So, what's the most convenient way to IM with end-to-end encryption? I don't like the idea of it being possible for an intermediate to scan through my private messages.
[1] http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html#mess...
They have also made other similar moves to the same effect.
Now I just wish they would make it easy for me to set DuckDuckGo as my default search engine in Safari.
1) The "third party cookies block" championed by Safari for one.
2) Refusing to let the publishers get user info without the user opting in first (there was big hoopla about that from the publisher's end):
"As part of a more stringent ruleset regarding customer privacy, Apple has reportedly started rejecting apps which access UDIDs in a practice that will become de rigueur for all review teams".
It's in their best interest not only not to secretly collect user information, they also want to show that they care about stuff like that (because then they can point their finger at others).
Apple cares about credit card info (because that allows them to let their customers easily pay for everything, it lowers the barrier), but Apple doesn't have to covertly collect that, they are far too popular to need such shady tactics. And that's about it. iAds might matter, but it seems to be a flop and Apple isn't exactly heavily invested in it.
Incidentally, I'm not so convinced that collecting user information leads to as big of a PR fallout as HN often suggests. I think it's more likely that the level to which our community -- which is small compared to the general UB -- gets upset makes it easy for us to overestimate public reaction. See: facebook and gmail. I'm not very familiar with Path though. Has there been much of an impact since the phonebook incident?
Even further, iMessage accounts are tied to existing Apple IDs, which in most cases are tied to the user's iPhone and iTunes Store account. If Apple wanted to profile users of their iMessage system, they don't need to scan private communications, they'll just recommend albums, books and movies based on previous purchase history. It's more relevant to their business domain than trying to gleam whether or not Alice and Bob are in a relationship and expecting a child soon.
The only way for fully encrypted conversations is to use a plugin that encrypts messages themselves, or use an ecrypted P2P IM network.
AFAIK there is no defined standard or agreed-upon XMPP extension for the latter. I should have clarified this in the original comment.
From wikipedia: WASTE is a decentralized chat, instant messaging and file sharing program and protocol. It behaves similarly to a virtual private network by connecting to a group of trusted computers, as determined by the users.
* Secured through the trade of RSA public keys, allowing for safe and secure communication and data transfer with trusted hosts.
* WASTE can obfuscate its protocol, making it difficult to detect that WASTE is being used.
* WASTE has a "Saturate" feature which adds random traffic, making traffic analysis more difficult.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WASTE_again
edit: Added relevant details
[1]http://wiki.milkfish.org.sipwerk.com/index.php?n=TheMilkfish...
Making Skype less convenient (by means of censorship) would mean that open and decentralized alternatives like XMPP get more attention, and that's a good thing IMHO.
You have to use software that people are actually comfortable with and operate within that ecosystem. At the moment Skype may well be the best bet. Try finding another piece of software that has end to end encryption and is widely adopted by non-geek's.