raza says HP's heightened role in OpenDaylight is not a reversal of the company's viewpoint on open source SDNs and OpenDaylight. Rather, Banic and Mayer's comments were misinterpreted.

"I think that those comments were taken out of context," Raza says, even though HP did not express such sentiments at the time they were published. "There is no fundamental shift on HP's part" with regard to open sourcing SDNs.Raza says there is nothing wrong with open source itself. But customers are not willing or comfortable with downloading an open source controller.

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HP pivots, says open sourcing SDNs is right

Out in the Open: The Tiny Box That Lets You Take Your Data Back From Google

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The National Security Agency is scanning your email. Google and Facebook are hoarding your personal data. And online advertisers are selling your shopping habits to the highest bidder.

Today, more than ever, people are thinking about how to opt out of this madness without quitting the internet entirely. The obvious answer is to host your own web apps on your own computer server. And thanks to the burgeoning Indie Web Movement, theres no shortage of open source alternatives to popular services like Google Calendar, Facebooks photo albums, or Dropboxs file sharing. The problem is that setting up and managing your own server is a pain in the neckat least for the average consumer.

For open source developer Johannes Ernst, what the world really needs is a simple device that anyone can use to take their data back from the wilds of the internet. So he designed the Indie Box, a personal web server preloaded with open source software that lets you run your own web services from your home networkand run them with relative ease. Any system administrator will tell you that setting up a server is just the first step. Maintaining it is the other big problem. Indie Box seeks to simplify both, with an option to fully automate all updates and maintenance tasks, from operating system patches to routine database migrations.

Image: The Indie Box Project

Plus, Ernst says, other developers will be free to build their own products atop Indie Box. Its not supposed to be one product from one company, he explains. Its supposed to be a platform for lots of people to innovate on.

The first Indie Box will run off an Intel Atom processor, 2GB of RAM, and two 1TB hard drives that mirror each other to help protect your data. Software will include ownCloud, which offers a calendar, address book, and Dropbox-style file sharing; the photo album apps mediagoblin and Trovebox; and the e-mail client Mailpile. For now, it wont include an e-mail server since spam filters make it so hard to run one from home.

Eventually, he wants Indie Box to act as a hub for devices on the Internet of Things.

Theres also an app store that will let you add more tools. Although all apps in the store must be open source, developers will have the option of selling them for a fee, giving them the chance to actually make money from their projects. What we find is that users have no problem paying if they dont have to maintain the software, Ernst says.

Eventually, he wants Indie Box to act as a hub for devices on the Internet of Things. He personally runs many devices that send data to a server across the internet, which then notifies him of something that happened on the device sitting just a few feet away from him. Theres something wrong with that architecture, he says. Im much more comfortable with having my thermostat communicating with a computer in my house over my own Wi-Fi than going through Google.

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Out in the Open: The Tiny Box That Lets You Take Your Data Back From Google

bitcoin-tokyo-reuters-022514.jpg.JPG

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May 11, 2014

Bitcoin is a form of cryptography-based e-money that can be stored either virtually or on a user's hard drive, and offers a largely anonymous payment system. Reuters pic, May 11, 2014. Some 200 virtual currency enthusiasts excitedly traded name cards and participated in panel discussions yesterday at China's first-ever Global Bitcoin Summit but several expressed shock that the event was given the green light in the first place.

Bitcoin is a form of cryptography-based e-money that can be stored either virtually or on a user's hard drive, and offers a largely anonymous payment system.

Speculators drove China's Bitcoin prices into the financial stratosphere last year, peaking at 7,588.88 yuan (now US$1,224 or RM4,000) in November, prompting the ruling Communist Party to take a series of steps that have triggered a tumble in the virtual currency and cast doubt on its future.

"I'm a little bit worried," Eric Gu, the co-founder of the Shanghai-based Bit Angels Club, told AFP on the sidelines of the gathering at Beijing's National Convention Centre.

"This morning, when I woke up, I was concerned, 'Will I be able to get into this summit at all?'"

This week, China's five largest Bitcoin exchanges abruptly declared they were pulling out of the Global Bitcoin Summit. The announcement followed an order from China's central bank to the country's top banks to crack down on activity related to the virtual currency.

At least 11 banks have ceased providing services related to Bitcoin, according to separate announcements, including China's "Big Four" -- ICBC, Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China.

Despite government attempts to rein in the virtual currency and an order from Chinese authorities prohibiting domestic media from covering the event, the first day of the two-day summit was allowed to take place as planned yesterday.

Several attendees told AFP that they were cautiously optimistic about the future of Bitcoin, with some even voicing support for the Chinese government's stepped-up regulation of the currency, which is not backed by any government or central bank.

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