Nadim Kobeissi Cryptocat Featured by NY Times

[Lee @ Royal Gardens]

ask him about MIM.cat






On Wednesday, April 18, 2012, John Young wrote:

>
> 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 it s 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. It s
> 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 people s 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 don t think they re 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. "It s not like money is something I don t understand.
> I understand what it is. I care more about making something nice that
> people can use, and it s free and it makes a difference."