K2yo234hkjh23r0a: Encryption, privacy, e-mail, and instant messenging

I am quite pleased to see Google's new option for Gmail to have your Gmail session in https by default. Basically, that means that the data communicated will be encrypted, rather than passed across the Internet in plaintext. Previously, and still, you could explicitly request an encrypted session by designating the protocol to be HTTPS in the URL, like https://www.gmail.com. To ensure your Gmail sessions are encrypted, go to your Settings and scroll to the bottom, and select the option "Always use https".

While there are performance penalties, I think that encryption is generally a good idea. In particular, I find it almost scandalous that Instant Messengers do not offer an option to encrypt your conversations by default. A popular IM encryption software suite, providing plugins for a number of messengers, is Off the Record. Of course, both sides need to be using it for the encryption to work (or how would the otherside decrypt your messages?), so that is a massive barrier to using it commonly.

One "feature" I dislike about OTR is deniability, which I probably don't understand very well. They do not employ digital signatures that would certify messages were from you outside of your current session. This is considered good, I think so that people cannot be held strictly responsible for forged messages purporting to be from them: hence deniability. I can see applications for it, but I think that, while I appreciate the privacy of encryption, I don't necessarily want deniability. I am generally responsible for what I do and say.

Three Cheers for Google

Sure, they might become evil some day, if not already, but as far as companies go, I'm definitely part of the audience they cater to, and they cater well. I will hire them for my 25^th birthday.

I think I might like them as my friend Frank enjoys Apple. I am currently enjoying their Post to Blogger iGoogle gadget. In the future, it might be supported in their other containers (e.g. Google Gadgets for Linux).

The attention they pay to Linux is really phenomenal. I mean, our market share is so relatively slim. The future does belong to Linux, but not the present. They even go to efforts to assist Open Source. Google Code makes me smile all the time. The Google Summer of Code is huge. Oh- my girlfriend beckons- there's a video she wants to show me on Google Video (which I prefer over YouTube (which is another thing- YouTube isn't profitable for them, and they'll still gracefully taking the hit)).

I have more to say, about my "new" computer, my girlfriend's birthday, dead hard drive, and the journey we'll embark upon to retrieve its contents. Yay!

What I read.

I plan on updating the layout a bit later this weekend. Fun!

Google cannot be my champion

• Robert Quattlebaum on Mobile XMPP
• Dave Cridland
• Android SDK M5 Release - API Changes Overview

Google is eventually migrating away from XMPP for the Android platform's Google Talk service. I'm not going to argue that it shouldn't, or that XMPP is superior to a binary protocol. But I'll discuss the appearance and what bothers me about it.

I enjoy Linux and GNOME and open source because it holds the promise for the ideal future platform for me. Open Source provides me the with the greatest flexibility and capability. For me to enjoy my work, I need Open Source to thrive. I have a rough, "big picture" for the future of the Open Source desktop, and I hope I get to contribute to it.

The appearance of Google's move is that they're migrating away from an open standard for message communication toward a proprietary, binary protocol. Toward the type of protocol that they and the open source community argue against. Of course, they could make their protocol well-documented and provide a good library with a good API for third-party clients. I do not yet understand whether they'll use the binary protocol for Android and provide a gateway between itself and the current XMPP network, or whether all Google Talk services will migrate.

While Google is currently very friendly toward the Open Source movement and open standards, they cannot be trusted absolutely to be so forever. I need to look toward alternatives and not find myself bound to Google. Fortunately, I can pull my blogs via their ATOM API; my e-mail via IMAP and POP3; my calendar via iCal; I don't think I can download my Google Reader data, but it's not a huge loss. I am very grateful for the services that they provide and the access to my data that they allow. I wonder if they would take issue with the term "my data"? However, I am very interested in the rise of Open Services. There are a few out there right now. Ones that are built on Open Source software, employ open standards, and leave data ownership with the user. I need to investigate them more. However, I will at the present remain the subject of convenience, and pretty Googlish interfaces :D

A tool's tool

My laptop is ill indeed. On a fun note, I did look at the hard drive, and it is much better secured than in my tablet PC. I was sort of hoping they would be having the same problem. Consequently, I am stranded in the computer labs on campus using our HP workstations. They're not that bad, but it is inconvenient not having access to my regular environment, my regular tools. For instance, I enjoy emacs a good deal, but they don't have it installed here in the lab. I can compile it, but after trying a little and running through a number of dependencies, I think it might be high time to learn vi. Vi, a tool's tool. A tool for tools. That's my little jab at it.

I just went through vimtutor (we have vim 7.0 installed) and it wasn't as bad as I expected. Its modal nature definitely feels different conceptually, but so did emacs when I started learning that. At least with "the Single Unix Specification", I can expect vi to be installed on most PCs. I'm not sure what the value is of learning so many different tools. I enjoy a well-rounded experience, but when tools are to a large degree substitutes for one another, perhaps depth in one is sufficient.

Anyway, back to being productive. Let's go vi :|

Oh! And, it's pretty funny the errors I'm making hopping between Google Docs and vi. Perhaps there's a plugin I can use to enable vi key-bindings in my web browser's text entry forms? I don't really understand why browser's use their own, petty text input devices rather than launching a mini-editor. Oh pluggable components!