http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/nyregion/nadim-kobeissi-creator-of-a-secur e-chat-program-has-freedom-in-mind.html Excerpt: "Cryptocat is an enabling, positive technology, and its an alternative," said Jacob Appelbaum, a developer with the Tor project, which routes Web traffic in ways that help disguise sites that people have visited. "A key thing here is that it is an experiment, with valid criticisms. Its not perfect. But it is important that we have people who are interested and knowledgeable about computer security who are working on these things, not just for money, and not just to break into peoples computers." The group met over the weekend at a code-a-thon organized by Julia Angwin of The Wall Street Journal, which has chronicled the spread of commercial surveillance in everyday technology in a vital series of articles and engaging online demonstrations called What They Know. A recent article in Wired magazine detailed big advances in United States government surveillance capabilities. Mr. Appelbaum and a documentary filmmaker, Laura Poitras, are holding a teach-in Friday evening at the Whitney Museum of American Art on the subject of surveillance. [Tony museum to host tony geeks!] The invention of powerful tools to thwart the commercial and governmental collection of personal data has been criticized as creating hiding places for terrorists and online sexual predators. Mr. Kobeissi said he had been startled by those complaints. "Evil people have been evil forever," he said. "I dont think theyre going to stop being evil or become more evil because of Cryptocat." He appears to be wide open and unguarded about himself. "I love it when people criticize me," he said, pausing for a second and then amending his words. "When they criticize me technically." His ambitions with Cryptocat are not financial, though he is trying to raise $2,000 to cover his costs for the next year. "Money is great, money is amazing," he said. "Its not like money is something I dont understand. I understand what it is. I care more about making something nice that people can use, and its free and it makes a difference."