For the past few months, some of the world’s leading cryptographers have been keeping a closely guarded secret about a pioneering new invention. Today, they’ve decided it’s time to tell all.Until now, sending encrypted documents has been frustratingly difficult for anyone who isn’t a sophisticated technology user, requiring knowledge of how to use and install various kinds of specialist software. What Silent Circle has done is to remove these hurdles, essentially democratizing encryption. It’s a game-changer that will almost certainly make life easier and safer for journalists, dissidents, diplomats, and companies trying to evade state surveillance or corporate espionage. Governments pushing for more snooping powers, however, will not be pleased.  Read more…

COMMENT FROM VIEWER:  Had a brief look, this is nothing new.  This kind of encryption has been available for decades and silent circle just repackages it also giving them the opportunity to add in backdoors. In my experience, you will want to only use 100% open-source privacy and encryption tools.  all commercial products for which you do not own source-code can be compromised.   This is what i recommend and it’s a protocol not a product (understand the difference): http://wiki.xmpp.org/web/OTR