An unheralded new iChat feature rolled out in the latest Mac OS X release is simple encryption of iChat conversations. You need a paid for .Mac account for it to work, but if you have that it is a piece of cake. (Just go into your iChat account preferences and check the security tab.)
What seems odd to me, though, is the fact that Apple doesn't go ahead and do something similar in Mail. Mail has supported signing and encrypting for some time, but the process requires going to Thawte or Verisign to get an e-mail signing certificate. I don't think I'm going to have my mom go through that process.
Maybe it is just me, but I'd like to see e-mail signing and encryption popularized much more than IM. In my experience, people greatly overestimate the privacy of e-mail communication. The same can be said for IM, but given the relative permanence of e-mail as compared to IM, I'd argue that this misapprehension with respect to e-mail is more significant.
use ichat with OTRproxy see http://otr.cypherpunks.ca/ for Off the Record encryption.
Or use Adium instead of ichat, which has OTR built in.
Posted by: Paul Wouters | December 04, 2006 at 03:25 PM