Crypto by Default

For a while, I've used Aim's encryption feature to securely chat with a few friends. This week I decided to try Pidgin (formally Gaim) with Off-The-Record (OTR). My first worry with encryption is always the user base. No sense in having crypto around if no one uses it, eventually you end up with dead keys and forgotten passwords (not that OTR needs passwords). To my shock, not only did my crypto using friends also use OTR, but so did people I considered crypto-novices.

Turns out they all happened to be Apple Mac users running an IM client called Adium. While OTR has an optional plugin's for Pidgin and and a proxy for AIM, Adium has it built-in and running by default. Seamless crypto, the kind that thousands of users experience when give their credit card information to a stranger over the Internet. Why other IM clients aren't Crypto by Default is beyond me.

To the programmers out there, design "Crypto by Default," and include TLS and OTR libraries. To the users, expect nothing less.