Nadim Kobeissi Cryptocat Featured by NY Times
John Young
jya at pipeline.com
Wed Apr 18 07:49:12 PDT 2012
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."
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