Tag Mozilla

This is really terrific news for the privacy conscious and open source community – Mozilla is joining the Matrix, the new protocol for open, decentralized, encrypted communication.

The Matrix protocol aims to create a global decentralized encrypted real-time communications network that provides an open platform similar to the Web.

One general (and major) appeal of Matrix is that it works seamlessly between different service providers by supporting what is known as “bridging messages” from different chat applications into the “Matrix rooms”. These bridges currently include popular communications apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram, Signal, Skype, Facebook Messenger, etc. In laymen’s terms, you can add your favorite communications apps to Matrix for better (and ultimate) privacy protection.

The Matrix community, admittedly still in its infancy but with huge potential, is understandably thrilled in welcoming onboard Mozilla, the “champions of the open web, open standards, not to mention open source”. The Matrix protocol is currently using the “riot.im” interface, which is hindering its appeal to the masses. Hence the introduction of Mozilla will be crucial for its development.

If anyone asks what is the safest way to communicate, or which is the safest communications apps these days – like “Is Telegram still safe?” – the Matrix protocol is probably the answer going forward.

In what looks like the opening salvo in response to the major cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, the United States slapped North Korea with a new round of sanctions last Friday when President Obama signed an Executive Order authorizing the imposition of sanctions and designated 3 entities and 10 individuals for being agencies or officials of the North Korean government.

According to a Treasury Department statement:

The identifiers of these 10 individuals are:

But the US government knew sanctions have had limited impact on the Hermit Kingdom. The new sanctions might be deemed as swift and decisive measures in some quarters but it is really nothing more than a window-dressing of sorts – much like animating a gun with one’s fingers under a coat as a first warning at best. Consider, for example, what kind of impact should one expect from these new sanctions anyway? The 3 organizations were already on the US sanctions list and the 10 North Koreans are highly unlikely to have assets in the US, at least not under their name.

In any case, the horizon ahead of 2015 is likely to be proliferated with more headlines about catastrophic data breaches.

And the Sony cyberattack actually pale in comparison to other data breaches on record, as shown (below) by independent data journalist and information designer David McCandless – you can also click on the bubbles to find out about these cases shown in the chart and table nicely compiled and presented in his blog.