Do you want to keep your messages private? WhatsApp them!

We all use some kind of instant messaging and most of us know that somewhere, somehow, someone other our intended recipient might read our messages. This bothers at least some of us. Recent developments at WhatsApp, however, may make all of us relax a bit more about privacy.

The Android version of popular messaging app WhatsApp now supports end-to-end encryption, thanks to a partnership with secure-messaging developer Open Whisper Systems. Now, when Android users of the app message each other, the messages are encrypted before they leave the user's smartphone, and only decrypted once they are received by their intended recipients.
Messages with end-to-end encryption can't even be read by the company doing the sending — in this case, WhatsApp and its parent company, Facebook. With iOS and other platform support coming soon, it's a big privacy increase for WhatsApp and its more than 600 million users.

Privacy advocacy group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently released a scorecard in which it assessed 39 messaging apps on their basic cryptographic practices, citing seven specific criteria. TextSecure, Signal and RedPhone were among the few to meet all seven criteria. WhatsApp met only two of the seven at the time; now it should meet a third.

How to send sensitive information via email

Following our discussion in our last class about email security, here is an easy way how to protect your data when you send it:

1. You put the confidential information into a document (e.g., a spreadsheet, a zip file, ...)
2. You encrypt the document so that it cannot be viewed without a password (Excel spreadsheets or zip files can be password protected when saved)
3. You email the encrypted document to the recipient as an attachment
4. You communicate the password to the recipient by some other means, preferably not by email, and certainly not by the email to which you attached the encrypted document
5. The recipient uses the password to decrypt the document

An alternative to this is sending the sensitive through a secure send service like OneShar.es that lets you create a secure, self-destructing message.

Lifehacker put together a few idea how to send data more securely from A to B: http://lifehacker.com/5910408/from-saucy-pics-to-passwords-how-to-share-sensitive-information-over-the-internet