[liberationtech] Anyone tested this?

[Yosem Companys]

 PrivateSky shields online exchanges from prying eyes

(AFP) – 16 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO — A free service launched on Wednesday called PrivateSky lets
Internet users shield email, Facebook updates, and other online exchanges
from hackers or other unwanted snoops.

The service from startup CertiVox comes as hackers appear to be rampaging
through the Internet, cracking defenses at companies, attacking public
websites, and tricking their way into email accounts to spy on contents.

PrivateSky works with Internet Explorer (IE) browsers to provide encryption
for whatever people type into message boxes and decodes it only for those
they chose.

Users highlight blog posts, Facebook updates, email messages or other text
then indicate who should be allowed to read them. Missives are decrypted
only for intended recipients.

"It is literally one click encryption and decryption," said CertiVox founder
and chief executive Brian Spector.

Internet security firm Trend Micro warned this month that cyberattackers
have attempted to infiltrate Web-based email services run by Microsoft and
Yahoo! as well as Google.

"There has been a variety of recent attacks on popular Webmail platforms,"
Trend Micro senior threat researcher Nart Villeneuve said in an online post.
"In addition to Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail have also been targeted."

Trend Micro released the news after Google said a cyber spying campaign
originating in China had targeted Gmail accounts of US officials, military
personnel, journalists, Chinese political activists, and officials in
several Asian countries, mainly in South Korea.

Encrypting email is seen as a way to thwart email snooping, but the process
has typically taken a bit of software savvy.

CertiVox set out to make encryption simple with PrivateSky. "This is kind of
like arming the citizenry," Spector said.

The encryption service works on any Web-based email such as Gmail, Hotmail
or Yahoo! Mail as well as posts at social networks.

CertiVox started with IE because of its global popularity but is adapting
the service to other Web browsing software. CertiVox intends to eventually
encrypt photos and other large data files as well as text.

The application for IE browsers is available for download online at
https://privatesky.me.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.
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