Tox, a Skype Replacement Built On 'Privacy First'
'Rumors of back door access to Skype have plagued the communication software for the better part of a decade. Even if it's not true, Skype is owned by Microsoft, which is beholden to data requests from law enforcement. Because of these issues, a group of developers started work on Tox, which aims to rebuild the functionality of Skype with an emphasis on privacy. "The main thing the Tox team is trying to do, besides provide encryption, is create a tool that requires no central servers whatsoever—not even ones that you would host yourself. It relies on the same technology that BitTorrent uses to provide direct connections between users, so there's no central hub to snoop on or take down."' -- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/09/01/2210246 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174
How many milliseconds before the devs are pushing subtly-crafted commits from their new found 'friends' at the NSA, rather than go to prison on trumped-up weed charges? On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 12:03 PM, Peter Reutemann <fracpete(a)waikato.ac.nz> wrote:
'Rumors of back door access to Skype have plagued the communication software for the better part of a decade. Even if it's not true, Skype is owned by Microsoft, which is beholden to data requests from law enforcement. Because of these issues, a group of developers started work on Tox, which aims to rebuild the functionality of Skype with an emphasis on privacy. "The main thing the Tox team is trying to do, besides provide encryption, is create a tool that requires no central servers whatsoever—not even ones that you would host yourself. It relies on the same technology that BitTorrent uses to provide direct connections between users, so there's no central hub to snoop on or take down."'
-- source: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/14/09/01/2210246
Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Waikato, NZ http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ Ph. +64 (7) 858-5174 _______________________________________________ wlug mailing list | wlug(a)list.waikato.ac.nz Unsubscribe: http://list.waikato.ac.nz/mailman/listinfo/wlug
On 02/09/14 10:28, David McNab wrote:
How many milliseconds before the devs are pushing subtly-crafted commits from their new found 'friends' at the NSA, rather than go to prison on trumped-up weed charges?
The code is GPL licensed, so is subject to code audits by anyone that wants it. Tox seems like a good idea, but I can't see it having wide adoption by itself since you need to share your 76 character tox ID to connect to other people. Hopefully there will be some sort of interface that will make connecting to other people a lot easier. Much like we have frontends to find (legal) torrent files. -- simon [1] https://libtoxcore.so/core_concepts.html#the-tox-id
participants (3)
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David McNab -
Peter Reutemann -
Simon Green