Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
SEATTLE -- In what's being called a "gesture of good will," the Seattle Police Department has agreed to deactivate a WiFi network in downtown Seattle that some worried could be used to spy on residents.
Last week, the ACLU of Washington raised concerns about a number of white boxes that recently showed up in parts of downtown Seattle.
The boxes are part of a wireless mesh network that was installed by the Seattle Police Department to improve communication. However, there were immediate concerns about the network being used to track people's movements.
"In a democratic society you should be able to move freely without law enforcement tracking your movements unless they have reason to believe you're doing something wrong," ACLU communications director Doug Honig said last week.
In an effort to allay those fears, interim Seattle Police Chief Jim Pugel decided on Tuesday to deactivate the system, according to police spokesman Sean Whitcomb.
The system was installed using money from a Homeland Security grant
As revelations of the NSAs mass surveillance have poured out over the last year, weve all been told that we have to encrypt our communications to keep them safe from prying eyes. The trouble is, crypto programs are still too hard for normal people to use. That may be changing. Cryptocat, the web-based encrypted chat program, has just opened up to a new set of users: the roughly 1.2 billion people of Facebook. By taking advantage of Facebooks open APIs, Cryptocat allows anyone using their software to chat on their normal Facebook account with one more layer of protection.
Nadim Kobeissi, Cryptocats 23 year-old founder, started the project about two months ago, to give people already using lists of contacts in standard Facebook chats a way of adding their own layer of encryption. We already have a ton of users that use Facebook as a list of their contacts. So why not take their Facebook friend list and use it to enable them to have encrypted chat with their friends? No one, including Kobeissi, would call Cryptocat NSA proof. If a powerful entity like the NSA is after you, no software is likely to save you. But tools like Cryptocat could be perhaps described more gently as "mass surveillance resistant.
On Facebook, chats are encrypted between users and Facebooks servers. No one on the open Internet can read Facebook chat messages without breaking the SSL encryption Facebook uses, denoted by https and a lock icon in the browser. But Facebook itself can see, store, or even turn over all the messages their users send to each other.
After installing a browser plug-in for Cryptocat, the program connects to Facebook using the same SSL Facebook uses, and shows people their available Facebook friends. But the security feature Cryptocat ultimately offers is different. Its called end-to-end encryption, and it doesnt allow Facebook or any other server, including Cryptocats own, to see plain text messages. Only the participants in any given chat have the keys to decrypt and read their own chats. All Facebook will see is cyphertextthe mathematical gibberish computers generate to thwart spying eyes.
MORE
