Techdirt. Stories filed under "messages" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "messages"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 28 Feb 2011 04:37:19 PST Libyans Using Coded Dating Site Messages To Avoid Government Monitoring Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110226/18330013292/libyans-using-coded-dating-site-messages-to-avoid-government-monitoring.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110226/18330013292/libyans-using-coded-dating-site-messages-to-avoid-government-monitoring.shtml using a popular muslim dating site to communicate about the protests in that country. It's been widely covered how various protesters around the middle east have been using tools like Facebook and Twitter to organize and communicate, and governments have been responding to that fact, often shutting off access to those sites, or at least monitoring them very, very closely. In order to avoid that, apparently some of the conversations in Libya have migrated to this dating site. The article at ABC News includes plenty of details about how people are communicating on the site, and it's worth a read. Here's a snippet:
The phrase "May your day be full of Jasmine," for example, is a coded reference to what's been called the Jasmine Revolution sweeping the region, Mahmoudi told ABC News.

He said the response, "And the same to you. I hope you will call me" meant they were ready to begin.

If the undercover "lovers" wrote "I want love," it meant "I want liberty," Mahmoudi said.

They also communicated in code the number of their comrades supporting the revolution. The five Ls in the phrase "I LLLLLove you," for example, meant they had five people with them.
Yet another reminder that no matter how hard governments try to suppress certain forms of communication, people always seek out alternative means.

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]]> can't-stop-technology http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110226/18330013292 Wed, 7 Jul 2010 01:46:01 PDT Indian Government Demands Right To Spy On Skype, Gmail, Blackberry Messages Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100702/17551510065.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100702/17551510065.shtml quite concerned about Skype, and the fact that they couldn't easily tap into communications on Skype. Two years ago, we noted a similar story concerning RIM Blackberry emails. Now Slashdot points us to the news that India's government is once again demanding that Skype and RIM make sure their services are in formats that can be read by law enforcement. A separate article says similar demands are being made on Google with respect to Gmail.

Of course, last time this happened (with RIM, at least), RIM pointed out that there's simply no way for it to decrypt email sent by users, since it's based on an encryption key set up by the end user. In response, the Indian government claimed that it had cracked the encryption used by Blackberries and was able to monitor messages sent via those devices. Of course, the fact that it's now pressuring RIM to format messages in easily spied-upon ways, certainly suggests the news of the cracking of Blackberry's encryption was somewhat exaggerated.

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